?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000
MERTON D. SIMPSON (1928 - 2013) Cat Phantasy.
Oil on masonite board, 1953. 914x610 mm; 36x24 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right recto. Signed, titled and dated in oil, lower right verso.
Provenance: private collection, Virginia.
This fine, early example of Abstract Expressionism was painted when Merton Simpson was an emerging talent who exhibited with the New York School. From 1951-1954, Merton Simpson served in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Simpson was allowed to paint as an official duty while in the service, and he continued to advance his career in the New York gallery scene. In 1952, he was included in a juried exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, winning honorable mention for a watercolor. In 1954, Simpson was included in a group exhibition at Bertha Schaefer Gallery and in the exhibition Younger American Painters at the Guggenheim Museum..
