Emile Albert Gruppe
American
1896-1978
“I’ve always been lucky, for since I was a kid, painting has been my whole life. It’s all I’ve known- morning, noon, and night… And once I got my own studio, I always painted every day. I loved the fresh air.”
“I was lucky to have grown up in during a great period in American art…filled with fine landscape painters.”
“I was also lucky to have had great teachers- not only academic men who drilled me in the fundamentals, but also teachers who stressed the importance of feeling and imagination.”
“Finally, I’ve been lucky to have spent almost sixty years as a teacher. I studied under a number of fine painters; but when I left their classes, my knowledge was full of loose ends. In talking to my own students, I had to tie those ends; In teaching, I taught myself.”
-excerpts from the book “Gruppe on Color” by Emile Gruppe
“People always ask me how I can paint so broadly- yet still know that the picture will look ‘realistic’ from a distance. There isn’t any mystery. As I work, I try to get the general shape of the object, and more importantly, its correct value (its lightness or darkness- how it would look if I took a black-and-white photo of it). If you get the values right almost anything will look good from a few feet back.”
“Outdoor painters have to work fast. An effect rarely lasts longer than three hours-often not even that long! So we need a technique that records facts quickly and concisely…I’ve always tried to find the stroke that best describes what I feel about a particular subject… I want to communicate quickly and directly with the viewer. That’s why I recommend broad and simple painting.”
-from the book “Brushwork” by Emile Gruppe
“But you can’t do much indoors. You have to go to nature to learn to get your inspiration. Outside, you see and feel the character of your subject. It’s an open book- all you have to do is learn how to read. And the amount of material is endless. I’ve been to some spots countless times. But each time I arrive on the site, I see something different, something I hadn’t noticed before. Since I’m interested in catching the mood of a day or subject, I’m committed to finishing the picture on the spot. I’ve known many painters who would do small sketches outdoors and then blow them up in the studio. But, in almost every case, I always liked the sketch better than the finished painting…you could sense the…reaction of the artist to his subject”
“…No tricks: just a search for the essentials.”
-from the book “Gruppe on Painting” by Emile Gruppe
Emile Gruppe, son of painter Charles Gruppe, was born in Rochester, New York. Part of his childhood was spent in Holland, where his father worked as an art dealer. In the United States he apprenticed to his uncle, a sign painter.
He attended the National Academy School, the Art Students League, the Grande Chamiere in Paris, and studied with John F. Carlson, Richard Miller, George Bridgman, C. Chapman and Charles Hawthorne.
Gruppe was a resourceful artist, teaching, painting posters for movies and prizefights, doing landscape backgrounds for an animal artist, and briefly working in advertising. He was one of the first artists in Rockport, Massachusetts to advertise his paintings for sale at a time when most artists sold their works in city galleries. After the Great Depression, he spent winters painting in Vermont, rejoining his family each summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he ran the Gruppe Summer School.
Gruppe spent nearly sixty years working almost exclusively as a plein-air artist, until suffering a slight stroke in his late seventies. His work grew looser and freer as his career progressed. He is best known for his fishing scenes and views of Rockport and Gloucester. Gruppe enjoyed a national reputation, and exhibited widely throughout the United States.