Joseph Tomanek Art

To me, this superb antique painting has the allure of a Maxfield Parrish, without the high six-figure pricetag. Indeed, Tomanek was highly trained and accomplished, and his work is in museum collections; he actually won the Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1938. Here we see three nudes at seaside, two chatting perched on a rock and a third kneeling on the shore. (I have photographed it in both outdoor and indoor studio lighting.) The sun is giving off a subtle peach-colored haze that reflects on the gentle waves. Beautiful evocation of light on the water. Clearly signed. Comes in an antique gold plein-air frame, in good shape. Painting itself measures 18" x 21", framed size 24" x 27". Proudly presented by Guy Lyman Fine Art, New Orleans, with our firm guarantee of satisfaction. Biographical Information From AskArt (with source attribution at the end): Joseph Tomanek, a painter active mainly in Indiana and Illinois, was born on a farm in Straznice, Czechoslovakia (in Southeastern Moravia) on April 16, 1889 and died in 1974. An old biography in The Palette and Chisel (June 1929) tells of Joseph carving his own violin out of pine wood, and he demonstrated some talent in music. First he studied the rudiments of art at the School of Design in Prague, then emigrated to America, partly to escape three years of military service, and arrived in Chicago in 1910. His actual profession was interior designer but he took more art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago under a compatriot, Antonin Sterba (1875-1963), who had been trained in the Paris academies. Albert Krehbiel and Karl Buehr were Tomanek's other teachers at the AIC. Between 1919 and 1931, Tomanek exhibited works at the Art Institute, including Cornfield, Bohemian Costume Study, Gypsy and From My Studio Window (Vanderpoel Art Association, Chicago). Tomanek wrote about the difficulties he had when posing nude models in Chicago: "In Paris you can rent little garden studios and pose your models there in privacy. Here, if I work out of doors, I have to pose the girls in bathing suits...