Lot 193: Carroll Cloar Framed Drawing, Pondside Girl

Carroll Cloar (American/Tennessee, 1913-1994) drawing, pencil and marker on paper, titled “Pond Side Girl” lower left and  signed “Carroll Cloar” lower right. Double matted under glass in a molded giltwood frame. Sight: 21 1/4 in. H x 31 1/4 in. W. Frame: 33 in. H x 43 in. W. Note: Carroll Cloar was known for incorporating nostalgic images, often from his Southern childhood, sometimes merged with dreamlike motifs, into powerful magic realist scenes, and he often noted that literature, particularly by Southern Gothic writers such as William Faulkner or Eudora Welty, influenced his artistic approach. Born in Arkansas, Cloar graduated from Southwestern College (now Rhodes College) in Memphis, Tennessee, and went on to study at the Memphis Academy of Arts under the artist George Oberteuffer. In 1936, he moved to New York to attend the Art Students League. There, Cloar’s achievements earned him a McDowell fellowship which he used to travel across the American Southwest, West Coast and Mexico. Cloar served with the Army Air Corps during World War II and upon his return, he was awarded a Guggenheim traveling scholarship to fund an extended sojourn to Central and South America. Two years later, several of his images were featured in a Life Magazine article titled Backwoods Boyhood, and Cloar’s work began to earn national acclaim. By the mid 1950s, he had settled permanently in Memphis, where he produced paintings, often executed in casein tempera and acrylic paints. His works are in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Brooks Museum of Art, and the Library of Congress.  (Sources: The Johnson Collection/Memphis Brooks Museum of Art).

PROVENANCE:

A Memphis, TN estate. 

CONDITION:

Creasing, most noticeably lower left corner. A few errant tiny paint splatters to paper. Frame with a few small spots of wear.