Margo Hoff

Grapes

1955-pre 1963

Trees in the Field Mixed meia on masonite panel, 1967 Signed on the right edge oif the image (see photo) One from a series of similar examples, all with caligraphic trees and figures surrounding the composition. Part of the late 1960’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition along with Benny Andrews The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition Inc. (BECC) was organized in January 1969 by a group of African American artists in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Harlem on My Mind" exhibit, which omitted the contributions of African American painters and sculptors to the Harlem community. Members of this initial group that protested against the exhibit included several prominent African American artists, including Benny Andrews and Clifford R. Joseph, cofounders of the BECC. The primary goal of the group was to agitate for change in the major art museums in New York City for greater representation of African American artists and their work in these museums. Condition: Excellent Image size: 12 5/8 x 10 inches Board size: 20 x 16 inches Frame size: 21 x 17 inches Russ Thompson (Born 1922- Jamaica Part of the late 1960’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition along with Benny Andrews The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition Inc. (BECC) was organized in January 1969 by a group of African American artists in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Harlem on My Mind" exhibit, which omitted the contributions of African American painters and sculptors to the Harlem community. Members of this initial group that protested against the exhibit included several prominent African American artists, including Benny Andrews and Clifford R. Joseph, cofounders of the BECC. The primary goal of the group was to agitate for change in the major art museums in New York City for greater representation of African American artists and their work in these museums. Studied: Pratt Inst.; Carlyle College; NY Sch. Mod. Photography Exhibited: MoMA; BM, 1968; Nordness Gals., NYC; Phila. Civic Center; Ruder & Finn FA, 1969; Smithsonian Inst.; Mount Holyoke College, 1969; BMFA, 1970; RISD, 1969; Mem. Art Gal., Rochester, NY, 1969; SFMA, 1969; Contemp. Arts Mus., Houston, TX, 1970; NJ State Mus., 1970; Roberson Center for the Arts & Sciences, Binghampton, NY, 1970; UC Santa Barbara, 1970; Plaza Hotel, NYC; Westchester Art Soc. Gal. (prize); Nassau Community College; Brooklyn Pub. Lib.; Allentown (PA) Art Festival; Quinnipiac College, CT; Parrish Art Mus.; NY State Pavillion; Huntington Township Art Lg. Awards: Mitchell College, CT; BM; Armonk Lib. Show Award; Bedford Hills Lib. Show Award. Sources: Cederholm, Afro-American Artists. Public Collections: Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Brooklyn Museum Museum of Modern Art, New York Smithsonian American Art Museum Exhibitions: MOMA Brooklyn Museum, 1968 Nordness Galleries, NYC Smithsonian Institution Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1970 Rhode Island School of Design, 1969 San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969 Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1970 Parrish Art Museum Courtesy of Afro-American Artist; a biographical directory THOMPSON, RUSS (Born Jamaica, 1922) Painter. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, 1922. Studied at the Pratt Institute; Carlyle College; New York School of Modern Photography. Works: Cloud Flowers ; My Breath Is One with the Clouds ; The Acrobats; Relatives; Thoreau; Clothes to the Body; America- Amer- ica; Hanging Garden; Poor Room, Rich Room; Epigram a Bromide; Passage, 1969 (wood, epoxy, iron). Exhibited: Museum of Modern Art; Brooklyn Museum Fence Show, 1968; Nordness Gal- leries, NY; Phila. Civic Center; Ruder & Finn Fine Arts, 1969; Smithsonian Institution; Mount Holyoke College, 1969; Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1970; Rhode Island School of Design, 1969; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 1969; San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1970; NJ State Museum, 1970; Roberson Center for the Arts & Sciences, Binghamton, NY, 1970; Art Galleries, Univ. of Cal. at Santa Barbara, 1970; Plaza Hotel, NYC; Westchester Art So- ciety Gallery; Nassau Community College; Brooklyn Public Library; Allentown (Pa.) Art Festival; Quinnipiac College; Parrish Art Mu- seum; NY State Pavillion; Huntington Town- ship Art League. Collections: Frederick Douglass Institute, Wash- ington, DC; Spiro & Levinson Corp.; Mr. William Haber; Mr. & Mrs. B. Friedman; Mr. & Mrs. Samuel J. Rosen; Mr. David Scribner; Unigraphic Corp.; Mr. Benny An- drews; Jeanne Paris; Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Strauss. Awards: Westchester Art Society; Mitchell College, Conn.; Brooklyn Museum; Armonk Library Show Award; Bedford Hills Library Show Award. Sources: Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Afro- American Artists: New York/ Boston, 1970; Nordness Galleries. 12 Afro-American Artists, 1969; Mount Holyoke College. Ten Afro- American Artists, 1969; Ghent, Henri. “The Community Art Gallery,” Art Gallery, April 1970; Paris, Jean. “Black Art Experience in Art,” Long Island Press, Jamaica, NY, June 14, 1970; Ruder & Finn Fine Arts. Contemporary Black Artists’, Brooklyn College. Afro-Amer- ican Artists: Since 1950, 1969; Walker, Roslyn. A Resource Guide to the Visual Arts of Afro- Americans, South Bend, Ind., 1971. NEW YORK (NY). Acts of Art, Inc. Rebuttal to Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal at Acts of Art Gallery. 1971. Unpag. (20 pp.) exhib. cat., 54 b&w illus., brief biogs. of 48 artists. The text consists of an unsigned foreword (probably by Nigel L. Jackson, director of Acts of Art); a reprint of Z. D. Allen's review of the exhibition, "Rebuttal to the Whitney," from Chelsea Clinton News (Apr. 15, 1971). The catalogue was published after the show opened. Artists included: Benny Andrews, James Belfon, Betty Blayton, Lynn (Chuck) Bowers, Vivian Browne, Calvin Burnett, Jo Butler, Robert Carter, Art Coppedge, Adger Cowans, Joseph Delaney, J. Brooks Dendy, III, James Denmark, Reginald Gammon, Moses Paul Groves, Lester Gunter, Byron Hall, William Charles Henderson, II, Leon Hicks, Nigel L. Jackson, Kenneth Vrook Johnson, Cliff Joseph, Philip Martin, Kenneth Matthews, Richard Mayhew, Dindga McCannon, Alexander S. McMath, Ademola Olugebefola, William Payne, James Phillips, Kenneth Radcliffe, Junius Redwood, Enid Richardson, Gregory Ridley, Jr., Haywood (Bill) Rivers, Donald J. Robertson, Philippe G. Smith, Ann Tanksley, Bob Thompson, Russell Thompson, Robert Threadgill, Lloyd Toone, Bennie White, Timothy Wilkins, Walter H. Williams, Ed Wilson, Frank W. Wimberley, Hale Woodruff. Sq. 8vo, stapled tan wraps, lettered in brown, illus. of wire sculpture by James Denmark.. BOSTON (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston. May 19-June 23, 1970. 92 pp. exhib. cat, 67 b&w illus. of work by 69 artists, exhib. checklist. Intro. by Edmund B. Gaither. Important early exhibition. Includes Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Ellsworth Ausby, Malcolm Bailey, Ellen Banks, Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Betty Blayton, Ronald Boutte, Lynn Bowers, Frank Bowling, Marvin Brown, Calvin Burnett, Dana C. Chandler, John Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Emilio Cruz, Avel DeKnight, Henry DeLeon, Stanley Pinckney, James Denmark, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines, Alvin C. Hollingsworth, Bill Howell, Zell Ingram, Gerald Jackson, Daniel L. Johnson, Milton Johnson, Ben Jones, Lois Mailou Jones, Tonnie O. Jones, Cliff Joseph, Harriet Kennedy, Hughie Lee-Smith, Norman Lewis, Tom Lloyd, Al Loving, Richard Mayhew, Edward McCluney, Jr., Algernon Miller, Joe Overstreet, Louise Parks, Stanley Pinckney, Jerry Pinkney, John W. Rhoden, Bill Rivers, Mahler Ryder, Raymond Saunders, Thomas Sills, Al Smith, Vincent D. Smith, Richard Stroud, Alma Thomas, Bob Thompson, Lovett Thompson, Russ Thompson, Lloyd Toone, Luther Vann, Paul Waters...

Persephone Oil on canvas, 1952 Signed lower left (see photo) Titled reverse "Persephone" Signed "V. 52" Exhibited: Columbus Gallery of the Arts label "71/30 Bt. 2", see label Condition: two very small flakes of missing paint Canvas size: 20 1/8 x 16" Frame size: 20 7/8 x 16 3/4" Provenance: Estate of the artist Dehn Heirs An important painting by the artist. Virginia Dehn From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Virginia Dehn (1922-2005) Virginia Dehn was an American painter and printmaker whose lyrical abstractions drew inspiration from nature, archaeology, ancient civilizations, and the spiritual dimensions of landscape. Born Virginia Engleman in Nevada, Missouri, on October 26, 1922, she studied at Stephens College, the Traphagen School of Design, and the Art Students League in New York. In the 1940s she met the distinguished lithographer and watercolorist Adolf Dehn, whom she married in 1947. Although initially known in connection with her husband's artistic circle, she developed an independent career that spanned more than five decades. Her mature work transformed natural forms, gardens, pottery, geological formations, and symbols from ancient cultures into richly textured, semi-abstract compositions characterized by luminous color and contemplative imagery. Her major series included Gardens and Galaxies, Ancient Landscapes, Earth Memory, The Egyptian Series, The Oriental Series, and The Gold Series. Dehn exhibited widely throughout the United States and was represented during her career by galleries including the Susan Teller Gallery in New York, Harmon-Meek Gallery in Naples, Florida, Cline LewAllen Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Thomas French Fine Art in Ohio. Her work was featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and earned recognition for its synthesis of modern abstraction with enduring themes drawn from history and the natural world. Works by Virginia Dehn are held in a number of public collections, including the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Butler Institute of American Art, the Portland Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Springfield (Massachusetts), the University of California, Berkeley, the Minnesota Historical Society, and the New York State Library. These institutional holdings reflect the broad geographic reach of her career and the continuing appreciation of her contribution to twentieth-century American art. Virginia Dehn died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on July 28, 2005. Today her paintings, drawings, and prints are represented in museum collections and private collections throughout the United States, and her work remains associated with a distinctive vision that united abstraction, memory, and the enduring forms of the natural world. Virginia and Adolf Dehn The Dehns lived in a Chelsea brownstone on West 21st Street where they worked side by side. They often hosted gatherings of other influential artists and intellectuals of the 20th century. Among their closest friends were sculptor Federico Castellón and his wife Hilda; writer Sidney Alexander and his wife Frances; artists Sally and Milton Avery; Ferol and Bill Smith, also an artist; and Lily and Georges Schreiber, an artist and writer. Bob Steed and his wife Gittel, an anthropologist, were also good friends of the Dehns. According to friend Gretchen Marple Pracht, "Virginia was a glamorous and sophisticated hostess who welcomed visitors to their home and always invited a diverse crowd of guests..." Despite their active social life, the two were disciplined artists, working at their easels nearly daily and taking Saturdays to visit galleries and view new work. The Dehns made annual trips to France to work on lithographs at the Atelier Desjobert in Paris. Virginia used a bamboo pen to draw directly on the stone for her lithographs, which often depicted trees or still lifes. The Dehns' other travels included visits to Key West, Colorado, Mexico, and countries such as Greece, Haiti, Afghanistan, and India. Dehn's style of art differend greatly from that of her husband, though the two sometimes exhibited together. A friend of the couple remarked, "Adolf paints landscapes; Virginia paints inscapes." Virginia Dehn generally painted an interior vision based on her feelings for a subject, rather than a literal rendition of it.] Many of her paintings consist of several layers, with earlier layers showing through. She found inspiration in the Abstract Expressionism movement that dominated the New York and Paris art scenes in the 1950s. Some of her favorite artists included Adolf Gottileb, Rothko, William Baziotes, Pomodoro, and Antonio Tapies. Dehn most often worked with bold, vibrant colors in large formats. Her subjects were not literal, but intuitive. She learned new techniques of lithography from her husband Adolf, and did her own prints. Texture was very important to her in her work. Her art was influenced by a variety of sources. In the late 1960s she came across a book that included photographs of organic patterns of life as revealed under a microscope. These images inspired her to change the direction of some of her paintings. Other influences on Dehn's art came from ancient and traditional arts of various cultures throughout the world, including Persian miniatures, illuminated manuscripts, Dutch still life painting, Asian art, ancient Egyptian artifacts...