BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (ROUNTREE) BRITT (1923 - 1996) Winter in the City.
Oil on linen canvas, circa 1980. 457x610 mm; 18x24 inches. Signed in oil, lower left.
Provenance: the estate of Constance E. Clayton, Philadelphia (2008), acquired at Freeman's, Philadelphia.
Exhibited: Rittenhouse Square Clothesline Exhibit, with the label on the frame back.
This landscape is wonderful example of this Philadelphia artist and educator. Born in Windfall, North Carolina, Britt attended Philadelphia's Museum College of Art, Hussian School of Art, and the Arts Student League in New York. He is best known for his work in surrealism in the 1950s and 60s. Britt was included in the seminal 1960 illustrated survey American Negro Art by Cedric Dover. Britt was a member of the Les Beaux Arts club and taught at YMCAs in Germantown and Center City while mentoring young and older artists.
Britt exhibited in Atlanta University's Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculpture and Prints by Negro Artists where in 1957, he won the Purchase Prize for painting in oil for Yield Not and in 1958, for his Pink Sand No. 2. In 1969, he was among 200 Black artists featured in the important Philadelphia exhibition Afro-American Artists 1800-1969. In his later career, Britt was a staple at the Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show and the Atlantic City Show on the Boardwalk. Britt's paintings are in the permanent collections of the Clark Atlanta University, the Free Library of Philadelphia and the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia.
