Edward Norton Griffith (1858-1948)

Edward Norton Griffith, born in New Jersey in 1858 to a Methodist minister, is renowned for his intricately detailed trompe l’oeil paintings. Griffith moved with his wife to Florida in 1900 where he spent the remainder of his life working intermittently as a carpenter, house painter and artist. In his lifetime, Griffith exhibited and sold many of his paintings at the Society of Independent Artists in New York. The present work, Still Life of Books, Brush, Inkwell and a Pen on a Table of 1902, is exemplary of Griffith’s oeuvre and the trompe l’oeil style executed in large scale. Griffith’s works reveal a strong influence of the celebrated trompe l’oeil master William Henry Harnett, though his approach is distinguished from Harnett’s in the romantic touch with which he paints his realistic scenes. The warm, glowing light in Still Life of Books falls on the opened and tattered books, giving the scene a homey feeling. Depicting an open desk and loose leaflets of paper, Griffith paints a scene from a room that feels lived in, rather than a still life composed in a studio. The religious books and newspaper that reflect the painter’s own religious upbringing are also effective for conveying a sense of unstaged ealism, while pointedly exhibiting the painter's exceptional skill in depicting the minutest of details.

Other works by Griffith are in the collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, and the Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey.