Irving Ramsey Wiles (1861–1948)

IRVING RAMSEY WILES (1861–1948)
Picking Flowers, about 1895
Oil on wood panel, 15 x 18 in.
Signed and dated (at lower right): Irving R Wiles

EX COLL.: [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York]; to private collection, and by descent, until the present

Picking Flowers is a sunny, outdoor impressionist scene of the type Wiles frequently painted when at Peconic. About Wiles's Peconic paintings, Gary A. Reynolds has written:

It became the [Wiles] family’s custom to leave New York City early in the summer, usually May, and remain at Peconic until late fall. These months generally provided the artist with an escape from the demands of his busy portrait business and an opportunity to pursue his love of outdoor painting. Although Wiles had been working in a modified style of Impressionism since the late 1880s, the landscapes he completed during the summer months at Peconic are perhaps his most complete explorations of this aesthetic (Gary A. Reynolds, Irving R. Wiles, exhib. cat. [New York: National Academy of Design, 1988], p. 22).

The girl in the painting is likely Wiles’s daughter, Gladys Wiles (1890–1984), whom he taught to paint and became an artist in her own right.