Dublin Core
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Description
A traditional oil on canvas still life with visible brush strokes features two and a half green-yellow pears, a golden pineapple, a paring knife, a bottle of Italian wine, and a red bowl propped up as the centerpiece on a wooden dining table. In facing the window to the right, a chair juts out from the make-shift blue backdrop. The contrasting but warm colors reflect the different origins of the items found in a classic American household.
About the Artist: Born in Dresden, Germany, Schiff immigrated to the US in 1915 with her mother Lydia and father Jacob, a portrait painter. Her formative years were spent in Chicago, where she received training from her father and was featured at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1934. Her work also was exhibited by the Hadassah women’s Zionist organization of that city. Shortly thereafter, perhaps in 1935, Schiff moved to New York and took classes at the Art Students League, meanwhile showing her work at the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit. Although her paintings at the New Deal Gallery collection consist of still lifes, Schiff took great pleasure in portraiture; at a 1941 show she sketched visitors to her own exhibit and then displayed them on the walls (“Art Show”). The physicist Albert Einstein was a subject of her sketching. In 1943 she married James Vrettos, then moved to Colorado in 1956. Schiff’s work took a turn toward more chimerical subject matter, described by gallery director Simon Zalkind as tableaux of paper-doll characters: “Schiff's women, alternately alluring, playful and coy are always being seen. Figuratively and often literally, they are ‘on stage’. As Schiff's work evolves through the decades her women progressively lose the appearance of physical solidity, acquiring instead cartoon-like curves and contours. Bodies are flattened and appear to float weightlessly.” Her son recalls that Schiff “remained a loving, joyous, positively spirited person until the end of her life—true to her name Luba—Luboff in Russian meaning love.” 3 more images at FAP.
Sources Consulted: “Art Show Continues,” Gloverville Morning Herald 8 May 1941: 20. For additional information, a special thanks to Schiff’s son James Vrettos.