| 981. Charles Livingston Bull (American, 1874-1932), "The Chase", c.1910; oil/canvas, 43" x 55.5", signed, framed in a massive Arts & Crafts style oak frame. This painting hung in the dining room of the Adirondack camp of Isaac Seligman. Highly important wildlife illustrator and painter of the Arts & Crafts movement. As a teenager, Bull worked as a taxidermist at Ward's Natural History Establishment in Rochester, NY and took evening drawing classes at the Mechanic's Institute. It was there he first met Harvey Ellis, who had recently returned from the Midwest. In 1897, he and a group of artists, including Ellis, Claude Bragdon, M. Louise Stowell, and Ada Howe Kent, formed The Rochester Arts & Crafts Society, one of the first such groups focusing on this movement in the United States. The similarity of painting style shared between Ellis and Bull was remarkable. Bull had become a successful artist by the turn of the century, and illustrated two important books in 1902, which gained him national recognition: Jack London's Call of the Wild, and Charles G.D. Robert's, The Kindred of the Wild. He exhibited at the National Academy, and was a member of the Salmagundi Club, Society of Mural Painters, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. During World War I, Bull designed patriotic posters featuring the Bald Eagle. He also created the image of the leaping tiger for Barnum and Bailey's Circus. This is a major example of his work. Oils of this size are extremely rare and desirable. 10,000-20,000 |
