ARTIST: Will Hicok Low (New York, France, 1853 - 1932)
NAME: As You Like It
YEAR: 1899
MEDIUM: oil on canvas. Canvas applied to board.
CONDITION: Few very small scattered inpaintings/touch ups. Some damages to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 26 x 20 inches / 66 x 50 cm
FRAME SIZE: 31 x 25 inches / 78 x 63 cm
SIGNATURE: lower left
PROVENANCE: Will Low painted a series of works, this one included, as illustrations for Dodd, Mead & Company's 1899 publication of William Shakespeare's As You Like It . Here Low depicts an episode from Act II, scene vii, in which Jaques tells of meeting a fool in the forest who "...drew a dial from his poke,/And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,/Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock:/Thus we may see,' Quoth he, 'how the world wags:/'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine,/And after one hour more 'twill be eleven;/And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe,/And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;/And thereby hangs a tale.'" Framed dimensions: 31 x 25 x 3/4 in. The label on the reverse reads in full "Oil Painting by Will H. Low/illustrating a scene from/Shakespeare's As You Like It/reproduced in Dodd Mead's/edition of the play 1900./Gift of Mary B. Danaher/May 7, 1947."
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
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SKU#: 119563
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BIOGRAPHY:
Will Hicok Low, born in Albany, New York, in 1853, was a leading muralist and figurative painter who explored both Barbizon landscape and a colorful Victorian style. He studied with academic painter Jean-Leon Gerome from 1872-1877, in Paris, France. He was the second husband of artist Mary MacMonnies Low, and a friend of writer Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, New York City, elected an Associate in 1888, and an Academician in 1890. He exhibited at the National Academy for 60 years.In March 1901, Will Low wrote an article for International Quarterly, "National Expression in American Art," in which, defending the achievements of American painters of the day versus the Europeans, he sought to tie American art to the great traditions of the past, that were being carried forward in the America of his day. American artists were "another link in the long chain which brings from Greece through Italy and France to the shore of our western hemisphere." He also wrote art criticism for Scribner's, McClure's and Century.Low is represented in the collection of the National Academy by a drawing, in graphite, black ink, charcoal, and watercolor, of a Greek muse for the cover of the Academy's Sixty Sixth Annual Exhibition in 1891. He also painted figurative panels on a 19th Century cabinet in the collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia.Will Hicok Low died in Bronxville, New York in 1932.