HANSON PUTHUFF (1875-1972)
18. Cloud Veiled Hills
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
20 x 26 inches
29 x 35 framed
Hanson Puthuff was the son of a struggling carpenter named Alonzo Augustus Duvall, and his wife, Mary Anne Lee. His mother passed away when he was two, and he was put in the care of her close friend, Elizabeth Stanley Puthuff. Ms. Puthuff supported Hanson, and ultimately he assumed her name. It was she who was responsible for his art training at the University of Denver Art School, after he finished studying at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. In 1903, Hanson Puthuff moved to Los Angeles and worked as a scene and billboard painter. It wasn’t until 1926 that he was able to abandon commercial art and work full time on his plein air landscapes.
Hanson Puthuff frequently accompanied the artist Edgar Payne on painting trips to Arizona and the Sierra Mountains. They both loved to paint the open space in nature. Each artist had his own interpretation, Edgar Payne was bold and powerful and Hanson Puthuff was more refined. Puthuff specialized in capturing the fleeting atmospheric effects.
In Cloud Veiled Hills, Puthuff used a multitude of painterly techniques to achieve a gloriously textured, rain-impending sky. Puthuff’s genius for composition is apparent in this painting. The harmony of the sunlit trees, shadowed hillside and wispy clouds all blend together to create a sense of peacefulness.
Works held: Hackley Museum, Muskegon, MI;
Municipal Collection, Denver; Springville Museum of Art, Utah; Los Angeles
County Museum of Art; Laguna Art Museum; Municipal Art Gallery, Phoenix; Los
Angeles Public Schools; The Irvine Museum, The Fleischer Collection, Arizona.
The Redfern Gallery
1540 South Coast Highway, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 T: (949) 497-3356 F: (949) 497-1324 mail@redferngallery.com
at the Montage Resort and Spa
30801 South Coast Highway, Laguna Beach, CA 92651 T: (949) 715-6193