Oil on canvas, 1959. 920x615 mm; 36 1/4x24 1/4 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto, and countersigned in oil, verso.
Provenance: Private collection, Chicago.
Shaw (1892-1974) initially trained to be an architect at Columbia University, New York before transferring to Thomas Hart Benton's class at the Art Students League in 1927. Influenced by Benton (1889-1975) and George Luks (1867-1933), Shaw began a career as an artist and illustrator for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The Smart Set. In 1932, he traveled throughout Europe and was particularly influenced by Cézanne and Picasso, and his art in the early 1930s reflected the impact of Cubism and the color palette of the Post-Impressionists.
In 1937, Shaw became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group and was involved in the group throughout the 1930s. He exhibited at the Museum of Non-Objective Art, the first New York-based venue for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and he served on the board of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1936-41. Later in his career, Shaw transformed the solid geometric forms with which he had worked into bolder and more gestural, and he turned to Abstract Expressionism until the 1960s, when he adopted strokes in a more Minimalist style until the end of his career.
