1935 Afternoon Panama Painting

Original watercolor painting on paper. Titled, “Afternoon Panama, 1935.” A gorgeous view of the ocean with purple mountains in background and sailboats, painted in the American Impressionist style. Artist signature lower right, dated 1936. Retains Quester Gallery and Royal Galleries labels on verso. Housed in a gold gilt frame with linen matting.

Reynolds Beal, born on October 11, 1867 in New York City, was both a painter and an etcher. He was a man of independent means, and was thus able to devote his life to his art without having always to appeal to the tastes of his patrons or to contemporary trends. In fact, Beal was thought of as “one of the adventurous experimenters” of his day and was considered “Modernist”. Today he is recognized as being an important American Impressionist.

Reynolds Beal began his education at Cornell University studying naval architecture. Although this constitutes his first artistic experience, it was not until the years following graduation that Beal became serious about a painting career.

Throughout the early 1890s he studied with William Merritt Chase at Chase’s school in Shinnecock, Long Island. Later, he studied in Europe, spending most of his time in Madrid. Another facet of his education was time spent with his contemporaries, traveling with his younger brother Gifford, or with H. Dudley Murphy and Childe Hassam. He worked with Henry Ward Ranger on numerous occasions as well. Encouragement by their peers was an important part of their efforts toward artistic development.

Beal lived for many years in Massachusetts, both in Rockport and in Gloucester. His subject matter was often times scenes from these locales. Beal also took scenes from various places in New York, down the eastern seaboard all the way to Miami, Florida, focusing always on marine and boating subjects.

His work was well received when he began to exhibit late in the nineteenth century; he won many prizes. In 1919 he was chosen as one of the few Americans whose work was to be exhibited at the Luxembourg Museum in Paris, a great honor for an American artist at that time.

Beal was active in the art community. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society, the Society of American Engravers, the Salmagundi Club, National Arts Club, and in 1909 was elected an Associate Member of the National Academy of Design. Also, the progressive artist that he was, he founded the Society of Independent Artists and the New Society of Artists, which consisted of fifty of the most important painters of the day, including George Bellows, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, John Sloan, and William Glackens, to name just a few.

After the late 1920s, Beal was stricken with an illness and ceased to produce many paintings. His most prolific artistic period falls between 1910 – 1920. Beal died in 1951.