Skip to Content

The Essex Canal

A work made of oil on canvas mounted on board.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

Image actions

  • A work made of oil on canvas mounted on board.

Date:

c. 1896

Artist:

Albert Pinkham Ryder
American, 1847–1917

About this artwork

Albert Pinkham Ryder was one of the most innovative artists of the late 19th century, creating reductive, yet expressive compositions out of thick, slowly worked paint, combined with glazes, varnishes, and unconventional materials. In The Essex Canal, a waterway faintly meanders from the green-hued foreground to a skim of blue along the horizon, with an expansive sky beyond. A younger generation of American artists celebrated Ryder as an important early modernist, who pushed toward abstraction and focused on the arduous process of painting itself as instrumental to one’s creative vision. Ryder’s reclusiveness only added to his intrigue and mythic status as an artist ahead of his time.

Status

On View, Gallery 177

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Albert Pinkham Ryder

Title

The Essex Canal

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

c. 1896

Medium

Oil on canvas mounted on board

Dimensions

41.3 × 52.1 cm (16 1/4 × 20 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Geist

Reference Number

1980.279

IIIF Manifest  The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.

https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/60239/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share