Impressionist oil on Panel signed by the artist Adolphe Keller (1880-1968). The painting is mounted in a stunning painted frame and cream slip. It shows a view of an Estuary with a boat in the foreground with a man in a red coat. The painting has a plaque on the front and various tickets on the rear.
Adolphe Keller was born in Brussels in 1880 and as a young boy showed great talent for the arts. He was enrolled at the prestigious Brussels Academy where, under the direction of Pieter-Jan Braecke, he was schooled in oil painting.
The greatest influence on the young artist came from his subsequent teacher at the Academy of Sint-Joost-ten-Node, Henri Ottevaere who instilled within him a love of Impressionism. Upon graduating he settled in the seaside town of Nieuport and established a studio. He was soon gaining a reputation as a painter and was beginning to exhibit his work at many of Belgium’s premier art institutions. Much of his work from this period consisted of landscapes and coastal views although he did also paint the occasional still-life and figurative piece. In 1914, at the outbreak of the First World War, Adolphe Keller moved to southern France, settling in Saint Tropez. He was to reside here until 1946 and it is paintings from this period that are the most common. He rarely matched the intensity of his earlier paintings, these French scenes being rather more thinly painted and slightly more monochromatic. Returning eventually to Belgium he bought a house in the Rouge-Cloitre area of Brussels and started painting mostly wooded scenes, views in the Foret de Soignes. By this time Adolphe Keller had turned his attention to teaching and was made President of the influential Cercle Alfred Bastien.
After his death in 1968, a number of important retrospective exhibitions were mounted including ones in 1974 and 1980 at the Centre Culturel d’Auderghem. Some of Keller's works can be found in a number of public collections including the museums of Ixelles and Auderghem in Belgium.