Dora Masters

'Village in Tuscany', California Modernist woman artist, SFAA

Circa 1965

Painted by Dora Masters (American, 1913-2003) circa 1960. Stamped verso with certification of authenticity. Acquired from the artist's son. Dora Masters exhibited widely and with su...

Signed lower right 'S. Aron' (French, 20th century) and dated 1970; additionally signed, verso, on canvas with old label verso. Provenance: Los Robles Gallery, Palo Alto, California.

If you are interested in African American Art and in Women in the Arts, I will certainly not need to introduce Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1988). Often associated with the Harlem Renaissance, her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. I am proud to present an original watercolour painting by the artist which dates from the late 1940s or early 1950s. Jones was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a father who became the first African-American to earn a law degree from Suffolk Law School. Jones's parents encouraged her to draw and paint using watercolors during her childhood. She held her first solo exhibition at the age of seventeen in Martha's Vineyard. He career began in the 1930s and she continued to produce art work until her death in 1998 at the age of 92. Her style shifted and evolved multiple times in response to influences in her life, especially her extensive travels. She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists". Her work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry. In 1937, Jones received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Académie Julian, bringing her to France for the first time. The French were appreciative of her paintings and talent and Loïs Mailou Jones was thrilled at the country’s racial tolerance, so different from her reality in the United States. She summered in France annually from 1945 to 1953, sharing studio with her lifelong friend Celine Marie Tabary in Cabris, France. It was during one of these sojourns that the lovely work presented here was created. Our painting depicts the village of Tourettes sur Loup, just north of Nice, in the Provence Cote d'Azur region, about 14 miles from Cabris. Please note its similarities with her painting "Arreau, Hautes-Pyrénées" in the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her portrayal of the picturesque village nestled in a valley evokes landscape paintings by Paul Cézanne, a stylistic influence she acknowledged. Over the course of the following 10 years, Jones exhibited at the Phillips Collection, Seattle Art Museum, National Academy of Design, the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Pennsylvania's Lincoln University, Howard University, galleries in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1952, the book Loïs Mailou Jones: Peintures 1937–1951 was published, reproducing more than one hundred of her art pieces completed in France.At the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Jones exhibited with a group of prominent black artists, such as Jacob Lawrence and Alma Thomas. These artists and others were known as the "Little Paris...

Town is a beautiful original painting (China ink and watercolor) on paper, realized in 1959 by the Italian artist Enrico Paolucci. Signed and dated in pencil on lower right margin. A joyful urban landscape realized with a naif style, the typical Paolucci's style, and a very rapid watercolored painting. In excellent condition, except for minor defect on the edges. Enrico Paulucci born Paolucci Delle Roncole (Genoa, 1901 - Turin, 1999) The Italian painter, Enrico Paulucci is remembered as a member of the Group of Six of Turin. In the years 1927-1928 he began to attend the most famous painters of the Turin area and became friends with Felice Casorati, and then with Lionello Venturi and Edoardo Persico. In 1928 he moved to Paris, where he deepened his knowledge of French painting, from Impressionism onwards, and became interested in the work of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque. In 1929 he returned to Turin, where he joined his friends Gigi Chessa, Carlo Levi, Nicola Galante, Francesco Menzio...