Lot 32: Carl Gutherz, Portrait of a Baby

Carl Gutherz (Swiss/American, 1844-1907, active Memphis, 1860-1907), portrait of a baby in a white dress. Signed lower right. Graphite and oil on canvas, with period carved giltwood and composition frame. Condition: Conservation by Dee Minault of Cumberland Art Conservation. Relined. Black light reveals repaired crease to forehead. 10" x 7" sight, 16" x 13" framed. Provenance: Estate of Dee Minault, Nashville, TN. Biography: Guthers, who immigrated to the U.S. in 1851, was associated with the American Symbolist movement. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and the Academie Julian. He lived with his family in Memphis, Tennessee, during the Civil War and in 1875 moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he taught at Washington University and helped establish the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts. After leaving Memphis, Gutherz continued to take portrait commissions from that city, and designed costumes and floats for the annual Memphis Mardi Gras. In 1906, he produced a design for an arts and sciences pavilion which was the basis for the development of Brooks Memorial Art Gallery, now the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art.