Martin Borgord Expressionist “Portrait of Elegant” Oil Painting Signed with Frame circa 1920

Martin Borgord (1869-1935)
Active in California, New York, Paris, Holland
“Portrait of an elegant woman”, oil painting on wood signed lower right and dedicated to Madame Merlet.
Attended: San Francisco Art Association School of Design, Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Académie Julian de Paris, New York School of Art

“In the past I worked on effects of light and shadow. Now I paint exclusively for unusual effects and harmonies of color.” These are the words with which Martin Borgord, a Norwegian-born but naturalized American painter, interviewed by a journalist from the Hartford Courant, explains our painting. Between impressionism and expressionism, the elegant lady loses the sharpness of the details, mixing with light and color, with rapid and dense brush strokes.

Excellent state of preservation. Presented in a carved and silvered wooden frame.

Measurements
Panel cm 41 x 33
Frame cm 51×43

BIOGRAPHY
Martin Borgord was born on February 8, 1869 in Guasdal, Norway and died on March 25, 1935 in Riverside, California.
At the age of 16, Borgord was living in San Francisco and enrolled to study with Virgil Macey Williams (1830-1886) at the San Francisco Art Association School of Design. Interested in both painting and sculpture, Borgord would go to Paris. He was accepted to study at the Académie Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and at the Académie des Beaux-Arts with sculptor Charles Raoul Verlet. In 1896, Martin Borgord returned to New York and enrolled at the new Chase School of Art (later renamed the New York School of Art) with William Merritt. In 1899, the influential art dealer William Macbeth, dedicated to the cause of promoting American art, represented Borgord in New York. With his friend and fellow artist William Henry Singer (son of steel magnate William Singer), he settled, in the late 19th century, in Laren, Netherlands, a small town where many artists of the Hague School, influenced by French art. The Impressionists, who had left to fully experiment with painting, welcomed into their studio a large number of American artists, including, among others, Henry Ward Ranger, William Henry Howe, Amy Cross, Charles Gruppe, Walter Castle Keith, and Giuseppe Raffaele.

Borgord returned to the United States to become director of the Carnegie Institute of Art and the Allegheny School of Painting (Pennsylvania), but would continue to maintain a part-time studio in Holland.

At the Paris Salon of 1905, Borgord was awarded a gold medal and, years later, in 1924, with a solo exhibition of his paintings and sculptures at the Galerie de Marsan. He exhibited at the National Academy of Design in New York in 1913 and again in 1919. An international artist, he was a member not only of the exclusive Salmagundi Club in New York, but also of the St. Lucas Society in Amsterdam, the Allied Art Association. . and the American Art Association in Paris.

He was recognized in the United States and Europe as one of the leading painters and sculptors of his time.

Museums: Luxembourg Museum, Carnegie Institute in Paris, National Academy of Design in Pittsburgh, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in New York, Hagerstown, MD. Sweat Memorial Museum of Art, Portland, Maine