Lot 250a, Auction 4/3/2026: Arthur Knebel Painting “Watering Plants” (1986)

$455.00

In stock

Arthur Knebel (American, 1925-2013). “Watering Plants” oil on canvas, 1986. Signed and dated at lower right. A quiet domestic moment becomes a study in light, balance, and reflection in Arthur Knebel’s “Watering Plants.” A woman leans across a porch rail to tend a hanging basket of pale blossoms, her gesture captured with a musician’s sense of rhythm and pause. The lifted watering can arcs upward, echoing the suspended bowl of flowers above her, while glass bottles arranged along the window ledge refract the scene into softened blues, greens, and warm amber tones. Knebel’s approach to color and composition reveals the disciplined sensitivity that shaped both his music and his visual art. The painting unfolds in layered tonal harmonies, where weathered wood, sunlit railing, and softly blurred foliage resonate like distinct but related voices. The panes and structural lines create a subtle grid, grounding the composition while allowing the more lyrical elements to drift in and out of focus. Size: 24″ W x 32″ H (61 cm x 81.3 cm)

The influence of photography, a medium Knebel explored with technical precision, emerges in the way light moves across the surface. The bottles behave almost as lenses, distorting and clarifying the shapes behind them. The hanging basket, rendered with textured strokes and warm shadows, becomes the painting’s central chord, anchoring the scene with fullness and weight. Even the background structures retreat into a soft atmospheric haze, as though seen through a gently exposed negative.

Created in the year the artist devoted himself fully to painting, “Watering Plants” reflects a mature eye turning toward everyday intimacy with intention. Knebel captures not simply a task but the stillness that gathers around it, the hush of a late afternoon filtered through glass and greenery. The work rests at the threshold between realism and abstraction, where observation gives way to mood and memory, and where the ordinary becomes quietly luminous.

About the artist: Arthur Henry Knebel Jr. was a gifted painter, photographer, and professional violist whose life intertwined the disciplines of sound, color, and light. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1925 to Arthur Henry Knebel and Margie Shafer Knebel, he grew up in a household steeped in the arts. His mother, a lecturer on modern art in the 1940s, and his father, a drafting artist, instilled in him both technical discipline and creative curiosity.

Before devoting himself fully to painting in 1986, Knebel enjoyed a distinguished musical career spanning more than four decades. He performed as a violist with the Cincinnati Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Houston Symphony, and Denver Symphony orchestras, among others. After joining the Denver Musicians Association in 1964, he later taught at Metropolitan State College from 1987 to 1988.

Knebel’s visual art reflects his mid-century sensibilities and a deep engagement with color, light, and design. A perfectionist by nature, he sought balance between realism and abstraction, frequently reworking his canvases to achieve ideal tonal harmony. His paintings often show the influence of photography – an art form he practiced with precision, developing his own prints and manipulating negatives to control the distribution of light. When painting, he sometimes used an orbital sander on the dried surface to refine texture and form.

Arthur’s work was poetic both in mood and method. His subjects were often figurative, imbued with a quiet lyricism that mirrored his musical compositions. His poem “Shadow” encapsulates his introspective spirit:

“My shadow is the prisoner of the sun / Xeroxed days stapled on the wall / Taller than you, smaller than me / The tricks that run this show / Are wound up like a clock / Stretched like a lie / Sent like an errand in search of a meaning / Clenched like a fist at night / My shadow.”

Though deeply private, Knebel exhibited occasionally, including at the Denver Art Museum and the Koelbel Library’s Joan R. Duncan Gallery in Centennial, Colorado, in 2008, where he and his wife, pianist Susan Cowan Knebel, provided live music during the show. Their marriage, beginning the day after Thanksgiving in 1986, united two artists in a lifelong devotion to music and art.

Arthur Knebel passed away in 2013 at the Denver Hospice Care Center. His legacy endures through his paintings, which continue to find new homes through the ongoing efforts of his estate. Donations in his memory support music education for children through the Colorado Youth Symphony, a fitting tribute to a man whose life harmonized artistry in every form.

Condition: Painting is in excellent overall condition. Signed and dated at lower right.

Provenance: private Shawnee, Colorado, USA collection

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