
ABSTRACT female WPA American Abstract Artists drawing non-objective mid century
View Similar Items
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 2
Irene Rice PereiraABSTRACT female WPA American Abstract Artists drawing non-objective mid century1950s
1950s
$5,500List Price
About the Item
- Creator:Irene Rice Pereira (1902-1971, American)
- Creation Year:1950s
- Dimensions:Height: 13 in (33.02 cm)Width: 9 in (22.86 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU115624152882
Irene Rice Pereira
Born Irene Rice, she took the name of her first husband, the commercial artist Umberto Pereira. She adopted the name I. Rice Pereira because then as now discrimination beset women in the arts. By the time war broke out Irene had divorced Pereira and married George Wellington Brown, a marine engineer from a prominent Boston family. Brown was an ingenious experimenter with materials, and he encouraged his petite new wife in their mutual passion for experimentation. Pereira in the 1930s was drawn to ships, not only because of George Brown, but because of their intricate machinery, their functional beauty. The inside-out infrastructure of the Pompidou museum in Paris amused Pereira, although she thought it art-historically tardy. Irene Rice Pereira was a lovely, fragile being. Her presence was hushed. She spoke almost in a whisper and listened far more than she spoke. She was a prodigious autodidact and a spellbinding lecturer. The main body of her metaphysical library today resides in the Museum for Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Her papers and the manuscript for her still unpublished book, Eastward Journey, are available to scholars in the Schlesinger Library at Harvard. Pereira won recognition for her abstract geometric work, particularly her jewel-like works on fluted and coruscated layers of glass, throughout the 1940s and early 1950s. In 1953 the Whitney Museum, then in Greenwich Village, gave her a retrospective exhibition with Loren MacIver, and that same year Life magazine published a centerfold photo examination of her work. By the late 1950s Abstract Expressionism had swept Manhattan, flattening such nascent movements as Geometric Abstraction. Such artists as Stuart Davis, Stanton MacDonald Wright, George L.K. Morris, George Ault, Jan Matulka, Richard Leahy, Philip Guston and many others were eclipsed. Pereira believed that a European angst, brought to our shores in the wake of the Holocaust, had introduced a cynicism and a profoundly anti-female sensibility that boded ill for art in America. Rightly she pointed out that even when the works of women were acquired by museums they were rarely shown, a disgrace that persists to this day. The women who did achieve success, she said, were often collaborators with more famous male artists and tastemakers. Pereira died in 1971 in Marbella, Spain, ill and broken-hearted. She had been evicted from the Fifteenth Street studio in Chelsea where she had painted for more than thirty years. Suffering from severe emphysema, she could barely negotiate a few stairs. But by the 1980s a new generation of women scholars and curators had begun to resurrect her stature. A considerable following has formed to honor a pioneer artist who cared about other artists and willingly paid the price to denounce what others feared in silence. Indeed when Pereira sold a painting she had two immediate impulses: buy a new hat, and give the money to an artist friend in trouble. She loved hats but loved to help fellow artists even more.
About the Seller
5.0
Gold Seller
Premium sellers maintaining a 4.3+ rating and 24-hour response times
Established in 2008
1stDibs seller since 2019
191 sales on 1stDibs
Authenticity Guarantee
In the unlikely event there’s an issue with an item’s authenticity, contact us within 1 year for a full refund. DetailsMoney-Back Guarantee
If your item is not as described, is damaged in transit, or does not arrive, contact us within 7 days for a full refund. Details24-Hour Cancellation
You have a 24-hour grace period in which to reconsider your purchase, with no questions asked.Vetted Professional Sellers
Our world-class sellers must adhere to strict standards for service and quality, maintaining the integrity of our listings.Price-Match Guarantee
If you find that a seller listed the same item for a lower price elsewhere, we’ll match it.Trusted Global Delivery
Our best-in-class carrier network provides specialized shipping options worldwide, including custom delivery.More From This Seller
View AllABSTRACT American Woman Abstract Non-objective Mid 20th Century Modern Drawing
By Irene Rice Pereira
Located in New York, NY
ABSTRACT American Woman Abstract Non-objective Mid 20th Century Modern Drawing
Irene Rice Pereira (1902-1971)
Abstract
8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches
Watercolor, gouache, and ink on black paper
Signed lower right
Framed by Bark
BIO
rene Pereira was born in 1902 in Chelsea, Massachusetts and grew up in Great Barrington. She was strongly influenced by her mother who was an amateur artist. Irene began art lessons at the age of fifteen; she took a secretarial job because her father had died. She took art classes at the Art Students League in New York City. At the age of twenty-one she married the first of three husbands, Humberto Pereira, whose name she kept.
She traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa and was much inspired by the expansive vistas of the Sahara Desert. Returning to New York, she began incorporating these visions into her work, increasingly experimental in her styles and methods. At first she painted on canvas, then she devised a means of actually incorporating light into her works by painting on layers of glass and mounting the layers together.
In 1942 she married George Brown, an engineer, who helped her experiment with a variety of materials. By the 1950s she became more interested in writing poetry and, divorced from Brown in 1952, she married George Reavey, an Irish Poet...
Category
1950s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Watercolor, Gouache
Surreal Abstract Mid 20th Century American Modern Woman Artist Work on Paper
Located in New York, NY
Surreal Abstract Mid 20th Century American Modern Woman Artist Work on Paper
Juanita Guccione (1904 - 1999)
Surreal Abstract
18 x 11 3/4 inches
Watercolor and mixed media on paper
Signed lower left
Framed: 23 x 17 inches
Note. We are currently have listed a 1935 oil by Guccione, and in addition to this abstract drawing, we have several other works on paper, along with a major surrealist oil, none of which are currently listed. Inquiries are invited.
BIO
The following is from Djelloul (Del) Marbrook, son of the artist. Of signatures on paintings by his mother, Juanita first signed as Anita Rice, then as Juanita Rice, Juanita Rice Marbrook, Juanita Marbrook, and finally Juanita Guccione after marrying in the 1940s.
Juanita Guccione's life (June 20, 1904-December 18, 1999) spanned all but four years of the 20th Century. Cubist*, realist, surrealist*, automatist* and abstract strains are all to be found in her work, but by 1970 she was painting works in watercolor and acrylic that no longer included the human figure or the observed world. She was the younger sister of the abstract geometric* artist Irene Rice Pereira. The sisters were born in Chelsea, MA, but spent most of their working lives in Manhattan.
In the early 1930s, Guccione, then painting as Nita Rice, lived for four years among the Ouled Nail...
Category
1940s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor, Gouache, Rag Paper
"Sculpture Model" Abstract American Drawing Modernism Mid 20th Century Cubism
Located in New York, NY
"Sculpture Model" Abstract American Drawing Modernism Mid 20th Century Cubism
Charles Biederman (American, 1906-2004)
Sculpture Model
Ink and gouache on Arches paper
Sight: 18 x 1...
Category
1930s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Gouache
1, 000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds Fair
By Ilya Bolotowsky
Located in New York, NY
1,000 piece Museum Quality Collection of Art & Objects from NYC 1939 Worlds Fair.
Ilya Bolotowsky (1907-1981) "1939 World’s Fair Mural Study for the Hall of Medical Sciences...
Category
1930s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Gouache, Canvas, Plaster, Oil
Abstract Cityscape Mid 20th Century Modern Cubist Work on Paper Drawing Ariel
By Clarence Holbrook Carter
Located in New York, NY
Abstract Cityscape Mid 20th Century Modern Cubist Work on Paper Drawing Ariel
11 x 4 1/2 inches. Framed by Heydenryk.
Provenance: Gary Snyder Fine Art
B...
Category
1950s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper, Gouache
Italian Abstract Work on Paper Color Field Non-Objective European Mid-Century
By Piero Dorazio
Located in New York, NY
Italian Modern Abstract Work on Paper Color Field Non-Objective European Mid-Century - "Gonage"
Dorazio completed "Gonage" in 1949 when just after the artist had been awarded a stipend by the French government and admission to the Academy Beaux Arts. There he met George Braque who became great friends but also an influence on Dorazio, of which "Gonage" is a living testament.
"Gonage" actual size of the drawing measures 12 x 9 1/2 inches. It is signed on the lower right. The work is affixed to a 19 x 15 inch board which includes the artist's signature and date. There is a torn table on the lower left entitling the piece "Gonage".
Provenance follows this piece as a gift in 1950 to the artist-colleague Luigi Lucioni, who then gifted it in 1955 to his friend, the uncle of the current owner who has owned the work since 1988.
Bio
Born in Italy, Piero Dorazio studied architecture in Rome. At the same time his first abstract works were executed. In 1947 he received a scholarship from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he contacted Modern artists, who lived in Paris. He founded the galleries "Age d'Or" in Florence and Rome to represent avant-garde arts in Italy.
During a one year stay in the USA he got acquainted with leading artists of Abstract Expressionism such as Marc Rothko...
Category
1940s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Gouache, Board
You May Also Like
Untitled (Linear Composition in Black Purple and Orange)
By Joan Snyder
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Joan Snyder's early 1970s period is known as the best of her career, now an iconic period of time for feminist abstract painting of the era. This fully finished work on paper reads l...
Category
1970s Abstract Mixed Media
Materials
Acrylic, Gouache, Archival Paper, Graphite
Empath * Communication * Translate * Sharing (One of the Arts)
By Cheryl R. Riley
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Empath * Communication * Translate * Sharing (One of the Arts)
Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page
Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / G...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Gouache, Magazine Paper
Birth (One of the Arts)
By Cheryl R. Riley
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Birth (One of the Arts)
Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page
Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstracti...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Gouache, Magazine Paper, Acrylic
Carnivore
By Cheryl R. Riley
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Carnivore
Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page
Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Minimalism and C...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Gouache, Magazine Paper
Serene * Serenity
By Cheryl R. Riley
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Serene * Serenity
Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page
Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction / Abstract Art / Minimali...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Gouache, Magazine Paper
Accomplish (To Accomplish * Goals & Task)
By Cheryl R. Riley
Located in Jersey City, NJ
Accomplish (To Accomplish * Goals & Task)
Gouache and metallic ink on 1957 Encyclopedia page
Feminist Art and Contemporary Feminist / Geometric Abstraction / Gestural Abstraction /...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Acrylic, Gouache, Magazine Paper
Recently Viewed
View AllRead More
Ludwig Bemelmans Captures the Thrilling Sight of Coney Island at Night
The ‘Madeline’ creator and Carlyle Hotel legend was in a New York state of mind in the 1940s when he produced this exuberant and rare oil painting.
Mid-Century Americans Didn’t Know Antonio Petruccelli’s Name, but They Sure Knew His Art
The New York artist created covers for the nation’s most illustrious magazines. Now, the originals are on display as fine art.