Arthur N. Colt, "The Wrestlers", Oil on canvas c. 1938 More Information
Arthur N. Colt, “The Wrestlers”, Oil on canvas c. 1938
ARTHUR N. COLT (1889-1972) USA
The Wrestlers c. 1938
Oil on canvas
Signed: A. N. Colt in lower right corner
For more information on Colt see: Who Was Who in American Art (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985). p.125. Hove, Arthur, ed. Wisconsin Alumnus Vol. 61, No. 9 (January 1960), “Portrait Patterns” Art Digest v. 9 (December 15, 1934) p. 7
Canvas: H: 29 ½” x W: 34”
Framed: H: 38 ½” x W: 43”
Arthur Colt studied painting at the Art Institute of Chicago and in Paris. He was not only an important Wisconsin painter but also an influential teacher. He taught at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, founded a summer art colony at Black River and Devil’s Lake, WI and went on to form the Colt School of Art. Arthur Colt exhibited at the Madison Salon of Art Exhibition in 1934.
Otis Oldfield, Water Pipes and Shadows, Oil on Canvas c. 1920
OTIS OLDFIELD (1890-1969) USA
“Water pipes and shadows” c. 1920
Oil on canvas, walnut frame
Signed: Otis Oldfield (lower left)
For more information see: Otis Oldfield 1890-1990, Centennial retrospective exhibition (San Francisco, CA: Inkwell Publishing, 1990).
Painting: H: 16 1/8” x W: 13”
Framed: H: 28 ¼” x W: 25 1/8”
Price: $42,500
***The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York owns a famous Gelatin silver print photograph by Morton Schamberg from 1916 entitled “God”. This image is akin to Duchamp’s “Fountain” and is an iconic Dadaist assemblage of plumbing pipes mounted on a miter box. The “Water Pipes and Shadows” painting by Otis Oldfield similarly brings a certain animation and personality to an under sink composition of mundane drain pipes in a sophisticated “Rayonist” or “Cubist” stylization. Otis Oldfield was born in Sacramento, California in 1890. He enrolled in the Best Art School in San Francisco in 1909 and continued his studies at the Academie Julian in Paris. Returning to the U.S., Oldfield settled briefly Sacramento before returning to San Francisco to accept a post as a teacher at the California School of Fine Art. Oldfield developed a bold modernist style, which caused some controversy among critics covering his exhibits. In 1936 Oldfield was one of a group of San Francisco artists chosen for a WPA project to paint murals in San Francisco’s Coit Tower. Following WW II, Oldfield taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He died in San Francisco in 1969.
Victor Arnautoff, The Felt Hat, Oil on Canvas c. 1930
VICTOR ARNAUTOFF (1896-1979) USA
The Felt Hat c. 1930
Oil on canvas, white gold frame
Signed: V. Arnautoff, lower right
Exhibited: Art Center San Francisco, 1931 (see image of the review in the San Francisco Examiner, July 12th, 1931)
For more information see: The New Deal for Artists, Richard D. McKinzie (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), Coit Tower, San Francisco : Its History and Art
Painting: H: 26” x W: 21”
Framed: H: 32 ½” x 27 ½”
Price: $60,000
Victor Arnautoff created paintings and watercolors, focusing on portraits, still lifes and rural landscapes in his early years, and moved to more socially conscious themes later in his career. Arnautoff was a native of Russia, to which he returned during the 1960s after thirty years in the United States. He came to San Francisco from Russia via China, bringing his wife and children with him, and studied at the California School of Fine Arts studying with Ralph Stackpole and Edgar Walter before going to Mexico. There he worked as an assistant to the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. During the 1930s, Arnautoff worked as project director and one of the artists selected to create the famed Coit Tower murals, he played a key role in determining the political and social content of the frescoes painted in the San Francisco landmark. His own contribution, City Life, appears to be a lively, non-political melding of downtown San Francisco scenes; however, closer study reveals two leftist newspapers on the newsstand, while the city’s most mainstream daily, the San Francisco Chronicle, is strangely missing. Arnautoff also painted frescoes in the Military Chapel at San Francisco’s Presidio, in the Anne Bremer Library of the San Francisco Art Institute, and in high schools and other buildings in the Bay Area. He was a professor of art at Stanford University from 1939 until his retirement in 1963.
@hd_jewels