Not Yet Titled, 2007 (oil on panel)

Jules de Balincourt’s monumental painting Not Yet Titled continues a tradition of portraying dramatic landscapes that characterized the Hudson River School of painters. Unlike his predecessors, whose elaborate studio canvases drew on specific details of actual sites, here de Balincourt favors a generic touristic landscape with a steep waterfall that empties into a body of water ringed by palm trees. Tiny figures in boats enhance the atmosphere of leisure-time pleasure, which is set against the forces of nature. Utilizing a flat, painterly, almost intentionally naïve technique of painting, de Balincourt can be regarded as part of a general revival of painting that began to occur in the early twenty-first century. The acquisition of Not Yet Titled will initiate an intriguing dialogue between contemporary practice and the distinguished nineteenth-century American landscape paintings in the collection. Born in France and educated in the United States, de Balincourt is based in Brooklyn.