Lena Gurr, American Woman Artist Modernist Large Oil Painting Cubist Influenced Landscape, c.1940s

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A beautiful wooded landscape scene with houses and trees. Painted on a masonite board. hand signed lower right. with framers … Read more A beautiful wooded landscape scene with houses and trees. Painted on a masonite board. hand signed lower right. with framers label verso. Framed to 40 X 55 inches. 33 X 48 without the frame and mat. It is not dated. Lena Gurr (1897–1992), was an American woman artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained emotional content as they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Born into a Russian-Jewish Yiddish speaking immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility. Gurr used Lena Gurr as her professional name. After marrying Joseph Biel she was sometimes referred to as Lena Gurr Biel. Biel had been born in Grodno, Poland (later absorbed into Russia) and had lived in England, France, and Australia before coming to New York. An artist, he specialized in landscape paintings and silkscreen printing as well as photography. He studied art at the Russian Academy in Paris. After immigrating to the United States, he studied under George Grosz at the Arts Students League. Gurr was born in Brooklyn and, apart from brief stays in Manhattan and in Paris, lived there her whole life. This painting bears the influence of Lyonel Feininger an influential German American artist. Gurr began studying art at a young age. In 1919 she studied painting and printmaking at the Educational Alliance Art School and between 1920 and 1922 she won a scholarship to attend the Art Students League where she took classes with John Sloan and Maurice Sterne. In 1926 and 1928 Gurr participated in group shows at the Whitney Studio Club in Greenwich Village and in 1928 she also participated in the 12th annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Waldorf Roof in New York. (Reviewing this show, Helen Appleton Read, the critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, said "I made three discoveries on my first visit, Thomas Nagel, Eugenie McEvoy and Lena Gurr with two figure compositions which have something of Marie Laurencin or Helene Perdriat quality of naive sophistication.") The Waldorf Roof was a set of rooms on the top floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, one of which had glass sides and a glass roof. The rooms were used for concerts, dances, benefits, and exhibitions.From 1929 to 1931 Gurr took a leave of absence from her teaching position to travel in France with Joseph Biel, an artist whom she had met while studying at the Art Students League. They spent time in Nice and Mentone but mainly in Paris. During the early months of 1931, while she was still abroad, her work appeared in group exhibitions held at the R. H. Macy department store and the Opportunity Gallery (opened by Gifford Beal). In 1932 she participated in three shows: a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, an annual exhibition of the New York Society of Women Artists, ( Its first president was Marguerite Zorach. Founding members included Agnes Weinrich, Anne Goldthwaite, Blanche Lazzell, Henrietta Shore, Louise Upton Brumback, Margaret Wendell Huntington, Marjorie Organ, and Sonia Gordon Brown), and a group exhibition at the G.R.D. Studio. Her work drew critical attention three years later when, commencing what proved to be a long and productive relationship, she made her first appearance at the A.C.A. Gallery. (The A.C.A. Gallery was founded in 1932 by Herman Baron and the artists, Stuart Davis, Adolf Dehn, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Oriented toward American contemporary art, it had a distinctive left-wing point of view and its exhibitions tended to display works of social conscience. In the early 1940s, it was the first gallery to show silkscreen prints using the technique developed by Harry Gottlieb.) In 1936 Gurr joined National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. During 1936, 1937, and 1938 she participated in group shows of the Salons of America (Salons of America was an organization founded in 1922 by Hamilton Easter Field. Members included Oscar Bluemner, George Luks, Rockwell Kent, and Stefan Hirsch), the American Artists School (The American Artists School had a radical orientation similar to that of the A.C.A. Gallery. Its director was Harry Gottlieb. The secretary was Henry Billings. Arnold Blanch, Lincoln Rothschild, Waylande Gregory, Louis Lozowick, John Cunningham, Alexander Brook, George Picke, H. Glintenkamp, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Niles Spencer, and Philip Reisman were members of the board.) and the Municipal Art Gallery. Her group shows in 1938 included the annual exhibition held by the New York Society of Women Artists, a benefit show called "Roofs for 40 Million" held at Maison Francaise in the new Rockefeller Center, and another benefit show, put on by the Joint Distribution Committee at Studio Guild Galleries. In the Spring of 1945 the A.C.A. Gallery gave Gurr her third solo exhibition. During the following decades, Gurr's work continued to be shown at exhibitions of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, the New York Society of Women Artists, and the A.C.A. Gallery. She also showed at the World's Fair (1939), the Metropolitan Museum (1942), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1944), the Artists League of America (1945), the National Academy of Design (1946), the Serigraph Society Galleries (1947), and the American Federation of Arts (1951). In 1950 she made murals and mobile decorations in the ballroom of Hotel Astor in preparation for a benefit event sponsored by Artists Equity to raise money for ill and destitute artists and in 1952 she became Artists Equity's recording secretary. ( Formed in 1947, the Artists Equity Association aimed to promote the welfare of American artists and protect their economic interests. Its president was Yasuo Kuniyoshi and its membership included American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists including Will Barnet, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson, and John Sloan.) During her artistic career, Gurr mostly made easel art in oil and casein and also lithograph and silkscreen prints and some watercolors and drawings. Her subjects included still lifes, city scenes, vacation settings, and depictions of war and persecution. Memberships: Gurr was a member of the American Artists Congress, Artists Equity Association, Artists League of America, Artists Union, Audubon Artists, Brooklyn Society of Artists, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, and New York Society of Women Artists. In the summer of 1945, Gurr taught in the city's parks in a program sponsored by the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office. Her sessions at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden proved to be a popular part of the program. See less