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Charles Krutch (Tennessee, 1849-1934) East Tennessee atmospheric oil on canvas board painting depicting a Summer/Fall mountain landscape in the Great Smoky Mountains, with tall purple mountains in the background and a stream with rocks in the foreground. Rendered in muted tones of gray, purple, red, brown, and green. Signed "Krutch" lower right in red. Housed in likely the original carved gilt wood frame. Professionally cleaned and conserved in 1991. Conservation label en verso. Sight: 17 1/4" H x 24 1/4" W. Framed: 24" H x 31" W. Biography (Courtesy Knoxville Museum of Art): Charles Christian Krutch is regarded as one of East Tennessee''s first painters to specialize in scenes of the Smoky Mountains. He earned the nickname "Corot of the South" for his soft, atmospheric watercolor and oil landscape paintings of the mountain range. Totally untrained as an artist, he often applied thick layers of oil paint with brushes as well as his fingers. Krutch''s goal was to capture the changing "moods" of the mountains and regarded his subjects as "just like people." He won a regional award for best watercolor at the 1913 National Conservation Exposition in Knoxville. However, it was not until 1933, a year before his death, that the 84 year-old artist received recognition outside Knoxville for his idyllic mountain landscape murals commissioned by the federal government as part of the Public Works Art Project.
PROVENANCE: The Estate of John Z. C. Thomas, Knoxville, TN.
CONDITION: Overall very good condition, with scattered pinpoints of retouching especially to sky at center and left. See UV photography. Professionally conserved in 1991. Copy of conservation report available on request.
