The following description for has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S. Fastov, Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans & Kenyon

Note 1) The following biographical McCloskey materials are taken from the Askart.com website:

“Alberta McCloskey was a painter especially known for her lush fruit still lifes often with oranges wrapped in tissue paper. She also painted portraits, which was the way she began her career and first supported herself financially. Born in Missouri, she was a student of William Merritt Chase in New York City. In 1883 in Denver when she was age 20, she married artist William McCloskey, and the couple, who separated in 1898, traveled extensively together and often worked on the same portraits and still lifes. 

Arriving in Los Angeles in 1884, they opened a portrait studio and established their reputations through open-house invitations to prominent people and other artists. Indicative of their success was that they were chosen to hang the pictures at the Art Loan Exhibition of June 1885, a show of major proportions and import for Los Angeles. 

However, shortly after that, they left California for New York, and by spring of 1888, they were exhibiting at the National Academy of Design Annual Exhibition. The next few years proved a time of significant professional growth for the couple, and Alberta became increasingly committed to still-life subjects. Her painting, “Hydrangeas”, was a large work of which she was especially proud and which she exhibited in 1887 at the National Academy of Design. It depicted a plant flowering in a ceramic pot with each petal of the flowers carefully rendered. As she and her husband traveled from city to city she kept the painting with her as an example of her abilities.

During the couple's New York years, they also expanded their subject matter into genre work and often used their daughter, Eleanor, as a model. Eleanor said later that more than thirty paintings were done of her before she reached age ten. The couple also did portraits of actors in costumes including Frederic Paulding as Romeo. The painting was described in the newspapers: “Paulding played that part 1100 consecutive times in New York and at no time was he ever more natural stepping down with outstretched right arm to the footlights and the audience than he is walking out of that canvas.” Since Alberta's work is inscribed with the word “copyright”, it may have been created as a book illustration. 

Other portrait subjects were East Coast persons well known at that time including General Grenville M. Dodge, a Union soldier and key figure in the building of the Union Pacific Railroad; Dr. Samuel Lilienthal, a physician who authored books on diseases of the skin and homeopathic therapeutics; and Dr. Egbert Guernsey (a physician of New York City interested in homeopathic medicine.

It has been written that by 1890, Alberta had painted in twenty-seven states of the Union, mostly to execute portrait commissions. During the summer of 1891, she and her husband went to San Francisco and stayed about one year, painting portraits, and then by mid-1892, they were in London, England for several months followed by time in Paris where they lived at 58 Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, the former studio of Nicolas Delaunay. Adhering to their way of introducing themselves, they brought display top examples of work in their studio, held an open house, and invited guests they felt could be helpful to them professionally. 

A break through was an invitation to exhibit at the French Salon, and Alberta submitted a watercolor titled “Waiting”, a well-dressed child 'waiting' at the foot of a stairway. This painting was mentioned by eighteen reviewers of the exhibition as being an outstanding work.

For unknown reasons, the McCloskeys did not stay in France, which seemed odd to observers because they were so well received in that country. Of their work, one of the most recognized French painters of the day, Jean Leon Gerome, who had attended their studio opening and who rarely wrote recommendation letters, wrote on June 19, 1893, “I went to the studio of Mr. J. M. Closkey [sic.] and Mrs. A. B. Closkey [sic.], who had been recommended by my student Eakins, who taught them art. I saw their works of art, and viewed them with interest because they deserve serious consideration. There is in their paintings a great sense of truth, and [one] gets from them a sincere impression of nature. Mr. and Mrs. Closkey [sic.] are capable of giving good advice and are very apt teachers of young people who couldn't but benefit from their guidance and counsel. It gives me great pleasure to give them the present certificate. M. Gerome, Member of the Institut, Professor of the National School of Fine Arts.” The McCloskeys proudly displayed this letter for the rest of their careers.

The McCloskeys must have left Paris some time in the summer or early fall of 1893, arriving in Los Angeles by the end of that year, where they remained until summer 1895. By 1897, they were in San Francisco, and the following year the couple separated. According to family tradition, the couple ran out of money with much of the blame placed on Alberta who spent lavishly, especially on her developing collection of Oriental carpets and carved furniture. She stayed in San Francisco, painting portraits and still lifes, but her life was uprooted by the earthquake of 1906. She moved in with her daughter in Hampstead Heath, England, where she died in 1911. 

Until recently, posthumous recognition has eluded her. Although Alberta deferred to her husband in many artistic ways (such as placing her initials after those of her husband in the signatures on their joint portraits), some critics have asserted that she had a more refined touch and a wider repertoire of still life objects than he. She was also a respected lecturer, who made it clear in her presentations that she had confidence, talent and sophisticated observations of color theory, technique, etc..

Exhibition venues include the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1885; National Academy of Design, New York City, 1886 (one or the other of the McCloskeys exhibited there in the spring and fall of 1888, 1889 and 1890, and the spring of 1891); the American Art Galleries, New York City, (her Hydrangeas exhibited), 1886; the Prize Fund exhibitions, 1888 and 1889; American Watercolor Society, New York City, 1897. 

The Gills Art Galleries Fourteenth Annual Exhibition 1891, catalogue says the McCloskeys were members of the New York Water Color Society, the Boston Art Club, the Philadelphia Art Club and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

The book, “Partners in Illusion Alberta Binford and William J. McCloskey”, by Nancy Dustin Wall Moure, was published in 1996 by the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, Santa Ana, California, to accompany their major exhibition of the McCloskey's paintings. The Museum is the largest holder of McCloskey paintings, and the book is regarded as the definitive resource of biographical information on the artists.

Source:
http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/2aa/2aa673.htm

Edan Hughes, “Artists in California, 1786-1940”

Nancy Dustin Moure, “Partners in Illusion” (Emphasis and bold face added).”

Note 2) Regarding this attribution to McCloskey, see a very similar McCloskey still life (below) from the collection of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, with wrapped and unwrapped oranges, in which an oriental porcelain vase is positioned behind the oranges in approximately the same position in the still life composition, as the oriental porcelain platter in the still life being offered at this auction. The dimensions of the McCloskey still life being offered at this auction is 12 1/8 in. x 22 ¼ in., and the dimensions of the still life in the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art collection is 11 in. x 24 in. are very similar. The backdrop in both paintings is very dark and the overall composition of both of them are very similar. Both McCloskey and her husband, William J. McCloskey, produced unusual still life compositions, in which the vertical dimension of the painting is approximately ½ of the horizontal dimension. From the photograph of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art painting, it appears that it is not signed by the artist, just as the still life being offered at this auction is unsigned. See also below McCloskey’s Still Life of Wrapped Orange Signed. Oil on canvas. 8 in. x 18 in. sold for $46,012 on 06/15/1995 at Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, CA

Untitled by Alberta Binford Mccloskey

Dimensions: 11 in. x 24 in.

Date created: 1889

Collection of the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art, Santa Ana, California

Note 3) The following auction records regarding McCloskey sales of still life paintings having wrapped and unwrapped oranges are part or all of the McCloskey still life warrant the conclusion that the presale estimate of $20,000-$50,000 is reasonable and justifiable. The highest auction price ever paid for a McCloskey still life painting was $68,500 on 6/15/1995.

Title/Subject: Matija Poppies Signed. Oil on canvas. 30 in. x 16 in. sold for $45,410 on 10/26/2006 at Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers, Milford, CT

Title/Subject: Still Life With Fruit And Flowers On A Table Signed. Oil on canvas. 24 in. x 32.20 in. sold for $48,875 on 03/15/2000 at Sotheby’s, NY

Title/Subject: Still Life with Fruit Signed. Oil on canvas. 24 in. x 32 in. sold for $68,500 on 06/15/1995 at Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, CA

Title/Subject: Still Life of Wrapped Orange Signed. Oil on canvas. 8 in. x 18 in. sold for $46,012 on 06/15/1995 at Bonhams & Butterfields, San Francisco, CA