Robert Brackman

"Still Life, " Robert Brackman, Apples and Banana Fruit, Art Students League

circa 1940

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...

Edward Millman (1907 - 1964) Candelabra, 1962 Signed lower right; titled and dated on the reverse Oil on canvas 41 3/4 x 31 1/2 inches Provenance: The ...

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William S. Schwartz Still Life with Yellow Mums, circa 1950 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Massachusetts William Schwartz was born in Smorgon, Russia, in 1896, one of nine children in a poor family. He studied art at an early age, earning a scholarship at the Vilna Art School in Russia, 1908–12. He immigrated to the United States at age 17 in 1913, living in New York with his sister for eight months and then moving to Omaha, Nebraska, to live with his brother in 1915. Working as a house painter, he turned his attention to art, studying briefly with J. Laurie Wallace at the Kellom School in Omaha before moving to Chicago. He entered the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in 1916, studying with Ivan Trutnev and Karl A. Buehr, and graduating with honors in life drawing, portraiture, and painting in 1917. He supported himself as a tenor singer in vaudeville, concerts, and opera and received favorable reviews, but he chose to pursue painting instead of singing. His circle of artist friends included important Chicago modernists Aaron Bohrod, Malvin and Ivan Albright, Archibald Motley Jr., and Anthony Angarola...

Suzanne Lalique The Tailor Shop, 1929 Signed and dated upper left Oil on canvas 13 x 16 inches Suzanne Lalique was born in 1892, the daughter of René Lalique and Alice Ledru. She wa...

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