Approaching Storm

Louis Michel Eilshemius was born wealthy, trained at the Art Students League in New York and under Bouguereau at the Académie Julian in Paris, traveled through Europe, Africa, and the South Seas, and spent most of his career being ignored. He called himself the "Transcendental Eagle of the Arts" and the "Supreme Parnassian," printed flyers listing his accomplishments as a mesmerist, marksman, and musician, and once changed the spelling of his last name because he thought its length was the reason nobody bought his work. Marcel Duchamp discovered him in 1917 and championed his paintings — Matisse, George Gershwin, and Louise Nevelson were collectors. Approaching Storm dates to around 1890, early in his career, when his landscapes were still close to the Barbizon School and to Corot. Rolling hills in dry yellows and ochres are punctuated by coral-red autumn trees, with a heavy purple-gray sky pressing down from above. A small white figure chases what appears to be a dog across the middle distance, near a white farmhouse at the left.