Phillip Callahan Abstract Oil Painting

Item Details

An abstract oil painting on canvas of an abstract theme by listed artist Phillip Callahan (1918 – 1991). This Abstract Expressionist style painting depicts a swirled layering of brush strokes in a palette of yellow ochre, black, peach brown, and white, with some mixing of the shades between. To the lower right corner of the composition is an artist signature, and there is a stamp from the artist’s estate to the verso. The painting is presented wrapped over a wooden stretcher.

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

- paint smudge on verso of canvas; wear around edges of canvas.

Dimensions

Item #

18IND028-079