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For sale is a wonderful 1938 expressionist watercolor landscape painting of a forest by the highly regarded German American artist Herman Oliver Albright (1876 – 1944). Provenance: The Estate of Maine modernist artist Murray Hantman and his wife Jo Levy: Acquired directly from the artist. Albright was well-known in California for his depictions of the landscape as well as some of his ink renderings of the Oakland, San Francisco Bay Bridge as well as other California landmarks. Here he depicts and almost expressive or abstract look at the interior of a wooded forest. The view isn’t intimate glimpse into the shrubbery foliage and undulating tree limb entanglements of a forest view. The painting is done in an ink wash or watercolor. The painting is signed on the bottom right corner. Note the missing pieces to the signature in our detailed pictures. The painting is also double signed in full on the reverse by the artist and inscribed with the address of. 737 Buena Vista Ave. Condition: the painting with age appropriate paper toning. As noted a small piece missing to the bottom right corner. Pinholes to each corner as previously hung by tacks. Measurements: 14 5/8″ x 11 5/8″. Herman Oliver Albright (1876 – 1944). Born Hermann Oliver Albrecht in Mannheim, Germany, in 1876, Herman Albright studied music and philosophy at Heidelberg University and traveled throughout Europe. Albright continued his travels upon his arrival in the United States around 1900, eventually settling in San Francisco in 1905. There he took a position at the Paul Elder Book Company, where he worked for the next 25 years. Originally doing photography as a hobby, by 1915 Albright was studying art and exhibiting in San Francisco, at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915, and at the San Francisco Art Association from 1916 through the 1930s. In 1917, he married his art teacher, painter Gertrude Partington, at which time he legally changed his name from Albrecht to Albright. Also known as H. Oliver Albright, Herman Albright was active in the San Francisco art community, and by the 1930s was able to devote full time to his art career. He exhibited often throughout the rest of his life, at San Francisco’s California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Commercial Club, Gump’s Gallery, and the Beaux Arts Gallery, as well as at the California State Fair and the Springville Museum in Utah, winning many awards. During the 1930s, Albright made a series of lithographs and a series of Chinese ink wash drawings depicting the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge during its construction, both of which were highly regarded and widely exhibited, including a show of the ink wash drawings at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1937. Herman Albright passed away in San Francisco in 1944. Posthumous exhibitions of Albright’s work include The Art of H. Oliver Albright: An Appreciation at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1947, and a show at the Bertha Schaefer Gallery in New York in 1953.

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Photograph from a Ghost Town. Silver Gelatin photograph measuring 5 x 7 in laid on 11 x 14 in cardstock with signature in pencil to lower right. Label on reverse with Gagliani’s San Francisco address. From the bio on Gitterman Gallery’s website. He explored the expressive potential of abstraction and his prints reveal poetic evidence of the spirit. Oliver Gagliani was born to an Italian America family in Placerville, California in 1917 and lived most of his life in San Francisco. His passion for music began in elementary school and he played the violin through college. In 1946, while intending to go to the San Francisco Symphony at the War Memorial Opera House, he mistakenly walked next door into the San Francisco Museum of Art (at the time housed in the War Memorial Veterans Building). There he saw the traveling retrospective of Paul Strand organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1945. Gagliani recalled that: It was beautiful, his counterpoint of light and shade, object and space, just as in the music I had studied for so long. It was this exhibition of Strand’s work and the 1946 retrospective of Edward Weston’s work at the museum which compelled Gagliani to explore photography as a means of self expression. That same year he took an intensive course with Ansel Adams and later in 1964 he took a workshop with Minor White. During many family vacations Gagliani traveled to California State Parks and ghost towns in Nevada to photograph. His first two solo exhibitions were at the George Eastman House in 1955 and at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1957 and he went on to exhibit extensively throughout his career. At the encouragement of Jack Welpott and Leland Rice, Gagliani went back to school and received an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1972, which enabled him to teach photography at universities and colleges. For decades he also taught many photography workshops. Books on Gagliani include: Oliver Gagliani (Ideograph, 1975); Oliver Gagliani: Past and Present: Photographs (Museo ItaloAmericano, 1987); and Oliver Gagliani: Scores of Abstraction (Center for Photographic Art, 2006).

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Photograph from a Ghost Town. Silver Gelatin photograph measuring 5 x 7 in laid on 11 x 14 in cardstock with signature in pencil to lower right. Label on reverse with Gagliani’s San Francisco address. From the bio on Gitterman Gallery’s website. He explored the expressive potential of abstraction and his prints reveal poetic evidence of the spirit. Oliver Gagliani was born to an Italian America family in Placerville, California in 1917 and lived most of his life in San Francisco. His passion for music began in elementary school and he played the violin through college. In 1946, while intending to go to the San Francisco Symphony at the War Memorial Opera House, he mistakenly walked next door into the San Francisco Museum of Art (at the time housed in the War Memorial Veterans Building). There he saw the traveling retrospective of Paul Strand organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1945. Gagliani recalled that: It was beautiful, his counterpoint of light and shade, object and space, just as in the music I had studied for so long. It was this exhibition of Strand’s work and the 1946 retrospective of Edward Weston’s work at the museum which compelled Gagliani to explore photography as a means of self expression. That same year he took an intensive course with Ansel Adams and later in 1964 he took a workshop with Minor White. During many family vacations Gagliani traveled to California State Parks and ghost towns in Nevada to photograph. His first two solo exhibitions were at the George Eastman House in 1955 and at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1957 and he went on to exhibit extensively throughout his career. At the encouragement of Jack Welpott and Leland Rice, Gagliani went back to school and received an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1972, which enabled him to teach photography at universities and colleges. For decades he also taught many photography workshops. Books on Gagliani include: Oliver Gagliani (Ideograph, 1975); Oliver Gagliani: Past and Present: Photographs (Museo ItaloAmericano, 1987); and Oliver Gagliani: Scores of Abstraction (Center for Photographic Art, 2006).

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Photograph from a Ghost Town. Silver Gelatin photograph measuring 5 x 7 in laid on 11 x 14 in cardstock with signature in pencil to lower right. Label on reverse with Gagliani’s San Francisco address. This photograph was featured in the flyer for Gagliani’s 1964 exhibition at the Underground Gallery in New York City. From the bio on Gitterman Gallery’s website. He explored the expressive potential of abstraction and his prints reveal poetic evidence of the spirit. Oliver Gagliani was born to an Italian America family in Placerville, California in 1917 and lived most of his life in San Francisco. His passion for music began in elementary school and he played the violin through college. In 1946, while intending to go to the San Francisco Symphony at the War Memorial Opera House, he mistakenly walked next door into the San Francisco Museum of Art (at the time housed in the War Memorial Veterans Building). There he saw the traveling retrospective of Paul Strand organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1945. Gagliani recalled that: It was beautiful, his counterpoint of light and shade, object and space, just as in the music I had studied for so long. It was this exhibition of Strand’s work and the 1946 retrospective of Edward Weston’s work at the museum which compelled Gagliani to explore photography as a means of self expression. That same year he took an intensive course with Ansel Adams and later in 1964 he took a workshop with Minor White. During many family vacations Gagliani traveled to California State Parks and ghost towns in Nevada to photograph. His first two solo exhibitions were at the George Eastman House in 1955 and at the San Francisco Museum of Art in 1957 and he went on to exhibit extensively throughout his career. At the encouragement of Jack Welpott and Leland Rice, Gagliani went back to school and received an MFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1972, which enabled him to teach photography at universities and colleges. For decades he also taught many photography workshops. Books on Gagliani include: Oliver Gagliani (Ideograph, 1975); Oliver Gagliani: Past and Present: Photographs (Museo ItaloAmericano, 1987); and Oliver Gagliani: Scores of Abstraction (Center for Photographic Art, 2006).

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