?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
NELL BLAINE View from Tarr and Wonson's, I (Gloucester).
Watercolor, 1980. 457x610 mm; 18x24 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto, and signed, titled, dated and inscribed in ink, verso.
Provenance: Fischbach Gallery, New York, with the label; Chesbrough-Pond's Art Collection, Greenwich, Connecticut, with the label; Christie's, New York, September 8, 2004, lot 138; (with) Tibor de Nagy, New York, 2012; private collection, New Jersey.
Exhibited "Nell Blaine, A Glowing Order," Tibor de Nagy, New York, September 6- October 13, 2012, with the label.
The Tarr and Wonson Paint Factory, located at the end of Horton Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts manufactured the first copper bottom paint in 1863 for use on boat hulls. The factory closed in 1980 and the building remained vacant until it was purchased by the Ocean Alliance for its headquarters in 2008.
Blaine (1922-1996) became the youngest member of the American Abstract Artists group in 1944 at the age of 22. Known for creating colorful works in a carefree, lighthearted manner and her strong personality, she thrived in the New York art scene of the 1940s. Toward the end of the decade, she decided to leave the city, which resulted in a period of seclusion. After contracting polio in 1959, Blaine was told she would never paint again, but she managed to continue her creative output by drawing and painting with watercolors.
