Details
Description
ABOUT
An early 20th c. painted chalkware scuplture by artist Esther Hunt. Signed by the artist and titled "Invocation". Newly …
Read more
ABOUT
An early 20th c. painted chalkware scuplture by artist Esther Hunt. Signed by the artist and titled "Invocation". Newly framed in thick ebony frame.
CREATOR Esther Hunt, San Francisco.
DATE OF MANUFACTURE c.1920-1930.
MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES Chalkware, Paint.
CONDITION Good. Wear consistent with age and use. Minor chipping of paint. No cracks.
DIMENSIONS Overall: H 20.5 in. W 16 in. D 3in. Art: H 17.5 in. W 13.25 in. D 1 in.
HISTORY
Esther Anna Hunt (California, Nebraska, 1875 - 1951)
Born in Grand Island, Nebraska, Esther Hunt became a painter focused on Asian themes, especially portraits and figures she did from models that she found in Chinatown in San Francisco.
She spent some of her early childhood in Columbus, Nebraska. Her father, Stephen Barton, died when she was four years old in 1879, and two years later her mother remarried, and the family went to California.
Her stepfather was Captain John A. Frazier, and he took his wife and her children to San Diego County where he acquired 700 acres of land and established the town of Carlsbad. In 1893, the family moved to Los Angeles, and from 1896 to 1900, Esther Hunt was listed in the City Directory as an artist.
In 1901 she enrolled at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco, and financed her education with paintings of Chinatown child genre figures and portraits. They became popular and widely circulated when she perfected a color process to make reproductions, which featured the colorful costumes of the children. A marketing agent sold them in the East.
Making money, she traveled to New York City and enrolled in the Art Students League from 1903 to 1905 and studied with William Merritt Chase in New York and in Paris for six years. In Paris she studied portraiture. During her career when she had returned from Europe, she had studios in Los Angeles from 1913-1918, San Francisco from 1918 to 1926, Greenwich Village in New York from 1927 to 1931, San Francisco from 1932 to 1945, and Santa Ana until her death in 1951.
When she returned to Los Angeles in 1913, she again took up her interest in Chinese subjects and made many painting trips to San Francisco. Settling there in 1918, she devoted most of her attention to Oriental subjects and had a nation-wide market for her paintings, prints, postcards, and colored ceramic figurines. She also did portraits of children in France, beach scenes at Laguna and Native American women and children from the Pomo of northern California.
Exhibitions included the San Francisco Art Association, Panama-California Exposition and the Paris Salon.
See less
- Dimensions
- 16ʺW × 3ʺD × 20.5ʺH
- Styles
- Chinese
- Early American
- Period
- Early 20th Century
- Country of Origin
- United States
- Item Type
- Vintage, Antique or Pre-owned
- Materials
- Plaster
- Condition
- Good Condition, Original Condition Unaltered, Some Imperfections
- Color
- Ebony
- Condition Notes
- see above see above less
Questions about the item?
Returns & Cancellations
Return Policy - All sales are final 48 hours after delivery, unless otherwise specified in the description of the product.
Related Collections
- Meissen Porcelain Sculptural Wall Objects
- Arteriors Home Sculptural Wall Objects
- Gumps Sculptural Wall Objects
- Fantoni Sculptural Wall Objects
- Sarreid Ltd. Sculptural Wall Objects
- Burlwood Sculptural Wall Objects
- Toyo Sculptural Wall Objects
- Royal Worcester Sculptural Wall Objects
- Worcester Porcelain Sculptural Wall Objects
- Staffordshire Sculptural Wall Objects
- Army Green Sculptural Wall Objects
- Egyptian Sculptural Wall Objects
- Mid-Century Modern Sculptural Wall Objects
- Curtis Jere Sculptural Wall Objects
- Brutalist Sculptural Wall Objects
- Plaster Sculptural Wall Objects
- Asian Sculptural Wall Objects
- Japanese Sculptural Wall Objects
- Greg Copeland Sculptural Wall Objects
- Classical Greek Sculptural Wall Objects
- Platinum Sculptural Wall Objects
- Kenneth Ludwig Chicago Sculptural Wall Objects
- Burlap Sculptural Wall Objects