Painted Contemporary Art

Joseph De Martini was born in mobile, Alabama, but spent most of his childhood in Hoboken, New Jersey. The son of a fisherman, De Martini was educate...

Unique Big Mid Century Modern ceramic tiles Art by Joseph Roelants for Gilliot & Cie 1948 Joseph Roelants (1881-1962) was appointed in 1919 as a design...

This early pre-abstract expressionist work "Element of The Family" painted by NY artist Melville Price was done in Woodstock NY in 1944. Price was one of the youngest members of the first generation of abstract Expressionist painters, he established close friendships with Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. At the start of his career, Joseph Stella was influential as a friend and mentor. Melville Price was married to musician and linguist Pauline Halperin in 1941. With a small grant from Life Magazine, the couple moved to Woodstock, New York, in 1942 where he painted Element of Family. The couple returned to New York in 1946 and began working for frame makers Benevi and Feist and the House of Heydenryck. In 1948 Melville Price began to be included in group exhibitions along with Kline, Adloph Gottlieb, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Hans Hofmann, Stamos and Louise Bourgeois. Melville Price was born in Kingston, New York, and grew up in Bradley Beach, New Jersey, and the Bronx. Initially affluent, his family lost its wealth during the Depression, and after the death of Price's father in 1939 could not recover its former stature. Unable to afford higher education after high school, Price studied informally at the Art Students League, the National Academy of Design, and the New School for Social Research. It was at this time that Joseph Stella, whom Melville Price met shortly before his father died, became a caring friend and counselor to him, introducing him to surrealism, futurism, and cubism and instilling in him a respect for earlier generations of artists. In the early 1940s Price worked for the WPA Fine Arts Program, initially as a laborer, and later in the painting division. Within this context he made the acquaintance of Arshile Gorky, de Kooning, Pollock, and Kline. He also developed close relationships with Fritz Bultman, Giorgio Cavallon, Theodoros Stamos, Robert Motherwell, Milton Resnick, Alton Pickens, Conrad Marca-Relli, and Ezio Martinelli...