Arthur Beecher Carles

Angele in the Studio, Paris

Philadelphia Modernist Arthur Beecher Carles was born in Philadelphia and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he also taught and travelled to Paris on the prestigious Cresson Scholarship in 1907. Greatly influenced by French Fauvism and Post-Impressionism, Arthur B. Carles met and became friends with Matisse and others living in Paris. His work is in major museums including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art. Carles' main subjects were nudes and still lifes. His nudes, painted between 1920-30, were heavily influenced by his trips to Paris; his model and muse in many of these paintings was Angele, a red-headed French girl who was persuaded by Carles' daughter, Mercedes to model for her father. Whether painting a still life or figure, Carles used the surface to apply abstract forms of color, defining his new "Modern" approach.