(Robert) Bruce Crane [1857-1937]
American Impressionist Painter, Draughtsman and Teacher
Afternoon Feeding, East Hampton, NY, 1879
Oil on canvas
30-1/2 x 22 inches
Signed at lower right.

BIOGRAPHY
Bruce Crane is an American landscape painter, daughtsman and teacher most associated with a group of painters in Old Lyme, CT. His artistic training may have began with his father, an amateur painter, but continued under landscape painter Alexander H. Wyant [1832-1892] from 1876 to 1877 and then at the Art Students League in New York between 1878 to 1882. Crane traveled Europe to refine his artistic vision, studying in France near Grez-sur-Loing for one and a half years where he was influenced by the French Barbizon school.

Returning to America, Crane won the prestigious Webb Prize for landscape painting. In the United States, Crane is known to have painted in New Jersey, East Hampton, Long Island, the Adirondacks (Upstate New York) and Old Lyme, CT.

His paintings are part of the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; Addison Gallery of American Art-Phillips Academy, Andover, MA; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA; Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO; Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ; and Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ.

Crane was part of the following organizations: National Academy of Design, American Watercolor Society, Salmagundi Club, Society of American Artists, Grand Central Art Galleries, Lotus Club, Artists’ Fund Society and Union Internationale des Beaux-Arts et des Lettres.

Bruce Crain died in Bronxville, NY in 1937.

ORGANIZATIONS
– National Academy of Design
– American Watercolor Society
– Salmagundi Club
– Society of American Artists
– Grand Central Art Galleries
– Lotus Club
– Artists’ Fund Society
– Union Internationale des Beaux-Arts et des Lettres

AWARDS
– Webb Price for landscape painting

COLLECTIONS
– Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY
– Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
– Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
– National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
– Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA
– Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
– Addison Gallery of American Art-Phillips Academy, Andover, MA
– Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
– Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA
– Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO
– Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, TN
– New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
– Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ

SOURCES
– “Three Hundred Years of American Art” by David Michael Zellman
– “Who Was Who in American Art” by Peter Falk
– Antiques Magazine, New York, NY, “Bruce Crane, Tonalist Painter” by Charles Teaze Clark, November, 1982.