Two Pines is the largest and most significant work by David C. Driskell to come to auction. This impressive canvas is from a series of modernist compositions abstracting the tall pine trees of Maine from the early 1960s. Driskell painted pine trees as early as 1953 when he studied at Skowhegan - he would use them as both a formal and symbolic device. By 1960, they became more abstract, as, according to the artist, "I wanted to go beyond the known qualities of the tree and investigate its atmosphere. I wanted to take the viewer in all directions within the tree at one time." In the summer of 1961 Driskell acquired property in Falmouth, Maine, where he also planted memorial trees for family members. By the fall he had finished his MFA at Catholic University, and was appointed director of the Barnett-Aden Gallery in Washington, DC. His important series of pine tree paintings includes Pines at Falmouth, 1961, collection of the artist, Winter Tree, 1962, James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan State University and Two Pines #2, 1964, the High Museum of Art. McGee pp. 49-54.
