Abstract Oil Painting on Canvas from the Estate of Phillip Callahan
Item Details
A mid to late 20th century oil painting on canvas from the estate of listed American artist Phillip Callahan (1918 – 1991). The Abstract Expressionist inspired work depicts an assortment of amorphous rounded shapes in blue, orange, red, purple and green set against a mottled blue ground. The piece is unsigned and presented unframed. It is posthumously stamped with a Phillip Callahan estate stamp to the canvas verso.
Phillip Callahan was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1918. By the age of eighteen his work had been exhibited in several galleries throughout New York. Callahan received his formal artistic training at the Worcester Institute of Fine Art in 1937 as well as the Advanced School of the Boston Museum of Fine Art. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris before World War II broke out. Callahan enlisted in the United States Army in February of 1941. After the war he returned to the United States and began studying at the Art Students League of New York. It was during this time that Callahan studied under Czech-American modernist painter Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984). Callahan’s earlier works remained ultimately realistic with slight abstraction. However, after studying in New York and Europe his work started to become more abstract. By the 1950s-60s his work had become completely non-objective.
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Condition
- some abrasions to canvas with scattered areas of paint loss particularly to blue paint at left; fraying to edges of canvas; nail holes from previous stretching; slight fold mark to canvas at center right; work is unframed on unstretched canvas.
Dimensions
- measures canvas.
Item #
17IND158-038
