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Artwork Details
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Title:Lester Leaps
Artist:Nell Blaine (American, Richmond, Virginia 1922–1996 New York)
Date:1944–45
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:24 × 13 in. (61 × 33 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Arthur W. Cohen, 1978
Object Number:1978.269
the artist, New York (until 1978; sold in 1978 through the Fischbach Gallery, New York to Cohen); Arthur W. Cohen, New York (1978; his gift to MMA)
New York. Riverside Museum. "American Abstract Artists 9th Annual Exhibition," March 11–April 15, 1945, no catalogue.
New York. Jane Street Gallery. "Nell Blaine," October 17–November 17, 1945, brochure no. 1.
Richmond. Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. "Three Virginians: Behl, Hunter, Blaine; An Exhibition of Recent Work Done in Three Manners," November 26–December 31, 1947, no. 42.
Keene, N.H. Louise E. Thorne Memorial Art Gallery, Keene State College. "Jazz and Painting," March 5–31, 1972, no. 7 (dated 1944).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Recent Acquisitions: Twentieth Century Art Department," October 16, 1979–January 30, 1980, no catalogue.
East Hampton, N.Y. Guild Hall Museum. "Art and Friendship: A Tribute to Fairfield Porter," April 14–June 3, 1984, unnumbered cat. (p. 11).
New York. Artists' Choice Museum. "Art and Friendship: A Tribute to Fairfield Porter," July 7–September 9, 1984, unnumbered cat.
New Britain, Conn. New Britain Museum of American Art. "Art and Friendship: A Tribute to Fairfield Porter," September 24–November 4, 1984, unnumbered cat.
New York. Tibor de Nagy Gallery. "Nell Blaine: The Abstract Work," January 27–March 10, 2001, unnumbered cat.
J. C. "Nell Blaine Abstractions." Art Digest 20 (November 1, 1945), p. 21.
Renée Arb. "Artists Under Thirty: They're Painting Their Way." Harper's Junior Bazaar (May [?] 1947), p. 81, ill.
Edith Burckhardt. "Nell Blaine: From Richmond, Va., to Athens to the Future." Village Voice (December 9, 1959), p. 4.
Hilton Kramer in "Critics' Choices: What's Special This Holiday Weekend." New York Times (November 23, 1979), p. C16.
Eleanor Munro. Originals: American Women Artists. New York, 1979, p. 497 n. 2, ill. p. 267, dates it 1944.
Sue Dickenson Durden. "Nell Blaine: The High Priestess of Light, Color." Richmond Times-Dispatch (April 22, 1979), p. K1, notes that this painting is named after a record by Lester Young.
Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein. American Women Artists from Early Indian Times to the Present. Boston, 1982, p. 287, dates it 1944.
Claude Marks. World Artists 1950–1980: An H. W. Wilson Biographical Dictionary. New York, 1984, p. 91.
Catherine M. Soussloff inVirginia Women Artists: Female Experience in Art. Ed. Patricia Mathews. Exh. cat., Armory Art Gallery and Squires Gallery, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Blacksburg, 1985, p. 54, dates it 1945.
Ann Eden Gibson. Abstract Expressionism: Other Politics. New Haven, 1997, p. 205 n. 62, dates it 1944.
Martica Sawin. Nell Blaine: Her Art and Life. New York, 1998, pp. 22, 30, ill. and ill. p. 28 (installation view, Exh. New York [Riverside Museum] 1945).
Stephen Westfall inNell Blaine: The Abstract Work
. Exh. cat., Tibor de Nagy Gallery. New York, 2001, unpaginated, ill. (overall and installation view, Exh. New York [Riverside Museum] 1945).
Daniel Kunitz. "'Nell Blaine: The Abstract Work' at Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York." New Criterion 19 (April 2001), p. 50.
Martica Sawin inChanging Rhythms: Works by Leland Bell, 1950s–1991. Exh. cat., List Gallery, Department of Art, Swarthmore College. Swarthmore, 2001, p. 12.
Cathy Curtis. Alive Still: Nell Blaine, American Painter. New York, 2019, pp. 28–29, 229 n. 68, ill.
Norman Lewis (American, New York 1909–1979 New York)
1978
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