Autumn Symphony
Painting
Oil-on-canvas landscape painting in a wooden, gilt frame. The painting depicts bright, sandy dunes as seen from a shaded viewpoint with pine trees and grasses in the foreground. A note penciled on the frame of "Sept 24" may indicate the painting was created on September 24.
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2023.03.02
Easel
Oil
This painting hung in the Saugatuck Fruit Growers bank (and it many later iterations) for more than 90 years. According to an article in the November 8, 1929 Commercial Record newspaper, the work was painted "near the end of the Skylin Drive on the Felt estate with the glistening dune near Gibson rising to the North. One of the picturesque old pines nearby is introduced in the foreground with its somber green contrast to the vivid coloration of advanced autumn." The landscape captured by Hoerman still exists today in the Saugatuck Dunes State Park and the Shore Acres Township Park in Laketown Township.
Artworks
2023.03
Mize Rose Garden north side/Fruit Growers State Bank/Clapp's Grocery/Flint's Shoes/Walz Meat Market/Griffin/Tanner
Donation, unconditional
Hoerman, Carl 1885-1955
1929
Signature
lower right corner
29 in
27 in
2nd floor gallery/conference room
Carl Hoerman 1885 - 1955 Autumn Symphony 1929 | oil on canvas Cool, deep shadows contrast bright slopes in this scene depicting the dunes north of Saugatuck on the Felt Estate. Born in Bavaria, Carl Hoerman used his savings from working in a Hamburg shipyard and the sales of charcoal drawings to finance a move to Chicago in 1904. There, he studied architecture and in 1909, opened his own practice. Hoerman closed his architectural firm in 1920 and with his spouse Christiana moved to Saugatuck to start a tree nursery on Silver Lake. In 1922 he gave up the nursery to devote his time to painting. In 1923, Hoerman built the Chalet at 621 Pleasant Street to be a residence, studio and private gallery. Collection: Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Gift of: Huntington Bank Accession: 2023.03.02
Carl Hoerman 1885-1955 Autumn Symphony 1929 | oil on canvas For more than 90 years, this painting by Carl Hoerman delighted lovers of art visiting Saugatuck's Fruit Growers State Bank on Mason Street. A note penciled on the frame - Sept likely indicates the painting was created on September 24, 1929. The landscape captured by Hoerman can be seen today in the Saugatuck Dunes State Park and the Shore Acres Township Park in Laketown Township. SDHC Collection Gift of Huntington Bank Accession number 2023.03.02
The painting appears on page 24 of the 1997 SDHC publication "Painting the Town" as "Big Pavilion from the Douglas Shore," 1949, with the following description on page 33: "In Michigan and Chicago he [Hoerman] is best known for his landscapes and dune scenes, with dramatic foliage outlined against a sky of swirling clouds. In a large painting of Kalamazoo Lake the viewer looks over the south bank of the lake, past fall-tinted foliage to the village of Saugatuck on the north bank where the Big Pavilion looks pink in the brightness of a morning sun. The sandy top of Mount Baldhead gleams in the distance."