Large Vintage Mid Century Modernist Floral Still Life Painting by Joseph Allsworthy (1897-1991)

Details

Description

Large mid century modernist still life of a vase with flowers on a table top with a drapery behind. Oil … Read more Large mid century modernist still life of a vase with flowers on a table top with a drapery behind. Oil on Canvas, signed "Allsworthy" lower left. Presented in original white-washed, parcel gilt wood frame.

Joseph Allworthy (September 19, 1892 – August 17, 1991) was a prominent mid-twentieth-century American representational, tonal-realist painter based in Chicago, known for his still life compositions and portraits. He also did notable work in the field of commercial art and advertisements.

Allworthy was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on September 19, 1892, to parents of German descent. He came from a family of artists. His grandfather and granduncles painted murals and frescoes in Catholic churches after the American Civil War. His father was a decorator and illustrator who assisted in the adorning of the walls and ceilings of the Congressional Library at Washington. Joseph Allworthy got his initial training under his father and at the age of 14 worked as an errand-boy in the art department of RR Donnelley. He began his formal artistic studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, but never graduated and went on to study at the 'Grand Central' in New York. Like all aspiring American artists of the time, he headed to Europe, but had to leave with the outbreak of the First World War.

It was in Madrid at el Museo del Prado that Allworthy had an epiphanic experience that left an indelible mark on him as a painter – he discovered Diego Velázquez, whom he viewed as 'natural and eternal as nature itself'. After the War, Allworthy returned to Paris wanting to study under the late-Impressionist painter Jean-Paul Laurens, who was then a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts and Académie Julian. It is uncertain how long or for that matter whether he ever studied under Laurens, as Laurens died in March 1921. Duriung his visit in 1926–27 he said "I was fortunate enough to study with a man who by means not revealed to me inherited the thinking that was Chardin's, Corot's and Manet's. From that time on, my work went steadily forward in goodness and quality. Today there is no one that I know of anywhere in our world who is interested in this great heritage." This was the Australian painter Max Meldrum, later known for his "tonal style" of painting. He studied under Meldrum and adopted his techniques and theory of art.

Joseph Allworthy established himself as a prominent painter excelling in still life compositions. In 1931 a critic had this to say of him: "Joseph Allworthy is a young Chicago painter whose ability to paint an exquisite and flawless still life has won him great admiration. There are still life arrangements here which will add to his glamorous reputation and there are a few portraits of considerable charm..." Like other artists of his kind, Allworthy also painted portraits. Allworthy began to progressively focus more on portraits, so much so, in 1960 a critic referred to him as "a distinguished portrait painter." Although he also painted landscapes he never considered it as his métier, but did them as a part of his investigations into his theory of vision and painting. Allworthy's work became significant in the middle of the 20th century when decades after the Armory Show in New York introduced modern art to America, Allworthy focused on keeping the tradition of tonal, representational art alive in the mid-1900s. In an Arts Club of Chicago show in 1958, a critic noted, "It is a happy break for visitors who have been shown almost nothing but the most extreme nonrepresentational art in show after show of foreign painting all year in this gallery. Joseph Allworthy's portrait is done with the old time skill of a Sargent."

Allworthy, "whose paintings of still life are practically perfect," first gained attention of the art world in the early 1930s with his still life arrangements, and he continued to paint them even after his focus had shifted to other forms. His still life paintings are today scattered all over the U.S., Canada and Mexico in various museums and private collections. See less