Lot 34
E. Charlton Fortune(1885-1969)The Harbour Light, St. Ives 12 x 16in framed 17 3/4 x 21 3/4in
20 April 2021, 13:00 PDT
Los AngelesSold for US$137,812.50 inc. premium
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E. Charlton Fortune (1885-1969)
The Harbour Light, St. Ives
signed 'E C Fortune' (lower left), signed again, titled and dated on an exhibition label (affixed to a backing board)
oil on canvas
12 x 16in
framed 17 3/4 x 21 3/4in
Painted in 1923.
signed 'E C Fortune' (lower left), signed again, titled and dated on an exhibition label (affixed to a backing board)
oil on canvas
12 x 16in
framed 17 3/4 x 21 3/4in
Painted in 1923.
Footnotes
Provenance
Gump's Gallery, San Francisco, California.
Private collection, Redwood City, California.
Private collection, Los Altos, California.
Exhibited
E. Charlton Fortune [Circulating Exhibition], The Western Association of Art Museum Directors, 1928, no. 6.
E. Charlton Fortune, who went by Effie, was born in Sausalito, across the Golden Gate north of San Francisco. She studied at San Francisco's Mark Hopkins Institute of Art and then continued her training at the Art Students League in New York. She spent many of her active years painting in and around Monterey, where she maintained a home. In the 1920s, she lived and painted for extended periods in St. Ives, England, and Saint-Tropez, France. The present work dates to the two years that she spent in St. Ives from 1921 to 1923, prior to moving to the French Riviera.
In Monterey, Fortune became best known for views of the town and its wharf, which featured architecture, people, and other elements of modern life. She was drawn to similar scenes abroad. One of her most important contributions lay in her ability to combine multiple subjects—landscape, architecture, people, boats—while many other California artists prioritized land, coast, and sea for their own sakes. In the present work, Fortune skillfully captures the architecture of the old lighthouse at Smeaton's Pier, breezy clouds, bustling harbor, and vibrant reflections on the water with equally dazzling effect.
Though Fortune's paintings are frequently labeled Impressionist, she moved beyond the style in many of them, a fact recognized even in her own time. She was careful to paint things and places that lent themselves to her aesthetic approach, her primary focus being on color and paint handling, the true subjects of her work. Her paintings were rarely quiet and subdued but instead strong in hue, frequently exploiting primary or complementary colors, and rugged in gestural execution—her paint applied with a "flying brush."1 By contrast, many other California artists of the era (and before) were reluctant to abandon either their hard-won academic skills or their adherence to topography, therefore giving clear priority to subject matter over style. Never one to be "cramped by too much attention to rigid plan," Fortune handled her medium with a fluidity that suggested ease; she was always striving for a sense of spontaneity.2
Because Fortune's paintings were vigorous and bold, many reviewers called them masculine, attributing their success to a perceived virility—then one of the most highly regarded qualities in art, especially in California. Commentators in the West were happiest when they could bestow adjectives like powerful, vigorous, forceful, direct, and virile—especially on paintings by men, but also on those made by women. They found these qualities in strong color, boldly developed structure and composition, and confident, assured brushstrokes, as evidenced in The Harbour Light, St. Ives.
1 F.W. Lehre, "Artists and Their Work," Oakland Tribune, November 20, 1927.
2 M. C. Driscoll, "Artists and Their Work," San Francisco Chronicle, January 30, 1921.
