San Lorenzo, Segovia
Oil on canvas, 20-1/8 x 24-1/8 in. (51.2 x 61.6 cm), stamped lower left with the artist's estate signature stamp. In a gilt cove frame 27-5/8 x 31-5/8 x 4-1/2 overall. The original canvas, worn along its edges, is lined with new canvas installed in a new stretcher and recent frame and is otherwise in generally fine condition.
Kuehne and his bride of 1913, Margaret Gresser, spent the years 1914-7 in Spain, particularly Granada in the south and Segovia in Castile-León, northwest of Madrid. Back in New York Kuehne began to cement his relationships with Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and her administrator Juliana Force, but he returned four times to Spain in the 1920’s, summering there in 1920 and 1922. In this painting dated stylistically around 1920 Kuehne captures the 12th century Romanesque Iglesia di San Lorenzo and the beautiful bearing of its tower, a motif of close interest. Another view of the motif, entitled The Campanile and dated 1919 (oil on board, 15 x 17-3/4 in.), was exhibited at Hirschl & Adler, The Early Paintings of Max Kuehne, New York, 1972, and a similar picture of the Cathedral in Segovia is in the collection of The Hispanic Society of America. A photograph of Kuehne’s apartment on West 10th Street in the late 1920’s shows a tall painting featuring a bell tower in another old Spanish town hanging with pride of place over the mantelpiece.
Provenance: Estate of the artist
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Price: $3,500
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