Martyl Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf On Sale

A plein-air landscape painter in styles of both realism and abstraction, Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf was known as Martyl, a name given to her by her artist-mother, Aimee Goldstone Schweig, for her daughter to use as an artist signature. She lived in Missouri and Illinois, although she traveled widely. From 1945 to 1972, she was art editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and from 1965 to 1970, she was an instructor at the University of Chicago. Martyl was born and raised in St. Louis, and her natural talents combined with the tutelage of her mother, led to early recognition as a child artist. At age eleven, she won a first prize for drawing at a competition of the St. Louis Art Museum, and the next year she won second prize. Throughout her career, she had numerous exhibition venues including the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, the Royal British Artists Gallery in London, and the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, South Carolina. Her mother became her frequent painting and traveling companion, and they went to "many parts of the globe in search of subject matter." (205) One of their early trips together was in 1930, when Martyl was twelve, to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Other trips included New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona where the Grand Canyon was one of the destinations. Early in her career, Martyl was a WPA (Works Progress Administration) muralist, and two of her murals are in post offices, one titled Wheat Workers in Russell, Kansas, and the other, La Guignolee, in Sainte Genevieve. Another mural, The Courageous Act of Cyrus Tiffany, completed in 1943, is in Washington DC at the Building of the Recorder of Deeds. Martyl graduated from Mary Institute in St. Louis and enrolled in Washington University where she studied art and history. In Missouri, she also attended Sainte Genevieve Summer School, which her mother had founded and served as director. In 1940 and 1941, Martyl went to Colorado Springs where she studied at the Fine Arts Center with Boardman Robinson and Arnold Blanch. In 1941, she married Alexander Langsdorf, Jr., who was a nuclear physicist, and the couple had two daughters. They lived in the St. Louis area until 1943 and then moved to Illinois, living in Chicago, Roselle, and from the 1970s in Schaumburg. Source: Phil Kovinick and Marian Yoshiki Kovinick, An Encyclopedia of Women Artists of the American West

Bring audacious experiments with color and textures to your living room, dining room or home office. Abstract paintings, large or small, will stand out in your space, encouraging conversation and introducing a museum-like atmosphere that’s welcoming and conducive to creating memorable gatherings.

Abstract art has origins in 19th-century Europe, but it came into its own as a significant movement during the 20th century. Early practitioners of abstraction included Wassily Kandinsky, although painters were exploring nonfigurative art prior to the influential Russian artist’s efforts, which were inspired by music and religion. Abstract painters endeavored to create works that didn’t focus on the outside world’s conventional subjects, and even when artists depicted realistic subjects, they worked in an abstract mode to do so.

In 1940s-era New York City, a group of painters working in the abstract mode created radical work that looked to European avant-garde artists as well as to the art of ancient cultures, prioritizing improvisation, immediacy and direct personal expression. While they were never formally affiliated with one another, we know them today as Abstract Expressionists.

The male contingent of the Abstract Expressionists, which includes Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell, is frequently cited in discussing leading figures of this internationally influential postwar art movement. However, the women of Abstract Expressionism, such as Helen Frankenthaler, Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell and others, were equally involved in the art world of the time. Sexism, family obligations and societal pressures contributed to a long history of their being overlooked, but the female Abstract Expressionists experimented vigorously, developed their own style and produced significant bodies of work.

Draw your guests into abstract oil paintings across different eras and countries of origin. On 1stDibs, you’ll find an expansive range of abstract paintings along with a guide on how to arrange your wonderful new wall art.

If you’re working with a small living space, a colorful, oversize work can create depth in a given room, but there isn’t any need to overwhelm your interior with a sprawling pièce de résistance. Colorful abstractions of any size can pop against a white wall in your living room, but if you’re working with a colored backdrop, you may wish to stick to colors that complement the decor that is already in the space. Alternatively, let your painting make a statement on its own, regardless of its surroundings, or group it, gallery-style, with other works.