Neoclassical Head in profile

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Byron Browne
Neoclassical Head in profile
1950

About the Item

Neoclassical Head in profile Watercolor and graphite on paper, 1950 Signed and dated lower left in ink (see photo) Provenance: Washington, D.C. private collection Condition: Excellent Colors unfaded, no stains or tears to the large sheet Sheet size: 27 x 22 1/4 inches Archival framing with acid free materials and OP3 Acrylic Browne was a founding member of Abstract American Artists. In 1949, disillusioned by the current state of Abstract Art, Browne evolved to Neo Classicism having been influenced by Picasso. In 1950 he began teaching at the Art Students League in New York. 1050 is also the year of this painting. There are numerous similar large heads in profile, this being among the best works of the series. Modernist painter and one of the founders of American Abstract Artists, a New York City organization devoted to exhibiting abstract art. Browne specialized in still life in the style of Synthetic Cubism, influenced by his friends John Graham, Arshile Gorky, and Willem de Kooning. Joan Stahl American Artists in Photographic Portraits from the Peter A. Juley & Son Collection (Washington, D.C. and Mineola, New York: National Museum of American Art and Dover Publications, Inc., 1995) Byron Browne was a central figure in many of the artistic and political groups that flourished during the 1930s. He was an early member of the Artists’ Union, a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, and participated in the Artists’ Congress until 1940 when political infighting prompted Browne and others to form the break-away Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. Browne’s artistic training followed traditional lines. From 1925 to 1928, he studied at the National Academy of Design, where in his last year he won the prestigious Third Hallgarten Prize for a still-life composition. Yet before finishing his studies, Browne discovered the newly established Gallery of Living Art. There and through his friends John Graham and Arshile Gorky, he became fascinated with Picasso, Braque, Miró, and other modern masters. The mid 1930s were difficult financially for Browne.(1) His work was exhibited in a number of shows, but sales were few. Relief came when Burgoyne Diller began championing abstraction within the WPA’s mural division. Browne completed abstract works for Studio D at radio station WNYC, the U.S. Passport Office in Rockefeller Center, the Chronic Disease Hospital, the Williamsburg Housing Project, and the 1939 World’s Fair.(2) Although Browne destroyed his early academic work shortly after leaving the National Academy, he remained steadfast in his commitment to the value of tradition, and especially to the work of Ingres.(3) Browne believed, with his friend Gorky, that every artist has to have tradition. Without tradition art is no good. Having a tradition enables you to tackle new problems with authority, with solid footing.(4)” Browne’s stylistic excursions took many paths during the 1930s. His WNYC mural reflects the hard-edged Neo-plastic ideas of Diller, although a rougher Expressionism better suited his fascination for the primitive, mythical, and organic. A signer, with Harari and others, of the 1937 Art Front letter, which insisted that abstract art forms “are not separated from life,” Browne admitted nature to his art—whether as an abstracted still life, a fully nonobjective canvas built from colors seen in nature, or in portraits and figure drawings executed with immaculate, Ingres-like finesse.(5) He advocated nature as the foundation for all art and had little use for the spiritual and mystical arguments promoted by Hilla Rebay at the Guggenheim Collection: When I hear the words non-objective, intra-subjective, avant-garde and such trivialities, I run. There is only visible nature, visible to the eye or, visible by mechanical means, the telescope, microscope, etc.”(6) Increasingly in the 1940s, Browne adopted an energetic, gestural style. Painterly brushstrokes and roughly textured surfaces amplify the primordial undercurrents posed by his symbolic and mythical themes. In 1945, Browne showed with Adolph Gottlieb, William Baziotes, David Hare, Hans Hofmann, Carl Holty, Romare Bearden, and Robert Motherwell at the newly opened Samuel Kootz Gallery. When Kootz suspended business for a year in 1948, Browne began showing at Grand Central Galleries. In 1950, he joined the faculty of the Art Students League, and in 1959 he began teaching advanced painting at New York University. Courtesy of Smithsonian

Creator:
Byron Browne (1907-1961, American)
Creation Year:
1950
Dimensions:
Height: 27 in (68.58 cm)Width: 21.25 in (53.98 cm)
Medium:
Watercolor
Movement & Style:
Modern
Period:
1950-1959
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Fairlawn, OH
Reference Number:
Seller: FA120221stDibs: LU1408329842