Lot 253
**Originally Listed At $250**
Harold Frank (American born in England, 1921-1995). "Large Pastel Head" painting on board, n.d. Signed at lower right. An intoxicating painting by Harold Frank depicting an Abstract-Expressionist rendering of a female visage delineated in a myriad of pastel colors - pink, peach, seafoam green, sky blue, and lavender - with her facial features contoured in shades of black and brown, and her curly coiffure embellished with shades of green as well as intriguing multi-colored, almost rainbow-like passages - all before a background rendered in bolder shades of vermilion, fuchsia, sky blue, tangerine, citron, and periwinkle. In addition to this brilliant color palette, Frank's signature loose brushstrokes and lyrical contouring lines reveal the "action" of his painting. The process of painting was as much his subect as the beautiful woman he portrayed. Size: 17.25" L x 13.75" W (43.8 cm x 34.9 cm)
According to scholar Sandie Stern, "Although he never married, Frank searched for the perfect woman again and again in his endless, poignant portraits and paintings of the women. His abundance of female portraits attest to this. He was frustrated, yet unwavering. Art's human premise reflected his most intimate yearnings. Like his idol de Kooning, Frank chose the human figure, as his principal subject. Variations on women became a lifelong, consistent, ubiquitous theme." (Stern, "H. Frank", p. 16)
Harold Frank immigrated with his family to the US through Ellis Island. Growing up in the tenements of the Lower East Side in New York City during the era of the Great Depression and World War II, Frank found Abstract Expressionism to be the ideal means to explore the angst of his world. He once stated, "I can live with the abstract. Life is a mystery."
Frank studied at the Art Students League in New York, the National Academy of Design, the Pratt Institute, the Chouinard Art Institute, and UCLA where he was a colleague of Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922-1993), an artist who is oftentimes associated with Abstract Expressionism as well as a pioneer of the Bay Area Figurative Movement. In addition to Diebenkorn, Frank's influences include DeKooning, Picasso, Matisse, and Rouault. While he also created landscapes, non-objective abstract compositions, and still-life paintings, figures and head studies were the predominant theme of his oeuvre.
For more about Harold Frank, see Sandie Stern's monograph "Harold Frank Abstract Expressionist 1921-1995" (2001).
Provenance: private Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA collection, acquired via descent, purchased from artist on June 25th, 1973
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#175905
- Condition: Signed at lower right. Labels on verso with titles - both "Large Pastel Head" and "Large Head on Fuschia-Green". Painting is in very nice condition. Verso shows abrasions/tape marks/remains of old tape as it was probably removed from a matte.
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