Edward Alfred Cucuel

Born in San Francisco, Edward Alfred Cucuel (1875-1954) was an Impressionist painter of genre and figures in landscapes, often using his family members for models rather than professionals. A specialty was using a vibrant palette and rich impasto to depict women in sun-dappled landscape settings.

At the young age of 14 Edward Alfred Cucuel already worked as an illustrator for The Examiner. He attended the Academy of Art in San Francisco and then studied at the Académie Julian, the Académie Colarossi and the Académie des Beaux-Arts under Jean-Léon Gérôme in Paris. From 1896 onwards Cucuel worked as a newspaper illustrator in New York and later traveled to Europe to study the Old Masters.
In Munich, he joined the artist group ‘Die Scholle’ and was particularly influenced by one of its members, Leo Putz, and his plein air works. During the First World War Cucuel had settled in Bavaria where he painted his famous and popular ‘Row Boat’ paintings with young ladies. The American Edward Cucuel (1875-1954) and the Tyrolean Leo Putz (1869-1940) must have been in ecstasy when they painted outdoors together in Bavaria over several summers in the early 20th Century. In the environs of a secluded lake, Putz was a mentor to the younger painter as they practiced their juicy, impasto brushwork on cheerful paintings of healthy young women dressed in paint-friendly summer whites or dressed not at all. They posed their models in rowboats or just lolling around on the shore or in the surrounding forest. In 1939 he returned to the U.S. and settled in California. 

Edward Alfred Cucuel is primarily known for his nudes and portraits of women in the manner of the French Impressionists. A painter of young beauties, Cucuel’s glamorous portraits of women on the lakefront, dock or boat signify the beginnings of modern art.