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E-list # 117
E.E. Cummings - Painter
Yes, E.E. Cummings was a painter, and he likely spent far more hours of his life painting than writing poetry. Although he had many exhibits in the early part of the 20th century and published a book of his artwork in the 1930s, at his death in 1962 he left over 1600 paintings to his widow and heir. The Gotham Book Mart sponsored a series of traveling exhibits of his art in the 1970s, but hundreds of his paintings have never been publicly seen.
We present here a selection of some of our own favorite paintings by Cummings, which share with his poetry a discipline of practice and a playful, exuberant expressiveness of form.
Please click on the small images for a better view.
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on canvasboard. 19-3/4" x 15-3/4". No date. A cityscape looking out the back of Cummings' apartment in Greenwich Village.
[#014965]
$11,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor. 12-3/4" x 9-3/4". No date. Signed by Cummings at the lower left with "Pornic" written in his hand on the lower right. Cummings visited Pornic, a seaside village on the French Atlantic coast, and painted a number of outdoor scenes while he was there, frequently of French peasants at their work. This painting was part of an exhibit at the Gotham Book Mart some time in the late '60s or '70s and bears their notation "GBM #412" on verso. Although a prolific painter, Cummings seldom signed his work.
[#026723]
$5,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
A stylized portrait by Cummings of Marion Morehouse, renowned New York model and Cummings' third wife -- and a frequent subject of the artist's work. Cummings, one of the best-loved American poets of the 20th century, was also a prolific visual artist: he considered writing and painting to be his "twin obsessions," and he exhibited his work in the annual Society of Independent Artists shows from 1916-1927 and was the art editor of the Dial magazine, the pre-eminent Modernist literary journal in the U.S., in the 1920s. In 1933 he published a book of his artwork in a limited edition. Called CIOPW, it took its title from the media he used in his art: charcoal, ink, oil, pencil and watercolors. In his early years he emphasized abstract painting; from the 1930s on he tended toward representational images, albeit with a range of inventive palettes, as this painting shows, and which some have compared to his inventiveness with words and poetic forms and structures. 9" x 11-1/4", oil on cardboard. In fact, this is painted on the underside of the top of a box that held typewriter paper -- a linking of his twin obsessions. Undated. Edges a bit chipped, with a couple of creases but very good condition overall.
[#029553]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
A landscape painting by Cummings of a colorful tree on the shore of Silver Lake in New Hampshire, where the Cummings family had a summer home. In the background is Mount Chocorua, one of the most frequent subjects of Cummings' artwork. The use of a bright and vivid palette is reminiscent of Matisse, Kandinsky, and the Fauvists, all of whom have been cited as influences on Cummings as an artist. Thematically and as a composition, this image also owes a debt to Cezanne, one of Cummings' great idols as a painter and an influence, as he said, on both his and other Modernist writers' poetry and fiction by virtue of his providing "a new way of seeing things." In Cummings' work one can almost see an echo of Cezanne, with Cummings' frequent and varied depictions of Mount Chocorua echoing Cezanne's repeated returns to Mont Saint-Victoire as a subject for his paintings. 8-3/4" x 11-1/2", oil on cardboard. Painted on the underside of the cover of a box of his typewriter paper. Undated. Edges slightly rough, and a few random water spots on the image; overall very good condition.
[#029554]
$5,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on canvas. 20" x 15". A roadway, presumably at Joy Farm, his home in Silver Lake, NH, as Mount Chocorua rises in the distance. Undated. "L-scape" written on canvas margin.
[#031568]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on canvas. 16" x 12". Summer on Chocorua. No date.
[#031571]
$5,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1943. Joy Farm in autumn. Oil on canvas. 20" x 15". Dated on verso: "9 24 43"
[#031575]
$5,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1942. A portrait by Cummings of his mother, Rebecca Clarke Cummings, immortalized in Cummings' words: "if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have one." Oil on canvas. 15" x 20". Dated on verso, September 1, 1942.
[#031576]
$15,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1933. Watercolor. 8-5/8" x 11-3/4". On the verso: "hammomet chez huene" (crossed out), "1933" and "rue dounier."
[#031577]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on canvasboard. 16" x 13". No date. On verso: verso: "hotel de la havanne/ 42 rue st. andre des artes" and "paris american art co."
[#031578]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Mt. Chocorua. Oil on canvasboard. 15-7/8" x 12". Mount Chocorua on a bright autumn day. No date.
[#031579]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor of Mount Chocorua on a partly sunny day. 17-7/8" x 12". Uncharacteristically, this painting is signed by Cummings (on the verso, which was common on the rare occasions that he did sign his work). No date.
[#031581]
$8,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1939. A painting by Cummings of New Hampshire's Mount Chocorua, as seen from Joy Farm, his home in Silver Lake, NH. Unsigned but dated on the verso, in an unknown hand, "Sept 16 '39." Also on the verso: "GBM #830," evidence of having been in one of the catalogs of Cummings' paintings put out by the Gotham Book Mart between the late 1960s and early 1980s, when the bookshop hosted a number of shows of his work and also took a series of exhibitions on the road to museums and galleries around the country. Oil on canvasboard, 16" x 12".
[#031582]
$5,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
ca. 1920. Oil on canvasboard. 16" x 12". On the verso: "robin hood, (maine)" and label "21-oil, early 20's or 1919." Cummings' friends Gaston Lachaise and Isabel Nagle had a summer home in Robin Hood.
[#031583]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1945. A sunlit trail beneath a wooded canopy. Oil on canvasboard. 20" x 16". Dated on verso:, August 1945.
[#031585]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor of the Sandwich Range in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. 14" x 10". No date.
[#031591]
$4,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
A vase of wildflowers. Oil on canvas. 11-3/4" x 15-7/8". No date. Written on verso, "M.M."
[#031592]
$5,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Mt. Chocorua, 1961. The summer sun hitting the Sandwich Range. Oil on canvas. 12" x 16". On the verso: "june 30, 1961."
[#031593]
$9,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1941-08-14. A dirt road, likely Joy Farm Road, through wooded New Hampshire. Oil on canvas. 12" x 16". Dated "Aug. 14 '41".
[#031594]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Mount Chocorua under clouds, seen from a clearing near Joy Farm. Oil on canvas. 13-1/2" x 9-1/4". No date.
[#031595]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
An evening view from Joy Farm. Oil on canvas. 13-3/4" x 9-3/4". No date.
[#031596]
$5,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1957. The porch at Joy Farm, near Silver Lake, NH. Oil on canvas. 16" x 12". On the verso: "joy farm terrace." "m.m.c.," and "july 27, 57."
[#031598]
$9,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1955. Oil on canvas. 15" x 20". Portrait of fellow Harvard alumnus and fellow New Hampshire painter William James, Jr. On the verso: "w.j." and "10-01-55."
[#031599]
$11,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor of a sunset sky over Mount Chocorua. 18" x 12". This painting is signed by Cummings on the verso. Undated.
[#031600]
$9,750
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor of a calm field under a contrasting sky 18" x 12". Framed. No date.
[#031601]
$6,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor. Summer sunset in New Hampshire. 18" x 12". No date.
[#031602]
$6,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Watercolor of a green day in the White Mountains. 18" x 12". Framed. No date.
[#031603]
$4,300
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on canvasboard. 18" x 24". Fall foliage on the flanks of Mount Chocorua. No date.
[#031604]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Flower vendor and pedestrians on a street corner in Paris. Oil on cardboard. 8-1/2" x 17-1/2". Framed. No date.
[#031605]
$8,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Distturbances in the field, seen from Joy Farm. Oil on canvasboard. 16" x 12". No date.
[#031606]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1955. Open window. Oil on canvas. 12" x 16". On verso: March '55.
[#031609]
$5,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Late fall in the Sandwich Range. Watercolor. 18" x 12". No date.
[#031612]
$7,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Mt. Chocorua. Watercolor. 18" x 12". Side corner torn. No date.
[#031613]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Mantelpiece still life, with penguin. Watercolor. 10" x 14". No date.
[#031615]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
Oil on cardboard. 8-1/2" x 5-1/2". No date.
[#031621]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1955. Oil on cardboard. 14" x 8-1/2". On back in green paint: "May 2, \'55"; and above it in ink: "WATERFALL".
[#031625]
$3,500
CUMMINGS, E.E.
A bare, black tree under a vivid end times sky. Oil on canvas. 16" x 12". No date.
[#031626]
$8,000
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1949. Oil on canvas. 12-1/2" x 20". Dated 5-49.
[#031627]
SOLD
CUMMINGS, E.E.
1939. Oil on canvasboard. 10" x 14". November 4, 1939.
[#031641]
$6,500
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