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.
Two curtains in warm yellow and pink frame the painting from the right, with the rest of the background in a mesh of cool blues and greens in a quasi-watercolor style. The brushstrokes are evident and very thick in some parts of the background. The middle ground houses an emerald vase with seven pink tulips, six yellow tulips, and two red tulips all in full bloom. The area of the clearest focus is in the foreground, centered on the pink paint jar, with paint splotches around it, but an obvious absence of a paint brush. Even in the darkest shadows of the painting, there is no black paint used, and other colors mixed together to create darker hues. This demonstrates formal art training, because the usage of black paint, when mixed with white paint, grays out a painting. By not using black paint, the vibrant hues stand out more. About the Artist: Little is known about George Spector. He was a Russian immigrant to the United States and lived in the New York City area. Between 1913 and 1914 he got a diploma from the Cooper Union Night School of Art and received recognition for the category “Drawing from Life.” Given Spector's grasp of detail and three dimensional modeling, it seems possible that he had formal art training prior to the Cooper Union. He exhibited at the Salons of America in 1926 and 1927. 2 works at the Index of American Design. 7 more images at FAP.
This oil on canvas still-life features a modestly decorated table. The primary object, the vase of overflowing peonies, demands our attention. A few, smaller objects also adorn this table such as small candles, a looking glass, and a gold statue. At first glance, it is easy to miss the oversized plate that sits like a shadow behind the peonies. It takes on a natural personality, such as a full moon, especially when juxtaposed behind bright and delicate flowers. There is a balance between natural and man-made objects in this piece, an arrangement of flowers from the outdoors complements the craftsmanship of the statue or the plate. This is a celebration of the domestic sphere, balancing unpredictable nature with human ability. 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.
An off-white house, set behind a tree with branches reaching over the roof, sits in an opulent environment of greens, browns, and yellows. Visible brush strokes in the siding of the house show shadows and rotting wood; in the tree, they texture the roundness of the trunk and the wispiness of the uppermost limbs, seeming to stretch as far as they can until they taper off. A thin, copper ladder rests against the porch, while further in the distance sits an indistinct red building. About the Artist: Born in New York, New York, Varian studied at Cooper Union after dropping out of high school at age 15. Graduating with honors, she went on to study under John Sloan at the Art Students League. During her time there, she met Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney and the two formed a professional relationship, opening the Studio Club with fifteen other prominent New York artists in 1918. Varian developed her skills as a Colorist in Paris, where she studied from 1920 to 1922. While there, she held her first one-woman show at the Durand-Ruel Galleries. Choosing to move to Woodstock, New York after Paris was a social choice for Varian; many of her colleagues from the Studio Club and Art Students League had settled there to serve in teaching roles at the Woodstock School of Art, where she exhibited on numerous occasions. Varian also showed at the Brooklyn Museum, Carnegie International, Corcoran Galleries, Downtown Galleries, Museum of Modern Art (1936), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Yale University. Critics and viewers alike commented on her use of color as a focal point of her pieces; one noted her “luminous values and clarity of line”, while highlighting the “refreshing simplicity” of her brush strokes (“Varian”). Another praised how each of her paintings “demonstrate her concern with beauty”, and likewise her perfection of “depth, space, and light” perception (“Woodstock”). With her upbringing in the Arts Students League, she was “among the progressive artists challenging the strictures” of traditional art (Kiehl). Many of Varian’s contemporaries worked with Cubism, Precisionism, and Surrealism; the perspective she applied to her work is uncanny in nature, with attention paid to the accentuation of brush strokes and distorted dimensions. In offering lush color contrast and variety, however, Varian displays an emotional complexity rooted in natural environments. 6 works at the Whitney Museum of Art. 5 works at Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. 1 work at the Woodstock School of Art. 1 work at Smithsonian American Art Museum. 4 more images at FAP. Papers can be found at Archives of American Art. Sources Consulted: “Varian Exhibition Open at Parnassus to Sept. 10,” Kingston Daily Freeman 25 Aug. 1953: 9; “Woodstock Artist Has Showing in L.I. University,” Kingston Daily Freeman 6 Nov. 1961: 24; David W. Kiehl, Between the Wars: Women Artists of the Whitney Studio Club and Museum (Whitney Museum of Art, 1997).
Two boats, a sailboat at left and a motor boat at right, are stationary on calm water. Trees that occupy the background of this piece are reflected by the water in which several moorings are stand. A sand hill or trail cuts into these trees. The painting is predominantly earth-toned, excluding the red stripes on both boats and the blue of the sky which is also reflected by the water. Note: an unfortunate repair of the painting has rendered the sailboat’s booms miscolored. About the Artist: Born in Baltimore, MD, Theobald was the eldest child of a famous eye surgeon at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. After attending college at that institution, where he was an artist for the school annual, he worked briefly as a caricaturist for the Baltimore Afternoon News (“Art News”). Early in Theobald’s career, he studied with André Castaigne, the popular French illustrator and painter. He was present to witness the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, sketching from Federal Hill and creating a lurid painting of fire and smoke that was described as “very appalling” in its sublime effect (“Picture”). Theobald began dividing his time betwen Baltimore and New York around 1900, his main interests to that point focused upon sporting art. In 1915, he married Elizabeth Sturtevant, a sculptor, and exhibited his work in venues like the Corcoran Gallery, the Beginning in the mid-1920s, the divided their time between Staten Island and Orlando, FL. They received permission from the Ringling Brothers to spend several months at the circus’s winter home in Sarasota, resulting in distinctive works like sculptural castings of “Miss Congo” the gorilla, and paintings of bareback riders, clowns on stilts, and “Elephant Being Manicured” (“Theobald Art”). 5 more images at FAP. Sources Consulted: “Picture of the Great Fire,” Baltimore Sun 12 Mar. 1904: 6; “Art News from Baltimore,” American Art News 3.71 (18 Mar. 1905): 5; “Theobald Art Exhibitions on Display In New Showing of Art Association,” Orlando Sentinel 17 Mar. 1929: 15.
This painting depicts blooming Japanese flora in what appears to be a body of water; however, most of the canvas is negative space, a technique that allows for a higher contrast in colors of Ward’s vegetation. It also is perhaps intended to allow viewers to contemplate life and its meaning, for the flowers and waterlilies surrounding the base of the vegetation—their branches and petals—are flourishing. About the Artist: Ward was born, in Paris, to a family of artists. His father Edgar Melville was a noted genre painter who directed the National Academy of Design for twenty years; his uncle John Quincy Adams Ward was even more famous for his public sculptures. The younger painter studied with Edward William Carlson, Francis Coates Jones, and—perhaps most influential—the muralist George W. Maynard. He lived much of his life in Ulster County. As of the mid-1930s Ward, in addition to painting, was a designer and a muralist in his own right (Kingston Daily Freeman 30 July 1936: 7). His “Under Sea Life” was at the Jones Beach Pavillion, and he created several for Wells College, Aurora NY.
New Jersey Farm: A small, somewhat run-down farm is surrounded by trees and encroaching vegetation. There is a smoke stack in the background, indicating industrial transformations to area farmland. The painting’s earthy colors are somewhat tonal and sun-bleached; red and green tones provide the main contrast. Despite its beauty thhere seems to be a feeling of emptiness captured in this piece. About the Artist: Born in Kaminietz, Russia, Shulgold’s family immigrated to Pittsburgh, PA shortly thereafter. After graduating high school he studied art at the Carnegie Technical Institute with Arthur Watson Sparks and George Sotter, then later with William Auerbach-Levy at the National Academy of Design. He also studied art in Paris and Florence. Shulgold began his career finding opportunities wherever he could: as a Carnegie student, he was awarded a prize for war poster design; in 1922, he created stage sets for a production of Booth Tarkington’s Penrod at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement theater; (Pittsburgh Daily Post 22 May 1918: 7; Pittsburgh Press 27 Nov. 1922: 17). Shulgold continued to teach students at the Settlement art school for several years. Meanwhile his paintings were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Gallery. In 1928 Shulgold moved to New York, although he retained close ties to Pittsburgh. By the 1930s he was becoming known as a portrait painter, albeit with his own specific views: “One may consider heads as a study in architecture. The shape is comparable to the structural design of a building. The features of a face are like the windows and ornamentation of the building” (Naylor). In 1943 Shulgold moved to California, where he was in demand as a portrait painter—for example, of Ronald Coleman playing the film role of Richard III in A Double Life—while continuing his work in other genres. One review of a 1951 show said that “In California he has turned to gayer moods and smaller sizes in pictures of flowers, nudes, and small portraits” (“Portrait”). 2 works at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. 1 more image at FAP. Sources Consulted: Douglas Naylor, “ ‘Studies in Architecture’: Title Artist Gives Head Drawings,” Pittsburgh Press 4 Dec. 1932: 34; “Portrait of Ronald Coleman Impresses,” Los Angelest Times 18 July 1948: 56.
This work, as the title suggests, is of trees during the fall season: red, yellow, and orange colors of leaves on their skeletal forms depict a season of change. Rolling hills behind them likewise are changing color to more muted tones, the color of perhaps a dirt path. The sky is blue behind off-white clouds. A stone wall separates the trees from a grassy field in the foreground. About the Artist: Born as August Fredrik Vilhelm Axelsen in Tönsberg, Norway, dire economic conditions there led to his immigration—at eight years old—to the US with his maternal aunt and her husband, Wilhelm Waltemath of Germany. That family settled in Minneapolis, MN, where William eventually began work as a printer. His paintings were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Salons of America, and Society of Independent Artists, along with group and individual events. At a 1931 show in Baltimore, MD, the art critic Henry McBride wrote that Waltemath “commands rich pigment and has a sense of picture making, though his tendency is toward the somber.” By 1932, however, Waltemath’s professional and financial situation had suffered; he was one of a dozen New York painters selected for inclusion in a show featuring artists “who are for the most part unknown, indigent, or neglected” (“Unsung”). The Federal Art Project provided a crucial lifeline, for example in 1937 his work shown at a WPA exhibition along with fellow NDG artist Carl Nordell. He remained active in civic organizations, notably as chairman of the Art League of Nassau County. There is something moving to to a photograph of Waltemath with one of his paintings, where it’s revealed that he considers himself “a printer by trade and an artist because he insists on being one....He has been unemployed for some time, but refuses to allow that to halt his painting” (“An Artist”). Sources Consulted: Henry McBride, “Some Foreign Impressions of Our Art,” Baltimore Sun 22 Nov. 1931: 66; “Unsung Artists Exhibit at Show on Heights,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle 3 Sept. 1932: 3; “An Artist—By Choice!” New York Daily News 10 Jan. 1937: 181.
A clown dressed in a red costume and ruffled collar holds up a game of Tic-Tac-Toe to play with a dog—or is it a pig, given the body shape and curly tail? Behind them, a large crowd under a big-top tent watches the two perform. It’s not entirely clear what the clown’s gesture signifies, nor what the animal is supposed to do next. Willmott imparts colorful detail to the clown’s eyes, face and makeup, to the props of his trade. As with the work of fellow NDG artist Gerrit Hondius, there may be overtones of social criticism in circus paintings during the Great Depression. About the Artist: Born in New York to immigrants from England, Willmott grew up in Queens and studied at the Hartford Art School during the early 1930s. His varied subject matter and style was criticized, at a 1932 exhibit, for “going in too many directions at once....Each canvas is almost a new departure from every other one” (New York Evening Post 12 Mar. 1932: 3). Such eclecticism may have been better suited for commercial illustration, as in a puzzle book by F. E. Menaker entitled How Smart Are You? (1935). There may have been other such work not yet identified. 5 more images at FAP.
A slanted table has a vase filled with dried flowers ranging from colors of orange, yellow, purple and one single white flower. Behind the vase is a heavier fabric draping around all the objects on the table. The objects include a goblet swaddled in the fabric to the left of the vase, a book in front of the vase and a bowl of pears and grapes to the left of the vase. The warm colors and the focus of the flowers in the middle of the painting make the painting feel autumnal. Which leads to the feeling that the flowers symbolize the end of autumn and the beginning of winter as the flowers seem to have been collected and dried and therefore been in the vase for a while. About the Artist: Born in Kaminietz, Russia, Shulgold’s family immigrated to Pittsburgh, PA shortly thereafter. After graduating high school he studied art at the Carnegie Technical Institute with Arthur Watson Sparks and George Sotter, then later with William Auerbach-Levy at the National Academy of Design. He also studied art in Paris and Florence. Shulgold began his career finding opportunities wherever he could: as a Carnegie student, he was awarded a prize for war poster design; in 1922, he created stage sets for a production of Booth Tarkington’s Penrod at the Irene Kaufmann Settlement theater; (Pittsburgh Daily Post 22 May 1918: 7; Pittsburgh Press 27 Nov. 1922: 17). Shulgold continued to teach students at the Settlement art school for several years. Meanwhile his paintings were exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Carnegie Museum of Art, and the Corcoran Gallery. In 1928 Shulgold moved to New York, although he retained close ties to Pittsburgh. By the 1930s he was becoming known as a portrait painter, albeit with his own specific views: “One may consider heads as a study in architecture. The shape is comparable to the structural design of a building. The features of a face are like the windows and ornamentation of the building” (Naylor). In 1943 Shulgold moved to California, where he was in demand as a portrait painter—for example, of Ronald Coleman playing the film role of Richard III in A Double Life—while continuing his work in other genres. One review of a 1951 show said that “In California he has turned to gayer moods and smaller sizes in pictures of flowers, nudes, and small portraits” (“Portrait”). 2 works at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. 1 more image at FAP. Sources Consulted: Douglas Naylor, “ ‘Studies in Architecture’: Title Artist Gives Head Drawings,” Pittsburgh Press 4 Dec. 1932: 34; “Portrait of Ronald Coleman Impresses,” Los Angelest Times 18 July 1948: 56.
Shulgold, William, 1897-1989