Lot 249: Gaines Ruger Donoho (American/Mississippi,

Gaines Ruger Donoho (American/Mississippi, 1857-1916), "Forges Les Eaux", pencil on paper, initialed, titled and dated "1881" lower right, sight 9 3/4 in. x 13 in., sheet 10 1/4 in. x 13 1/2 in., exhibition label en verso from Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York and Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, attractively matted and framed.

Provenance: Private Collection, Jackson, Mississippi.~ Note: Gaines Ruger Donoho was born in Church Hill, Mississippi, in December 1857, the son of a prosperous plantation owner. The onset of the Civil War, coupled with the death of his father, disrupted Donoho's childhood in Mississippi. His mother's relatives arranged for their move at the end of the war and eventually they ended up in Washington, D.C. By 1878, Donoho was studying painting in earnest and left for New York to enroll at the newly formed Art Students League where his teachers were William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) and Walter Shirlaw (1838-1909). At the A.S.L. for a brief time, Donoho travele to France in 1879 to further his painting training and studies. In 1880, he enrolled at the Academie Julian in Paris where he studied under noted French artists William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Rodolphe Boulanger (1824-1888), and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911). When the "écoles" of Paris closed for the summer months, the American artists went on painting excursions to the countryside, notably to Fontainebleau Forest and its environs, Barbizon, and Grez. A group of pencil drawings, dated 1880 to 1881 and identified by location, attest to Donoho's interest in the picturesque scenery of this region. Three rare works from this area dated 1881 are offered here. These drawings became the basis for his first major compositions which were included in prestigious Paris Salon exhibitions as well as in major exhibitions back in the United States, including those at the National Academy of Design, the Society of American Artists, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. "Bords de Foret (Edge of the Forest)" from 1880, was his first work to be included in these important exhibitions and won an award at the New Orleans Cotton Centennial Exposition in 1885 It was sold in these rooms on February 5th, 2000 as lot 286 and is now in the collection of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, MS. Donoho's work is included in other important Southern museum collections, including the Mississippi Museum of Art, New Orleans Museum of Art, High Museum of Art, and Greenville County Museum of Art as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum of Art. Notably, two of the three drawings offered here were included in the retrospective exhibition of the artist's work held in 1977 at Hirschl & Adler Galleries in New York and The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York.