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About Louis Ritman
Louis Ritman, one of six sons born to Solomon Ritman and Rebecca Saltzman in Kamenets-Podolsky, Russia, moved with his family to Chicago some time in late 1903 or early 1904. Louis’s father gained employment as a fabric maker for Hart, Schaffner & Marx Clothiers. To help support the Ritman household, Louis obtained an apprenticeship with a sign company,
where the foreman recognized his artistic ability and urged him to study painting. Ritman’s first formal art lessons took place in evening classes at Jane Addams’s Hull House under Enella Benedict, who had studied at the *Académie Julian in Paris. After a brief period with *Wellington J. Reynolds at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, Ritman continued his studies under *John
H. Vanderpoel, the mainstay of the Chicago art community, at the *Art Institute of Chicago. Ritman’s ability was immediately evident and he was soon urged to further his training elsewhere. Ritman departed for Boston, Philadelphia and New York with a fellow student, Norbert Heerman (1891-1966). Ritman studied briefly under *William Merritt Chase at the *Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Ritman’s biographer, Maurice Ritman revealed that Chase "had given him good advice" but after two months, Ritman returned to Chicago. Reynolds told him he was good enough to become an art student in Paris, so Louis prepared a portfolio under Vanderpoel’s guidance.
In the fall of 1909, Ritman and his friend Heerman left for Paris from New York. Ritman enrolled in the Julian Academy
under *Tony Robert-Fleury and *Jean-Paul Laurens. He progressed rapidly, was soon winning awards, and then was accepted into the studio of Adolphe Déchenaud (1868-1929) at the *Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Heerman remained at the Julian Academy. Ritman also took the advice of Fernand Cormon. One of Ritman’s early works, La toilette (location unknown) reveals influence from *Carolus-Duran, *John Singer Sargent, *Chase, and *Lawton Parker. Ritman must have been thrilled to learn that the painting was accepted by the Salon jury in 1911. As Love explains, "Ritman’s devotion to academic discipline" was similar to that of Lawton Parker, "who had also put his time in at the Ecole and built his style on the academic tradition. . . ."
Instead of becoming a member of the Parisian *bohemian community, Ritman was beckoned by *Giverny in the spring or summer of 1911, where he came under the influence of *Claude Monet and American impressionist painter-friends there. In 1911, Ritman would have joined *Karl Albert Buehr, *Richard Emil Miller, Lawton Parker, *Frederick Frieseke, *Guy Rose, and *Alson Skinner Clark. He was influenced by the *intimism that was practiced by most of the above painters, which featured artfully posed female models in intimate, decorative interiors, usually illuminated by natural light. Ritman returned to Giverny for the next five summer seasons (1912-16). He rented a stone farmhouse and ate at the Hôtel *Baudy, where he probably overheard discussions on *fauvism and cubism. This must have sounded wild indeed to someone who was working as an impressionist. But Ritman was obviously looking at the works of Parker, Miller, and Frieseke, if not those by Monet. If Ritman did enter Monet’s private world in the summers of 1911 and 1912, he could have seen some of his older works but nothing recent; since the death of his wife Alice on 19 May 1911, Monet had been working only on Venetian subjects from memory, and he was struggling with a double cataract. Soon he would begin his famous Water Lily series.
Possibly Ritman’s earliest attempt at impressionism, Lily Garden (Private collection) has broken monochromatic brushwork but no color vibration. In Woman with Watering Can (Christie’s art market, 1989), however, Ritman accomplished "the technique of producing a typical Giverny-type flower garden in the manner of Frieseke or any other Monet disciple" but the figure was treated more traditionally. The figure in An Improvised Flower Basket (location unknown), on the other hand, integrates more into the surrounding landscape, owing to the patterns of sunlight in the model’s dress, an effect that recalls *Renoir’s famous Torso of a Woman in the Sunlight (Musée d’Orsay).
Ritman submitted more works to the Paris Salon jury — Nue and Le matin — which were both accepted in 1913, the Salon where Lawton Parker won a gold medal for La paresse, or Idleness (location unknown). That summer, Ritman continued to be influenced by the Givernyites from the Midwest: Parker, Miller, and Frieseke. Ritman developed a lighter palette, paid more attention to the effects of sunlight, and incorporated more *broken color. A striking work from that summer is Dormitory Breakfast or Mimi at Breakfast (Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska-Lincoln), which represents a conservative assimilation of impressionism. More advanced and less genteel are Early Morning (Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago) and Morning Tea (Private collection), which both feature partially draped figures. The former is a profuse arrangement of patterns within a shallow picture space. The effect of "harmonically orchestrated," soft and evenly flowing light is a remarkable feature of this work.
Even more incredibly modernistic, also from 1913, is Ritman’s Pink and Blue (Private collection). One is struck by the severe, geometric composition, in which the model is presented frontally, her back against the wall, which is parallel to the picture plane. In addition, everything tends to flatten because of the abundance of patterns and the degree of abstraction. In fact, there is a deliberate play on real flowers and patterned wallpaper flowers, in close juxtaposition. The rectangular patterns on the teapot have very little to do with naturalistic reflections: one need only compare the more conventionally conceived teapot in Dormitory Breakfast. Although the apples and checkered tablecloth are reflected in Pink and Blue’s teapot, the play of rectangles on its surface transforms it into an ambiguous object. This work is actually an experiment in *post-impressionism at a time when the artist had only recently plunged into impressionism. The model’s dour expression and crossed arms add to the overall severity of the painting, which is composed almost like a wooden puzzle. Ritman’s Sun Kissed Nude (Oshkosh Public Museum, Oshkosh, WI), probably from that summer, reflects what other American painters in Giverny were pursuing during this so-called "third generation" of the American *artists’ colony at the village. The major influence of Sun Kissed Nude came from Lawton Parker but there is still no *broken color in this single figure, *plein air work. It is still a conservative painting, recalling the outdoor nudes of *Otto Bacher, Parker, and others. In 1914, Ritman participated in the Anglo-American Exposition.
Ritman left France in November of 1914, when the country had become totally embroiled in the war. Back in Chicago, Solomon Ritman had prospered and was now a partner of Mattenburg and Ritman. In January, Louis Ritman was offered
a one-man show at the Art Institute of Chicago, which opened toward the end of February. It was a huge success. Two of Ritman’s paintings were on display at the *Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Ritman was the recipient of a silver medal there for Early Morning in a Garden and Breakfast (neither has been located). The latter, is an intriguing composition of ovals and an implied curvilinear movement. At that time, Ritman became an instructor at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts but despite the terrible war, was lured back to France in the spring of 1915, where he joined Frieseke and one of his students, *George Biddle. The latter, only experimenting with impressionism, would play a capital role in American art much later, during the New Deal era. Ritman painted Quiet Afternoon
(Phoenix Art Museum) during the summer of 1915, another canvas marked by a decorative use of shingle strokes (what Gerdts calls "bricks of paint"), an abundant patterning, and a limited palette of purples and greens.
Meanwhile, Ritman exhibited in Paris, in the Pennsylvania Academy, and in the Art Institute of Chicago. Quietude, in a private collection, is believed to have been executed in Giverny in the summer of 1916. Although the reclining figure is sharply delineated, the decorative surface, from one edge of the canvas to the other, is most remarkable. The resulting riot of rich color, especially in the upper left-hand corner of the picture, which for R. H. Love forecasts abstract expressionism, has very little to do with Monet’s original way of observing and painting nature. Instead, Ritman has become a full-fledged late impressionist, along with his Giverny colleagues. The little still-life in the opposite corner recalls the one in Pink and Blue, but now one cannot attribute the purple rectangular shapes on the teapot to reflections of a checkered tablecloth. These are purely abstract motifs with no more link to nature than the haphazard orange and green tesserae that appear in Byzantine mosaic-faces. Monet, too, was doing radical things in 1916. His works collectively dated 1914 to 1917 include yellow irises arranged on a flat plane, some rendered with extremely loose brushwork.
Ritman continued to paint in Giverny even when the German offensive in the spring of 1918 was within hearing distance. What may be called Ritman’s masterpiece, Lady by a Window (Private collection) dates from this time. It shows a continued application of the shingle stroke, a heavier use of the palette knife, and forms broken into rectangular sections — overall a return to Cézannesque formalism. Lady by a Window is a masterful compromise between realism — rendering the effects of natural light — and abstractionism. The artist’s career progressed rapidly in those years and was aided by his election to the Académie Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1919). A new
wave of American expatriates would soon begin as Ritman returned to New York in 1919. His busy painting and exhibition schedule included a show of his work at *Macbeth’s in New York (Frieseke’s dealer), which drew the critical attention of International Studio that April. Expectedly, the review pointed out the obvious comparison of Frieseke and Ritman: "Ritman is far defter in touch, more exquisite in pattern, more richly varied and sensitive of surface than Frieseke. If Ritman fulfills the promise of these canvases, he will be the *Vermeer of the Impressionist School." Additional one-man shows were installed at the Art Institute in May of 1920 and in January of 1924.
After twenty-one years of prestigious activity as a painter in Paris, Ritman was persuaded by *Robert B. Harshe of the Art Institute of Chicago to accept the position of professor of painting. Ritman’s late period (1930-1960) has not been thoroughly studied. He was listed as a member of the *Grand Central Art Galleries in 1926 and again in 1930 and 1934; he maintained his membership until 1951. Ritman exhibited La toilette, painted in 1932, at Chicago’s Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture (1933) but he was not included in Art of Today: Chicago 1933. Ritman exhibited at the Art Institute through 1950 and was active in the Carnegie International Exhibitions between 1920 and 1945, and the exhibitions at the PAFA from 1916 through 1952.
In 1960, Ritman moved with his wife Marguerita Steffenson Ritman, a professor of sociology, to Winona, Minnesota, where he died in 1963. Although the artist executed
and exhibited a number of landscapes and still-lifes, he is known primarily for his figurative work and particularly for his intimate scenes with partial nudes. Early in his career in Paris, he mastered the impressionist technique and its basic principles, but Ritman’s personal manner was perfected by continuous experimentation. Accordingly, a definition of his style varies, because of its wide range of conception and technique. Throughout his work, however, one finds unusually accomplished draftsmanship; although the high-keyed palette of the works executed prior to World War I eventually became deeper in tone with less application of broken color, Ritman’s predilection to draw with the brush and to capture the effect of form in natural light remained constant throughout his career. Ritman was usually careful to maintain balanced compositions within the framework of the late impressionist-Giverny coterie of painters from the Midwest who developed their own recognizable decorative style known as intimism. Ritman achieved the delicate balance between pictorial simplicity and personal quietude derived from the intimate scene.
REF.
Stuart, 1915; Art in California, 1916, pl. 106; Dewing, 1919; Waterman, 1919; Neuhaus, 1931, p. 272; Warshawsky, 1931, pp. 111, 157; Toulgouat, 1948; Love, 1975; Amaya, 1979; Gerdts, 1984, vol. 2, pp. 272-273; University of Minnesota. |
Paintings by Louis Ritman
| Reflected Light |
| oil on canvas: 36 x 28 1/2 inches |
| signed: lower right |
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| The Boudoir |
| oil on canvas 36 x 36 inches |
| unsigned : circa 1913 |
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| Winding Stairs |
| oil on canvas:23 3/4 x 28 7/8 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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| St. Germain |
| oil on canvas:19 3/4 x 25 5/8 inches |
| signed: lower right |
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| Burnished Gold |
| oil on canvas: 19 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches |
| signed: lower right |
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| Tree Fantasy |
| oil on canvas: 25 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches |
| signed: lower left |
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| Irene |
| oil on canvas: 36 x 36 inches |
| signed: lower right |
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| Ballet Girl |
| oil on canvas: 29 x 36 1/2 inches |
| signed: lower right |
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