Name: Charles Frederick Ulrich (1858-1908)
Brand: The Wood Engraver
Price: 45000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

Charles Frederick Ulrich (1858-1908)
The Wood Engraver
signed and dated 'Ulrich. 82.' (lower right)
oil on cradled panel
18⁵⁄₈ x 10¹⁄₈ in. (47.3 x 25.7 cm.)
Painted in 1882.

George I. Seney.
Sale: Madison Square Garden, New York, 13 February 1891, lot 209, sold by the above.
Private collection, New York.
Parke-Bernet, 31 May 1945, lot 14, sold by the above.
Arlene Norman, West Bend, Wisconsin.
Estate of the above.
James and Nora Engelman, Port Washington, Wisconsin, bequest from the above, 2019.
By descent to the present owner.

"The Academy of Design," The New York Times, April 30, 1882.
The Manhattan, vol. III, no. 3, New York, January-June 1884, p. 290.
"Works by the Younger Artists," The Art Interchange, vol. XII, no.8, New York, April 10, 1884, p. 89.
A. Trumble, "Charles F. Ulrich," The Art Collector: A Journal Devoted to the Arts and the Crafts, vol. II, no. 7, February 1, 1891, p. 81.
W. Lewis Fraser, "American Artists Series," The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, vol. LV, New York, November 1897-April 1898, p. 935, illustrated.
M. Quick, American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Dayton, Ohio, 1976, p. 138.

New York, National Academy of Design, 57th Annual Exhibition, March 27-May 13, 1882.
New York, National Academy of Design, Pedestal Fund Art Loan Exhibition, December 1883, p. 159, no. 757.
Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Art Association, Brooklyn Loan Exhibition, 1884.
Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Museum of Art, September 1-November 15, 1888, no. 33.

Please note that the cataloging for this lot has been updated to include a catalogue note as well as additional provenance, exhibition history and literature references. Most notably, the work was exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1882 and 1883.

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Lot Essay

Charles Ulrich enrolled in the Munich Academy in 1875 where he studied the Old Master technique of exacting detail in realist painting. After returning to the United States in 1882, he exhibited the present work The Wood Engraver at the National Academy in New York, receiving a resounding and lasting approval from critics who considered the painting to be "his best." (Art Interchange, 1884) A New York Times review of the National Academy exhibition described the painting as "a picture of a woman at work before a window engraving a wood block. It is excellently painted both in figure and interior by Charles Frederick Ulrich." This debut painting signified a peak period of his career, after which point he continued producing a remarkable series of worker subjects for which he is best known.