RONALD JOSEPH (1910 - 1992) Untitled (Ships at Dock).
Watercolor on thick wove paper, circa 1948-50. 380x505 mm; 15x20 inches. Signed and dated 48-50 in pencil, lower right.
Provenance: the artist; collection of Adrienne E. Wheeler; private collection, New Jersey.
Born in St. Kitts, the West Indies, Joseph moved as a child to New York where he received early recognition of his talents. In 1929, he was honored as the "most promising" young artist in New York's public schools and given an exhibition of 60 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He studied lithography with Riva Helfond at the Harlem Community Art Center during the WPA. He joined the mural section in New York, and represented the Harlem Artist's Guild at the New York World's Fair in 1939-40. After military service, he lived and worked in Peru on a Rosenwald scholarship, and later studied in Paris under the G.I. bill. He experimented with abstraction alongside his friend Bob Blackburn through the 1950s. He then moved permanently to Brussels. His prints are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of Reba and Dave Williams. Mintz Messinger, p. 31
