Beautiful 1940s-50s oil painting on canvas depicting waterfront homes and people at leisure back by the flower garden.

Oil on canvas by Askart listed Pennsylvania Impressionist / PAFA woman artist Grace Travis Prickett Van Sciver (Am., 1888-1979). Signed lower right, “Grace Van Sciver”.

This O/C reminds me of Provincetown, Massachusetts paintings, because of the white painted homes. It may be P-town / Cape Cod, but maybe it’s a New Hope, PA scene… Do you recognize the locale?

Notice the two boats on the water. Could be Cape Cod Bay, the Sound at Martha’s Vineyard, or if it’s New Hope, the Delaware River.

Unframed painting measures 14 x 18 inches. It’s fresh to the market and unrestored (never cleaned, etc.). Dirty painting w/ small 1/2” tear in blue window shutter area. Needs epoxy sealing or tiny wallpaper paste patch, etc.

Earl Johnson Van Sciver, a businessman and Member of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was Grace Van Sciver’s husband. The couple lived in Philadelphia. Earl passed in 1966. Grace resided on Chestnut Street in Philly.

Grace Van Sciver is listed on the PAFA Archives (Org) site / STUDENT RECORDS (CIRCA 1910S-1949): Van Sciver, Grace Travis  Date (entrance): June 19, 1944. This means that Grace began her studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1944. She was in her mid 50’s at the time.

Up until 1950, preeminent Bucks County / New Hope School / PA Impressionist artist Daniel Garber taught at the PAFA. So, he would’ve been one of Grace Van Sciver’s teachers. Any artist who trained under Garber can be considered part of the New Hope School.

Van Sciver was working in the traditional Pennsylvania Impressionist mode that Garber taught. By the late 1940’s, soon after Van Sciver completed her training at the PAFA, a big change happened in America’s art world: Abstract Expressionism. Not that the chapter totally closed for Impressionist style painters. Even the Ab Ex style, which is also still practiced today, had it’s ‘run’, being overshadowed by Pop Art around 1962.

In the 1970’s, artists like Andy Warhol were still hot, and internationally. Meanwhile, in 1975 in Philadelphia, down on Chestnut Street, there was an older woman who was still painting in the style she learned in the 1940’s at the Pennsylvania Academy…

Not far away, at the University of Pennsylvania, Rev. Charles Scherer of the Newman Center (Penn Catholic Newman Community), found out about our Mrs. Van Sciver. The Center held a sort of retrospective or late-career exhibition for this talented painter.

Her exhibit at Penn, complete with a full artists reception including wine and cheese, included Van Sciver’s oils and watercolors and was held in the Keogh / Newman Club room. Grace Van Sciver was 86 years old at the time. It made the papers. Imagine an artist of the old PA Impressionist movement being rediscovered at her age. She must have felt like a queen with everybody making a fuss over her and holding a reception.