Tom Lea Watercolor Portrait with a Personal Note from the Artist

Item Details

paper

A 1934 Tom Lea (American, 1907-2001) watercolor portrait of a girl in a blue dress and sandals. The portrait is signed and dated under the girl’s left hand. The portrait was later given by the artist as a gift to the subject and is inscribed ‘For Bambi Ellis with the appreciation of her old friend Tom Lea 1993 (59 years later)’. The work is matted and framed in a simple frame with a gold finish. The painting has a provenance directly descended through the family of the subject.

Tom Lea is a well-known American illustrator, muralist, war correspondent, and novelist. He was born in El Paso, Texas, trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, and worked for LIFE Magazine as an artist and correspondent in the Pacific during World War II. Some of his papers and drawings are archived at the J. Frank Dobie Art Collection at the University of Texas at Austin and other collections, and his paintings can be found in the El Paso Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum among others.

Condition

Rippled paper.

Dimensions

Item #

16WDC058-281