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Gone are the Trains #3

Creator: Stan Masters
Offered by: Robert Morrissey Antiques & Fine Art

Description
Stan Masters (1922-2005) American
"Gone are the Trains #3"
Watercolor on paper, signed lower right..
Image: 18" x 23.5"
Frame: 25" x 30.5"

Modern Larson Juhl coffee colored frame. Archival mat, regular glass.

A 1966 trip to San Francisco took Stan and his wife, Carlene through southern Colorado where he photographed the abandoned depot and water tank at Sargents, on the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. Some ten years later that photo served as the inspiration for a series of paintings he titled “Gone are the Trains”.

Depicted on an angle, the converging lines draw the eye into the vast, open landscape and mountains beyond, accentuating the building’s isolation. The yellow and brown color scheme recalls Masters’ boyhood home at the railroad shanty that belonged to the Missouri Pacific Railroad and whose buildings were painted in those colors. Daylight flashes off the glass of the broken window, the effect achieved by the unpainted white paper. The rusted oil drum sports three small bullet holes, evidence of impish boys at play.

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Stan Masters (1922-2005)
In 1971, after 20 years in commercial art, Stan Masters began his career as a watercolor artist. Following a brief period of experimentation, he adopted the American Realist tradition of Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth. “I believe that art is, or should be, a form of communication”, he wrote in his artist’s statement. “It ought to be understandable. For that reason, I choose to work in a realistic manner. My subject matter deals with things I know about or places I’ve been”.

Humble beginnings inform his gorgeous watercolors: he grew up in a one room railroad shanty with neither water nor electricity where the tracks passed within six feet of the front porch. Thus, his subject matter depicts small town and rural America. And, of course, the railroad.

In a review of a 1978 solo exhibit a critic proclaimed, “A Stan Masters watercolor is realism at its best. What [Masters] sees is so direct and the way he sees it is so logical that his intent and his achievement are timeless and universal. We find in his paintings unsuspected technical brilliance, always purposely hidden so as not to intrude on the overall effect he wants to create.”

Despite participation in numerous competitions and exhibitions with similar rave reviews, sales throughout his career remained minimal. He died in 2005, all but forgotten. Today, Masters is finally receiving the attention he deserves, and his paintings now hang in two museums and numerous private and corporate collections.

More Information

Documentation:	Signed
Notes:	Signed lower right.
Origin:	United States
Period:	1950-1979
Materials:	Watercolor on paper
Condition:	Good. Modern Larson Juhl coffee colored frame. Archival mat, regular glass.
Styles / Movements:	Realism
Dealer Reference #:	SM105
Incollect Reference #:	381237