Gordon Knowles Carter (American, 1902-1991)

Four Goats on a Hill Road by Oaks, Poplars, and Ranch Buildings, with Hills Beyond
ca. 1928
Signed lower right: Gordon Carter
Oil on canvas           38 x 42 in.
Framed in original Whistler-style faux-gilt frame with rows of reeded lines on the outer and inner rims surrounding an interior flat panel, 46 x 50  in.

Provenance:
Collection of the Artist, Los Angeles
Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Los Angeles
Estate of a Collector, Tucson, Arizona
Private Collection, Massachusetts

Exhibition:
Fifty-Second Annual Art Exhibit of the San Francisco Art Association, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, May 3 – June 1, 1930.

Artist:
Gordon Knowles Carter was born in St Louis, Missouri, on March 7, 1902, and moved in 1925 to Los Angeles, to study art at the renowned Chouinard Art School with such artists and instructors as Frank Tolles Chamberlin (1873-1961), Clarence Hinkle (1880-1960), and Lawrence M. Murphy (1872-1947). At Chouinard, Carter became friends with fellow student Millard Sheets from Pasadena, who shared his love of the California landscape.  They would frequently take painting expeditions together, as well as participate in the same exhibitions.  During this period, Carter was lucky to find a position in the Art Department at the Los Angeles Times newspaper, to support his studies.

Carter exhibited at: the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1927; Exhibition of California Artists, Pasadena Art Institute, 1928 and 1930; the Fifty-Second Annual Art Exhibit, California Palace of the Legion of Honor San Francisco, 1930; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1929; the California Watercolor Society, 1927 and 1929; St. Louis Artists Guild, 1930 and 1931 (First Prize); Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1929.  In addition, he was a member of the California Watercolor Society; California Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles Guild, and the St. Louis Art Guild.  Carter’s paintings are in numerous private collections and in such museums as the San Diego Museum of Art, the Phoenix Museum of Art, among others.

For family reasons, Carter returned to Webster Groves, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis), where he remained active in the fine art community until 1944, after which time he moved to Chicago, where he remained until his death on March 5, 1991.

Artworks by Millard Sheets of similar subject matter painted in the same period as Four Goats on a Hill Road: