Still Life with Watermelon, Fruit and Basket
Oil on Canvas
Signed LL “A.C. Wooster ’97” ( Austin C. Wooster, American 1838 – 1913)
Thornburg, Pennsylvania
1897
H: 25.5”; W: 31.5” Overall – In a period frame.
A lovely and detailed still life with a basket of grapes, peaches and pears and a watermelon with a wedge removed.
A number of Wooster’s paintings were included in the Westmoreland Museum of Art’s South Western Pennsylvania Painters 1800-1945 and Penn’s Promise exhibitions and catalogues in 1981 and 1988 respectively. . According to the exhibition curators, little is known of Wooster’s life beyond the fact that he was born in the Chartiers Valley near Pittsburgh and served in the Union Army during the Civil War. Early in his career he painted landscapes and may have studied for a time with Albert F. King.
