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Artist or Maker: Joseph Kleitsch (1882-1931 Santa Ana, CA)
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Condition: Visual: Fine, stable craquelure scattered throughout. Canvas appears to have been rolled. Horizontal water damage and mold approximately one third from the upper edge and one third from the lower edge. Blacklight: Fluorescence in the areas of water damage under blacklight. An area of older restoration, a very clean 6'' repair, extending diagonally up from the figure's forehead. Possible other areas of restoration along the edges, over the figure's left eye, on the chair and in the background. We recommend having a professional restorer view the painting prior to bidding. AS-IS. ALL SALES FINAL.
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Dimensions: 54.5'' x 38.5''
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Provenance: Property from a Private Collection, Southern California
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Literature: Dr. P. Trenton, ''Joseph Kleitsch: A Kaleidoscope of Color'', Irvine Museum, Irvine, CA, 2007, pp. 57, 59, plate 20, illustrated
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Notes: Joseph Kleitsch met the sitter of the present work, William Baker, on a train trip to Denver in 1904 and the two men quickly became friends. Baker worked for the Union Pacific Railway and ''aspired to be an artist'' (Dr. P. Trenton, ''Joseph Kleitsch: A. Kaleidoscope of Color'', p. 56). In 1907, at the request of Baker, Kleitsch and his wife Emma left Denver for Hutchinson, KS. There Baker arranged for Kleitsch to work at the Hausman School of Penmanship as an art instructor. When Kleitsch's time in Kansas failed to reward him financially, he and Emma traveled to Mexico City with Baker (Trenton, p. 56). In Mexico, Kleitsch lived modestly but produced some important portraits and still lifes in an ''academic-realist style,'' including this portrait. ''A 1909 portrait of Baker. . . captured at his desk in repose, with his penmanship tools spread out before him, is a grander and more accomplished picture. Painted in an academic-realist style like Kleitsch's other works of this period, it is a more relaxed representation in a neutral palette with a smooth finish. The background is elaborated with strokes of muted color and a small picture on the wall, a treatment that appears again in Kleitsch's later portraits'' (Trenton, pp. 57, 59)
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