Lot 212: Bill Sawyer O/B, Girl with Cat & Brick House

Bill Sawyer (American/Tennessee, 1936-2020) oil on board painting depicting a little girl holding a black cat and standing in the doorway of a brick tenement house; a discarded baby doll lays in the doorway of the house next door. The house, and the buildings behind it, are rendered in intricate architectural detail with incised lines demarcating each individual brick as well as the gutters, steps, and columns. Signed "Bill Sawyer" lower left on the curb. Housed in a natural pine frame with plain edges, linen mat, and gilt fillet. Board: 20" H x 24" W. Frame: 27" H x 31" W. Biography: Bill Sawyer was a self-taught artist from Nashville. He is said to have taken up painting while stationed in France in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the 1950s. His first exhibition was in Nashville in May of 1959 and he went on to have 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. Sawyer was the first untrained artist to have a one-man show at the gallery, and his second show there, in 1966, sold out. Shortly after this time, Sawyer traveled overseas. After his trip, for unknown reasons, Sawyer seems to have never painted again. He sought privacy, living quietly in Nashville, where he passed away in 2020. After 1966, his work went on to be exhibited at the Fine Arts Center at Cheekwood, and in the Art of Tennessee exhibit at the Frist Museum (2006).

PROVENANCE: Private Middle Tennessee Collection.

CONDITION: Painting in very good condition, some light grime. Minor wear to gilt fillet and grime to linen mat.