Mid 20th Century Mixed Media Seascape with Yacht, inspired by Thomas Willis, circa 1960, comprising a three-dimensional painted portrait of a schooner-rigged yacht with wooden lifeboats slung on davits, actual cotton sails stitched to the background canvas, with cord rigging, painted paper flags and pennants, crew men painted on the deck, a wooden half model of a yacht club tender with carved wooden crew in the foreground along with a carved wooden barrel race marker buoy, on painted sea and sky with large number of other sails in the background, unsigned. Mounted in a carved and gilded shadowbox frame with brass plaque inscribed “In Memory of Thomas Willis.”<\/p>\n
This work is copied from an actual work by Thomas Willis, though not attempting his fine silk work and of course not coming close to his mastery. The original is depicted on a card this artist applied to the reverse, explaining that the depicted yacht is rounding a New York Yacht Club Race Buoy with officials from the Mohawk Hudson Power Squadron observing the race from their tender.<\/p>\n
Thomas Wiilis was a Danish-American artist (ca 1850 – 1925) who worked in his own unique style. While his work is well known, the circumstances of the artist himself are not widely known. Although currently listed as having been born in Connecticut, there is ample evidence that he was born in Denmark and emigrated to CT as a young man. There are pervasive rumor that he lived and worked in New York City for a silk importer or a manufacturer of embroidery thread, which lead to his unique art form; however, his style and technique was fully developed while still living in Europe. Rumors aside, it is well documented that he worked prolifically creating portraits of yachts and steamers on commission for members of the American, New York and Corinthian Yacht Clubs, as well as others.<\/p>\n
His earliest work tended to be on plain colored silk backgrounds; soon his work featured oil painting on canvas backgrounds, thought to originally have been done for him by friends such as the renown marine artist Antonio Jacobsen (who shared many of the same clients). It is believed that these artists taught Willis how to paint for himself, eventually becoming quite adept. As such, the painted backgrounds on Willis’ work can vary from the still somewhat amateurish to the frankly sublime.<\/p>\n
Measures: 22-1\/2 in H x 28-1\/2 in W
\nFramed: 28-3\/4 in H x 34-1\/4 in W<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mid 20th Century Mixed Media Seascape with Yacht, inspired by Thomas Willis, circa 1960, comprising a three-dimensional painted portrait of a schooner-rigged yacht with wooden lifeboats slung on davits, actual cotton sails stitched to the background canvas, with cord rigging, painted paper flags and pennants, crew men painted on the deck, a wooden half model of a yacht club tender with carved wooden crew in the foreground along with a carved wooden barrel race marker buoy, on painted sea and sky with large number of other sails in the background, unsigned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7307,"template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[23,33,19],"product_tag":[1333,269,2035,1459,1874,1435,282,184,642,197,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-7305","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-art","7":"product_cat-folk","8":"product_cat-marine","9":"product_tag-antique-nantucket","10":"product_tag-antique-seascape","11":"product_tag-antique-yacht-race","12":"product_tag-folk-art","13":"product_tag-marine-shadowbox","14":"product_tag-nantucket-antique","15":"product_tag-nantucket-antiques","16":"product_tag-nantucket-art","17":"product_tag-new-york-yacht-club","18":"product_tag-sailors-folk-art","19":"product_tag-thomas-willis","21":"first","22":"instock","23":"taxable","24":"shipping-taxable","25":"purchasable","26":"product-type-simple"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/product\/7305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fproduct_brand&post=7305"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fproduct_cat&post=7305"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nantucketantiquesdepot.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fproduct_tag&post=7305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}