Robert Kennicott, Watercolor Portrait of a Man, 1930s California, Framed

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An original watercolor portrait attributed to Los Angeles painter Robert Kennicott. A shirtless young man with a shock of dark … Read more An original watercolor portrait attributed to Los Angeles painter Robert Kennicott. A shirtless young man with a shock of dark hair looks down and past the viewer. His face and shoulders are built from bold, blocky strokes of ochre, rust, olive and blue, set against a loose gray and blue wash. The color is bright and unfaded. The paper has gentle ripples, common with watercolor, and sits under plexi.

The work is unsigned. The attribution rests on its style and its source. It came together with a signed Kennicott portrait of a woman that is the same size, in the same frame style, and painted with the same loose, blocky handling.

Robert Helm Kennicott (1892-1983) was a Beverly Hills physician who turned to painting in the early 1930s and quickly joined the Los Angeles art scene. He exhibited at the Los Angeles Museum in 1934. He belonged to the California Watercolor Society, the California Art Club, the Painters and Sculptors of Los Angeles and the Laguna Beach Art Association. He also showed at the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition and with the Courvoisier Gallery in San Francisco. For about a decade he was the close companion and painting partner of Mabel Alvarez, one of the key figures in Southern California modernism.

The piece sits in a wide distressed gray-green frame with a toned linen mat. The back carries a 326 label, a Los Angeles address in pencil and a Malibu Imperial Beverly Hills label. The companion signed portrait of a woman is listed separately, and the two make a strong pair. See less