Sàndor Bernàth (1892 - c. 1984)
Ca'd'Oro Venice View
American: c. 1945 to 1955
Watercolor on wove paper
Signed lower left: Sàndor Bernàth
15.5 x 19 inches
14.5 x 16.5 inches, mat opening; 24 x 25.75 inches, framed overall
Price on Request

A gondolier guides three passengers down a canal in Venice, passing the ornate Gothic façade of the Ca' d'Oro, a sumptuous Renaissance building with colorful details: pink and orange walls behind the graceful columns, yellow shutters with contrasting blue-violet shadows in the windows, and a pink roof behind a curving row of white posts topped with trefoil decorations. Figures dressed in white stand beneath the central arch at the water's edge and two gondolas are docked there.

The Ca' d'Oro is an exquisite Gothic palazzo on Venice 's Grand Canal, constructed by Marino Contarini, a wealthy merchant, between 1421 and 1440. It took its name from its gilded façade (Ca' d'Oro meaning "House of Gold"), though the gold has since worn off. It now serves as an art museum named Galleria Giorgio Franchetti after the Italian baron who bought the building in 1894 and restored it to its 15th-century state, to the extent practicable. His art collection forms the corpus of the work on display there.

In this watercolor painting of Venice, the artist employs his usual style including details, but always subordinating them to full shaded geometric shapes of the main subject.  His compositional sense shows a pronounced interest in form and light.  Bernath’s use of chiaroscuro and the geometrical balance of positive and negative space contribute to the isolated monolithic feeling present throughout his works.  This style is allied with the precisionist paintings of his contemporaries.

Sàndor Bernàth was a prolific American watercolorist.  He was born in Hungary, but emigrated to America early in his career.  Bernàth developed a characteristic style of smoothly delineated forms with strong contrasts of light and shadow, which relate to the styles of his slightly older contemporaries Edward Hopper and the American Precisionist painters Charles Sheeler and Charles Demuth.  He is sometimes referred to as a “student of Edward Hopper” but this likely is metaphorical rather than literal.  His later works in the 1970s (when he was in his eighties) were more painterly and atmospheric in style.   He was a member of the American Watercolor Society, and remains best known for his watercolor paintings.

Bernàth began exhibiting watercolor landscapes in New York by the early 1920s, including European and New York scenes. He was also painting seascapes of New England, including Cape Cod; an extant Bernàth work of dunes in Cape Cod is dated 1928, and one of Long Point Light, Provincetown, Cape Cod, is dated 1935. From the 1920s to 1940s he lived in Maine, although he continued to travel. He painted many views of the Maine coast, one of which was purchased by the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In his mid career, Bernàth traveled to the mountainous regions of New Mexico, presumably Taos, where he painted numerous landscape watercolors featuring its snowy mountains and adobe buildings. These remain among of his most sought-after works.

Bernàth worked as an illustration artist for many New York City advertising agencies in the 1950s, and would frequently bring his pictures to sell directly to executives working at the firms for their private collections.  At that time he produced multiple works of similar images that apparently sold well, especially his yachting pictures.

Condition: Generally very good with usual light overall toning and wear. In custom gold leaf frame with craquelure mat.

Reference:

"Galleria Giorgio Franchetti alla Ca' d'Oro." Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Veneziano. http://www.artive.arti.beniculturali.it/Ca_d'oro/frame_ca_doro.htm (27 April 2004).