Ogden M. Pleissner (1905-1983)
Duck Hunting
signed "Pleissner" lower right
watercolor, 16 3/4 by 27 1/4 in.
This classic Pleissner duck hunting scene, complete with retriever and decoys, hung in the office of a prominent corporate and scientific leader for many years. He was a passionate sportsman who owned a property devoted to native quail hunting near Albany, Georgia, an area known worldwide for quail. He also had a duck hunting property in Missouri.
As Peter Bergh writes, “Great sporting artists are great artists who know the habits of wild creatures and have committed to memory every detail of habitat. These are men who have experienced the thrill of an Atlantic salmon or a large trout taking a well-presented fly, the explosion of a bursting covey of quail, sunrise on a duck marsh, running the rapids in a canoe, sleeping under the stars, and in many other ways truly lived in nature. Partly because special experience is behind all true sporting art, it is in a class by itself, and has had very few masters...One can always sense, in Pleissner’s sporting pictures, that he is painting the things he likes to look at in the places he likes to be… .” This atmospheric work, depicting a duo of hunters, reflects the history of hunting in America and its ties to industry and businessmen who sought relaxation and escape in nature.
Provenance: Private Collection, St. Louis, Missouri
Private Collection, California, by descent
Literature: Peter Bergh, "The Art of Ogden M. Pleissner," Boston, MA, 1984, p. 73.
Condition
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