Albert Pinkham Ryder

 Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917)

Albert Pinkham Ryder ( March 19 , 1847 in New Bedford - March 28 , 1917 in New York ) is an American painter known for his allegorical paintings and seascapes, associated with the current of American tonalism . He is considered by some critics as one of the pioneering painters of pictorial modernism , just like Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin .

From 1870 to 1875, Albert Pinkham Ryder studied art at the American Academy of Design where he met Julian Alden Weir with whom he remained a friend all his life. In 1877 , he travels for the only time in Europe and is particularly interested in the Barbizon school . The same year, he was a founding member of the Society of American Artists  (in) with Augustus Saint-Gaudens , Robert Swain Gifford , his friend Julian Alden Weir, John LaFarge and Alexander Helwig Wyant . He exhibited with this group, from 1878 to 1887, works that belong to the school of tonalism . In the 1880s and 1890s , his paintings became more dreamlike and he often wrote poems to accompany them. After 1900 , he produced practically no more but sometimes still rework old paintings.

In February 1913, six of his paintings are presented as part of the Armory Show .

He died in 1917 in the greatest poverty, lodged by the family of one of his former pupils who collected it .

We know less than 200 paintings of Ryder. They are only very rarely signed and dated. Many, made up of many superimposed layers, are worked for years by the artist who frequently paints on fresh varnish and mixes quick-drying paints with slow-drying paints. For lack of canvas, he goes as far as cutting panels in the wood of his bed . His pictorial works are thus often unstable and darken or crack with time when they do not disintegrate.

According to a study published in 1989, there is a significant amount of fake Ryder on the market .