44th Anniversary Sale
Lot 290:
Description
Signed Lowell Nesbitt Oil on Canvas Painting
Signed Lowell Nesbitt Oil On canvas Painting, "Formal Desire". Signed on Verso. dated 1987
Lowell Blair Nesbitt (October 4, 1933 – July 8, 1993) was an American painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor. He served as the official artist for the NASA Apollo 9, and Apollo 13 space missions; in 1976 the United States Navy commissioned him to paint a mural in the administration building on Treasure Island spanning 26 feet x 251 feet, then the largest mural in the United States; and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored Lowell Nesbitt by issuing four postage stamps depicting his paintings. In 1958 the Baltimore Museum of Art hosted the first solo museum exhibit that Nesbitt was to have in his lengthy career, but it was in 1964 with his debut at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Museum) in Washington, D.C. that Nesbitt received greater recognition. The array of botanical works most likely would not have been created had it had not been for the beckoning of fellow artist Robert Indiana, who, in 1962, after viewing some of Lowell Nesbitt’s abstract paintings drawings and prints, suggested that he attempt to make a conversion from the abstraction which Nesbitt’s career had been focused on pre-1962, to the style of realism.
Museum and government collections
Lowell Nesbitt’s artwork is owned by hundreds of public collections worldwide. Those collections include, American Embassy art program; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center, New York, New York; Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; Castle Gandolfo, Rome, Collection of the Vatican Museums; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (transferred to the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.); Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas; Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, Michigan; Ulrich Museum, Wichita State University, Kansas; United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.; Federal Reserve Bank, Baltimore, Maryland; Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Virginia; Harvard Art Museums, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas; Goucher College, Baltimore, Maryland; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Canegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; International Monetary Fund, Washington, D.C.; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, California; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Orlando Museum of Art, Florida; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, New York; Miami-Dade Public Library System, Miami, Florida; Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; Morris Museum of Art, Morristown, New Jersey; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C.; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; American Art Museum, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand; New York City Center, New York; Oberlin College, Ohio; Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Tulsa; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York; Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Germany; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris, France; Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Saginaw Art Museum, Saginaw, Michigan; San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas; SEB Group, Goteborg, Sweden; Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum; Tucson Museum of Art, Arizona; Twelfth Naval District, Treasure Island Museum, San Francisco, CA; United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.; University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland; University of North Texas, Denton, Texas; University of Virginia, Charlottesville; Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginia; Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts; and Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University, New Haven, CT.[10]
Nesbitt was often classified as a Photorealist artist, though he fought inclusion with this group of artists throughout his career. Nesbitt established himself as an artist who could employ both diversity of technique and subject matter while creating paintings, drawings and prints using studio interiors, articles of clothing, piles of shoes, x-ray figures (Nesbitt was the first highly recognized artist to use this subject matter since the artists of the New Zealand region unknowingly painted "x-ray style" figures at the early portion of the last millennium), caverns, ruins, landscapes, flowers, groupings of fruits and vegetables, and electronic components (he is credited for being the first artist to use computer parts as subject matter for his artwork). He also used his pet dogs in addition to birds, reptiles, various mammals and the Neoclassical facades of SoHo’s 19th century cast-iron buildings and several of Manhattan’s major bridges, in addition to a number of series in which he incorporated numerous Victorian staircases, and other interior scenes as subject matter for his artwork. His last series in the 1980s, titled the “impossible series” was a grouping of surrealistic landscapes paintings and drawings.
To honor Nesbitt’s contributions to the art world, in 1980, the United States Postal Service issued four stamps based on his floral paintings. He also served as the official artist for the NASA space flights of Apollo 9 and Apollo 13.
Art: 38" x 66" frame dimensions: 39 x 67 x 1 3/4 inches, strip frame
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Condition: good
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