Charles Courtney Curran
A native of Kentucky, Charles Courtney Curran moved to New York City in 1881, where he was active in the art community and established his reputation as a painter of portraits and genre scenes. Curran studied in New York and Paris; he maintained connections with American artists abroad, such as his friend John Singer Sargent. He later helped establish the artist colony at Cragsmoor in Ulster County, New York, and from 1911 to 1913 he contributed art lessons to the magazine Palette and Brush.
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Curran’s subject, the Cluny Museum in Paris, was a popular tourist attraction. Dedicated to the arts of the Middle Ages, the building and garden feature both Roman and Gothic ruins, elements of which appear in this painting. The two women depicted under the shade of a red parasol, perhaps reading guidebooks, are likely participants on the Grand Tour of Europe, a tradition that signaled status and sophistication for wealthy Americans of the period.
Bequest of Constance Coleman Richardson
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