Art Lovers discussion

Millard Sheets?

No, but it looks a bit like Sheets I admit.
He was not on my "still to do" list. To be honest, I never heard of him before ;-)

Not surprised you hadn’t heard of him. He was big in Southern California in the first part of the 20th centiry.

Albert Pinkham Ryder????? Wild guess ...

Chris wrote: "Albert Pinkham Ryder????? Wild guess ..."

Another name I never heard of!
I just googeld him and I can see why you thought of him... strange work though.
But no, it's not Pinkham Ryder.
Also a wrong generation: Ryder was born almost 60 years before the artist we're looking for.

I’ve never heard of that one before and from looking at the screen too long I misread it at first and thought it said “Pumpkin Ryder” oops!

He was an oddball indeed. Didn't ride any pumpkins, as far as I know. Now ... if you're into Cormac McCarthy you can read about a watermelon "rider"(don't ask) in "Suttree."

Sorry guys, I just noticed that my comment about Pinkham Ryder was a bit confusing, to be clear: it is not Pinkham Ryder.
Also the artist we seek is famous for a very different style of work!
Here is a second pic, but also not in that style:

dufy?

No Geoffrey, Raoul Dufy was French, wrong nationality.

1959

Franz Kline

Hah! I thought I made it too easy now ;-)
Of course Franz Kline.
The first pics I posted were made in the early 1940s.
legend has it that he began creating his famous big abstract canvasses in 1948 because of a suggestion by his friend de Kooning.
Some of these coming up, just give me a minute ;-)

Faster than fairies, faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;

And charging along like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

Robert Louis Stevenson

I’d have never ever gotten it from his figurative work.