Bill Sawyer (North Carolina/Tennessee, b. 1936) oil on board painting of a young girl in plaid dress standing under an arched bridge next to a curb, a discarded newspaper by her feet and tricycle to her left. A poster for "Pete Byrn State Sen." hangs above it and in the distance a man stands beside a shed with his back to the girl, facing a road. Signed Bill Sawyer, lower right. 24" x 20". Unframed. American, mid 20th century. Provenance: The estate of Dr. Benjamin H. Caldwell, Nashville, Tennessee. Biography (courtesy Askart: The Artists' Bluebook): Bill Sawyer, son of Mr. and Mrs. William R. Sawyer, was born in 1936 and was a self-taught artist. He graduated from Hillsboro High School, North Carolina, in 1954 and then took up painting "just to kill 30 months in France" while in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. His first exhibition was in Nashville in May of 1959. Subsequently, he had one-man shows at Daniel Orr's Gallery in San Diego, the Little Gallery in Memphis, TN, and the Parthenon in Nashville. Joseph Patterson, then the president of the American Association of Museums, arranged for a show of Sawyer's work at the Durlacher Brothers Gallery in New York in 1964. A second show there, in 1966, sold out. Sawyer was the first untrained artist to have a one-man show at Durlacher's. His work went on to be represented at the Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood in Nashville and in many private collections. Shortly after this time Sawyer traveled overseas, and after his trip Sawyer went through a transformation and vowed never to paint again. CONDITION: 1 1/2" scratch upper center. 1/2" stain upper right corner.