A Santa Fe Window, 1944
signed lower right Russell Cheney,
titled on stretcher verso and dated,
oil on canvas, 29 x 36 inches
Russell Cheney received an undergraduate degree from Yale University, before going on to study at the Art Students League with William Merritt Chase and Kenyon Cox. In addition, he studied in Paris at the Academie Julian. Summers spent in Maine between 1911 and 1914 introduced him to the Ogunquit Art Colony and the teachings of Charles Woodbury, who would be a major influence on his maturing style. He spent most of his life in New England, living in southern Maine, but because of health issues relating to tuberculosis, spent many winters in the drier climates of southern California and New Mexico. He was the life partner of F. O. Matthiessen, a noted professor and scholar on American Literature at both Harvard and Yale. Cheney made his home in Kittery, Maine, and exhibited widely, both on the east and west coasts, as well as in Santa Fe.