The First Good War (WWI)

pictures by Harvey Dunn

Cool Oil Painting Tip #37

Incorporating the ground tone into the finish.

For this portrait vignette artist Samuel Edmund Oppenheim employs the tone of the ground  as the highlights of both face and hair. Here marked in blue~

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In the following landscape Daniel Garber uses a coloured ground as the home tone for his colour scheme.  

Note just how generously the ground is left bare. Again, here marked in blue~ 

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Nearly every canvas by illustrator J. C. Leyendecker incorporates the ground tone.

In this detail the ground tone is left as the collars local and used as a neutral within others (locals).

Samuel Edmund Oppenheim (1901-1992)

Samuel Edmund Oppenheim (1901-1992) 

1901 - Born December 24, Minsk, Russia

1906 - Emigrates with his family to the U.S. where they settle in New York City.

1926 - Studies in Provincetown, Massachusetts with the popular and accomplished artist Charles W. Hawthorne. About this time he also attends studio classes at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design in New York.

1930 - Commercial artist in New York City. During this period he enrolls at the Grand Central School of Art in the class of Harvey Dunn, whose work follows the tradition of Howard Pyle and whose principles in painting have a lasting influence.

1950 - Invited to join the Grand Central Art Galleries, New York, and becomes associated with Portraits, Inc., New York. 

1951 - Elected to membership in the Salmagundi Club, the oldest artist’s club in the country.

1954 - First one-man exhibition at Grand Central Art Galleries.

1966 - Begins teaching at the Art Students League, New York, establishing a popular Friday night class in oil painting, where his monthly demonstrations attract crowds of students. Oppenheim is in demand as a lecturer to various art and civic groups.

1982 - Guest of Honor, National Portrait Seminar, Washington, DC

1992 - May 31, Carnegie Hall, Memorial Program and tribute by John Howard Sanden at National Portrait Seminar

The 'Romantic Realism' of 

Samuel Edmund Oppenheim

by John Howard Sanden