Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Pirates’ Cove Oil on mahogany panel, 19.7 x 42.8 in. (50.2 x 108.7 cm.) New York Private Collection

This dramatic scene, called The Pirates’ Cove (Fig. 1), is highly exemplary of Albert Pinkham Ryder’s particular style of high romanticism. It is a tempestuous seaside nocturne, illuminated by a crack of lightning. In the bottom right foreground, six figures are gathered around a small boat as dark green waves churn and whip against the rocky shoreline.

Born in 1847 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Ryder’s paintings were characterized by haunting, moonlit seascapes; moody and mysterious forests and fields, occasionally populated by a lone ship, or a figure on horseback (Figs. 2–4). His work is dreamlike, ethereal, but not sentimental. On the artist’s particular fascination with the sea, the prominent Ryder scholar Lloyd Goodrich writes:

“The sea, which had played such a part in Ryder’s early years, haunted him all his life— its vastness and loneliness, the rhythmic flow of its waters, the majesty of its storms, its profound peace. His frequent image of a lone boat sailing moonlit seas might be a symbol of man’s lonely journey through infinity and eternity. In these little marines is concentrated the essence of the sea as it lives in the mind of man.”1

The Pirates’ Cove is an unusually large painting for Ryder—his works are more generally about the size of a piece of notebook paper.2 Often impoverished and lacking for formal art supplies, Ryder frequently requisitioned pieces of furniture or household linens on which to paint.3 In the case of The Pirates’ Cove, the artist’s mahogany table is the substrate.

Little is known of Ryder’s painting technique, though it is believed that he primarily painted alla prima.4 He also used unconventional substances in his paintings, such as alcohol and candle grease—methods that may have lent his paintings depth and brilliance at the time, but which have almost certainly contributed to the premature deterioration and darkening in the subsequent decades.5 It is also known that Ryder suffered from a degenerative eye disease that made direct sunlight unbearable. It is generally accepted that this condition is what predisposed Ryder to nocturnal subjects in his painting.6

Though Ryder is often thought to have been a recluse when it comes to his work and his influences— informed neither by his American nor his European peers and contemporaries7—it is easy to suppose Ryder was influenced by the pastoral landscapes, if not the naturalism, of his earlier American counterparts in the Hudson River School, such as Thomas Cole and Frederick Church. It is also easy to suppose that, at least thematically, he drew inspiration from romantic forebears like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner (Figs. 5-7). Indeed, though something of a stylistic orphan in his own time, Ryder is a bridge from the European romantic painters of the 19th century to 20th century modernist and post-modernist artists. Consider, for example, Ryder’s influence in surrealist landscapes of Paul Nash or the dark forests and seascapes of early (and more recent) Anselm Kiefer (Figs. 8–10).

This painting was exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, as part of the collection of Mr. Ralph Cudney, a prominent Chicago art collector who had in his possession over half a dozen other Ryder

1 L. Goodrich. Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1961, pp.12. 2 W. Bliss. Alone with everybody: A critical evaluation of the pioneer American Romantic painter Albert Pinkham Ryder. The University of Montana, 2003, pp. 4. 3 W. Bliss, pp. 45. 4 W. Bliss, pp. 41. 5 L. Goodrich, pp. 13. 6 W. Bliss, pp. 3. 7 N. Roberts, ed. The American Collections, Columbus Museum of Art, 1988, pp. 20. works, as well as works by other prominent American artists such as Ralph Blakelock and Alfred Bierstadt. The painting also appears in Frederic Newlin Price’s 1932 survey of the Artist’s work, Ryder: A Study of Appreciation, which is the nearest thing in existence to a Catalogue Raisonné on the work of Albert Pinkham Ryder.

Research: M.S.

Fig. 1

Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Pirates’ Cove Oil on Panel 19.7 x 42.8 in. (50.3 x 108.7 cm.) New York Private Collection

Fig. 2

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Boat at Sea Oil on canvas 11.4 x 17.3 in. (29 x 44 cm.) Private Collection

Fig. 3

Albert Pinkham Ryder, Constance Oil on canvas, c. 1896 28 x 35.5 in. (71.1 x 90.2 cm.) Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA

Fig. 4

Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Old Mill by Moonlight Oil on canvas, c. 1885 8.1 x 11.3 in. (20.6 x 28.6 cm.) Private Collection

Fig. 5

Caspar David Friedrich, The Chasseur in the Forest Oil on Canvas, 1814 26 x 18.5 in. (66 x 47 cm.) Private Collection

Fig. 6

Caspar David Friedrich, The Abbey in the Oakwood Oil on canvas, 1808–10 43.5 x 67.3 in. (110.4 x 171 cm.) Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Fig. 7

J.M.W. Turner, A Ship against the Mewstone, at the Entrance to Plymouth Sound Oil on canvas, c. 1814 6.1 x 9.3 in. (15.6 x 23.7 cm.) National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Fig. 8

Paul Nash, Winter Sea Oil on canvas, c. 1925–1937 28 x 38 in. (71 x 96.5 cm.) York Art Gallery, York, UK

Fig. 9

Anselm Kiefer, Wald Watercolor on paper, 1973–74 7 x 9.5 in. (17 x 24 cm.) Hall Collection, Reading, VT

Fig. 10

Anselm Kiefer, In the Beginning Oil, acrylic, and emulsion on canvas with polyhedron, 2003 74.8 x 90.6 in. (190 x 230 cm.)