Items Similar to Chimeras, mid-century figural abstract blue acrylic painting
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8
Clarence Holbrook CarterChimeras, mid-century figural abstract blue acrylic painting1974
1974
About the Item
Chimeras, 1974
Acrylic and pastel on textured paper
Mid-century figural abstract blue acrylic painting
Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of national artistic success that was nearly unprecedented among Cleveland School artists of his day, with representation by major New York dealers, scores of awards and solo exhibits, and streams of praise flowing from pens of the top art critics. Over the course of his 60+ year career Carter evolved from an exceptionally fine American Scene painter capable of evoking deep reservoirs of mood, into an abstractionist with a strongly surrealist bent.
- Creator:Clarence Holbrook Carter (1904-2000, American)
- Creation Year:1974
- Dimensions:Height: 25 in (63.5 cm)Width: 20 in (50.8 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Beachwood, OH
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU176829628302
Clarence Holbrook Carter
Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of national artistic success that was nearly unprecedented among Cleveland School artists of his day, with representation by major New York dealers, scores of awards and solo exhibits, and streams of praise flowing from pens of the top art critics. Over the course of his 60+ year career Carter evolved from an exceptionally fine American Scene painter capable of evoking deep reservoirs of mood, into an abstractionist with a strongly surrealist bent. While his two bodies of work seem at first to be worlds apart, owing to their different formal vocabularies, they, in fact, explore virtually the same subject: the nexus between life and death and the transition from earth to spirit. The early work finds its expressive power through specific people, events, and landscapes—most of which are drawn from his experiences growing up in the river town of Portsmouth, Ohio—while the later work from the 1960s on evokes potent states of being through pure flat shape, color and form that read as universals. As his primary form he adopted the ovoid or egg shape, endowing it with varying degrees of transparency. Alone or in multiples, the egg moves through Carter’s landscapes and architectural settings like a sentient spirit on a restless quest. Born and raised in southern Ohio along the banks of the mercurial Ohio River and its treacherous floods, Carter developed a love of drawing as a child, and was encouraged by both his parents. He was self-directed, found inspiration all around him, and was strongly encouraged by the fact that his teenage work consistently captured art prizes in county and state fairs. Carter studied at the Cleveland School of Art from 1923-27, where he trained under painters Henry Keller, Frank Wilcox and Paul Travis. Returning to Cleveland in 1929, Carter had his first solo show, and through Milliken taught studio classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1930-37. In 1938, he moved to Pittsburgh to teach at the Carnegie Institute of Technology until 1944. Carter’s American Scene paintings of the ’30s and ’40s, which launched his artistic star, are the works for which the artist remains best known. During and immediately after World War II, Clarence Carter realized his attraction to bold pattern, dramatic perspective and eye-catching hard-edged design was a poor fit with the prevailing style of Abstract Expressionism. Fortunately, these same hallmarks of his style were prized within the realm of commercial art. Around 1964 Carter acknowledged a need to break from the confines of representational painting. Once Carter had found a potent symbol in the egg, he used it to create an astounding body of imagery for the rest of his life. Among the most ambitious of all his later paintings were his Transections, a theological term meaning to cross, specifically between life and death.
About the Seller
No Reviews Yet
Vetted Seller
These experienced sellers undergo a comprehensive evaluation by our team of in-house experts.
Established in 1975
1stDibs seller since 2022
9 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 2 hours
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Beachwood, OH
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 14 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Entr'acte - Mid-Century Ovoids in Theatre - Geometrical Abstract PastelBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Entr'acte, 1977 Pastel on board Signed and dated lower right 8 x 10 inches A surrealist mid-century figural abstract painting. Clare...Category
1970s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsPastel
- Torso No. 3, Mid-Century Figural Abstract Acrylic Painting, Ohio artistBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Torso No. 3, 1967 Acrylic on paper Signed and dated lower right 13 x 9 inches 21 x 17 inches A mid-century figural abstract painting. Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of national artistic success that was nearly unprecedented among Cleveland School artists of his day, with representation by major New York dealers...Category
1960s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- Vetriculus Egg, Surrealist Ovoid acrylic and collage painting, Figural AbstractBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Vetriculus Egg, 1965 Acrylic and collage on textured paper Signed and dated lower right 30 x 22 inches A surrealist mid-century figura...Category
1960s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- Vetriculus, Surrealist Ovoid acrylic painting, Figural Abstract work on paperBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Vetriculus, c. 1970s Acrylic on paper 4.5 x 3.5 inches 11 x 10 inches, framed A surrealist mid-century figural abstract painting. Cl...Category
1970s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- The Mayor, Mid-Century Ovoid Figural Abstract Acrylic & Collage with EyeBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) The Mayor, 1979 Acrylic and collage on scintilla Signed lower right 30 x 22 inches A surrealist mid-century figural abstract painting....Category
1970s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- Pinnacle, Surrealist Ovoid acrylic painting, Blue & Red Figural Abstract CollageBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Beachwood, OHClarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Pinnacle, c. 1960s Acrylic and collage on scintilla 22 x 8 inches 23.25 x 9 inches, framed A surrealist mid-century figural abstract p...Category
1960s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
You May Also Like
- Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy (Grammy, Album Art, Iconic, Rock and Roll)By Kerry SmithLocated in Kansas City, MOKerry Smith Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy Mixed Media on Crescent board Year: 2018 Size: 21x20in Signed, dated by hand COA provided Ref.: 924802-1632 --------------------------...Category
2010s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsMixed Media, Acrylic, Gouache, Board
- Untitled Figurative Abstract PaintingBy Brendan McKeonLocated in Houston, TXUntitled red figurative abstract painting with various nude figures holding various objects by Portland, Oregon artist Brendan McKeon. The canvas is not currently framed.Category
Late 20th Century American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic
- Johnny Hodges - The Big Sound (Grammy, Album Art, Iconic, Rock and Roll, Pop)By Kerry SmithLocated in Kansas City, MOKerry Smith Johnny Hodges - The Big Sound Mixed Media on Crescent board Year: 2016 Size: 21x20in Signed, dated by hand COA provided Ref.: 91-0194 ----------------------------------...Category
2010s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsMixed Media, Acrylic, Gouache, Board
- R.E.M. - Murmur (Grammy, Album Art, Iconic, Rock and Roll, Pop, Legendary)By Kerry SmithLocated in Kansas City, MOKerry Smith R.E.M. - Murmur Mixed Media on Crescent board Year: 2022 Size: 21x20in Signed, dated by hand COA provided Ref.: 924802-1633 --------------------------------------- "Of...Category
2010s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic, Gouache, Board, Mixed Media
- Golfer Swinging, Vintage 7 Up Ad "Get Real Action" in Green and Yellow - GolfBy Bob PeakLocated in Miami, FLThis strobe-like dynamic composition with bright and bold colors reflects the energetic taste of the 7 Up brand. It lies somewhere between abstraction and figuration. Peaks' use of b...Category
1960s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic, Illustration Board
- Large Richard Merkin Painting Harlem Jazz Club, New Yorker Magazine Cover ArtistBy Richard MerkinLocated in Surfside, FLRichard Marshall Merkin (American, 1938-2009) Gladys and Half-Pint Hand signed 'Merkin' (center right), Titled, inscribed, dated, and initialed 'GLADYS BENTLEY AND FRANKIE 'HALF-PINT' JAXON 1997/R.M.' verso. Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 72 in. (95.3 x 182.9 cm) framed 39 1/4 x 74 x 2 in. Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tailcoat and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She tried to continue her musical career but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era she started wearing dresses and married, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, born Frank Devera Jackson was an African American vaudeville singer, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, orphaned, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with medicine shows in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a female impersonator, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, often with such performers as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, whose staging he helped design. He served slightly less than a year in the United States Army in 1918–1919 and rose to the rank of sergeant. In the late 1920s he sang with top jazz bands when they passed through Chicago, working with Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard and others. He performed and recorded with the pianists Cow Cow Davenport, Tampa Red and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, recording with the latter pair under the name of The Black Hillbillies. He also recorded with the Harlem Hamfats. In the 1930s, he was often on radio in the Chicago area, and led his own band, titled Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and His Quarts of Joy. Jaxon appeared with Duke Ellington in a film short titled Black and Tan (1929), and with Bessie Smith in "St. Louis Blues" (1929). Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" (1931) is based both musically and lyrically on Jaxon's "Willie the Weeper" (1927). Richard Merkin, Sometimes described as Rhode Island’s most famous New York artist, Richard Merkin has led a dual life for nearly 40 years - teaching at RISD while enjoying a celebrated painting career based in New York City. He has exhibited in countless gallery and museum shows in the US and abroad and is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the RISD museum and many others. In addition to contributing drawings and paintings to The New Yorker (along with, Art Spiegelman, Saul Steinberg, Harper’s, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and several books on Erotica and Baseball, he is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a former style columnist for GQ. Merkin’s honors include a Tiffany Foundation Fellowship and the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Museums and Selected Collections : The American Federation of Arts, New York, NY Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA First city Bank, Chicago, Ill Fisk University Art Gallery, Nashville, TN Hallmark Collections, Kansas City, MO Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Maimi-Dade Junior College, Miami, FL Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Minnesota Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Pennsylvania Acadamy of the Arts, Philadelphia PA Prudential Insurance Company, Boston, Ma Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Sara Robey Foundation, New York, NY Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC State University of Brockport, Brockport, NY Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Selected Publications : 1986-Present Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair ..1988-Present, New Yorker... 1988-Present, style column, GQ...1997, Text and Illustration for The Tijuana Bibles, published by Simon & Shuster, 1995, Illustrated book, Leagues Apart: the Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues published by Morrow. 1967 Cover of the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” Album (Mr. Merkin appears in the back row, right of center) RISD: MFA in Painting, 1963; Professor, Department of Painting special skill: Merging his role as flaneur (connoisseur of city life) with his role as painter and social historian, Merkin retrieves lost cultural artifacts – a Turkish cigarette, a gangster, a bowler and generally “things most people don’t know about” – and reconstitutes their Jazz Age virtues on canvas in cubist, comic-laced landscapes of tropical color. (ala Robert Crumb and Ben Katchor) breaking in: Perpetually on the fly from his middle-class Brooklyn background, Merkin found the perfect escape in the mid ‘60s in George Frazier, a dapper Boston columnist who inspired the emerging New York painter’s overnight reinvention of himself. The elements of structure, stability and surprise he admired in this well-dressed dandy – a cool linen suit, a splash of suspender, a polka dot scarf and pearl-handled walking stick – soon surfaced in paintings peopled by impeccable underdogs of café society along with his personal pop heroes: William Burroughs, Bobby Short and Krazy Kat...Category
1990s American Modern Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil Pastel, Oil
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Blue Mid Century Art
Blue Midcentury Art
Mid Century Figure
Midcentury Dealer
Mid Century Modern Painting Black
Midcentury Pastel
Blue Painting Mid Century Modern
Mid Century Modern Figural Painting
Fine Art Carter
Vintage Scores
Figurative Surrealist Mid Century
By Clarence Carter
Smile Charm
Sebastian Oil Painting
Blue Nile
2002 Mens Fashion
Amsterdam Cafe
Carol We