Vase

Henry Varnum Poor was an artist, who like many, worked in multiple mediums. His work shows the influence of international art movements. Trained as a painter, Poor studied abroad, first in London at the Slade School of Fine Art, where he became acquainted with the work of of the Omega Workshops and Roger Fry, as well as modern French painting. After World War I, Poor established a small studio and home in Rockland County, New York. He often treated his ceramic surfaces as if they were canvases, primarily decorating tiles, plates, plaques, and occasionally vessel forms, like this small vase. The sgrafitto design of stylized enlarged leaves echoes trends in French early modernist painting. This vase was originally in the collection Edith Halpert, the legendary New York gallerist who promoted American modernist painting in her avant-garde Downtown Gallery.