TAIT, ARTHUR FITZWILLIAM (American, 1819-1905) (Attributed to) Running Deer in Winter Landscape Faintly inscribed on verso "A.F.Tait." Oil on wood panel, 5.25" x 7.5" (Sight); 5" x 9" (Framed). Price Category: B

Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait is often thought of as a "Western" artist due to the popularity of several paintings, reproduced as prints during his lifetime, on frontier subjects. At auction his works in this genre have fetched enormous prices: two large canvases sold at Sotheby's in 2007 for $2.8 million and $1.6 million. Yet Tait never saw the West, and his reputation as a frontier artist is based on less than one per cent of his total output. Tait found his true calling as a painter of wildlife. His specialty was small paintings ranging from 4" x 6" up to 10" x 14" depicting deer, sheep, chickens, waterfowl, grouse and quail. These works, too, now sell for substantial sums. Born in England in 1819, the artist emigrated to the United States in 1850 and almost immediately found success as a painter of animals. Not long after his arrival, he exhibited six paintings at the National Academy of Design. Four of these works depicted deer, soon to become his most popular subject. Although Tait lived in New York City, he maintained a camp in the Adirondack Mountains, spending his summers there and using the setting as the basis of his paintings. Currier & Ives lithographed many of his works, and as a result, he became known throughout the country. He married three times and died in Yonkers, NY, in 1905 at the age of 86. Tait's signature is legible (though faint) on the back of this jewel-like panel, which incorporates many of the traits that led to his success. Tait's sharp realism, polished brushwork, lustrous colors, and harmony of composition all contribute to the painting's charm. The artist's eye for detail is meticulous. Consider the central figure of the buck highlighted against the snow–his textured coat and sidelong glance at the observer–the gracefulness of the leaping does, the fall of light on a patch of emerald-green moss, and the dramatic winter sky against which the figures are defined. Small though it may be, this delightful painting will repay the viewer's careful study. Provenance: Jackson's International Auctions, "Important European and American Fine Art," December 4th & 5th, 2007, as a work attributed to Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait. Museums (34) include: Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake, NY Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Institute Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY National Museum of Wildlife, Jackson Hole, WY New Orleans Museum of Art North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC RW Norton Art Museum, Shreveport, LA San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, VT Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT References: Sources for the information above include: Warder H. Cadbury's biography, Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait: Artist of the Adirondacks (Newark: University of Deleware Press, 1986); Peter H. Falk, Who Was Who in American Art, Vol. III (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1999); and Peter H. Falk, Dictionary of Signatures & Monograms (Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1988). There are over 100 additional book references for this artist.

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