American Monotypes from the Baker/Pisano Collection | Page 33

Louis Paul Dessar (American, 1867–1952)
Landscape with Sheep, n.d.

Monotype, 5 1/2 x 7 in.
Collection of The Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York. Gift of
the Baker/Pisano Collection, 2001.9.86

Like many American art students in the late-nineteenth
cen­­
tury, Dessar studied at New York’s National Academy of
Design and later at the Académie Julian and the École des
Beaux-A rts, Paris. He lived, on and off, in many European
countries, including an eight-month stay in Giverny, France,
where he was briefly a member of the American colony near
the home of Monet. In 1892, he built a home in Étaples,
France, and began an eight-year cycle of summering in France
while maintaining a studio in New York. In 1900 he moved
back to the United States, settling in Old Lyme, Connecticut,
where he lived for the rest of his life. His subject matter was
greatly influenced by the French Barbizon School; he largely
painted forests and farm fields in subdued colors. This is his
only known monotype.
NOTES:
Cooper, “Louis Paul Dessar and His Work,” 97–99, 101–103.
Dearinger, Paintings and Sculpture, 154.

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