Lot 122: Thomas Alexander Harrison (American, 1853-1930) Beach at sunset

Thomas Alexander Harrison (American, 1853-1930) Beach at sunset
Beach at sunset
signed 'A Harrison' (lower left)
oil on canvas
52 x 91cm (20 1/2 x 35 13/16in).

Footnotes

• Born in Philidelphia, Thomas Alexander Harrison spent most of his working life in France. In 1879, he moved to Paris, where he attended the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts under such luminaries as Jules Bastien-Lepage. Like many of his contemporaries, Harrison was drawn to the coastal towns and beaches of Brittany, working at Pont-Aven and Concarneau, where his early work included Castles in Spain (1882, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), a figurative work which clearly demonstrates the influence of Bastien-Lepage's naturalism. He also produced a series of sparkling wave scenes, perhaps the most famous of which, The Wave (1885) now hangs at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.