Watercolor, pen and ink, circa 1940-42. 273x178 mm; 10 3/4x7 inches. Signed and titled in ink, lower margin.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
This striking watercolor by Thelma Johnson Streat is an excellent example of her modernist works on paper. Like her experimental and mulitcultural dance performances, Streat's painting focused on abstract forms found in Native American, Asian and African art. Through her travels and her keen sense of the diversity of culture on the West Coast, Streat developed a modern aesthetic found in the designs and patterns of indigenous cultures. Her Rabbit Man, 1941, was the first painting by an African-American woman to be exhibited and purchased by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1942. Today, her work is found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Honolulu Academy of the Arts. Bullington p. 95.
