Lot 86076: OLIVER DENNETT GROVER (American, 1861-1927) Italian Lan

OLIVER DENNETT GROVER (American, 1861-1927) Italian Landscape with Moored Boats, 1913 Oil on canvas 9-1/2 x 13-1/2 inches (24.1 x 34.3 cm) Signed and dated lower left: Oliver Dennett Grover / 1913 PROVENANCE: Gift from the artist to a personal friend; Private collection, Ohio. Chicago-based painter Oliver Dennett Grover was the son of a distinguished lawyer Alonzo Jackson Grover, known for his stand against slavery and his support of an "underground railway" to transport fugitive slaves to Canada. Despite his passionate dedication to the art world of Chicago, Grover continued throughout his life to travel to Europe, especially Italy, for artistic inspiration. This work was painted in 1913, probably in the region of Venice which he had first discovered with Frank Duvenek and where he befriended Whistler. By 1913, the same year he became an Associate of the National Academy of Design, his painterly style had reached its full maturity. Works by Grover possessing a very similar soft tonal palette and fresh direct brushwork are in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, High Museum of Art (Atlanta), Detroit Institute of Art, and Cincinnati Art Museum, among others.