Note 1) Borghi Fine Art Gallery provides an extended, very interesting and illuminating biography of Hallowell on its website, from which the following was excerpted, which makes clear that he was a very intelligent, Renaissance man and an excellent artist, recognized as such during his lifetime, and that there is no justification for the relative lack of interest in his works today, especially in watercolor and that this opportunity to acquire this beautiful Hallowell watercolor within the presale estimate of $1,000-$3,000 or in excess thereof should be seized upon by any sophisticated collector of American art:

"Robert Hallowell was one of the most accomplished American realist

painters working in New York during the interwar period. Urbane,

well traveled, and well informed about the major modernist currents

of the day—namely American Realism, international Expressionism and

French Cubism—Hallowell was widely admired for his control of the

brush, striking use of color, and forging of a singular realist style

that nonetheless lent itself to continual evolution and experiment.

A native of Denver, Colorado, Hallowell was educated at Phillips

Academy and Harvard University, where he was editor of The Lampoon

and supervised the work of his close friend and classmate John Reed.

Graduating from Harvard in 1910 along with Reed, Walter Lippmann, and

Stuart Chase, Hallowell pursued a career in magazine illustration,

contributing work periodically to The Century and The American

Magazine. In 1914 he teamed up with Lippmann and Herbert Croly to

found The New Republic, where Hallowell served as editor, treasurer,

and subsequently publisher until 1925, at which time he decided to

devote himself more actively to painting.

Hallowell had studied briefly (in his youth) in the studio of the

prominent American book illustrator, author, and teacher Howard Pyle

(1853–1911), but thereafter he was essentially a self-taught painter,

basing his investigations on his own keen eye for the latest

aesthetic currents issuing from Paris and New York, as well as his

close observation of nature. Having been urged by Reed to discover

the full range of his talents as a painter abroad, Hallowell traveled

to Europe in 1924, making extended stops in the South of France,

Spain, and Tunis, and staging his public debut in solo shows in Paris

and New York that same year at the illustrious Galerie Bernheim-

Jeune, and then at the Montross Gallery (where he would show again in

1927, 1929, and 1932).

Hallowell was quickly admired by critics on both sides of the

Atlantic for his mastery of watercolor and his ability in landscapes

to capture “the slightest variations of atmosphere” (Bénézit, 1966).

His successful trans-Atlantic debut was followed by shows again in

Paris (Galerie Druet, 1927) and New York (Ferargil Gallery, 1929), as

well as Chicago (Knoedler’s, 1930) and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania

Academy of Fine Arts, 1927–1929). A particularly banner stretch for

Hallowell was from 1932 to 1935, when solo shows at the Montross

(1932) and the Macbeth (1934) galleries in Manhattan were well

received by the critics. Following promptly on that success,

Hallowell was honored by a group of college classmates who, in 1935,

donated his memorial portrait of John Reed (in oils on glass) to

Harvard University. Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times was a

close follower and enthusiast throughout this period, frequently

citing Hallowell’s expert sense of composition and design, as well as

his innovative use of color as on the occasion of the Macbeth show of

1934, which featured Hallowell’s work in portraiture, decorative

still lifes, and cityscapes consisting of what Jewell dubbed

“dancing” skyscrapers….

Hallowell’s fluid line, vibrant color, and synthesis of linear

patterns with more sculptural, architectural masses, wonderfully

suggests here his mastery of watercolor—so frequently cited by French

and American critics of his day. This is no mean achievement in oil

pigments, which in less skilled hands are laid down on board more

like mud than fine washes of color and calligraphy. And ultimately

one should note here Hallowell’s inheritance of Impressionism in all

that implied sunlight, at once partly reflected and absorbed by the

building’s limestone cladding.

Today Hallowell’s paintings reside in many of America’s major

museums, among them the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn

Museum of Art, and the New York Historical Society, as well as the

Phillips Collection and the municipal fine art museums of Boston,

Cleveland, Denver, Newark, and Baltimore, among others (Emphasis and bold face added)."

Note 2) This Hallowell watercolor manifests a strong influence of Impressionism and Hallowell's overriding interest in depicting the effect of bright sunlight on the building walls and high smoke stacks of this cement works and even one of the palm trees. The “International Studio” article quoted above makes clear that contemporary art critic viewed this watercolor, which was being exhibited at one of New York City’s leading art galleries, Montross Gallery, as among one of Hallowell’s best works for very good reasons, which Mr. Fastov accepts as true, perceptive and accurate. In addition, Hallowell’s depiction of the white spaces, by using the white of the paper, instead of applying a white or light watercolor pigment and surrounding the space with washes of pigment to provide the outline of the white space is a tour de force exercise in watercolor painting technique, which give the white spaces their shape and the viewer a sense of the power of the strong sunlight to create this effect upon Hallowell. The watercolor is in excellent condition, not faded and of a good size, 18 ½ in. x 23 ½ in.. It is better from an esthetic, emotionally stimulating and artistic standpoint, than any of his relatively few watercolors that have sold at auction, per Askart.com, which have only yielded prices in the hundreds of dollars. However, given the extremely high quality and esthetic appeal and emotionally stimulating and artistic characteristics of this watercolor and the foregoing observations, including those made in the Borghi Fine Art Gallery biography of Hallowell and the very high and unmitigated praise of the art critic, E.W., of this watercolor, “Noon Sun-Cement Works,” Cuba, 1929 in “International Studio,” magazine of June 1929, Mr. Fastov believes the presale estimate of $1,000-$3,000 is reasonable and justifiable and might well and should be exceeded. This is one of the best early 20^th century American watercolors that Mr. Fastov has ever seen and owned. In Note 1) Borghi Fine Art Gallery provides an extended and very interesting biography of Hallowell on its website, from which the following was excerpted, which makes clear that: he was a very intelligent, Renaissance man and an excellent artist, recognized as such during his lifetime, and that there is no justification for the relative lack of interest in his works today, especially in watercolor, and that this opportunity to acquire this beautiful Hallowell watercolor within the presale estimate of $1,000-$3,000 or in excess thereof should be seized upon by any sophisticated collector of American art: