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44
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GUY C.WIGGINS
Cafe in the Snow
.
Oil on canvas, 1930s. 655x765 mm; 25
1
/
2
x30 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto, and
signed and titled in oil, verso.
Sold Sotheby’s, New York, December 3, 1992, lot 199; Berry-Hill Galleries Inc., New
York, with the label on the frame back; private collection.
Wiggins (1883-1962) was born in Brooklyn to an artistic family. His father, Carleton
Wiggins (1848-1942) was an accomplished painter and provided his son’s early training.
Later,Wiggins junior became the youngest member of the summertime Old Lyme Art
Colony in Connecticut, painting alongside his father and Childe Hassam, among others
(by 1915, Carleton Wiggins has settled in Old Lyme permanently).Wiggins also studied
at the National Academy of Design in New York, where his teachers included William
Merritt Chase and Robert Henri.
Throughout his long and successful career,Wiggins painted in an Impressionist style and
became especially well known for his snowy NewYork cityscape canvases capturing the
buildings and landmarks of Manhattan enveloped in wintry weather (see lots 43, 45 and
46). Like Hassam,Wiggins combined the traditions of French Impressionism, from the
likes of Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, with a bold, American style, influenced by
his National Academy instructors Chase and Henri.
[20,000/30,000]