1930s Art Deco Brazilian Embassy Adelaide Briggs Gouache Painting, American

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One of the most colorful and masterful Art Deco mural studies we have ever offered, this large gouache painting was … Read more One of the most colorful and masterful Art Deco mural studies we have ever offered, this large gouache painting was executed by Adelaide Briggs in the final year of her studies at Cornell University, before she went on to pursue an important and successful career as a painter. Here Briggs' student project encompasses a large wall mural for the Brazilian Embassy, filled with indigenous people, Catholic missionaries from Portugal, local workers readying coffee beans for shipment, and a riotous array of flora and fauna including monkeys and palm trees. Briggs' color palette is magnificent, ranging from the ruddy brown skin tones of native people, to the mossy greens of the vegetation and the azure waves of the Atlantic Ocean in the distance. Everything is highly stylized, representing Art Deco at its finest, including a wall fountain in lemon-yellow tiles with a gargoyle face spouting water below. The painting is executed in gouache and watercolor on heavy paper. See less