Lot 156
Lockwood "Woody" Dennis (American, 1937-2012). "Cannery (passing shower)" oil on canvas, 1994. Signed in lower right. A dynamic painting by American artist Lockwood Dennis depicting the historic Clam Cannery building in Port Townsend, Washington as it looms beneath a stormy sky. The tall, tapering facade boasts a warm, sandy coloring starkly contrasting the dark background, which is divided into layers of a grassy olive-green hill, the navy blue sea of the Puget sound, and a deep violet-hued sky. A trio of columns stands before the building, all rising from an earthy foreground. All is delineated with Dennis' unique hybrid style - a dazzling graphic aesthetic he developed as a master woodcut printmaker combined with expressive, painterly brushwork. Size of painting: 16" W x 20" H (40.6 cm x 50.8 cm); of frame: 17.5" W x 21.5" H (44.4 cm x 54.6 cm)
Once the largest canned clam producer on the West Coast, the Clam Cannery building was originally built in 1873 as a warehouse and then eventually became a Guilford Cannery, processing millions of Puget Sound clams, salmon and other seafood. During the time Dennis painted this, the building had fallen into disrepair for almost 40 years. It was renovated into a hotel in the 2000s, and today the building serves as a private residence.
Lockwood "Woody" Dennis was driven to paint throughout his 45 year career. Painting was the most personal and rewarding artistic endeavor for Dennis. Each canvas reveals new aspects about him as a person - his approaches to life, the environment, and art. During the early years, Dennis was most influenced by the works of Post-Impressionist pioneers of early Modernism such as Cezanne and Matisse. In time, Dennis developed a graphic style informed by the style and imagery he created for his woodblock prints.
Lockwood Dennis was quite eloquent and insightful when asked about his art. The following is an excerpt from the "On Impetus" section of his "Philosophical Musings on Painting": "The impetus to paint is always an experience - a specific place, weather, ordinary things remembered. A celebration of just being here, experiencing the world. The experience itself is somehow lost in the process, and, anyway, it's not intended that it should be conveyed. The result is a picture animated by that experience. Dennis continues, "A painting starts with an exuberance. It's good to be alive. The work is a wonderful place. The feeling seems to cover everything, but it relates especially to past experiences, beginning further back than I can remember. It becomes specific in associations with past experiences: Portland, Eastern Washington, Africa; but not with an exact description. The memory of a precise place and time - a moment of past reality is too terrible to bear, there is such a sense of loss, of things gone forever. So it is a present experience, based on the past. And perhaps the cartoon character adds the levity to remove it from the past, or 'animate' it in the present."
Lockwood Dennis' paintings have been collected by the following museums and organizations: Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington; Seattle Art Commission, Seattle, Washington; Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, Oregon; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington; Swedish Medical Center Foundation, Seattle, Washington; Museum of History and Industry, Seattle, Washington; Jefferson Museum of Art and History, Port Townsend, Washington; Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington; Clallam County Historical Society, Port Angeles, Washington; Bainbridge Island Art Museum, Winslow, Washington; US Library of Congress, Washington, DC; US State Department, Washington, DC.
Provenance: Lockwood Dennis Art Estate, Boulder, Colorado, USA
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#188020
- Condition: In excellent overall condition. Mounted in custom wooden frame with foamboard backing and suspension wire on verso for display. Slight wear to corners of frame that does not affect painting. Signed in lower right. Title date and inventory number inscribed in verso.
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