Ogden Pleissner

“The mood of the picture, that is the most important.” [1]
– Ogden Pleissner

Ogden Minton Pleissner was a twentieth century American artist known both for his fishing and hunting themed sporting pictures as well as his landscapes. The artist captured scenes across America, Europe, and Bermuda for fifty-seven years. At 27 Pleissner’s painting Backyards, Brooklyn was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Donovan 1995, 155) making him the youngest artist in their collection at the time. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Pleissner was raised in an artistically encouraging family. As a teenager, he spent his summers attending a camp in Dubois, Wyoming where he developed an appreciation for nature and the outdoors. He spent much of this time there engaged in outdoor sports such as fishing, but also set aside time for sketching many of the iconic images of the American West, including its landscapes, animals, Native Americans, and cowboys. Pleissner’s love of nature and various sporting activities remained a constant presence in the paintings he produced throughout his artistic career.

Shortly after graduating from the Brooklyn Friends School, Pleissner attended the Art Students League of New York for four years. While attending a summer drawing class in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia with Frank DuMond, an instructor of painting at the Art Students League, Pleissner met his future wife Mary Harrison Corbett. During this trip Pleissner was also introduced to Atlantic salmon fishing, a sport that he and DuMond often engaged in. Mary shared Pleissner’s love of the outdoors and accompanied him on several summer trips to Dubois, Wyoming where the couple stayed and worked on the C-M Ranch, run and operated by close friend Charlie Moore. Pleissner produced several landscape paintings of Wyoming throughout the 1930s and 40s. 

Newly married, Pleissner struggled to find work after graduating from the Art Students League. Despite the financial constraints of the Great Depression combined with multiple rejections he received for illustrations he submitted to various publications, Pleissner still managed to gain critical national acclaim throughout the 1930s. After soliciting various New York galleries, Harlow MacDonald arranged to show one of Pleissner’s paintings in his Fifth Avenue gallery. The painting sold the next day, and he continued to sell paintings through the gallery. The success at the MacDonald Gallery led to his first solo show at MacBeth Gallery in 1930. During this time, Pleissner also taught at Pratt Institute where he stayed until 1934. He continued to be represented by the Macbeth Gallery throughout the 1940s and 50s, alongside Andrew Wyeth. [2] 

Pleissner prided himself as being an artist who never painted according to an exact formula. [3] Aside from the foundation he received from the Art Students League of NY, much of what he learned about painting resulted from his travels throughout the United States and Europe, where he spent much of his time painting landscapes simply for the joy of it. This approach is evident in the finished paintings, as they all lend the viewer a sort of “reflective pleasure,” regardless of the subject matter. [4] The inclusion of small details rendered through expressive yet precise brushstrokes, lend a sort of depth that welcomes pleasurable contemplation from observers. His paintings are approachable and frequently regarded as soothing and inviting. Pleissner’s ability to capture a unique, fleeting moment in time is always present. Sometimes it is seen in the subtle tug of the fishing line just before a fisherman catches a fish, or in a scatter of dry brush strokes that create shadows on the exterior of a New York apartment at a precise hour on a summer afternoon. This attention to detail speaks earnestly of Pleissner’s infectious love for nature, particularly within the rural and urban landscapes of twentieth century America.