Oil

Landscape

2023.60

Ullmann, Nancy

Donation, unconditional

including frame

32 in

36 in

Very Good

Cleaned by Miller Fenwood in January 2024

Carl Hoerman 1885 - 1955 Singing Sands undated | oil on canvas “Carl Hoerman is no copybook artist. He works hard, and waits patiently for just the right combination of sun and twilight shadow on sand, dwarfed by wind-twisted trees and dune grass, and then translates it all into the pictures that have made him famous. ... After the picture is safely on canvas he comes sliding down the steepest dune near Goshorn lake, a red scarf floating rakishly behind him in the wind.” — “Dune Painter Revels in Artistic Settings Offered at Saugatuck” The Grand Rapids Press, August 22, 1939 Collection: Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Gift of: Nancy Ullmann Accession: 2023.60.01

From "Collecting the Lakeshore" 2025-2026 at the History Center main floor gallery Carl Hoerman 1885-1955 Singing Sands circa 1940 | oil on canvas The “dunescape” is arguably the most popular subject by Saugatuck’s best known artist of the mid-twentieth century. German emigre painter, printmaker, and architect Carl Hoerman set up a home and studio in Saugatuck beginning in 1920. He and his wife Chrstiana Hoerman created art and operated the Chalet Studio on Pleasant Street where they sold paintings inspired by Michigan dunes and by the desert of California where they spent their winter months. This oil painting demonstrates Hoerman’s masterful handling of color to depict the otherworldly dunes with a blend of naturalism and expressionism. The center of the composition is dominated by the purple tones of a shadow on a dune face. In the distance, Lake Michigan is lit by a setting sun concealed by clouds. This painting came to the History Center thanks to the generosity of the Ullmann family who cared for this artwork for three generations. Gift of Nancy Ullmann Accession 2023.60.01