(The catalogue/brochure issued in conjunction with an exhi...)
The catalogue/brochure issued in conjunction with an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by the American artist Preston Dickinson, held at the Zabriskie Gallery, NYC, September 10 - October 26, 2002. Essay by Thomas Holman. Accordion-fold on stiff card stock; 12 pages; 13 color and 1 b&w illustrations; 4 x 9 inches, folds out to 24 x 9. Annotated list of 30 works.
https://www.amazon.com/Preston-Dickinson-Paintings-Drawings-September/dp/B00XCMJDP6?SubscriptionId=AKIAJRRWTH346WSPOAFQ&tag=prabook-20&linkCode=sp1&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=B00XCMJDP6
Preston Dickinson was born on September 9, 1889, in New York City, New York, United States, the son of Watson Edwin Dickinson and Matilda Preston Jones. His father was the son of Edward Anderson and Isabella (Gray) Dickinson and grandson of Edward Anderson and Mary (Whitehead) Dickinson, who emigrated to Brooklyn from Sheffield, England, in the early nineteenth century. His mother, American-born, was the daughter of John Jones of Cardiff, Wales, and Sarah Preston of London.
Dickinson was educated in New York and Brooklyn public schools. He was also attending summer school at Woodstock, New York. There he studied under William M. Chase, Walter Bridgeman, and John Carlson. Whether he studied with George Bellows or not, he admired him greatly. Later he studied first at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts.
When nearly sixteen Dickinson worked as stockboy with H. B. Claflin & Company. About then the family moved to Suffern, New York, Preston commuting to New York. Shortly thereafter he worked with a firm of marine architects, of which H. G. Barbey was a partner. Continually sketching, Preston Dickinson attracted the attention of Barbey, who helped him to attend the Art Students' League in the fall of 1905. It was part of the bargain that Barbey's aid was not to be mentioned then or later, when he aided him in his first European trip. Dickinson's talents were in part inherited, his father having graduated from Cooper Union Art School.
From 1905 to 1910 Dickinson worked at the Art Students' League. In January 1910 he left for France. It was his studies in the Louvre and his own studio that evolved his personal style. He was in Europe from 1910 until after the outbreak of the World War in 1914. He traveled in England, Belgium, Germany, and in 1913, when Americans got their first impact of modern art through the "Armory Show" in New York, Dickinson was getting his first-hand. On his return he found himself. His work had new maturity, marked individuality. In 1915 he began to bring his output to the Daniel Gallery, and until his death his yearly progress could be best seen there.
From 1917 Preston lived with his sister in Valley Stream, New York, often having a winter studio in New York. In 1924 he spent a summer near friends in Omaha, Nebraska, sketching and doing pastels of its industry and environs.
In 1925 came one of the most important periods. After a summer in Massachusetts he went to Quebec, Canada, where he remained until August 1926. He then returned to his family at Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, Maine, was in New York for the winter, then lived in Jamaica with an aunt until his mother's death in May 1928. In the spring of 1929 he again settled in Quebec, returning at Christmas. In June 1930 he sailed for Spain with a young friend and finally settled in Irun. Physically not strong, in November he was stricken with influenza which developed into pneumonia, and in three days he was dead, despite the care in the hospital there.
(The catalogue/brochure issued in conjunction with an exhi...)
book
As a personality Preston was shy, retiring, modest. Money meant nothing to him. All that he wanted was enough to live on. His was a keen mind, alert to all the implications of the art of his time. There was often in him a dynamic turmoil which seemed ready to explode and which did in times of emotional intensity. This nervous power always underlay his artistic production. Preston never was prolific; his painstaking consideration of every element governed that.
A painter of distinction in water color, pastel, and oil, he was interested in line, in color, but above all in the dynamics of composition in deep space. His study of Cezanne and of Oriental prints and paintings gave him a rare sense of measure, of understatement, of reserve and balance, yet of intensity. His subject was either still life or landscape; the human figure never interested him.
Quotes from others about the person
"Before he went abroad his painting was impressionistic, largely influenced by his teacher, Carlsen. But even then it had an intensity of light and he came under the influence of Cezanne and Chinese Art" - Charles Daniel
"I would call him a sort of aristocrat amongst painters, for he would do his own work in a quiet sort of way, utterly indifferent to what others thought of him or his work. He loved to paint what he called 'delicately. ' He liked the expression 'a fine touch' and he used the word 'fine' in the sense of delicate. He always said he favored pastels to water colors because he could play with the pastels much more than with the other medium. He often went off to Canada because he said the cold up there reminded him of a clear line with a pencil" - Dr. M. Jagendorf
