Lot 180: Robert Gwathmey O/C Painting, Musical Couple on Porch

Robert Gwathmey (Virginia/New York, 1903-1988) oil on canvas painting of an African American man and woman seated outdoors on a porch. The man plays an acoustic guitar or mandolin while the woman listens with eyes closed. Signed lower left. With The House of Heydenryk, New York, framer’s label affixed to back of frame. Housed in a distressed painted and giltwood frame. Sight: 35 1/2 in H. x 24 1/2 in. W. Framed: 47 in. H x 41 in. W. Likely circa 1979. Note: A similar setting and theme appear in Gwathmey’s 1979 painting “Harmonizing” (see Michael Kammen, Robert Gwathmey: The Life and Art of a Passionate Observer [Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press: 1999], and Bonhams New York, 11/17/2022, lot 22). The male figure in this painting also appears in Gwathmey’s “The Mandolin Player,” possibly a study for the present work (see Sotheby’s New York, 9/27-28, 2011, lot 205). Biographical Note: “Gwathmey was born in Richmond, an eighth-generation Virginian…His experience of living and teaching in the North exposed him to more liberal attitudes towards African Americans, whom he first met as equals, he claimed, on the Philadelphia WPA/FAP project and through the Artists’ Union. He was angered and shocked at the treatment they received in his native Virginia and in the Southern states…Characteristic of his paintings and screenprints are the flat, high-key colour and the use of a wiry, taut black outline to describe the figures… In 1946 he had a solo exhibition at the ACA Gallery, New York, for which Paul Robeson, the black spiritual singer and actor, wrote the catalogue introduction, describing him as ‘a white Southerner [who] expresses his region in the democratic tradition and in the best fusion of esthetic and social principles.'” (Source: Cleveland Museum of Art)

PROVENANCE: Private Southern Collection.

CONDITION: Overall very good condition. 1/4 inch x 1/4 inch retouch to background at upper left.