(Click to Enlarge)
Oil on Board
7 7/8 x 8 3/4 inches
Mounted in in its slightly larger original frame
Provenance: Private California Collection
Excellent condition
Attributed during her visit to the southeast including her visit to The Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1906. This painting originated with a painting of that hotel with the same size and slightly similar palette.
Johanna Knowles Woodwell Hailman, painter, was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1871. She was the granddaughter of woodcarver Joseph Woodwell and daughter of a respected Pennsylvania landscape painter, Joseph R. Woodwell who was primarily responsible for Johanna’s artistic training. She also sought brief instruction in art at the Pittsburgh School of Design. Hailman a true artist’s progeny cut her teeth on a paintbrush, she was quoted as saying: “I cannot remember the time when I did not paint.” Little known today, Johanna Hailman lived at the family homestead her entire life and was the third generation of Pittsburgh artists to occupy the family home located on Pennsylvania Avenue. She continued to live there after her marriage, sharing a large separate studio building with her father on the grounds of the Woodwell estate. She was a strong advocate for city beautification, “repeatedly campaigning” for this cause and was president of the Pittsburgh Parks and Playground Society.
Hailman was especially known for her colorful paintings of flowers. She was an avid gardener who needed only to leave the confines of her studio to find the inspiration for her canvasses. Her notable garden was a popular attraction for members of the Garden Club of Allegheny of which she was the founding member. She was once quoted as saying “I like to do flowersa garden is such a delightful place to work.” Her extensive output also included portraits, industrial scenes, landscapes still lifes and tropical locations. Her style of painting throughout her career was often described as that of a “representational realism” learned from her father.” Some of her early work was a holdover to the “Barbizon-inspired painting that was popular among Pittsburgh artists during the last quarter of the nineteenth century” but her later mature work was quite different. This work often reflected the influence of the Ashcan school of art in subject matter and was marked with a strong fluid stroke, painterly style and a richly textured surface incorporating broad impasto that hinted toward a keen awareness of impressionism. One critic from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said of her work: “What is really notable is the vigor with which this native Pittsburgher has put down her notes on our gray railroad tracks, our sullen rivers and the smoke which hovers over water and land. For this preoccupation with smoke is, indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of all her paintings-smoke swirling from trains, from mills, from boats-and adding immeasurably to the balance and beauty of the scenes.”
She became known to many as “Pittsburgh’s first lady of art.” Hailman exhibited regularly in the Carnegie Internationals from 1896-1955. She also exhibited at the Pittsburgh Art Association; second prize; silver medal Panama Pacific Exposition; San Francisco, 1915; Chicago World’s Colombian Exposition; Saint Louis Universal Exposition; J.J. Gillespie Galleries; Knoedler Galleries; Carnegie Institute, (one-woman); Chicago; Boston; Philadelphia; Washington, DC and others.She was a member of American Federation of Artists; National Academy of Design; Woman Painters and Sculptors; Pittsburgh Art Association. A true daughter of Pittsburgh, Johanna Died in 1958 and bequeathed her personal collection of paintings and objects d’art to the Carnegie Institute where she is well represented today. source: Blake Benton Fine Art