Lot Details
Lot 192
Preston Dickinson
American, 1891-1930
Still Life
Titled and inscribed with the artist's name on an old Daniels Gallery label affixed to the reverse
Oil on artistboard
13 3/4 x 9 7/8 inches
Provenance:
Daniels Gallery, New York
David Burliuk
Nicholas Burliuk Art Gallery, Hampton Bays, New York
Preston Dickinson spent four years studying in Paris, from 1910 to 1914, gaining exposure to contemporary European painting as well as Japanese prints. By 1915, he was already exhibiting at the Daniels Gallery, which continued to show his work until his premature death from pneumonia in 1930. His career lasted a mere twenty years.
A contemporary review of a watercolor show at the gallery in 1917 singled out Dickinson for combining "technical precision and intellectual force to a degree hardly approached by any of his companions. Not a space unaccounted for in his composition, not a line that isn't carried on to its logical outcome. And his color has the peculiar appeal that only can be made by a born colorist. Whether he is painting a flamboyant 'Salome Dancing' or a 'Chinese Figure' in grave purples and greens, he gives you an experience." [The New York Times, Sunday April 8, 1917, The New York Times Magazine, P SM7.]
Although undated aside from a date inscribed on its verso by another hand, this vibrant still life is consistent with work executed by the artist in the late 'teens and early 1920s. Several elements in this dynamic composition, including a chair, a dramatically foreshortened table, dining utensils and dinnerware, appear in other still life paintings of the early 1920s. The folding screen and even the scene depicted on the decorative flask at center reflect Dickinson's abiding interest in Asian art.
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