C. S. Price ~ Amanda Snyder and Ina Perham, Two Women Who Knew Him

My originals plans for today's post were to write about C. S Price and his desire to paint the essence of his subject. Then Amy posted a portrait of C. S. Price by Jefferson Tester. She raised the question as to what their relationship was and that sent me on an internet search. I did find the connection and a bit more about the people in the life of our man C. S. Price. The first part of this post still does speak to looking for the essence. In the 40's, Price painted more abstractly, once saying "Paint what you see through the eye not what you see with the eye." That statement holds true for the series of heads with barely defined features and staring eyes. Most were of muted colors, none nearly as dark and haunting as the one that was entitled Head and shown in the memorial exhibition produced by the Portland Art Museum and the Walker Art Center. The image above is only a partial view of Head painted around 1938. A friend commented on how the painting had an odd resemblance to Price. Price was said to have replied that it had something of him in it and then added "But this hulk's not me." The image of the Head is the self-portrait Amy talked of yesterday.

So who was C. S. Price? The story goes that he was a ranch hand in Wyoming. That he went to art school for a year because a friend loaned him money. That he was an illustrator for Pacific Monthly here in Portland. That he moved to California and then returned to Portland in 1928. That he painted for the WPA. And painted and painted and painted. Who were some of his friends? In the Society of Six, Nancy Boas writes about the artists who had migrated to Monterey. Painting, sculpting many of them worked in the canneries to supplement their income. There Price met August Guy, Robert V. Howard, the Bruton sisters and Ina Perham. Guy taught Price how to carve and make frames – another way Price added to his income along with gambling and an occasional fiddle session. All of these artist rented rooms and studio space in the Stevenson house and they all painted as a group. Shown on the left is Helen Bruton's woodcut entitled The Party. Each of the Bruton sisters is dancing. August Guy is changing a record. And our man C. S. Price is sitting with Ina Perham. Perham, it seems, was an artist who Price shared a studio with there at the Stevenson House. Here's an image of Perham and one of her paintings.





















Reading more about C. S. Price, I found that Jefferson Tester was the brother of Amanda Snyder. Snyder took classes at the Portland Art Museum's school and exhibited her work in many shows. When she met Price, there was an immediate kinship – each painted with a spiritual style, looking for the essence. Snyder never ventured far from Portland after her diagnosis of Meniere's disease. During her life she painted over seventy portraits and many landscapes. In addition to Price she became friends with Charles Heaney. The three of them looked upon themselves as artistic soul mates. When Price died in 1950, Amanda Snyder inherited his work table, easel and cans of paint. Shown below is His Dear Old Paint Cans, her tributed to Price. Also included is one of her self-portraits. It's not surprising with such a close relationship with Snyder that Price would have met Jefferson Tester when Tester visited his sister here in Portland.

C. S. Price ~ Riders on the Range and Small Wooden Carvings

Check out these small wooden carvings. C. S. Price made them so that he could paint anywhere, not necessarily on location or from photos. Stephanie Parrish and Gerri Hayes made the video below as part of the Smart History project at the Portland Art Museum. Take a moment to see Riders on the Range that Price created during the years of 1933 and 1934 and listen to the discussion Parrish and Hayes have about Price, his work and these special little statues.

C. S. Price ~ Coastline

Born on May 11, 1874, Clayton Sumner Price spent many years as a ranch hand as his parents and eleven brothers and sisters moved throughout the western United States and Canada. They were constantly seeking better land and more opportunity. Clate, as his family and friends had called him, acquired his own land at one point but gave it to his family to be part of their holdings. During all of this time on the range, Price drew and sketched what he saw. Cows, horses, the landscape. When he was thirty-one, Colonel J. L. Torrey, impressed by Price's work, loaned him the money to go to the St. Louis School of Fine Art Price's life changed forever. After that one year of formal training, Price decided to make his living as an artist. He was largely successful becoming an illustrator when he moved to Portland and then to San Francisco. Moving again he spent nearly ten years in Monterey, California. While there he carved wooden frames for other artists' paintings, worked in the canneries, gambled and painted. Price was the happiest when he painted. Painting was his life.

Coastline, like The Willow Tree, was painted during this transitional period in Price's life. Monterey, California has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. Here Price has captured its rugged majesty with tugged areas of impasto, applying layer upon layer of paint. His trademark palette knife applications and removal of paint define the coast, the rugged shoreline, the trees and lone structure. Bold colors predominate. Price had seen the art of Derain and Matisse at an exhibition in the San Francisco Civic Auditorium the year before. Their work deeply affected him. R. V. Howard, one of his friends, remembers seeing his work at the end of 1923 just after Price had seen the show in San Francisco. "...when I came back at Christmas he had one or two paintings in a new and quite abstract style. 'How did you come to paint like that?' I asked him. Responding like a seasoned formalist, Price replied, "One day...I was setting up a canvas when I thought a big splotch of red would look nice on it. So I brushed on some red. Then I put some other colors beside it––no particular shape––but some of the shapes would just happen to look like something. One patch of color would be a house––another might look like a cow. I would leave them. People ask me why I paint like that. I don't know. I just like it."

C. S. Price ~ The Willow Tree

When you walk into the gallery where C. S. Price's The Willow Tree hangs you'll find it next to Raymond Jonson's City Perspectives (image on left below). Completed in 1932 Jonson had graduated from the art museum's school and just returned from a trip to New York. It has elements of cubism and futurism and shows a fascination with the Industrial Age. Price's painting of The Willow Tree was done after he had moved to Monterey, California. He was no longer working on the ranch lands of the Western United States and Canada where he had spent the majority of the first thirty years of his life. Unlike Jonson Price had only one year of formal art training in Saint Louis, but had resolved after that year to spend the rest of his life as an artist. Since the two paintings share a corner of the gallery, you can think about the two views of the world, the two approaches to art. One thing I always do is find the yellows, lavendars,greens and blues in both pieces, what they share in common. The brushstrokes are different also. Jonson's are invisible to the eye while Price's have a layering - you can almost feel the strokes as he put the paint on the canvas. Price painted The Willow Tree after he had seen the works of Derain and Matisse. He left the very realistic style he had used when he was sketching while working as a cowhand and then later as an illustrator for magazines. His journey in abstraction will take him further until there is no representation is some of his later paintings.

Explore the gallery where these two paintings hang and you'll find another painting to compare and contrast with Price's. Bror Nordfeldt painted his Willow Tree in 1931 (image on the right below) – a landscape like Price's but from a less intimate perspective. Look for a willow tree, as well as a number of other different varieties of trees. Not many of us would be able to identify that one on the left as a willow either but the choice of title allows a person to think about willows and trees in general. It also gives us the opportunity to think about what were these artists thinking about when they titled their paintings.

C. S. Price ~ The Willow Tree

This week we're returning to the American galleries and will be spending some time with C. S. Price. Pictured above is The Willow Tree. It's an oil measuring 31 in by 38 in. Although the Portland Art Museum has an entire gallery devoted to C. S. Price's later work, this piece reflects the style he used during his formative years.

I'm always intrigued with Price's choice of title. Willow Tree, well I see that it's a tree, but I'd be hard pressed to identify the tree as a willow from the ten leaves and the gestalt of the trunk. But I can let my imagination go and am transported into a setting where the sun is intense, heating up the yard in front me – perhaps as hot as the 104 degrees Portland was last week. As I stand in the shade of the willow, I am thankful that someone years before had planted this tree. I'm much cooler because of it than I would have been without it. I also see that most of the people have arrived for the party next door. Aren't those cars grand?

Whenever I'm in the gallery where The Willow Tree hangs I'm drawn to it. I think it's because of the shade of the tree, the vibrant colors and the place I'm taken by letting my imagination go like I just did. Try it the next time you're in the gallery where The Willow Tree hangs.