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  Lucien Lelong / French Art Deco Handpainted Porcelain Vase circa 1935

  LUCIEN LELONG (1889 – 1958) Paris, France

  “Metaphysical” vase c. 1935

  Hand painted and glazed porcelain with aqua, black and silver tones.

  Marks: LL monogram, AB

  H: 13 3/4″

  Lucien Lelong was born in Paris, France on October 11, 1889. Lucien learned his trade from his father, Arthur Lelong, who owned a textile factory in 1896, and his mother Eleanore, a dressmaker. He discovered his vocation in the family business and as soon as World War I was over, he expanded the family business by creating his own fashion house in the late 1918.

  He became immediately famous due to the neat tailoring of his designs and his skill in choosing and manufacturing fabrics. He did not actually create his own designs but hired the most prominent designers of the moment to design his collections such as Christian Dior, Pierre Balmain and Hubert Givenchy. Lelong was one of the first designers to diversify into lingerie and stockings. He introduced a line of ready-to-wear in 1934 which he labeled “editions.” In 1939, Lelong’s collections showed tightly waisted, full skirts; a style which became the “new Look” in Dior’s collection in 1947. After the war, in 1947, Lelong showed pencil-slim dresses; pleated, tiered, harem hemlines; and suits with wasp waists, cutaway fronts and square shoulders.

  After a trip to the United States where he learned everything pertaining to the working methods in the mass production of clothes, he returns to France and creates a line of pret-a-porter (ready-to-wear) collection, branded “LL” Edition. Lelong used his double” LL” logo to influence his designs as well as refining the packaging design of his perfumes and cosmetics. He was a master of the use of knits and bias to shape the body in the most complementary way. His house’s trademark was their unique ability in designing with fur.

  He was married to Natalie Paley who was the daughter of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia that assisted him with his business. Lelong was an active member of high society; socialized with the women he dressed, and did not miss the opportunity to capitalize on his name. From 1937 until the end of the war in 1948, Lelong was President of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, in which role he was able to fight and hinder the transfer of the Parisian fashion houses to Berlin during the German occupation. It was largely due to his efforts that ninety-two houses stayed opened during the war.

  Poor health caused the end of his career; Lelong retired in 1952, and died in 1958 of a heart attack.

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  Gerrit V. Sinclair “Town along Railroad”, Oil on board, gilt frame c. 1942

  GERRIT V. SINCLAIR   (1890-1955) USA

  Town along Railroad c. 1942

  Oil on board, gilt frame

  Signed: GV Sinclair (lower right corner on front of painting)

  For more information see: Who Was Who in American Art (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985) p. 571.

  Painting H: 15” x W: 20”

  Framed H: 20 7/16” x W: 25 7/16”

  Price: $29,500

  Gerrit V. Sinclair was born in Grand Haven, Michigan in 1890.  He studied art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1910 to 1915.  His most well known teachers at the Art Institute were John Vanderpoel and John Norton.  In 1917 the artist enlisted in the Army Ambulance Corps and served in northern Italy and Austria.  Scenes from his experience abroad are recorded in his works of the early 1920s.  Following the war, Sinclair settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he became a member of the faculty of the Layton School of Art upon the school’s founding in 1920.  He continued to teach at the Layton School and at the Oxbow Summer School of Art in Saugatuck, Michigan until his retirement in 1954.  Sinclair is recognized both as an important artist and teacher from the Great Lakes region.  During his lifetime Sinclair’s paintings were exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris, the Salon Printemps in Paris, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, the Whitney Museum in New York, the New York Watercolor Club, the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Art Institute of Chicago and in many other museums and galleries.  He received numerous prizes and commissions for his work including a W.P.A. mural commission for the Federal Building in Wassau, Wisconsin.  Sinclair was a member of Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors, Wisconsin Federation of the Arts and the Wisconsin Painting Museum. His style is a blend of realism and Impressionism but is clearly modern in its abstract concern for composition and color.  Sinclair is best known for his regionalist paintings of rural and urban Wisconsin.  His farm scene entitled ”Spring in Wisconsin” was exhibited at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York.  Gerrit V. Sinclair died in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1955.