Felix Ruvolo Oil Painting on Canvas, 'Kinectic Moment' Signed and Dated 1951

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Felix Ruvolo, oil painting on canvas in original gold frame, 'Kinectic Moment' signed and dated 1951

Felix Ruvolo (American, 1912-1992) … Read more Felix Ruvolo, oil painting on canvas in original gold frame, 'Kinectic Moment' signed and dated 1951

Felix Ruvolo (American, 1912-1992) created something of a sensation when he was hired onto the University of California at Berkeley faculty in 1950. As professor Karl Kasten remarked with a smile "the ground shook". As another colleague later said "there was no doubt that Felix Ruvolo's reputation had gone before him". Ruvolo was highly regarded both in Chicago where he worked with a group of fantasy surrealists that included among others Gertrude Abercrombie (1908-1977) and in New York where he was part of important early abstract expressionist exhibitions. Through these interactions, Ruvolo became friends with several of the first generation of abstract expressionists including Mark Rothko.

Ruvolo was born in New York in 1912. He was raised in Sicily by grandparents for several years until he moved to Chicago with his parents at the age of 12. Ruvulo attended the Art Institute of Chicago and taught there from 1945 to 1948. Early career breakthroughs occurred when he was included in two groundbreaking New York Museum of Modern Art exhibitions: the 1947 Abstraction and Surrealism and the 1951 Abstract Painting and Sculpture in America. Additional invitations flowed from the Whitney Museum of Art, the Walker Art Centre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Phillips Collection of Art and numerous others.

Felix Ruvulo’s New York exhibitions resulted in significant recognition in the marketplace and a solo exhibition at the Grand Central Moderns Gallery (NYC) in 1949 and a few years later, an invitation to the Poindexter Gallery (NYC) that also represented Richard Diebenkorn, James Weeks, Emerson Woelffer, and other prominent artists. See less