Bruce Crane
American, 1857-1937
Winter, 1917
Signed Bruce Crane and inscribed copyright by S. T. Shaw 1918 (ll); inscribed Samuel T. Shaw on frame and titled Winter on a Salmagundi Club label on the reverse
Oil on canvas
26 x 24 inches

Provenance:
Samuel T. Shaw, New York

Exhibited:
New York, Salmagundi Club, March 12-24, 1917

This elegant winter scene was awarded the Samuel T. Shaw Purchase Prize when it was shown at the Salmagundi Club in 1917. For fifty years, Shaw sponsored the award, along with an eagerly anticipated dinner party for the artists in competition. In keeping with tradition, the party commemorating Crane's award took place the following year, on March 7, 1918. The year Crane won the prize, its value was increased from $500 to $1,000. Award-winning works became part of Shaw's extensive personal collection, which was dispersed after his death.

Samuel T. Shaw (1861-1945) was the proprietor of the Grand Union Hotel on the southeast corner of 42nd Street and Park Avenue, across from Grand Central Terminal. An art collector and patron of living artists, Shaw hung the hotel walls with his personal collection of works by American painters. He was closely associated with the Salmagundi Club, the Society of American Artists, and the National Academy of Design, and awarded cash prizes for the best picture at the annual exhibitions held by those institutions.

A commercial photographer was engaged to make a panoramic group portrait of the jovial and formally dressed painters at their dinner table. At the center of each photograph appear two easily identifiable men: the award-winning artist from the previous year (his head bedecked with a laurel wreath), and their great patron, the bearded, white-haired (and usually unjacketed) Samuel T. Shaw, often sitting beneath the Club's portrait of Shaw by Wayman Adams.

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