Carl Peters: Painter of the American Scene from Rochester to Rockport

Distinguished Artist Series

Carl Peters: Painter of the American Scene from Rochester to Rockport

Carl William Peters (1897-1980) was an American Scene painter who executed dramatic winter landscapes in his native Genesee Valley in western New York and summer port scenes in Cape Ann, MA. Peters studied at the Art Students League in New York then spent the following four summers in Woodstock, the League's summer school, where he initially studied under Charles Rosen , then under John Fabian Carlson; he was also fortunate to hear Robert Henri's lectures.

The dynamic leader of the Eight inspired Peters to become a painter of modern life and of ordinary, working people. From the Woodstock "radicals" Dasburg and Cramer in Woodstock, Peters integrated certain aspects of Cézannesque formalism and "rural cubism" into his style. Peters went on to win national awards, including three Hallgarten Prizes from the National Academy of Design. In 1930, at the beginning of the Depression era, Peters received the phenomenal sum of $5,000 for an important mural, commissioned by a flourishing local bank in Rochester. Five mural commissions followed up to 1942, then Peters finished the remainder of his career painting landscapes in Rochester and Cape Ann. By capturing the spirit of these two different areas, Peters joined those in many American regions who came together to create a larger, unified spirit of nationalism -- as a pioneer regionalist Peters forecast the art of the coming decade, which was seen as a reaction to European modernism.

Carl Peters: Painter of the American Scene from Rochester to Rockport is published by the University of Rochester Press, 1999, ISBN: 1-58046-024-0; 300 b/w illus., 200 color illus.; 768 pp. For more text choose a Google full view books search, enter the artist's full name plus the word "artist" and then when the search results are retrieved click on Carl Peters: Painter of the American Scene from Rochester to Rockport

Text courtesy of R. H. Love Galleries, Inc, Chicago.

For further biographical information on selected artists cited in this article please see America's Distinguished Artists, a national registry of historic artists.

rev. 10/26/10

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