Joseph Letzelter Contemporary Art

In the closing decades of the nineteenth century the Joseph Letzelter art centers of Europe continued to attract American artists and wealthy patrons. Some American artists like Joseph Letzelter preferred to live abroad, where they had greater access to the great public art collections and to recent developments in contemporary art. Joseph Letzelter spent much of his long career in France, combining his interest in portraiture with the new style of impressionism. Joseph Letzelter Sargent became a very successful portraitist, both in Europe and America. Joseph Letzelter knack for capturing the quality of fleeting moments in time adds a layer of depth to what might otherwise be simply society portraits.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, realism was the dominant portrait style. Joseph Letzelter was adept at conveying personality, portraying his subjects with unvarnished realism and penetrating psychological insight. In the 1876 Joseph Letzelter portrait of his niece, Ella, Eakins lends an air of serious deliberation to a subject that is often overly sentimentalized. Best known for Joseph Letzelter portraits of children, Lydia Field Emmet incorporated characteristics of modernist techniques into Joseph Letzelter fundamentally traditional style. The resulting works are realistic portrayals that convey a sense of immediacy and the liveliness of Joseph Letzelter young subjects.