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Frank GodwinAllegory of Defense Industry (figurative male illustration)1919
1919
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About the Item
Frank Godwin (1889-1959). Allegory of Defense Industry, 1919. Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. Image measures 20.75 x 26.25 inches. The canvas measures 24 x 36 inches in total. Annotated on top reverse stretcher: Page 1, 13th Issue, August 31, 1919. The publication for which this project was commissioned is still unknown. Godwin's image depicts a young and healthy everyman painted in a naturalistic style. The figure is heroic but unidealized. Unequivocally, he can be identified as an allegorical figure of Industry: in this case, war or defense. A premier example from the Golden Age of illustration, demonstrating distinct influences of the Brandywine School.
The piece is further annotated on reverse canvas: Aug 31. Annotated in white margin areas recto. Upper left: 5472-J, upper right: wanted August 9th, Lower left (indistinct), lower center: 9 3/8. These are all notes to editor and printer.
Condition:
The piece has been professionally conserved under our express guidance. Conservator's report available. The painting has been cleaned and strip lined, restretched upon original stretcher. There are no repaired punctures or tears. Minor paint flaking at upper left ( just below aqua blue sky area) has been stabilized and inpainted.
Surface is entirely flat and stable with no flaking.
There are no other areas of paint loss other than what is evident in white margins. The decision to leave this area intact was made for purposes of authenticity, in the event the piece is acquired by a museum, archive or purist. Of course, a conservator could take the piece to 100% with subsequent inpainting. Alternately, the canvas could be cut down and restretched by a conservator to present the color image only. At present, the choice is yours and at your discretion.
Biography:
Frank Godwin was a prominent painter, magazine illustrator, and advertising artist, who lent his sophisticated talents to the comics for the last 30 years of his life. He contributed to numerous strips in the daily papers. His own creations, "Connie" (1927-1944) and "Rusty Riley" (1948-1959), are among the most highly admired continuity strips in the literature of the comics.
Godwin was the son of an editor for the Washington (D.C.) Star, and began his career in art with his fathers paper at the age of 16. A desire both to perfect his work and broaden his range of opportunity drew him to New York City. There, he studied at the Art Students League. From his late teens he supported himself as a free-lance cartoonist and illustrator. The close companionship and support of the older James Montgomery Flagg, already an established commercial artist, helped him to enter the market. He was soon selling to a large variety of periodicals. His advertising art appeared in virtually all the popular magazines of the time, and he was much sought after to illustrate fiction for such magazines as Colliers, Liberty, and Cosmopolitan.
His illustrations for Winstons popular editions of the classics, in the romantic style of Flagg and Charles Dana Gibson, placed him among the most successful book illustrators of the Twenties and Thirties. He also painted in oils, and his murals for the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, and the Riverside Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, are still much admired. He was an active member of the Society of Illustrators for many years, serving for a time as its vice president. He has been elected to its Hall of Fame.
In the early 1920s, Godwin became a staff artist with the Philadelphia Public Ledger, doing covers for the papers Sunday magazine section and illustrating its fiction. His Vignettes of Life, a series of humorous domestic scenes, began in the Ledger in 1924 and was so successful that he was soon in demand for other assignments with the Ledger. He drew Roy Powers, Eagle Scout anonymously for a long time. In 1927, he began his first signed continuity strip, Connie, which debuted on November 13th as a Sunday strip and added dailies on May 13, 1929.
Connie was an exciting, fast-paced adventure strip, liberally laced with humor. It was about one of the new, liberated women, Connie Kurridege, a dauntless lass. In the strips first year, she bested half a dozen villains: an aviatrix, an interior decorator, a secretary, a travel agent, a private detective, and an ace reporter. The resourceful young lady later served a stint as an astronaut in a prolonged science fiction episode. Connie was never carried in many newspapers, however, and folded in 1944.
In 1948, Godwin launched Rusty Riley for King Features, with the dailies written by Rod Reed. It debuted on January 26. The Sundays, written by Godwins brother, Harold, debuted on June 27th. This nostalgic evocation of innocent boyhood, called up a period decades earlier despite the contemporary clothes and automobiles, romanticized its subject in a way already passé; it survived largely because of its handsome art until a few weeks before Godwins death on August 5, 1959.
Godwins elegance of design and meticulous precision of style brought his work to pictorial heights seldom matched in the comics. Never compromising the aesthetic ideals of the illustrator and painter, he employed the same richly textured compositions and painstaking cross-hatching in his comics that he used in book illustrations, giving his work a graphic sophistication that virtually disappeared from the comics with his death.
- Creator:Frank Godwin (1889 - 1959, American)
- Creation Year:1919
- Dimensions:Height: 26.25 in (66.68 cm)Width: 20.75 in (52.71 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Wilton Manors, FL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU24526403112
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View AllMatthew (male portrait)
By Randall Exon
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Randall Exon (b.1956). Matthew, 1990. Oil on wood panel. Measures 24 x 36 inches. Unframed. Excellent condition with no damage or conservation. Signed and dated lower right. Gallery stamp on verso. Plastic wall mount taped down on verso.
Provenance: The More Gallery INC, Philadelphia; Aramark Corporate Collection.
Randall Exon (b. 1956) was born in Vermillion, South Dakota. Exon earned his B.F.A. in painting from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa. In 2003, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, staged a solo exhibition of his work. He was awarded the Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize in the 2004 179th Annual Invitation Exhibition of Contemporary American Art at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York. More recently, Exon’s work was featured in Visions of the Susquehanna, a traveling exhibition organized by the Lancaster Museum of Art, Pennsylvania, in 2008, and Haunting Narratives, a major exhibition at the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, in 2012.
BORN
1956 Vermillion, SD
EDUCATION
1982 M.F.A. in Painting, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 1981 Skowhegan School of Painting, Skowhegan, ME 1981 M.A. in Painting, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 1978 B.F.A. in Painting, Washburn University, Topeka, KS
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2013 Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2009 Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2007 Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2004 Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2003 Randall Exon: A Quiet Light, James A. Michener Art Museum,
Doylestown, PA
2001 Mulvane Museum of Art, Topeka, KS
2000 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1998 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1996 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1994 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1993 Tasis England American School, Main Gallery, Thorpe, Surrey, England 1992 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Theatre Gallery, Washburn University, Topeka, KS
Widener University Art Museum, Chester, PA 1990 Charles More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1988 West Chester University, McKinney Gallery, Mitchell Hall, West Chester, PA Charles More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Carleton College, Northfield, MN
1987 University of Maine at Machias, University Gallery, ME
Topeka Public Library, Central Gallery, KS 1986 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1984 More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Stoneybrook School, Suffolk, Long Island, NY
1981-82 Florence Wilcox Gallery, Swarthmore College, PA Beauchamp Gallery, Topeka, KS
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2019 Unforeseeable Thereness, Stanek Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2018 Vis-à-Vis, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY
2017 The New Baroque, Booth Gallery, New York, NY, curated by Robert
Zeller
Painted Landscapes: Contemporary Views, Heritage Museums and Gardens, Sandwich, MA
2016 Mixed Environs: Contemporary Painters, Lore Degenstein Gallery, Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, PA
2015 Home is Where the Art Is, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY 2014 Our American Life, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY
2014 Edge of the Seat, The Rye Arts Center Gallery, Rye, NY
2013 Duets: Art in Conversation, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY 2012 Haunting Narratives: Detours from Philadelphia Realism, 1935-Present,
Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Structuring Nature, Walton Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR Summer Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2011 Masterworks: The Best of Hirschl & Adler, Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, NY
2010 Summer Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2009 Holiday Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2008-2009 American Green – Art and Stewardship, Somerville-Manning Gallery, Greenville,
DE
2008 Holiday Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
Summer Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY 2007 Finding a Form: Influences in Figurative Painting, Tower Gallery,
Philadelphia, PA
Holiday Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY Summer Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2006-2008 Visions of the Susquehanna, Susquehanna Art Museum, PA; Governor’s Residence, Harrisburgh, PA; Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, Hagerstown, MD; Roberson Center for Art and Science, Binghamton, NY.
2006 Summer Selections, Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York, NY
2004 179th Annual: An Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art,
National Academy of Design, New York, NY
Selected Works from the Ballinglen Collection, United States Embassy to Ireland, Ambassadors Residence, Phoenix Park, Dublin, Republic of Ireland. Part of the Art in the Embassies Program, Washington D.C.
2001 Personal Affinities, Contemporary Artists Influenced by the works of Edwin Dickinson, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Museum, Philadelphia, PA
2000 December Show, Fenton Gallery, Cork City, Ireland
Works from the Archives, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland
1999 New Realism for a New Millennium, Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY
Indomitable Spirits, The Figure At The End Of The Century, The Art Institute of
Southern California, Laguna Beach, CA
1998 Visual Poetry, A Selection of Work by Artists Inspired by the Words and
Sentiments of Walt Whitman, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ The Artist's Window, Lee Hansley Gallery, Raleigh, NC
Embodied Fictions, Twelve Contemporary Figure Painters, The Boyden Gallery, St. Mary's College of Maryland, St. Mary’s City, MD
1997 Abstract and Image, Four Painters, Hopkin's Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
An Extended View: Landscapes by Philadelphia Artists, Levy and Paley Galleries,
Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA
1996 Figure Drawings, Hillyer Hall, Smith College, Northampton, MA
Figurative Paintings, Edith Caldwell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
A Show of Hands (Exhibit and auction to assist AIDS research), Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA
1994 Figures in the Landscape, More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1992 Landscapes by Randall Exon & Joseph Byrne, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH 1991 A Show of Hands, Moore College of Art and Design, Philadelphia, PA
1991 Ten Contemporary Philadelphia Painters, Westmoreland Museum, Greensburg, PA 1991 Sport in Art, Woodmere Museum, Chestnut Hill, PA
1990 Myth and Monument, More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1990 Evidence of the Senses, 7 Painters, Woodmere Museum, Chestnut Hill, PA
Pollack Award Winners, Mulvane Gallery, Washburn University, Topeka, KS 1989 Works on Paper, More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Nocturnes, More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
1986 Nature Morte, Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, St. Francis College, Loretto, PA 1984 The Spirit of the Coast: Paintings, Monmouth Museum, NJ
Drawings: Personal and Intimate, More Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Night Paintings, Florence Wilcox Gallery, Swarthmore, PA
1983 Realist Direction, Penn State University Museum, University Park, PA 1981 Graduate Student Traveling Exhibit, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA 1980 Selected Painters, Mulvane Gallery, Washburn University, Topeka, KS 1979 Artists Choose Artists Exhibit, University of Missouri at Kansas City Art
Gallery, MO
JURIED SHOWS
1990 Philadelphia Art Now, Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA
1989 State of Pennsylvania Juried Exhibition, William Penn Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1987 State of Pennsylvania Juried Exhibition, William Penn Museum, Harrisburg, PA 1984 Butler Institute of American Art Annual Exhibit, Youngstown, OH
National Academy of Design Biannual Competition, New York, NY 1981 32nd Iowa Artists Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA 1980 Iowa Artists Solon, Burnnier Gallery, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 1979 Kansas Bankers Association Exhibition, Topeka, KS
AWARDS/GRANTS/RESIDENCIES
2004 The Thomas Benedict Clarke Prize, 179th Annual Invitational Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, New York, NY
2001 2nd Fellowship, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland Eugene M. Lang Faculty Fellowship, Swarthmore College, PA
1997 Fellow, Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Ballycastle, County Mayo, Ireland 1992 Washburn Fellow, Washburn University, Topeka, KS
1989 Eugene M. Lang Faculty Fellowship, Swarthmore College, PA
1988 Andrew Carnegie Prize, 163rd Annual Exhibition of the National
Academy of Design, New York, NY 1987
1985-86 1984
1981 1981 1980 1976, 78
TEACHING
1982-present 1994-00 1980-82
Best of Show prize, juried museum exhibition, The State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, PA
Henry Luce Scholar, Bali, Indonesia
Julius Halgarten Prize for Best Painting by an Artist under 35 years of age Academy of Design Annual Exhibition, New York, NY
Iowa Artists Salon, Second Prize
Skowhegan Scholarship Award, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
Student Award, 32nd Iowa Artists Exhibition, Des Moines Art Center, IA
Charles Pollack purchase prize for the best painting from annual student exhibition, Washburn University, Topeka, KS
Professor in Studio Arts, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA
Chair, Department of Art, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA Teaching Assistant to Ben Frank Moss, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA
VISITING ARTIST/LECTURES
2002 2001
1998 1995
1994 1993
1994, 1992 1992
1989
1987
1986 1985
1982
Pennsylvania State University, Abington, PA Hollins College, Roanoke, VA
Maryland Arts Institute, Baltimore, MD Beaver College, Glenside, PA
Union College, Department of Art, Schenectady, NY Allentown Art Museum, PA
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Bucks County Community College, Newtown, PA
Tasis England American School, Thorpe, Surrey, England Boston Art Institute, MA
Boston University, M.F.A. program, MA
Beaver College, Department of Art, Philadelphia, PA
Dartmouth College, Department of Visual Studies, Hanover, NH Dartmouth College, Department of Visual Studies, Hanover, NH Carleton College, Northfield, MN
University of Maine at Machias, ME
Horsham College of Art, Horsham, England Stoneybrook School, Suffolk, Long Island, NY
Moore College of Art, Basic Drawing, Philadelphia, PA Vassar College, Department of Art, Poughkeepsie, NY
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Allentown Art Museum, PA
ARA Corporation, Philadelphia, PA
Security Pacific National Bank, Sanger Branch, Los Angeles, CA University of Iowa, Permanent Collection, Iowa City, IA
Mulvane Gallery Permanent Collection, Washburn University, Topeka, KS Woodmere Museum, Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, PA
Henry Luce Foundation, New York, NY
Henry Wendt Collection, Philadelphia, PA
Susquehanna Art Museum, Harrisburg, PA
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sozanski, Edward J. “Simple Situations, in almost holy light,” Philadelphia Inquirer , February 7, 2003
Francis, Naila,“Studies in Light, Space,” The Intelligencer, January 9, 2003
Thompson, Jodi, “Fabulous Realism, seeing the light,” Out & About, January 9, 2003
Hopkin, Alannah, The Irish Examiner, July 1, 2002
Hopkin, Alannah, The Irish Examiner, January 2002
Sosanski, Edward, Philadelphia Inquirer, February 2001
Carr, Jeffrey, “Landscapes of the Imagination,” American Artist, January 1999
“On The Town,” New York Times Art Review, November 1998
Adelson, Fred B...
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Joseph Edward Knowles (1907-1980)
"Study for Industry Mural, Veterans Memorial Building, Santa Barbara, CA"
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BIO
Joseph Edward Knowles was born in Kendall, Montana, on June 15, 1907. He grew up in San Diego, California. At age twenty, two years before the beginning of the Great Depression, he moved north to another town on the coast of California---Santa Barbara. There he began studying fine art at the Santa Barbara School of the Arts* (1927-1930), under the supervision of Frank Morley Fletcher, previously director of the Edinburgh College of Art. Fletcher, who was trained in portraiture, landscape painting, and woodblock* printing, was a great influence on young Knowles. It was there that Knowles learned the art of color woodblock printmaking, a medium in which he showed great skill.
Not long after completing his studies with Fletcher, Knowles began teaching art. For a period of thirty years, from 1930 to1960, he taught at the Cate School in Carpinteria, California. In 1934-1935, Knowles traveled throughout Europe, further developing his artistic skills in England, France, and Italy. Upon his return, he continued to teach art at various schools and institutions: Cate School, Crane Country School, extension classes at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA). Knowles also served as an art education consultant for the County of Santa Barbara. In addition, he was founding co-director and president of the Santa Barbara Fine Arts Institute (1969-1972), which later developed a specialization in photography and became the Brooks Institute of Photography. Knowles died at his home in Santa Barbara on September 8, 1980.
Much of Knowles' watercolor work is associated with what has been termed the "California School*," a loose grouping of artists throughout the state that included such figures as Millard Sheets, Phil Dike, Dong Kingman, George Post, and the Santa Barbara painters Dan Lutz and Standish Backus, Jr. The California School artists, including Knowles, were known for their fresh, direct, spontaneous style of watercolor painting. Knowles and other members of the school found inspiration in nature and the built environment alike, emphasizing elements of design in their exuberant, boldly stated, colorful scenes from everyday life. While painting in a representational* manner, Knowles generally avoided photographic realism, preferring subjective interpretation of his subjects. In this, as well as in his experimental approach and vigorous brushwork, he displayed a strongly modern sensibility.
Knowles often used the wet-on-wet watercolor technique as he painted seascapes and landscapes, mostly along the California coast. He also employed dry-brush* techniques in many of his paintings, often leaving some of the white of the watercolor paper exposed. Some of the latter depict trees and other forms in a broken and airy manner that recalls Cezanne.
Knowles' colored woodblock prints are more reserved and exact in their draftsmanship than his paintings. Spare, clean, lyrical lines are drawn to illustrate floral motifs and boat scenes with a touch of asymmetry conjuring Japanese woodblock prints. His murals from the post-World War II period are considerably more modern in their approach and show an emphasis on design and color.
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
California Watercolor Society (1940 - 1955)
Santa Barbara Art Association (Vice President - 1952)
ONE-MAN EXHIBITIONS
Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) - San Francisco, California
San Diego Fine Arts Gallery (SDMA) - San Diego, California
Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) - Santa Barbara, California
Cowie Galleries - Los Angeles, California
Gallery de Silva - Santa Barbara, California
Bradley Galleries - Santa Barbara, California
MURALS
Westmont College - Ellen Porter Hall Mural - Santa Barbara, California
Safeway Grocery (now Vons Grocery on West Victoria Street) - Exterior Tile Mosaic -
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara Bank & Trust - Interior Mosaic Panels, Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara Girls Club - Interior Mosaic Mural - Santa Barbara, California
Ernest Righetti High School - Mosaic Mural - Santa Maria, California
Shell Oil Company - Mosaic Panel - California
Beckman Instruments, Corporate Headquarters - Mosaic - Fullerton, California
STAINED GLASS WINDOWS, WALLS and PANELS
Katherine Thayer Cate Memorial Chapel - Cate School, Carpinteria, California
William S. Porter Memorial Chapel - Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California
La Rinconada Building - Santa Barbara, California
ILLUSTRATIONS
"California's Wonderful Corner: True Stories for Children from the History of the Santa Barbara Region," by Walter A. Tompkins (1962 & 1975)
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