Louis Eilshemius

Louis Eilshemius was a self-defined "man of many talents". He wrote verse and prose, composed music, painted, philosophized and later in life wrote a prolific amount of letters-to-the-editor in various New York City publications. Born in 1864 into privileged social status, he attended prestigious art schools and traveled around Europe, whereupon returning to the family brownstone he lived out of the rest of his life in New York City.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wasn't until the 1930s, when Marcel Duchamp "discovered" Eilshemius, that his luck began to change. The surge in social interest in primitivist art made many Eilshemius pictures a cultural asset, whereas Eilshemius had prior been shunned and mocked by society. However, by the time he began to achieve some financial success, his family fortune had been spent, and he was taken advantage of by art dealers and questionable figures in the underbelly of the art world. He died peniless, alone and insane in an asylum.

Related Topics:
Marcel Duchamp - Primitivist

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

His early style is influenced by the French Impressionists, where he drew and painted landscapes and portraits. However, it is his later visionary works depicting moonlit landscapes populated with volptuous, fantastic nymphs which is most familiar to the public. He found a consistent patron in Roy Neuberger, who later donated a large body of Eilshemius' work to the Neuberger Museum of Art located at SUNY Purchase College in New York State.

Related Topics:
Impressionists - Roy Neuberger - Neuberger Museum of Art

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

There has been some resumed interest in Eilshemius' work, causing a few scattered albeit large-scale retrospective shows to be held in the last decade.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Review of Eilshemius show
• Neuberger Museum of Art