Chip Perry Visits Coast to Coast
On October 23, 2022 art collector Chip Perry joined the docent-led focus tour for our exhibition Coast to Coast: Contrasts & Shared Values Across American Impressionism. The exhibit was composed of artworks from the collections of Chip & Monica Perry and their close friends Welborn & Patty Alexander.
Chip Perry: Welbourne and Patty Alexander reignited my interest in art. A long time ago 50 years ago, I had a chance to see the Musée d’Orsay and I’d never really been exposed to French impressionism. I studied engineering in college and art history wasn’t on the menu. I wished I’d taken some art history classes, I discovered after college I had enthusiasm for it but I’d never studied. But it was latent for many many years and then when I met Welbourne in our neighborhood and he invited me to his house I saw what he did and I collected. We’d talk about the Ashcan school, American impressionism, and the 10, and he said you have to read this book by William Gertz, a big thick book, he said this is the Bible, if you interested in this you gotta read this book, so I dove into that. And then he introduced me to a dealer that helped us get all these paintings.
And then I went to Southern California and tripped upon the California artists at the Irvine museum and some galleries and the funny thing was when I brought some of this back and showed it to Welbourne, he was surprised, he said, “Really? They had quality art like that from California artists?” They were sequestered out there on their own and the eastern art scene never really paid them much attention.
Image credit: The Old Summer House, crica 1910. Oil on canvas. Guy Rose (1867-1925)
As I got into California Art, I went to the Irvine museum and started reading these books, and Guy Rose really stood out. He did all these wonderful seascapes, he did Eucalyptus trees. And I would go to the galleries and I’d go to these California Impressionism oriented auctions a couple times a year and I’d see some Guy Rose’s and they were absolutely beautiful but they were way above what I could afford.
So I was hoping at some point to be able to get one of his paintings and I tripped across this at auction in a little town called Monrovia which is just east of Pasadena.
To me this has a lot of that Giverny, impressionistic high tone and vibrancy, and the back lighting coming through and the guy I bought it from knew about the history of this painting felt it was created in Giverny.
Image Credit: Shadows in the Sierras, undated. Oil on Canvas. Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873-1949)
The first one was the Jack Wilkinson Smith, this mountain scene. I’d seen Edgar Payne around and he does this kind of work, but he costs a lot more. I love the fact that it has a mountain lake in the foreground, trees, and then different layers of verticality and the sky behind it.
Image Credit: Floral Still Life, undated. Oil on Canvas. Jack Wilkinson Smith (1873-1949)
So Jack Wilkinson Smith was one of the early prominent California artists. He was president of the California art club around 1910 and I was drawn to his work because of the mountains capes he did. Very much like Edgar Payne who was famous for his mountains capes. When we went to a dealer and saw this, this to me had a lot of like William Merit Chase all over it. Like the petals, the little jewel box, the delicate colors of the vase, the beauty of the flowers, and I wasn’t expecting a mountain scape landscape artist to do something like this. When you study him you don’t see much like this in his work and it really appealed to us.
Image Credit: Untitled Portrait, undated. Oil on Canvas. Robert Lewis Reid (1862-1929)
I was in New York, my wife and I were at Christie’s. They have their big paintings that they do live auctioning, and then they have other rooms where it is online. I saw this painting, I studied it, and I fell in love with the design of it, the look of it, the brush strokes, the clothes, the backdrop, I thought it was fabulous.
We were there for a few days, I looked at the signature, Robert Reid, I thought ‘isn’t he one of the 10?’ Because I got schooled by Welbourne. And they had everyone one of the 10, we only have one of the 10 and it’s this guy. (Points at painting and Laughs)
I went back to the hotel room, and I said this looks like Robert Reid of the 10 but they had attributed it to another Robert Reid, a Scottish guy, and when I studied him, it was much more tight, more photorealistic style artwork. I thought this doesn’t seem like the same Robert Reid to me. And if you go to ‘ask art’ they’ll show you signatures, and I studied the signatures of a lot of Robert Reid’s paintings and it looked exactly like this. So I said, I’m going to buy this painting and we were the highest bidder. And we ended up paying less for it than if it had been attributed to the other Robert Reid, because the Scottish Reid’s prices were a lot lower.
And then I sent it to an expert in Connecticut and he corroborated that it is the real thing, I just love this painting, and when the proper light is on it like here, it just pops.
wasn’t expecting a mountain scape landscape artist to do something like this. And when you study, you don’t see much like this in his work and it really appealed to us that’s why we got it.
Image Credit: Monterey Cyprus Coastal, circa 1925. Oil on canvas. Mary Bradish Titcomb (1858-1927)
Welbourne and Patty Alexander had donated a painting to the museum by Mary Titcomb Bradish, so I was searching for her, looking for a nice painting. I was out in California I discovered, oh she painted something over there and I thought, I may not get the nice east coast thing scene that I wanted yet, but I could get this California scene by this wonderful artist and that’s a eucalyptus tree and the southern California artists had a lot of fun doing different kinds of renditions of eucalyptus trees.
They talk about people’s choice, like if you go to a car show there’s judging and people supposedly know what they’re talking bout and then the people get a ballot and they get to vote for the one they think is best, how they term it is ‘whichever one you’d like most to take home’ and for me if I had to make a people’s choice out of this room, other than the Guy Rose, the Mary Titcomb Bradish is my favorite.