Joseph Rodefer DeCamp Ten American Painter Antique American East Coast Marine Landscape Original Boston Ma School Oil Painting Rocky Shore

Joseph Rodefer DeCamp, (1858-1923), was a member of the Ten American Painters, and a prominent artist in, what is known as, the Boston School of artists, in the late nineteenth, and early twentieth century. Joseph DeCamp is best known for his figurative work, including portraits and images of women, rendered in styles influenced by old master painting and French Impressionism, as well as landscapes, nudes, and still life paintings. 
Born in Cincinnati, in 1858, Joseph DeCamp began to study art at age fifteen. The young Joseph enrolled at the McMicken School of Design; where he received instruction from the portrait and figure painter, Thomas S. Noble.  In the following year, he attended a night class at the Ohio Mechanics Institute, taught by fellow Cincinnati artist, Frank Duveneck, while studying full-time at the McMicken School.  After a brief teaching assignment at a girls’ school in Chillicothe, Ohio, DeCamp departed in 1878 for Munich.  There he enrolled at the Munich Royal Academy, training under Wilhelm von Diez, who advocated experimental approaches and instilled a respect for technique.  DeCamp also pursued further studies with Duveneck in Munich and spent time in the artists’ colony in the Bavarian town of Polling. 
On his return to Cincinnati in 1882, DeCamp made a stop in London in order to visit with James McNeill Whistler. Subsequently he helped establish the School of Design at Western Reserve University in Cleveland. By 1885, after a short residency in Dedham, Massachusetts, he settled in Boston and began to teach antique drawing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts.  The following year, he began teaching in the summer, first at Oyster Bay, Long Island, and sporadically thereafter in Gloucester, Massachusetts. 
In 1897 and 1898, DeCamp was instrumental in the founding of the Ten American Painters. Along with Edmund Tarbell and Frank W. Benson, he represented the Boston contingent in the group; throughout the organization's life, from 1898 to 1918, he was an active participant, contributing figural works, portraits, and occasionally landscapes. 
Like Tarbell and other Boston School painters, DeCamp turned for inspiration to the quiet genre scenes rendered by Dutch seventeenth-century artists.  Of these, he was especially enamored of the work of Jan Vermeer, as is seen in his depictions of figures within subtly lit interiors.  While often employing varied and free handling, DeCamp’s perceptive observation of light effects reveals the technical control he attained during his years in Boston.  As the critic Arthur Hoeber wrote, “None of the modern painters, either in this country or in Europe, is better equipped technically than is Joseph De Camp. . . how profound is his knowledge of the workshop, and how at ease he is as far as the mere rendering of surfaces, textures, and forms may be seen by a glance at any, even the least important, of his canvases.”  
Joseph Rodefer DeCamp’s work may be found in many important private and public collections, including the Cincinnati Art Museum; the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens; the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Harvard University Portrait Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, Washington; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Mütter Museum, The College of Surgeons of Philadelphia; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Swarthmore College Art Collection, Pennsylvania; the Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago; and the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.  

Joseph Rodefer Decamp
(1858-1923)
Boston School
16"X22"
Oil on Canvas
Approximately 1900-1910 
Rocky Shore, East Coast Marine, Boat; Landscape
Nails holding Canvas to wood stretcher bars
Original Artist Materials Label on Reverse of Wood Stretcher Bars; Boston, Massachusetts.
Overall condition is good. Painting has had a recent, light clean, to remove darkened varnish. The signature is not apparent, therefore painting is listed as an attribution to the American artist, Joseph Rodefer Decamp.
 A few small chips of paint are missing, to the middle-right, in the grass growing upward, toward the shore. There was a very small tear/nick, still visible from the front, in the middle, on the shoreline, that may need to be professionally corrected, and a small pucker to the mid left, as shown in images. A few nicks and small abrasions have been corrected, as shown on the back. Small flaws, that may need restoration depending on preference, but should be mentioned for quality assurance. Please review the photos.

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