?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
GEORGE LUKS The Landlord.
Oil on canvas, circa 1920. 608x507 mm; 24x20 inches. Ex-collection ACA Galleries, New York, with the label on the frame back.
Born in 1867 in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, Luks went on to have a life as interesting as it was troubled. His tutelage in the arts started early. As a young man he studied art in Germany while boarding at the home of a flamboyant, distant relative who had been a professional lion tamer. After short stints in Paris and London he returned home to the United States and took a job as an illustrator with the Philadelphia Press.
He became acquainted with Everett Shinn, William Glackens, John Sloan and eventually Robert Henri, whom along with Luks, became known as The Philadelphia Five. This group, with the addition of Ernest Lawson and Maurice Prendergast, later evolved into The Eight, the group popularly known as the founders of the Ashcan School.
Soon after returning to Philadelphia, Luks was enlisted by the US Army as a war artist and was sent to Cuba; rumor has it he was captured by Spaniards and condemned to death for espionage, although was deported instead. After finally landing in New York, Luks enjoyed a career as an esteemed instructor at the Art Students League and later as a private art teacher, operating out of his own studio. His life came to an abrupt end, when in 1933 he was found lifeless on a Manhattan street, the casualty of a barroom fracas.
