Sam A. Lewisohn

Lewisohn, Samuel Adolph

American, 1884 - 1951

Explore Selected Works

Close to us, a woman and two men stand on a grassy riverbank looking out at the expanse of the river that nearly fills this horizontal landscape painting. A fourth person sits in a long, narrow canoe that angles from the riverbank near the lower left corner to our right, and it extends off the right edge of the canvas. The people all have pale, peachy skin. The man closest to us, to our right of the trio, wears a white hat and jacket and dark pants as he gazes across the river with his hands in his jacket pockets. The other man and woman, to our left, look toward us. The woman wears a royal-blue hat pulled low over her eyes. Her dress has a blue skirt, and her petal-pink corseted bodice is trimmed with white. The third standing person, along the left edge of the painting, wears blue and brown, and a straw-colored hat. The man in the boat wears a white long-sleeved shirt with a blue cravat at his neck, a crimson-red cummerbund at his waist, blue pants, and a brimmed, straw hat. He turns to look over his right shoulder, and he holds the end of a long oar in his right hand. The surface of the water is painted with short touches of vibrant blue paint. A sailboat, barge, and two other sculls float on the river between us and the far bank, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. A few white houses and buildings line the water amid tall grasses on the opposite bank on the right half of the painting. The blue sky is painted with long strokes in blue and white. The brushstrokes are loose throughout, creating a blurred, feathery texture.
Auguste Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.5.2

Oarsmen at Chatou

Auguste Renoir · 1879 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.5.2

Four young women with olive-green-colored skin shaded with cool blue stand or sit in a vividly colored landscape surrounded by trees in this horizontal painting. A slender, spruce-blue tree divides the picture just to our left of center. The ground around the tree spans the width of the composition and is carpeted in coral orange, carnation pink, and lavender purple with a handful of emerald-green saplings and tufts of grass. A pair of young women are to each side of the central tree, and a body of water extends across the composition just beyond this bit of land. To our left, the two women’s bodies face away, and they look back over their left shoulders at us. The girl on the left has black hair and wears a honey-orange and pale blue fabric wrapped around her waist. The girl next to her has copper-red hair with a pink cloth wrapped around her chest. They stand by or in the water so are shown from the knees up. The water there is made up of swirling pools of flame red and golden yellow bordered by lilac purple and peacock blue. On the other side of the tree, a young woman with white flowers in her brown hair sits on the ground, also with her back to us. The fourth faces us along the right edge of the canvas. She has black hair and stands next to and touches a thicker tree trunk with one hand. These two women are nude. The water beyond them is painted with patches of rose pink, lemon yellow, and ice blue. Areas mottled with teal, honeydew, and bottle green suggest shrubs and trees lining the far side of the water. Closer inspection reveals two ghostly, pale blue dogs lying on the ground near the lower right corner. The artist signed and dated in lower right, “P Gauguin 97.”
Paul Gauguin, The Bathers, 1897, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.5.1

The Bathers

Paul Gauguin · 1897 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.5.1

Auguste Renoir, The Mussel Harvest, 1879, oil on canvas, Gift of Margaret Seligman Lewisohn in memory of her husband, Sam A. Lewisohn, 1954.8.1

The Mussel Harvest

Auguste Renoir · 1879 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1954.8.1

Winslow Homer, On the Trail, 1889, watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Ruth K. Henschel in memory of her husband, Charles R. Henschel, 1975.92.12

On the Trail

Winslow Homer · 1889 · watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  1975.92.12

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Mending the Harness, mid to late 1870s, oil on canvas, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn, 1951.5.3

Mending the Harness

Albert Pinkham Ryder · mid to late 1870s · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1951.5.3

Bibliography

1951

  • "Sam A. Lewisohn, Financier, Is Dead." The New York Times 15 March 1951:29

1954

  • "Mrs. S.A. Lewisohn Dies in Crash After Giving a Lift to Stevenson." The New York Times 18 June 1954:1

1986

  • Hahnloser-Ingold, Margrit. "Collecting Matisses of the 1920s in the 1920s," in Matisse: The Early Years in Nice. Exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986: 256.