William Lees Judson (American, 1842-1928)
Mountain Trail
Watercolor on paper
16-3/4 x 21-3/4 inches (42.5 x 55.2 cm) (sight)
Signed lower left: WL Judson

NOTE:
A native of Manchester, England, Judson studied in New York between 1872-73, and later at the famed Academie Julian in Paris. Returning to America, he worked in New York , Canada, and Chicago and finally settled in California due to a medical condition. From 1896 to 1901 he was Professor of Drawing and Painting at USC, and in 1901 he founded and was dean of the USC College of Fine Arts (Nancy Moure, Southern California Art, 1984, p. 133) . Antony Anderson, critic for the Los Angeles Times called Judson an "indefatigable worker who somehow finds the even, in the midst of his many duties as dean of the College of Fine Arts, to paint numerous pictures, landscapes and figures in oils and watercolors." (Los Angeles Times, May 5, 1907). A solo exhibition in 1906 included thirty paintings-half were watercolors. Judson participated in the annual exhibitions in the California Art Club, the most important organization at that time in Southern California, and was a pillar of the Southern California art community. His landscapes are realistic depictions filtered through his poetic temperament. In this work, he probes the contrast between spring flowers in the foreground set off by distant snow blanketed peaks. (Biographical information and references from Nancy Mouré, Publications in Southern California Art, 1984, p. 133.)

Framed Dimensions 25 X 30 Inches