Original 1933 Gino Conti 'children at a Park' Wpa Social Realist Oil Painting

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This is just a great original piece. Attending quite a few auctions and estate sales in Rhode Island, I have … Read more This is just a great original piece. Attending quite a few auctions and estate sales in Rhode Island, I have handled a few Gino Conti paintings over the last couple of decades. I love his work and always think it is underappreciated. This work has been hanging in my office for a year or so. For those not familiar with the artist, I have included his biography below. This is one of the artist's earlier works as it is signed and dated 1933 lower left. On the back of the stretcher it is titled in pencil. It obviously refers to the woman in the background selling nuts to the children. A wonderful WPA period social realist view. Oil on canvas measuring 23 x 28 1/2 inches. Painting is in excellent condition. A slight layer of surface grime and perhaps a few very tiny specs of paint loss but otherwise really outstanding. A later Whistler style frame is very complimentary and ready to hang. Frame measures 28 x 33 1/2 inches.

For those not familiar with the artist his biography from a gallery that sells the artist's work reads: "Born in Barga, Italy in 1900, Conti emigrated with his parents to Providence, Rhode Island in 1903. Upon graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1923, he was awarded two scholarships to study in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts in Fontainebleau and the Académie Julian in Paris. He also studied privately with François Gorguet, a member of the Institut de France, and with Jean Despujols, a Prix de Rome artist. During his time in Europe he also resided at the Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria del Monte in Cesena, Italy. During the Great Depression in the late 1930s, he received contracts through the Works Progress Administration to paint two murals in Rhode Island - one at Samuel Slater Junior High School, Pawtucket and the second at Edwards Hall at the University of Rhode Island, Kingstown. He taught art at the Gordon School in Providence in the 1950s and 60s and was a member of both the Providence Art Club and the Providence Water Color Club. In 1929, Conti had two one-man exhibitions, first in New York in the spring at the Montross Gallery, and then in Providence, Rhode Island in November at the Tilden-Thurber Galleries (the latter reviewed to great acclaim in The Providence Journal). In addition, the artist exhibited widely throughout his career in Paris, Boston, Philadelphia, Newport and Providence. " See less