"My husband was just in Woodstock, NY and visited a gallery [The Fletcher Gallery] featuring an exhibition of about 50 works from Fletcher Martin's estate. This was the first sale of his work since his death in 1979. My husband picked up a lovely little sketch of racehorses and had the pleasure of chatting with Fletcher's son, Donovan who continues to live in Woodstock."
What exciting news! I immediately went to the gallery's website and was thrilled to find a wealth of beautiful images by Fletcher Martin I had not previously seen.
Of special interest was the piece above, which is clearly an early rough for what would become the final illustration, "The Hunters", from the March 1956 issue of Collier's magazine (below).
I contacted the Fletcher Gallery to let them know about the posts I did here on the blog and that I'd like to follow those up with this one, to let you all know about the gallery and its spectacular collection.
Gallery Manager, Heather Toboika, sent back an enthusiastic reply:
"Thank you for contacting us. We would love it if you would add us to your webpage. I appreciate your interest as well as others in Fletcher Martin. Please send any prospective collectors our way as we still have some amazing pieces left. We published a 32 page color catalog for the exhibition on Fletcher Martin's work. There is a really great photograph on the cover of Martin sketching a beautiful lady at her Beverly Hills mansion."
"I find his life fascinating."
I have to agree with Heather -- as we learned back in June of this year, Fletcher Martin did indeed lead a fascinating life. If you missed those original posts, you can now find them easily, thanks to the new drop-down menu I've added to the blog's sidebar.
Whether your a serious collector or just enjoy gazing at Fletcher Martin's delightful artwork, you wont regret spending some time perusing the Fletcher Gallery's website.
And of course, you'll find a nice selection of the artist's images in my Fletcher Martin Flickr set.
I became familiar with Fletcher Martin’s paintings when I took an interest years ago, in the “California Watercolor Style” of painting, during the 30’s, 40’s and into the 50’s. Fletcher Marten’s paintings and illustrations, are powerful and unique in their masculine, gritty, rough and tumble depiction of his own experiences. Unlike the traditional slick New York commercial illustrations, Martin reflected a bold gutsy “West Coast look” to most of his work, during that period. His “California Scene” paintings remind me of the visual equivalent to John Steinbeck’s novel “The Grapes of Wrath”... gritty yet ensitive. Although Martin was essentially self taught, he successfully bridged the gap between fine art and illustration... as did Harry Borgman.
ReplyDeleteThanks again Leif, for introducing us to an amazing variety of great talent each week.
Tom Watson