Albert Lorey Groll
1866-1952
Albert L. Groll’s art career seems to have been driven by ironies. After study in Munich, London and Belgium, he wanted to be a figure painter, but his lack of funds made it impossible to hire models so he turned to landscape, for which he eventually became very well known. Secondly, he became best known as a painter of Western landscapes, but lived an urbane life in New York and was part of the cultural cadre of the major Eastern cities.
In 1904, Groll was first introduced to Arizona during a trip he took with an Indian ethnographer from Brooklyn, Professor Stuart Culin. While Culin was recording Indian games, Groll concentrated on landscape, the vast Western sky, and cloud formations. New Mexico’s Laguna Pueblo Indians so admired his work, they named him Chief Bald-Head Eagle Eye. His Western art subjects were also greatly admired on the East Coast and brought him financial success. A painting he did of the Arizona desert won a gold medal in 1906 awarded by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Because his subjects were so often Arizona landscapes, he is credited with planting in peoples’ minds the aesthetic possibilities of the desert. On numerous extended trips to Arizona, he introduced other artists to the desert, including a few that became more famous that he. Groll was also inspired by time spent in Taos and Santa Fe, NM and in Yellowstone National Park.
Albert Groll’s other creative channel was etching, a perfect medium for recording his impressions in a loose, spontaneous manner. He did numerous etchings of western scenes and people. His work was recognized by his peers when he was invited to join the Taos Society of Artists, the American Watercolor Society, and elected to the National Academy of Design.
“Temples of New Mexico” about 1910
Etching edition of 100 unframed
6 7/8” x 9 ¾” image size
10 ½” x 13 ¼” paper size
$425.00