Pamela Bianco
'Fruit Piece' — 1920's American Modernism
c. 1925

About the Item

Pamela Bianco, 'Fruit Piece', lithograph, c. 1925. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower left. Annotated 'No. 8' in pencil, upper right. A fine, richly-inked impression, with full margins (3/8 to 1/2 inches) on cream Japan paper, in very good condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 1/2 x 13 1/4 inches (242 x 336 mm); sheet size 10 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches (167 x 369 mm). Illustrated in 'Fifty Prints' (an exhibition by the American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1926), John Day Company, New York, 1927. Collections: Binghamton University Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST Pamela Bianco (1906-1924) was born in London the daughter of an Italian scholar and bookseller, Francesco Bianco, and an English writer, Margery Williams Bianco (author of 'The Velveteen Rabbit'). She was educated at home, though home for the Biancos was a shifting location, as the family lived in France, Italy, and the United States when Pamela was a child. Bianco's paintings and drawings were first exhibited as part of a children's show in Turin, Italy. Her career as an artist began at the age of twelve when her exhibition at Leicester Galleries, London, brought the child prodigy to international recognition. Following the show, Walter de la Mare composed a series of poems entitled 'Flora' to accompany a suite of her drawings. The immediate success of Bianco's first American exhibition, arranged by Mitchell Kennedy in 1922 at Anderson Galleries, prompted her to move to New York with her parents. She printed her first lithographs with master printer George Miller in 1922, and was a member of the Studio Club from 1924 - 1928. Her early exhibitions in the U.S. included shows in Los Angeles and San Francisco in 1922; Boston and Chicago in 1923; and in New York at Kennedy Galleries in 1924, Rehn Galleries in 1928, and Firargid Galleries in 1937. Her rich, graphically bold etchings of flowers and still life subjects continued to bring her popular acclaim. Bianco also created illustrations for William Blake's Poems and Oscar Wilde's 'Birthday of the Infanta', a historical fiction for children. Other books illustrated by Bianco include Glenway Wescott's 'Natives of Rock' (1925), and Hazeltine and Smith's 'The Easter Book of Legends and Stories' (1947). She also illustrated several books by her mother, including 'The Skin Horse', 'The Adventures of Andy', and 'The Little Wooden Doll'. In 1930, Bianco was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and spent a year in Florence and Rome during which she wrote and illustrated the children's fairy tale 'The Starlit Journey'. A retrospective exhibition of Pamela Bianco's works was mounted in 2004 in London at England & Co Gallery and an exhibition catalogue published. Works by Pamela Bianco are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, Binghamton University Art Museum, British Museum (London), Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

Creator:

Pamela Bianco (1906 - 1994, American)

Creation Year:

c. 1925

Dimensions:

Height: 9.5 in (24.13 cm)Width: 13.25 in (33.66 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph

Movement & Style:

American Modern

Period:

1920-1929