Lot 171
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Paul Forster (American, 1925-2012). Red Dress in the Forest. Oil on board, n.d. Signed at lower right. A mesmerizing painting by Paul Forster depicting a Native American woman with flowing black hair standing at the center of a golden forest. Though her red and black attire distinguishes her from her surroundings, her limbs and face seemingly fade into the background, only delineated by a faint outline as though she is part of the woodland. Glowing orbs, perhaps fireflies, stars, or light peeking through the trees, scatter through the forest - adding a magical quality to the composition and coaxing us to ponder: Is the figure a corporeal being or a phantom of the forest? Perhaps she is an embodied spirit of the woodlands or a ghost of its past inhabitants who has come to remind us of the ancestral ties to the land? The fact that Forster's painting leaves us with more questions than answers makes it even more entrancing, exuding an undeniable air of mystery. Size: 48" W x 48" H (121.9 cm x 121.9 cm)
At the age eight, Paul Forster became the youngest member of the Albright Art Gallery Association in Buffalo, New York and started studying at the Museum School with watercolorist Robert Blair. During World War II, Forster served in the Army Air Corps, and in 1952, he graduated from Brigham Young University with a Fine Arts Degree. In the late 1950s, Forster had a studio in Nevada and painted murals for the Mormon Church. In the early 1960s, he taught art and became Chairman of the Art Department of the L.D.S. Schools of the South Pacific in Tonga. In 1969, he left Brigham Young University to pursue his art full time. For the greater part of the next decade, Forster traveled throughout the American Southwest in an Airstream trailer to paint the environment and its inhabitants. In time, he moved to Oregon followed by Kansas City, but eventually returned to Arizona.
Provenance: ex-private Bishop Family Trust collection, the Trust of the late Bill Bishop, a noted antiquarian with shops in Scottsdale, Arizona and Allenspark, Colorado, USA, acquired before 2010
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#173160
- Condition: Signed at lower right. A few miniscule nicks to peripheries of board; none of which affecting central imagery. Painting is in otherwise excellent condition.
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