Edward Cucuel

Edward Cucuel was born in 1875 in San Francisco. At age 15, he worked as an illustrator for the magazine "Examiner"; his French-born father also worked in publishing. The young man, however, wanted to become an artist. He studied at the Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi, and the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1896 he moved to New York, but soon returned to Europe, where he stayed in Paris and Berlin. In 1907 he moved to Munich, which would become his home for a while. There he joined the artist's association "Die Scholle," where he met Leo Putz, with whom he became lifelong friends. The plein-air paintings of Leo Putz heavily influenced Cucuel. For four years he spent the summers at Castle Hartmannsberg at the Chiemsee lake, working and living with Leo Putz. His works were shown in several exhibitions at the Munich Secession and the Salon des Beaux Arts in Paris. In 1918 he had two studios in Munich and Starnberg. The Second World War made him leave for the United States, where he spent the rest of his life. In the featured painting, a young woman is sitting on a dock, her musing gaze directed at the smooth surface of the lake. As night begins to fall, bringing a cool breeze, she wrapped in a thick woolen shawl around her shoulders. She is wearing an elegant white dress with black stripes and a beige hat with a turquoise ribbon on her head. The umbrella she brought leans against the dock. The calm lake glistens in the red evening sun, its surface moved only by small waves. On the horizon, a single sailing boat floats on the lake. The painting exudes calmness and invites the viewer to imagine themselves also enjoying the evening on the lakeshore. In Edward Cucuel's paintings, the background is just as important as the main subject. The atmospheric lighting and the ambience are the elements with which he constructs his artworks. There are no external sources of light; it always comes from the painting itself and is created via the colors themselves.