Lionel Walden

Lionel Walden (1861-1933) was an American painter active in Hawaii, Cornwall, and France.

Biography

He was born in Norwich, Connecticut in 1861. He first became interested in art in Minnesota, where the family moved when his father became rector of an Episcopal Church there. As a young man, Walden moved to Paris where he studied painting with Carolus-Duran. In around 1893-97, Walden was in England, living in Falmouth. Paintings of Cardiff in Wales are in museums in Cardiff and Paris.^[1] Walden received medals from the Paris Salon and was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honor. He visited Hawaii in 1911 and several times thereafter. Walden died in Chantilly, France in 1933.

According to David H. Forbes, author of Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941, Lionel Walden "was the finest seascape painter to work in Hawaii". The Brooklyn Museum, the Henry Art Gallery (University of Washington, Seattle), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Isaacs Art Center (Waimea, Hawaii), the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper and the Musée d'Orsay are among the public collections holding works by Lionel Walden.

Notable works

The auction record for a painting by Lionel Walden is $73,440. This record was set by Breaking Waves, a 24 by 51.5 inch oil painting on canvas sold March 2, 2007 at Skinner Inc. (Marlborough, Massachusetts).^[2]

A very beautiful painting by Walden, "The Wave" (1908) is since 2015 in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Quimper (France), (don d'Elisabeth Willmott et Jean-David Jumeau-Lafond en mémoire de Jean et Jacqueline Jumeau-Lafond).

Notes

1. National Museum of Wales
2. AskArt.com accessed Jan. 4, 2011

References

• Ellis, George R. and Marcia Morse, A Hawaii Treasury, Masterpieces from the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Tokyo, Asahi Shimbun, 2000, 154, 224-5.
• Forbes, David W., Encounters with Paradise: Views of Hawaii and its People, 1778-1941, Honolulu Academy of Arts, 1992, 206-244.
• Forbes, David W., He Makana, The Gertrude Mary Joan Damon Haig Collection of Hawaiian Art, Paintings and Prints, Hawaii State Foundation of Culture and the Arts, 2013, pp. 64–71

Gallery

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  Hawaiian Fisherman, oil on canvas painting by Lionel Walden, 1924, Honolulu Museum of Art

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  The Torchlight Fishermen, Waikiki, oil on canvas painting by Lionel Walden, c. 1920, Honolulu Museum of Art

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  Luakaha, oil on canvas painting by Lionel Walden, c. 1916, Honolulu Museum of Art

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  Marine View--Windward Hawaii, ca. 1920, oil on canvas painting by Lionel Walden, 78 x 117 cm., Honolulu Museum of Art

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  Mural by Lionel Walden, c. 1922, Hawaii Theatre, Honolulu, Hawaii

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  Night Fisherman, oil on board painting by Lionel Walden

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  North Shore, Oahu, oil on panel painting by Lionel Walden, c. 1915, 10 x 14 in.