'Portrait', by Francesca Sundsten, 2002, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Pratt Institute, Ram, Surrealism, Nerdrum

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Signed verso, 'France. Sundsten' for Francesca Sundsten (American, 1960-2019), titled, 'Monster Sheephead' and dated 2002. Accompanied by original receipt from … Read more Signed verso, 'France. Sundsten' for Francesca Sundsten (American, 1960-2019), titled, 'Monster Sheephead' and dated 2002. Accompanied by original receipt from Davidson Gallery.

Framed dimensions: 36.5 H x 2.5 D x 36 W inches
Previously with: Davidson Galleries, Seattle, Washington (from label verso)
Provenance: Austin Hills estate, San Francisco.

Born in California, Francesca Sundsten moved to Seattle with her family at the age of three and enrolled at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1984. Her primary interest was in representational painting, a style which was discouraged in her undergraduate program. After seeing an Odd Nerdrum exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, she traveled to Oslo to study with him. She returned to the Art Institute following her informal internship, where she spent the following two years "defending the unpopular direction" she had chosen. She was awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1987 and, in 1990, received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Stanford University.

Sundsten exhibited widely and with success including at the Grover/Thurston Galleries, Davidson Galleries, Linda Warren Gallery, Diane Nelson Fine Art, Olga Dollar Gallery, and Parker/Zinc Gallery, and the Hall Spassov Gallery. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Tacoma Art Museum, Microsoft, and the University of Washington Medical Center. Sundsten taught at Stanford University, the Pratt Institute, and Cornish College of the Arts. Involved in the Seattle music scene, she also played bass for the art-punk Seattle band The Beakers and was married to King Crimson drummer Bill Rieflin.

Reviewing Sundsten's 2003 exhibit of drawings and paintings at the Davidson Galleries, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote that "Sundsten's fine painting and mastery of realism hides nothing in haze. Her quirky, starkly confrontational imagery doesn't disturb as much as it questions. The characters hang in confused naivete, pondering, 'How did I get here?'"

Of her 2013 exhibit Creatures at the Grover/Thurston Galleries, art critic Michael Upchurch wrote: "Throughout "Creatures", Sundsten's dazzling painterly facility makes her fantastical subjects feel preposterously plausible." See less