1911 Julian Onderdonk Painting

Appraised on: July 28, 2007

Appraised in: Louisville, Kentucky

Appraised by: Nan Chisholm

Category: Paintings & Drawings

Episode Info: Louisville, Hour 2 (#1214)

Originally Aired: April 28, 2008

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (2:09)

GUEST: It's a family heirloom. I inherited it from my great-aunt. And it has some information on the back about the location, which is South Texas.

APPRAISER: Do you have a connection with... is the family...

GUEST: No. We're from California.

APPRAISER: It's signed down here Julian Onderdonk. He was born in San Antonio, and his father was an artist, Robert, and that was his first art teacher. And when he was 19 years old, he went up to New York to study at the Art Students League, and he also studied under a famous American artist named William Merritt Chase. And William Merritt Chase had an approach to painting which was called plein air, which meant that you painted outside, and he emphasized painting the impression of the landscape rather than specific details. And I think you can see here that that's what Onderdonk tried to do. Impressionist. And in 1909, Onderdonk went back to Texas, went back to San Antonio, where he continued to paint all kinds of landscapes. He became really well known for painting bluebonnet, which is a very popular subject for Texans. But, at the same time, he had a job with the Dallas State Fair Association, which required him to go back to New York once a year. And this was actually very helpful for him because he got to be very well known in New York as well as in Texas. So I think is a really nice example of his work, and one nice detail here is this rider on the road going off into the distance. He also was known as the father of Texas painting. He's a very important artist in Texas. And because the American paintings market is so strong, and as works by major artists have become harder to find, people have gotten much more interested in artists who were formerly known as regional artists. I think that if you were selling this in a gallery, it might bring as much as $75,000, or even as much as $100,000 in Texas. So I think you have a very nice picture.

GUEST: My goodness. Thank you. My goodness. Oh, man.