Coreen Spellman c.1950 Early Modernist Watercolor

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Coreen Spellman (1905-1978) Modernist Watercolor "Expansion and Contraction #1" c. 1950 Coreen Spellman was one of Texas' most renowned artists in the 1930's through the 1970's, and probably the most important of all the Early Texas Woman artists. Among the woman artists of her era, Coreen Spellman's desirability is unmatched with auction results of up to $40,000! Her major Exhibitions include the Edgar B Davis Wildflower Competition, the 1936 Texas Centennial, Texas General Exhibitions (numerous), Dallas Allied Arts Exhibitions (numerous), the Witte Museum, the Kansas City Art Institute (numerous), the Southern States Art League Circuit Exhibitions (numerous), the National Exhibition of American Art at Rockefeller Center New York, the 1939 Worlds Fair (American Art Today, 1939), the Whitney Museum, the National Academy of Design, the Chicago Art Institute (numerous), the Brooklyn Museum, the Joslyn Museum among many others. Spellman was also a charter member of the Texas Printmakers and participated in their circuit exhibitions for many years. Her primary media were watercolor and printmaking. This watercolor was among a group of modernist works Spellman completed in the early 1950's. From her earliest days as an artist, Coreen Spellman's art was cutting edge. In the 1940's her work became progressively abstract, and by the 1 950's her painting is almost entirely free of the figurative element. In this watercolor her mastery of form, visual rhythm, and color are evident. Besides her own art, Coreen Spellman influenced countless numbers of younger woman artists as professor of painting, illustration, and drawing at the College of Industrial Arts from 1925 until 1974 (which later became known as Texas Womans University). She also taught art at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. This watercolor was purchased from the Estate of Mick Spellman. It is being sold non reserve! It is an excellent opportunity to purchase a fine piece of Early Texas Art and a piece of Texas Art history by one of Texas' most important artists. Note: Local Buyers can pick-up the item in Arlington, Texas and I will waive the shipping fee. Title: "Expansion and Contraction #1" Media: Watercolor Size: 20" x 13" Condition: Excellent; Clean margins; Vibrant Colors; Framing: Unframed; Matted by the artist Provenance: Estate of Nick Spellman (Coreen Spellman's Brother). Biography of Coreen Spellman (1905-1978) Coreen Mary Spellman was a fine-art teacher as well as a painter, designer, illustrator, lithographer and muralist. Many of her paintings depicted human-made structures and industrial landscapes in a style combining realism, precisionism and abstraction. Often the central subject such as in "Railroad Signal" was the only suggestion of humanity against a backdrop of stark Texas landscape. Of her painting these isolated subjects she said: "I enjoy taking some rather obscure or unimportant subject or theme and making something fine and important out of it . . . It always gives me great pleasure to discover something which has been passed over as being inadequate material". (Trenton 199)Spellman was born in Forney, Texas in 1905. At an early age she moved to Dallas, Texas and studied under Vivian Aunspaugh before attending the College of Industrial Arts (Texas Woman's University). She received a Master of Arts degree from Columbia University and a Masters Degree from the University of Iowa, Iowa City in 1942. In addition, Spellman received a Carnegie Scholarship for study at Harvard University, followed by studies with Kenneth Hayes Miller, Vaclav Vytlacil, and Charles Wheeler Locke at the Art Students League of New York. Spellman was also a student of Eliot O'Hara and William E. Schumacher and attended the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1925 to 1974, she taught painting, illustration and drawing at her alma mater in Denton, Texas as well as at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts School. She designed a brick mural in 1... read more

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