Signed Phillip Callahan Oil on Canvas Abstract in Purple and Black

Item Details

A signed oil painting on loose canvas by listed artist Phillip Callahan (American, 1918-1991). This painting depicts abstracted forms rendered in shades of purple and black and is signed by hand to the lower right corner. The drawing is presented unframed and unstretched and is stamped to the verso ‘From the Estate of Phillip Callahan.’

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 Ecole 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 abstraction. By the 1950s and 1960s his work became completely non-objective.

Condition

- some abrasions to canvas with a few areas of paint loss; fraying to edges of canvas; nail holes from previous stretching; stains to margins.

Dimensions

- measures canvas.

Item #

17IND158-045