John Dull paints Center City and The Philadelphia Masonic Temple

This painting by Dull was one of the first and smallest examples I have found. It is in it's original frame and I having a matching era painting from him of Independance Hall with the same frame which I will eventually post. This painting is unsigned, and its the only unsigned work of his that I have seen. It is clearly his work  with the usual cloud treatment and those same streetlights found in many of his downtown paintings. The Masonic Temple and City Hall can both still be seen from this perspective today! I bought it from a seller who had 3 other of his paintings all signed. Anyone who has any of his paintings can certainly contact me if they would like to share a pic on this blog.

View from the Philadelphia Art Museum down Ben Franklin Parkway

The next post of a famous Philadelphia locale, is John Dull's  "Ben Franklin Parkway" .
Notice City Hall as the only skyscraper in the backround of Center City Phildelphia.

Seeing the Washington Monument Fountain in the foreground, this was painted well before Robert Indiana put up his famous LOVE statue along the parkway. My guess from the cars in the painting is that this was painted in the 1920's.

Here is the First Image

Here is the first John Dull i will post. It is a painting of City Hall and the surrounding buildings in downtown Philadelphia.  Notice all of the people walking. It is an early 20th century painting back when the skyline featured one skyscraper. This is not the first Dull painting I ever collected but it is about the most iconic image of Philadelphia from this time period so I thought it would be a good start.

Paint the Town, John Dull and other early 20th Century Philadelphia Artists

It all started with art class in gradeschool. Although I really didnt have any talent as an artist,  I had been exposed to to some really neat stuff like Monet and Dali and that piqued my interest in fine art.  As I went through college, I would plaster my bedroom walls with the different impressionist, abstract or surreal artists I had been discovering.

What really got me started collecting art was a chance purchase of a personalized Peter Max poster on a popular tv shopping network in the late 1990's. After that, I bought a Wyland signed art book and I thought I was on my way to fine art collecting.

I worked and saved some extra money and bought various artist signed lithographs and the like...always moving from one style to the next, one artist to the next. My collecting was really going nowhere until I decided to research my hometown of Philadelphia.

What I found out was that there was a strong regional artist group in the early to mid 20th century mainly based in the New Hope area of the north eastern Philadelphia suburbs but extending to Philadelphia itself and in fact my city was once a center for art study and learning.  It used to be one of the leading art hubs in the USA.

Somehow I found the artist John J Dull, I believe I saw someone selling about 5 of his watercolors on an online auction and I had to get one.  I came to find out that he was an architect by trade, who also painted Impressionist paintings of the city and its surrounds from the late 1800's up to his death in 1949.  He seems to have been a prolific artist who although was a teacher and building designer by trade, seems to have left (and sold) a vast amount of paintings.  I have found his works not only in the city and surrounding areas but also in New York state and as far away as Texas.

In the coming months I plan to post some of my collection of his and other area works I have found. I also have the hope of having other contributors send me their pics of their own favorite collected works.