Emil Bisttram (1895-1976)

Flower Forms

細節

Emil Bisttram (1895-1976)
Flower Forms
signed and inscribed 'Bisttram/Taos' (lower right)
oil on canvas
36 x 32 in. (91.4 x 81.3 cm.)
Painted circa 1932-35.

來源

Martin Diamond Fine Arts, Inc., New York.
Private collection.
Christie's, New York, 1 December 1989, lot 274.
Cline Fine Art Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

拍品專文

Under the influence of his contemporaries Charles Sheeler, Andrew Dasburg and John Marin, Emil Bisttram sought a unique modern aesthetic in his depictions of the Southwest. This distinct vision of abstraction in a region of traditionally representational depiction of subject matter distinguished Bisttram from his peers and identified him as an influential member of the Taos Art Colony. In regards to the artist's "devotion to the principles of Dynamic Symmetry," Mary Carroll Nelson concludes that "clearly, the arrival of Bisttram and his intellectual viewpoint marked a change..." (The Legendary Artists of Taos, New York, 1980, p. 168)

The present painting is directly reminiscent, both in style and subject, to an early work from 1917 by Charles Sheeler also entitled Flower Forms. (Terra Foundation for the Arts, Daniel J. Terra Collection, Chicago, Illinois) Bisttram has painted another abstraction on the reverse of the present work, which bears the inscription 'The Georgia Wells Composition' on the stretcher.