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C h a p t e r 1 5 The Other Lost NewYork Paintings of Julian Onderdonk Although a significant body of Julian’s New York works has gone unnoticed the paintings were signed with the names Elbert H. Turner, Chase Turner, and particularly, Chas. Turner, there is another group of Julian’s New York works that have been retitled, re-dated, and reassigned to be part of his Texas works, and we have discussed a number of them already. The incentive to assign a work to Julian’s Texas period can be great. A painting done in Texas that depicts Texas brings twice or more what a similarly sized work done in New York that depicts New York brings. This is largely a result of Texas pride and not of any aesthetic superiority of the later works. In many ways, Julian’s New York works are more vigorous , more energized, bolder, and more interesting than many of the endless stream of bluebonnets he produced from 1911 to 1922. Once a New York work has been remade into a Texas scene it is often accepted as such; many have passed into museum collections and been assigned dates that are many years after Julian left New York and returned to Texas.1 How does this mistaken attribution occur? No doubt it is often a sincere misunderstanding, aggravated by wishful thinking . Little scholarship has been done that focuses on the work Julian did between 1901 and 1909, so there is no reliable baseline for guidance. People assume that the vast majority of Julian’s works were painted in Texas; few realize that between one-third and one-half of all his paintings were done in New York.2 Until about 1908, Julian did not consistently title, sign, and date works on the verso as he usually did after that time. These untitled, undated, and more rarely unsigned works are easy candidates to become Texas works, either out of a desire to have a Texas scene painting or to enhance their salability. When works lack inscribed titles and dates it is much less complicated to make them into Texas scenes. There has also been little scholarship done that addresses the way in which Julian’s signature evolved through time. As discussed in chapters 7 and 12, a very distinctive change in Julian’s signature took place around 1906 and 1907 when he began to extend the final stroke on his n’s below the text line. This has gone undocumented until now and consequently has not been used to date the paintings done in New York prior to 1906–1907. Sealing a title or date beneath a dust cover or a relining canvas is another way that the dates have been hidden. During his years in New York, Julian frequently painted on thin cotton canvases that were tacked to their stretcher bars using tacks with heads barely bigger than the diameter of a pencil lead. In the hundredplus years since he painted them, these works have suffered. The canvases have often pulled through the tiny tack heads, holes have been poked in some canvases, while others have been torn. In earlier times, relining was more common, and this action would have covered any inscription or date Julian might have put on the back of a work. Today, reputable conservators carefully document any such information from a painting’s verso prior to relining, but in the past that was not always the case. Occasionally, dates prior to 1909 have been covered with labels or even erased so that the painting could become a Texas piece if the subject matter could plausibly be said to be Texas. An interesting example of this is October Afternoon (figure 11.29a and b) done in fall 1906. The back of the painting bears a typical Julian inscription giving the title followed by Julian’s signature and the date. The 1906 has been partially dissolved with some kind of solvent, but the unsuccessful endeavor was abandoned and the date remains legible. A second example of this is seen on the painting Golden Hour (figures 15.1a and b), which bears an inscription on the verso. In this case a more direct approach was taken and the 1908 in the date was simply covered up with the dealer’s paper label to make it a Texas Golden Hour instead of a New York Golden Hour. The photograph shows the label partially removed to reveal the original date of 1908. The...

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