A TEXAS HILL COUNTRY MASTERPIECE BY JULIAN ONDERDONK

JULIAN ONDERDONK , 1882-1922, American/Texas
Bluffs on the Guadalupe River, 17 miles above Kerrville, Texas 1921
9 x 12 inches Oil on artist board
Signed lower left: Julian Onderdonk
Signed, titled, dated on verso

Excellent condition:
The painting was received in pristine condition.

Provenance:
In all probability, acquired from the artist or his estate by Eugenia Pope Pool
[noted Texas artist, friend of Julian Onderdonk], circa 1921-22,
and by descent in her family until July 2000.
To Fred R. Kline Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, July 2000

First Exhibition:
Fred R. Kline Gallery. Julian Onderdonk: Bluffs on the Guadalupe River, 17 Miles Above Kerrville, Texas, 1921--First Exhibition of a Texas Hill Country Masterpiece. August-September 2000, Santa Fe, NM.

In our opinion, Bluffs on the Guadalupe River by Julian Onderdonk ranks among the best five small paintings of the great Texas Impressionist's career. This is a tour de force of landscape painting: offering a luminous palette of fall colors, brilliant contrasts of sunlight and shadow, and varied landscape features, elevations, and perspectives . Onderdonk left San Antonio in 1901 to study with William Merritt Chase at Shinnecock School of Art on Long Island, and returned to Texas to stay in 1909. His paintings of Texas bluebonnet fields made him famous but his serious interest was the varied Texas landscape, of which this is a rare Hill Country example. Bluffs on the Guadalupe River has just emerged, after eighty years, from a private Texas collection.

SOLD:  El Paso Museum of Art