1934 painting by noted American female artist Wally Strautin

An early work by the noted female artist wally Strautin (1898-1995). Although she is mostly known for her later abstract works,these early WPA type works are highly desirable. The frame is handmade and unusually shaped. It was a radiator gold color and had to be painted. The painting is signed and dated lower right corner. The painting is done with a heavy impasto style. The paint is very brittle and subject to paint flecking off. Indeed it is missing some paint and I have tried to highlight the areas.

A brief bio follows;
A student at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City, Wally Strautin was a member of the Union of American Artists and the Society of Independent Artists where she also exhibited.

Her style was abstract and most of her work featured non-objective subjects, although she is known to have painted some portraits.

Records indicate that she probably lived in Florida towards the end of her live and that she exhibited there as she is noted in a Daytona newspaper as being one of 13 artists to receive a 1st prize in the Beaux Artists Show in Daytona, Florida.

The Society of Independent Artists, of which Strautin was a member, was a group of American and European artists founded in New York in December 1916 to sponsor regular exhibitions of contemporary art without juries or prizes.

Among the most important artist-founders of the SIA were Katherine S. Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, William J. Glackens, Albert Gleizes, John Marin, Walter Pach, Man Ray, John Sloan and Joseph Stella. The managing director was Walter Arensberg (1878-1954). Modeled on the French Societe des Artistes Independants, a group founded in 1884 that exhibited until World War I as a kind of institutionalized Salon des Refuses, the SIA held its first exhibition, The Big Show, in April 1917. This offered artists an opportunity to exhibit for a small yearly fee, regardless of style or subject-matter.

This exhibition, held at the Grand Central Palace in New York, was not only the largest exhibition in American history (about 2500 paintings and sculptures by 1200 artists) but one of the most controversial: it drew criticism for its no-jury policy and its innovative alphabetical installation, adopted to preclude judgments of a hanging committee.

The exhibition coincided with the entry of the USA into World War I, a context that underlined the SIA’s dedication to democratic principles as part of a larger struggle. The SIA’s commitment extended to all of the arts; film screenings, lectures, poetry readings and concerts supplemented the exhibitions. Although none was as sensational as the first, exhibitions accompanied by catalogues continued on an annual basis under Sloan’s long tenure as president from 1918 until 1944 when the last exhibition was held.