Flora Schofield

1940s Still Life of Squash by Notable Chicago Modernist Artist Flora Schofield

ca. 1950s

An intriguing, ca. 1935, still life painting featuring a derby, fruit bowl, wine bottle vase & books by artist Francis Chapin. Image size: 16" x 36". Framed size: 21" x 41". Pro...

A ca. 1935, oil on Masonite, still-life painting featuring a spoon, salt & pepper shakers, bottle, egg and an artichoke by artist Francis Chapin. Painting is in a gray, painted wood...

A vibrant & Dynamic precisionist still-life painting of a jug & a plate by artist Harold Haydon, dating from 1932. Artwork size: 10 1/2" x 13 1/4". Framed size: 16" x 19". Prove...

A Modernist, Mid-Century still-life painting, in reds & blues titled "Nature Morte" by French artist Pierre Bisiaux. Artwork size: 21 1/4" x 18". Framed size: 30 1/2" x 27". Pie...

Signed (at lower right): A. WEISKOPF

Albert Swinden (1901 - 1961) Still Life of Fruit, 1937 Oil on canvas 18 x 30 inches Provenance: Graham Gallery, New York Albert Swinden (1901–1961) was an English-born American abstract painter. He was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists, and he created significant murals as part of the Federal Art Project. Albert Swinden was born in Birmingham, England in 1901. When he was seven, he moved with his family to Canada, and in 1919 he immigrated to the United States. He lived in Chicago, where he studied for about a year and a half at the Art Institute. He then relocated to New York City, where his art education continued briefly at the National Academy of Design. He soon changed schools again, to the Art Students League, which he attended from 1930 to 1934. He studied with Hans Hofmann and gained an appreciation for Synthetic Cubism and Neoplasticism. According to painter and printmaker George McNeil, Swinden "could have influenced Hofmann ... He was working with very, very simple planes, not in this sort of Cubistic manner. Swinden was working synthetically at this time." While still a student, Swinden began teaching at the Art Students League, in 1932. Swinden married Rebecca Palter (1912–1998), from New York. Their daughter, Alice Swinden Carter, also became an artist. Carter, who attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, received an award from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston for her large sculptures. Swinden was hired for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and he is best known for the murals which he painted as part of that project. In 1935, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia attended the opening of the inaugural exhibit at the Federal Art Project Gallery, accompanied by Audrey McMahon, New York regional director for the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project. Among the works on display was Abstraction, a sketch by Swinden; it was the design for a mural planned for the College of the City of New York. A newspaper account described it as consisting of "brightly colored T-squares, triangles and rulers in horizontal, vertical and diagonal positions". La Guardia asked what it was, and upon being told it was a mural design, he said he didn't know what it depicted. Someone joked that it could be a map of Manhattan. The displeased mayor stated that "if that's art, I belong to Tammany Hall." (Tammany Hall, which the Republican mayor referenced, was the New York Democratic Party political society.) Fearing that the mayor's negative attitude could jeopardize the future of abstract art within the Federal Art Project, McMahon dispatched an assistant to summon an artist who could speak to the mayor in defense of abstraction. The assistant returned with Arshile Gorky. Swinden played an important role in the founding of the American Abstract Artists. In 1935, he met with three friends, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, her future husband Byron Browne, and Ibram Lassaw, with the goal of exhibiting together. The group grew and started meeting in Swinden's studio, which adjoined those of Balcomb and Gertrude Greene...

George Weissbort (Belgian / British, 1928 – 2013) SQUASHES AND A GLASS OF WATER Oil on canvasboard 18.1/4 x 21.3/8 in. (46.3 x 55.4 cm.) George Weissbort was born in Brussels in ...

Fernand Blondin (1887-1967) was a Swiss painter and teacher, celebrated for his depictions of idyllic rural life, interiors, female nudes, portraits, still-lifes, religious subjects ...