Alexander Hellier Berens- BRENT GEESE [Oil on Canvas]

Painting. Illus. by Alexander Hellier Berens. Fine. Framed. Signed by THE ARTIST. Original. Oil on canvas image of Brent Geese paddling on the water's edge with a ship wreck in the background. 73cm by 54.5cm. Ornate gilt frame in very good condition with a few areas of loss as seen on the images provided. The canvas is in very good order and the glaze bright and without damage or notable aging. A superb example of this gifted artist's work, a revolutionary style at that time in the late 19th c. rarely found on today's auction scene. Beren's birds show great character and in many ways his style has similarities with that of Frank Southgate, a well-respected and collected contemporary. Provenance - From the collection of the late Sir Georg Solti, conductor and compose. [Alexander Hellier Berens (1865-1959). Born in 1865, educated at Eton, he trained as an artist, sculptor and leatherworker in France and Belgium before travelling throughout Africa (with the explorer and academic, Sir Richard Burton) and the Far East, supporting himself by working as a cowboy, ship's steward and private detective, as well as through his artwork. In 1893 he married and went to live in Morocco, but his first wife died three years later. He married again in 1898 and he and his wife moved back to the UK, Studland and bought the freehold on a cottage and named it the Full Stop and set about renovating it with Moorish flourishes and set up their arts and craft business, Studland Art Industries. Several examples can be seen at the V&A Museum. True to its name, he stayed there until his death in 1959. He exhibited at the Royal Academy 1888.[(226) The Moonlighters ref. Graves. A. The Royal Academy of Arts]. This an evocative piece very similar to the Moonlighters. [Often misidentified at auction as Johan Berens, the Dutch artist] 0.