Edward Henry POTTHAST

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Status, price and estimate of the artist Edward Henry POTTHAST

Price of a painting at auction: 3,000 – 200,000 €.

Estimate for a drawing or watercolour by the artist: 500 – 10,000€.

If you wish to have a Potthast painting appraised, our painting experts are at your disposal for a free valuation.

A solid academic background

Edward Henry Potthast was born in 1857 in Cincinnati, Ohio, into a family of craftsmen.

His artistic training spanned a decade from 1873, at the McKinney School of Design, now the Cincinnati Academy of Art. At the same time, he learned the proper uses and principles of lithography at the Strobrige Company Lithography.

One of his teachers at McKinney was the painter Thomas Satterwhite Noble, renowned for his portraits, who was also the head of the school. Thomas Noble is notable for having studied between 1856 and 1859 with the French history painter Thomas Couture, whose rich painting technique he retained.

Potthast’s first trip to Europe was in 1881. A series of tours in Germany, with a stop in Munich where he joined the Royal Academy – the time of the stay was visibly orchestrated by Noble – before going to Paris for a brief training at the Académie Julian.

Potthast’s main source of income until the 1890s was lithography. Having sold one of his paintings to the Cincinnati Museum of Art during this period, the artist began a reorientation of his artistic career.

The dazzling impressionist style

Initially influenced by the artistic impulses discovered in Munich, with influences from Dutch painting, he discovered the Impressionist swells during his second stay in Paris, and found a complacent echo.

The themes of representation, as well as the artist’s sober and discreet palette, changed with his discovery of Impressionism. The exaltation of light, radiant outdoor scenes, such
as Sunshine, an 1889 painting held by the Cincinnati Museum, are part of the exhibition Light. His work was included in the Light Pictures exhibition of 1894, and he was the only American artist represented there.

Following the model of what he discovered in Europe, his painting aims to depict the everyday life and leisure of the people of his time, in the manner of the Impressionist painters. Driven perhaps by a compelling need to highlight contemporary life. This type of landscape became an integral part of his pictorial production. In the manner of the Impressionists, Potthast took advantage of the holiday resorts near his New York home to indulge in time spent painting from the ground up.

A modest yet lasting legacy

His paintings are in the collections of renowned American institutions, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Georgia Museum of Art.

Edward Potthast was once considered a safe investment for the quality of his seascapes, and his distinction for this genre on the American scene of his time.

The painter left no wife or children. He died in his New York studio in 1927.

Appraise and sell a painting by Edward Henry Potthast

If you own an Edward Henry Potthast painting or any other sculpture, ask for a free estimate via our online form.

You will then be contacted by a member of our team of experts and auctioneers to give you an independent view of the market price of your painting. In the event of a sale, our specialists will also advise you on the various options available to sell your work at the best price.