Charles Caryl Coleman Sold at Auction Prices

Painter, b. 1840 - d. 1928

(b Buffalo, New York, 1840; d 1928) American-born Italian painter. Coleman's training as a classical artist, his keen interest in the decorative arts and influence from the Aesthetic Movement, which swept through Europe and the United States in the late Nineteenth century, was the catalyst for the creation of an important series of decorative floral still lifes. Like other artists of the Aesthetic Movement, Coleman studied elements of both Eastern and Western traditions, harmoniously coupling decorative objects and fine arts into unified compositions. Coleman originally trained with William Holbrook Beard and Andrew Andrews before he served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Coleman traveled to Paris in 1866 with William Morris Hunt and Elihu Vedder and also spent time in Brittany and Rome. From 1866 through the mid-1880s, he lived in Rome amidst a vibrant expatriate community on the Via Margutta. The artist incorporated many of the exotic objects that adorned his studio into his still lifes of the 1870s and 1880s. A dialogue between naturalistic and stylized detail is one of the hallmarks of Coleman's decorative panels. Enamored with the traditional beauty and thriving expatriate art community of Capri, he spent the last four decades of his life on the island. He purchased Villa Narcissus in 1880 and permanently settled on Capri in 1885. The body of his work during this period consists of still lifes and landscapes; often with native peasant girls, bathed in the strong Italian sunlight. (Credit: Christie’s, New York, Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, May 25, 2006, lot 60; Sotheby’s, New York, American Paintings, Drawings & Sculpture, May 22, 2008, lot 24; Christie’s, Beverly Hills, California Western & American Paintings Drawings & Sculpture, October 24, 2000, lot 30)