Collect: Post War & Contemporary Art

Provenance:

The Artist

Thence by familial descent

Private Collection, Philadelphia

Note:

Thomas Chimes’s career was marked by certain specific artistic stages of exploration: the Crucifixion Paintings, Metal Boxes, Panel Portraits and White Paintings. In 1979, Chimes stood at the transition between two of these periods, finished with the series of panel portraits, and experiencing an artistic crisis of what would follow. A personal crossroads was taking place simultaneously, as the year marked a painful period in his life, with his separation from his wife. During this difficult time, Chimes moved his studio to the former studio of fellow Philadelphia artist Tommy Dale Palmore, who had hung a large gessoed canvas up over the windows to control the light and view from the street. Chimes fell in love with the buttery, layered surface and purchased the canvas from Palmore when he moved in, drawing renewed inspiration from its open possibilities.

Moving away from the intricate detail of his panel portraits, Chimes returned to the painted surface, as he had previously explored in his Crucifixion series, while also trying to work more immediately and spontaneously. He painted his first large canvas quickly all over with an aquamarine blue, which became the basis for his first Waterfall painting. Reflecting on a happier time in his marriage when the couple had visited Niagara Falls, as well as art historical precedents in Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, John Henry Twachtman and Joseph Mallord William Turner, the waterfall became a place to delve into ethereal, natural beauty, as well as contemplate the transitions happening in his life. The present lot is one of few examples of the Chimes’s luminous Waterfall, representing this crucial shift in the artist’s life and career.