William Henry Buck (American/Louisiana, 1840-1888), Cypress Trees, Louisiana Bayou, oil on canvas, signed lower right, W.E. Seebold Fine Art, New Orleans label en verso, 18 in. x 33 in., artist plaque on frame, in a period ornate giltwood frame. E50000/75000 Note: In the late 1870s and until his untimely death in 1888, William Henry Buck was recognized as Louisiana's leading landscape painter. Born in Norway, Buck settled in Boston and arrived in New Orleans around 1860. For the next twenty years Buck worked in the cotton business, and by 1880 he enjoyed a career exclusively as an artist. Buck's first major painting exhibition was held at W.E. Seebold's Fine Art Gallery in the winter of 1877-1878 and, he subsequently had exhibitions there from 1883 to 1885. The Seebold label, period giltwood frame with artist plaque and the large scale of Cypress Trees, Louisiana Bayou allude to the fact that the painting was exhibited at Seebold's Gallery. In Cypress Trees, Louisiana Bayou, Buck painted the untouched primordial landscape of south Louisiana. In the foreground a solitary alligator rests on the remains of a fallen tree. Nearly Unique of William Buck's paintings, there are no references to man's intrusions on the landscape. This rare painting is not contrived with any cabins, fishermen, boats, train trestles and domesticated animals. This beautifully rendered painting reflects Buck's talent and flair for the painting of Louisiana's singular landscape. Provenance: Alexandria, Louisiana private collection. Ref: Bacot, H. Parrott, Louisiana Art from the Roger Houston Ogden Collection, exhibition catalogue, Anglo- American Art Museum, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1992, p. 27.