LOT DETAILS

Materials:

oil on masonite board

Measurements:

15.98 in. (40.60 cm.) (height) by 20.00 in. (50.80 cm.) (width)

Markings:

Signed in oil, lower right

Exhibited:

Robert Neal exhibited his own paintings at the same time His work was included in two of the most celebrated national exhibitions of African-American Fine Art - the 1939 Baltimore Museum of Art's Contemporary Negro Art, the first museum group exhibition of African-American artists, and the 1940 Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940) at the Tanner Galleries in Chicago, the largest survey of African-American art at the time

Provenance:

acquired from family descendants of the artist, Colorado; private collection, Colorado This charming 1940s still life is only the second artwork by this painter and muralist to come to auction A native of Atlanta, Robert Neal was a student of Hale Woodruff's and became his studio assistant at Spelman College, working on the Talladega College Amistad murals in 1939 Neal transferred Woodruff's drawings to the canvas, and then installed the canvases to the walls after Woodruff had fallen ill