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John LittleWHIGMARLEERIE Canadian Acrylic Mid-20th Century Abstract Canvas Painting1966
1966
About the Item
John Little
1907 – active in New York - 1984
Whigmarleerie
1966
Oil on canvas
33 x 27 inches (84 x 69 cm)
Framed dimensions: 35 x 29 inches (89 x 73.6 cm)
Signed, titled and dated verso: Whigmaleerie 1966 John Little
Provenance:
Private Collection, NJ
In the late 1940s John Little moved to East Hampton, where he became involved with the Abstract Expressionist movement; his teacher was Hans Hofmann . Little ran in the same circles as Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and the other artists who were the leading innovators in the New York School.
John Little left his home in Alabama at the age of 14 to become an artist, and moved to Buffalo, NY in 1923. After spending a year working as a stevedore on the docks to save money, he enrolled at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy and developed an interest in singing. In 1927 he moved to New York City where he continued his vocal work and studied operatic literature. He also became involved in textile design, opening his own store in 1920, called John Little Studios. He ran the store until 1950.
In 1933 John Little resumed his painting studies at the Art Students League in New York under the guidance of George Grosz (1893-1959). The following year he made his first visit to East Hampton which he would eventually call home. Later in the decade, he traveled to Paris where he became familiar with European modernism. On his return to America, he taught textile design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He hired Josephine Watkins to work for him; she later became his wife. Little's textile store and teaching job gave him a financial security that was rare during the Depression, and he never found it necessary to find employment with the Works Progress Administration. At the end of the decade, John Little studied with Hans Hofmann (1880-1966) in New York and Provincetown. Little was greatly influenced by Hofmann, particularly by his views on color theory.
In 1942 John Little joined the Navy as an aerial photographer. In the late 1940s he purchased a rundown house on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, near where he had been frequently visiting Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner. In 1948 he had his first one-man show in New York at the Betty Parsons Gallery, where he would continue to exhibit frequently in the years ahead. He closed his textile business in 1950 and become a permanent resident of East Hampton, although he still maintained a studio in the city. In 1957 Little made an important contribution to the East Hampton scene when he opened the first commercial art gallery, the Signa Gallery, with his artist friends Alfonso Ossorio (1916-1990) and Elizabeth Parker (1893-1975).
John Little continued to exhibit widely, travel and painted until he died in 1984. Examples of his work can be found in many important private and public collections including the Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie, Indiana; Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut; Dillard University, New Orleans; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the University Art Museum, Berkeley, California.
- Creator:John Little (1907-1984, American)
- Creation Year:1966
- Dimensions:Height: 35 in (88.9 cm)Width: 29 in (73.66 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU2733214545092
John Little
Born in Alabama, John Little attended the Buffalo (NY) Fine Arts Academy as a teenager, until 1927. Soon after, he moved to New York where he began operatic vocal training and opened what would become a very successful textile business designing fabric and wallpaper. In 1933, he enrolled at the Art Students League under the tutelage of George Grosz. Little’s early work consisted predominantly of landscapes, until 1937, when he began studying under Hans Hofmann and his work naturally shifted toward abstraction. During his time with Hofmann, he with artists such as Lee Krasner, George McNeil, Gerome Kamrowski, Giorgio Cavallon, and Perle Fine. Little entered the the service in 1942 as an aerial photographer for the Navy. Returning to New York after the war and with nowhere to stay, he reconnected with Hofmann and moved into his 8th Street studio, alongside his friend Lee Krasner and her husband Jackson Pollock. In 1946, Little earned his first solo exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, with a subsequent solo exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York two years later. In the early 1950s, Little abandoned the flat, linear style in favor of a new aesthetic consisting of the thick, gestural buildup of paint. This stylistic change was concurrent with his move to East Hampton In 1951. This enabled him to continue a close friendship with Krasner and Pollock, who had already left the city in favor of the more rural area around East Hampton. Little and Pollock had a joint exhibition in 1955 at Guild Hall, one year before Pollock’s tragic death. John Little exhibited extensively during his career, with solo shows at Betty Parsons Gallery (1948), Bertha Schaefer Gallery (1957, 1958), Worth Ryder Gallery (1963), A.M. Sachs Gallery (1971), and a retrospective at the Guild Hall Museum (1982). His work can be found in many private, institutional, and corporate collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guild Hall Museum, Ball State University Museum of Art, and Galerie Beyeler.
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