Emile Albert Gruppe

Emile Albert Gruppé’s vivid Post-Impressionist-style paintings capture pastoral landscapes and harbors of the American northeast. Though his landscapes span seasons, Gruppé had an eye and affinity for the colder ones, focusing on New England’s colorful autumns and harsh winters. First Snow Vermont, a bright, wintry landscape depicting barren trees in a snowy forest, sold for $31,250 at auction in 2014. Born in Rochester, New York, Gruppé learned to paint from his father, the artist and art dealer Charles P. Gruppé, while living in the Netherlands as a child. He returned to the U.S. at the onset of World War I but continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière after the war. Gruppé eventually settled in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where he lived and worked until his death in 1978. He was a central figure among the Cape Ann School of painting, and he founded the Gloucester School of Painting, which ran until 1970. His work is in the collection of the Cape Ann Museum.