Earl Cunningham: American Fauve at Heather James Fine Art
Earl Cunningham was a twentieth century American modernist who romanticized the American landscape with simplicity. A self-taught artist who painted mostly landscapes of the coasts of Maine, New York, Michigan, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, Cunningham used vivid colors, flat perspective, and a few recurrent themes. His works depict the many small interactions of the Atlantic coastal ecosystem, the dockworkers, harbor pilots, fisherman, farmers, waterfowl and American Indian tribes. Cunningham’s work is modern and nostalgic at the same time, flattened forms with a palette often described as “fauve”, characterized by the emphasis of painterly qualities and strong color comparable to the paintings of Fauve leaders Henri Matisse and André Derain. His paintings show he was a natural with color with a sophisticated understanding of composition. Cunningham moved to Saint Augustine, Florida in 1949 and opened an art gallery and curio shop. In 1961 he sent a painting titled The Everglades to Jacqueline Kennedy that is on display at John F. Kennedy Library and Museum in Boston. There have been thirty-four one-man museum shows of his work, the most recent at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C. where an astounding 186,000 people came to view the show.
- Contact:
- James Carona
- jim@heatherjames.com
- 760-346-8926
