Carrie Lederer

'Man In Motion', Framed Modernist Figural, Woman Artist, SFMOMA, Oakland Museum

Circa 1985

Painted by Mine Grassetti (American-Dutch, 1928-2021) circa 1995. Inscribed, verso, with certification of authenticity dated October 6th, 2021, by the artist's son, Richard Grassetti. Mine Grassetti first attended Vermont's Bennington College, the first college to include visual and performing arts as an equal partner in the liberal arts curriculum. In 1948, she graduated with a degree in art and architecture and subsequently studied at the Richmond Art Center. It was during this extended period, the 1950's through the mid 1960's, that the Center was staffed with such California luminaries as David Park, Richard Diebenkorn and Elmer Bischoff and Grassetti had the good fortune to be exposed to the ferment of artistic ideas and theories of modernism that were generated there. We are pleased to offer this vibrant figural triptych...

Signed lower left, 'Muff' for Orla Muff (Danish, 1903-1984), titled, 'Nana' and dated 1934. After winning a national drawing competition at the age of 14, Orla Muff studied with the theatrical painter, Carl Lund from 1917-1921. He followed this with extended study throughout Europe, including in Stockholm and Paris. He achieved widespread acclaim as a designer of elaborate Art Deco sets for prominent European revues and theatrical productions, including for Copenhagen’s Folk Theater and Max Reinhardt...

Signed lower left, 'Millicent Tomkins' for Millicent Hanson Tomkins (American, 1930-2021) and dated 1959. Millicent Tomkins began painting at a young age and, as a child, was awarde...

Signed lower right, 'Thomas Nash' and painted circa 1900; additionally, signed and titled verso 'Hermosa Beach, Drawing in the Fish Net'. A turn of the ...

Signed lower right, 'M. Watorski' for Mieczyslaw Watorski (Polish, 1903 - 1979) and painted circa 1950. This Polish history and landscape painter is particularly revered for his doc...

Signed upper right, "Joffrin" for Guily-Jeanne Joffrin (French, 1909-2007) and painted circa 1965. Photo of the artist in her studio, 1995. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Born in Paris, Joffrin first attended the École Supérieure Sophie-Germain before, in 1928, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, initially in the studio of Lucien Simon. She continued her studies there for several years in the studios of Jacques Despierre and Lucien Fontanarosa. After receiving her diploma, Joffrin was appointed Professor of Drawing and taught in Paris until 1945, when she began to devote herself exclusively to her career as a fine artist. Over the course of a long career, she exhibited internationally with success including at more than forty exhibitions in France (Paris, Aurillac, Rennes, Strasbourg, Reims, Rodez, Toulouse, Barbizon, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Cannes) as well as in Geneva, Vevey, San Francisco and Tokyo among other cities. The human face was of particular interest to Joffrin and she created many portraits of academic notables including Paul Guth...

Collections: Robert Isaacson; James Draper, New York, 2014. Exhibited: Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Beggarstaffs: William Nicholson and James Pr...

Provenance: Cernuda Art, Coral Gables Private Collection, Los Angeles

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, oil on canvas, 36 x 28 inches, c. 1936, signed lower right, ex collection of Platt Fine Art, Chicago, Illinois (label verso). About the Painting Joseph Meert’s painting, Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, depicts the short-lived resurrection of a once prominent city just outside Denver. Central City was founded in 1859 soon after John Gregory struck gold in the area. As word spread, thousands of miners converged into “Gregory’s Gulch” and its surroundings became known as the “richest square mile on earth.” Mining production quickly increased resulting in Central City to becoming Colorado’s largest city in the early 1860s. Despite some technical difficulties transitioning to lode mining and the rise of competition from Leadville, Central City remained an economic boom town through the turn of the century. But, with every boom, there is a bust. World War I marked the end of Central City’s prominence as ore production ground to a halt and by 1925, the town’s population shrank to only 400 people. The desperation of the Great Depression and a nearly 100% increase in the price of gold lured labor and capital back to Central City. Meert painted in Colorado during the mid-1930s, a time when he created his most desirable works. It is during this period of renaissance that Meert captures one of Central City's outlying dirt streets bordered by 19th century wooden houses from the town's heyday and the more recently installed electric lines leading to a distant gold mine. A lone figure trudges up the hill, a mother with a baby in her arms, putting us in mind of the rebirth of the town itself. Meert had solo exhibitions at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1936 and the Denver Art Museum. Although it is not known whether Goldmine, Central City was included in either of these exhibitions, it seems likely. Moreover, the painting is closely related to Meert’s painting, The Old Road, which was painted in 1936 and exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and at the Dallas Museum of Art. About the Artist Joseph Meert was a well-regarded painter and muralist, who initially made a name for himself in the American Scene and later as an abstract expressionist. Although initially successful, Meert struggled financially and with mental illness later in life. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, but moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, a chance encounter at the Union Pacific Railyard changed his life. Meert happened upon a worker repainting and stenciling a design on a railroad car. Meert later recalled that this experience introduced him to the idea of being a painter. Without support from his father, Meert obtained a working scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. After four years at the Kansas City Art Institute, Meert studied seven years at the Art Students League and in Europe and Los Angeles. At the Art Students League, Meert fell under the spell of Thomas Hart Benton and Stanton MacDonald-Wright. In 1931, he befriended Jackson Pollock. By 1934, Meert was part of the Public Works of Art Project when he met his wife, Margaret Mullin...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s. The Landing/Dawn Landing, 1944, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 x 30, titled verso; exhib...

This painting is illustrated in the Catalogue of the 1945 Encyclopedia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting, p.84. Written and edited by Grace Pagano. "Painting ...