Eric Sloane Cloudscape Oil Painting "Skirting the Storm"

Item Details

Eric Sloane (New York/Connecticut, 1905 – 1985)
Skirting the Storm
Oil painting on board
Signed to lower right
Inscribed to lower right “Cumulus Mountains at 17000 feet alt.”

Eric Sloane, born Everard Jean Hinrichs in New York City, is a noted American landscape painter, illustrator, and author. His first introduction to art and lettering came from his childhood neighbor, type designer Frederic W. Goudy. In 1925 Sloane left his home to travel across the United States, working as a sign painter and developing his unique style that would later become part of his books. He returned to study at the Art Students League in New York, changing his name at the suggestion of his teachers, taking Eric from ‘America’ and Sloane after his teacher John French Sloan. Sloane first became enamored with the sky after painting for the pilots of Roosevelt Field, Long Island, and being taught to fly by Wiley Post. The sky, clouds and flight are themes he returned to throughout his career and Amelia Earhardt was an early client. He was commissioned to paint a large cloud mural by the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. and began lecturing on cloud formations and weather beginning in 1940. He is even credited with developing the first television weather reporting. In the 1950’s he began spending significant periods in Taos, New Mexico, painting the landscape and the western sky. Sloane was a prolific artist and author, writing thirty-eight books during his lifetime, including the important historical resource A Museum of Early American Tools, and painting over 15,000 works.

Condition

- scattered accretion across painting surface; areas of yellowing to varnish; scratches and wear to frame.

Dimensions

- measures frame; visible image measures 23.5" W x 17.5" H.

Item #

ITMG533956