Title: Henry Rankin Poore (1859-1940), The Bridge - Close of a City Day
Medium: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 48 x 76
Frame dimensions: 52 1/2 x 80 3/4 x 1 3/4
Notes: Born on the east coast, and raised in California, Henry Rankin Poore moved to New York in 1876. He studied for a year in the National Academy of Design Antique School, studied in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Peter Moran, traveled to New Mexico in 1882 to study and illustrate the Pueblo Indians for the U.S. government, and made a similar trip West at the end of the 1880s.

In 1883, after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Poore left for two and a half years to Europe, where his teachers included William-Adolphe Bouguereau. In England, he became enamored of fox hunting, and the depiction of hunting dogs became a standard subject for him.

After a second European trip to France and England in the early 1890s, Poore returned home to become professor of composition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1896, he married Katherine Goodnow Stevens, moved to Orange, New Jersey, and beginning around the turn of the century, Poore spent summers at the art colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut. He developed a new subject, hazy, soft landscapes without animals during this time. Poore published Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures in 1903, which he described as a “handbook for students and lovers of art”. In it, he recommended both painters and photographers consider how to draw the viewer “into the picture” as he did.

The painting appears to be in good condition with faint craquelure throughout - the paint layer is very stable. The canvas edge is visible at the frame borders. The painting was examined under blacklight and does not show any indication of inpainting. The painting could benefit from a cleaning. The frame appears to be in overall good condition with minor miter splits at all four corners.

oil on canvas

signed and dated lower left: Henry R. Poore 1886 - 1926
verso: titled and signed