Josef Stransky

Czech, 1885 - 1936

Explore Selected Works

Shown from this chest up, a man holding a paint palette and brushes angles to our left toward an easel in this vertical painting. The portrait is loosely painted with short strokes and visible dashes in cool, green-edged yellow and blue. The man looks at or toward us from the corners of his electric-blue eyes, which are deep-set under bushy blond eyebrows. He has a bumped nose, high cheekbones, and a narrow chin. A ginger-orange mustache and beard frame his pale pink lips, which are closed. He also has short-cropped blond hair. His face is painted with strokes on mint green and straw yellow, and his features are outlined in plum purple. His high-necked blue smock fastens at his throat over a white garment. The topaz and steel-blue strokes of the smock are overlaid with horizontal, harvest-yellow dashes. The man’s thumb pokes through the rectangular palette he holds in his left hand, closer to us. Daubs of yellow, red, blue, red, and white are smeared on the palette. The edge of the canvas on which the man works angles in from the left edge of the composition. The background is painted thickly with pale celery green.
Anonymous Artist, Portrait of Vincent van Gogh, 1925/1928, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.153

Portrait of Vincent van Gogh

Anonymous Artist · 1925/1928 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.153

Anonymous Artist, Portrait of a Man, 18th century, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1943.7.3

Portrait of a Man

Anonymous Artist · 18th century · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1943.7.3

Painted almost entirely in shades of cool blues, a little girl stands at a table holding a bowl and spoon in this vertical painting. The table comes into the scene from our left, and she faces it in profile facing our left. The table is covered with a cloth and comes up to her chest. She looks down into the bowl, which she tips toward her with the hand closer to us, and she holds a spoon inside, as if stirring, with the other. She has a high forehead, a snub nose, and a rounded chin. The vivid pink of her lips and cheeks and the tawny brown of her shoulder-length hair contrast with the icy blues of the rest of the picture. She wears a knee-length dress with a wide cloth wound around her neck with the ends trailing down her chest and back. Marine-blue socks come halfway up her otherwise bare calves, and she wears dark shoes. There are two more objects on the table: a mug, painted with a coral-orange and blue design, and a flax-yellow object that could be a piece of food. The girl's dress, the cloth around her neck, and the tablecloth are painted in shades of turquoise, sky, and cobalt blue. A brown wooden leg emerges from under the tablecloth. The floor around the girl is pale blue with a darker blue area indicating the shadow cast by the table. The shadow is streaked with a few lines of orange and light brown. Blue fields on the back wall behind the girl could be blue curtains next to a patch of brown wall, in the upper left corner. All of the objects and the girl’s features are outlined in royal blue. The artist signed the upper left corner, “Picasso.”
Pablo Picasso, Le gourmet, 1901, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.52

Le gourmet

Pablo Picasso · 1901 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.52

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Algerian Child

Anonymous Artist · late 19th century · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.126

Jules Bastien-Lepage, Simon Hayem, 1875, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.1

Simon Hayem

Jules Bastien-Lepage · 1875 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.1

A pale-skinned woman standing on a riverbank holds a white cloth against her mostly nude body in this vertical landscape painting. Painted with pine and celery green, tawny brown, watery blue, and peach, the short, tightly packed strokes create a blurred effect. The woman takes up the lower right quadrant of the composition. Her body and face angle to our right, and she looks down in that direction. Her blond hair is swept up and back, and her face is flushed pink. The white cloth she holds across her thighs is shaded with ice blue. An indistinct pile of amethyst purple, marine blue, and brown by her feet suggest discarded clothing. The tree behind her curves up to fill the top third with its verdant canopy. To our left, the river is painted in cool tones of white, petal pink, and slate blue, and flows from the lower left toward a line of trees in the middle distance. Their fresh greens are reflected in the water’s surface and ivory-colored clouds almost fill the power-blue sky above them. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “C.Pissarro.95.”
Camille Pissarro, The Bather, 1895, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.54

The Bather

Camille Pissarro · 1895 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.54

Bibliography

1916

  • Washburn-Freund, Frank E. "Die Sammlung Stransky - Ein Vorposten Deutscher Kunst in Amerika." Cicerone VIII (1916):207-232. 255-272.

1931

  • Flint, Ralph. "The Private Collection of Josef Stransky." Art News 24 (1931): 87-117

1936

  • "Josef Stransky Dies Suddenly." The New York Times March 7, 1936

  • "Josef Stransky" Art News 34 (1936):13