Original 19th Century "Forest at Les Plans" France Cos Cob Conn American School of Julian Alden Weir Impressionism Landscape Antique Oil Painting

Original antique Cos Cob, Connecticut school American impressionist landscape oil painting on Academy/mill board. Titled verso "Forest at Les Plans", (in English), and dated 20th April 1889, in graphite/pencil. The town of Les Plans is located in the department of Gard of the French region Languedoc-Roussillon. Painting is rendered in the detailed impressionist manner and distinct palette of Julian Alden Weir, an early American Cos Cob, Connecticut artist that visited France; and close contemporary James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Reference: Julian Alden Weir was born on August 30, 1852, and raised in West Point, New York. His father was painter Robert Walter Weir, a professor of drawing at the Military Academy at West Point who taught such artists as James Abbott McNeill Whistler. His older brother, John Ferguson Weir, also became a well-known landscape artist who also painted in the styles of the Hudson River and Barbizon schools. He was professor of painting and design at Yale University from 1869, starting the first academic art program on an American campus.

Julian Weir received his first art training at the National Academy of Design in the early 1870s before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1873. While in France he studied under the famous French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, and became good friends with Jules Bastien-Lepage.

Weir met James McNeill Whistler in London before returning to New York City in 1877. Upon his return to NYC, Weir became a charter member of the Society of American Artists and continued exhibiting his work at the National Academy of Design, where he first displayed his paintings in 1875. He earned wages through portrait commissions and teaching art classes at the Cooper Union Women’s Art School, the Art Students League and in private classes.

Weir gained further notoriety and in 1893, the American Art Association grouped his works together with those by Twachtman for a comparative exhibit with pieces done by Claude Monet and Paul Besnard. Such a prestigious event meant that the art world had taken notice of the American brand of Impressionism.

In 1897, Weir became a member of the Ten American Painters, generally known as The Ten, a group of painters who left the Society of American Artists in late 1897 to protest the what they saw as the overemphasis on Classical and Romantic Realism over Impressionism by the Society. The Ten exhibited for twenty years until its demise, due to the death of members and the prominence of newer styles.

In 1912, Weir was selected the first president of the Association of American Painters and Sculptors, but resigned a year later following the association's sponsorship of the modernist Armory Show. Weir later became president of the National Academy of Design. He was a member of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1916 until his death in 1919.

Weir's paintings are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D. C.; Brigham Young University's Museum of Art, Provo, Utah; the Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon; and the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Weir's farm and studio at Branchville are protected as the Weir Farm National Historic Site; the Weir family continues ownership of the Windham farm. His papers are in the Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art.


Titled verso: "Forest at Les Plans", (in English)
Dated: 20th April 1889
Oil on Academy Board/American Mill Board
American, French Landscape
(American Artist in France)
Painting measures approximately 6.3" X 4.3", plus frame
Frame is newer vintage, mat is new
Condition: Painting is in excellent, original condition

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