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The following commentary is by Jean Woods, former director, Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD.
The canvas was painted southwest of the village of Olden, Norway on Skarstein, which is
situated on the Nordfjord. The viewer can see the village and fjord in the background with its
distinctive Old Church, which often appears in the artist's works. Illustrated as #40 in De Vries.
Pictured in the 30 January 1915 New York Evening Post article about Folsom Gallery exhibition.
Exhibited in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition, namely "Very sane and full of
poetic suggestiveness appears an all together dignified painting by William H. Singer, "The
Birches, well composed, interesting in composition, and where the technique while thoroughly
competent does not obtrude itself on the visitor. "
The artist's home, Dalheim, is to the northeast of this hillside. He built his studio here in
1914 and it is a region where he frequently painted en plein air from that time until his death
during the Nazi occupation of Norway.
The birches are one of Norway's most beautiful trees and often appear in Singer's
canvases and pastels. A winter view of this scene, entitled The Peace of Sleeping Nature, oil
canvas, 39 3/4 × 31 3/4", was given in 1931 to the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts by
R. Bruce Carson.
Provenance: From the artist s wife, Anna Brugh Singer, as a bequest to her friend, the Dutch
artist Jacob Dooijewaard at his death, to his brother, the artist Willem Dooijewaard; purchased
by the present owner from Mr. Dooijewaard.
The following biography is from the archives of askArt.
Norway was the key to the life and art of landscape painter William H. Singer, Jr., and it was Norwegian artist Martin Borgord, living in Pittsburgh, Singer's hometown, who offered him that key.
Singer was born in 1868 of well-to-do parents involved in the industry of the steel-producing town. Singer would eventually inherit a large fortune that he would use to help the inhabitants of Olden, a Norwegian fishing village, where he would later settle and encounter the Nazis during their occupation in World War II.
But as a youth, his desire to be a painter was thwarted by his father who wanted Singer to join the family business, which he did for eleven years. While thus employed, Singer studied with Borgord and painted landscapes outside Pittsburgh. In 1900, however, Singer took the bull by the horns and left the steel business to paint on Maine's Monhegan Island. He had been encouraged to do so by two of his paintings being shown in the Carnegie International Exhibition of that year.
After brief study in Paris at the Academie Julian and with Jean Paul Laurens, Singer, his wife Anna Brugh and Borgord, who had traveled to France together, went to Holland to the small artist's colony in Laren known as the Dutch Barbizon. Just as dissatisfaction with the French educational emphasis on the figure over landscape had led him to leave Paris for Laren, so the flatness of the Dutch landscape eventually led Singer to the crucial discovery of his life in terms of a subject matter proper to his artistic inspiration.
Martin Borgord suggested they go to Norway. That did it. Singer was enthralled by the majesty of the fjords and massive mountain landscape, expressing their solitude and grandeur through the vibrant color and energetic brushwork of his Impressionist styleand an artist's soul completely fulfilled by, and in tune with, his surroundings.
He would build a mansion on the West Coast in Olden. In return for his generosity to them, the villagers of Olden helped the Singers against the intrusion of the Nazis until the artist died of a heart attack in 1943, two years before the War's end.
William Henry Singer, Jr. was a member of the Allied Artists of America, American Art Association, National Academy of Design, Pittsburgh Art Society and St. Lucas Art Association. His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum; Delgado Museum, New Orleans; Gemeente Museum, The Hague; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Musee du Luxembourg, Paris; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Royal Museum, Antwerp. Belgium; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
Source:
David Michael Zellman, "300 Years of American Art"
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art"