Lot 11
Louise Woodroofe
(American; 1892-1996)
Abstract Composition
Oilstick on paper.
c. 1950. Fully signed verso.
Louise Woodroofe's palette is vibrant, powerful, bold and uniquely artistic. Her brushwork is sure, immediate and precise and her individualistic artistic technique is uniquely hers. Influenced by the French Impressionist and Fauvist masters, Woodroofe also was a student of American architecture and had a degree in Painting from Syracuse University (1919).
The artist was born in Champaign, Illinois, January 28, 1892. She yearned to be an artist from childhood and drew realistically in her early years. She studied and exhibited at the University of Illinois and Syracuse University in the teens and developed a fine impressionistic style but her extraordinarily bold Fauvist techniques took hold after she met and studied with the innovative Huge Breckenridge at the Breckenridge School of Art in East Gloucester, Massachusetts. Breckenridge was highly stimulated by the Parisian Pointillists and Impressionists but it was the dramatically placed vibrant colors of the "wild beasts" (the Fauvists) that changed the palette of Breckenridge and he taught the Fauve movement's use of brilliant pigments laid down in broken color to Woodroofe and other students in East Gloucester and at the PAFA.
Woodroofe adhered to the American Fauvist movement as taught by Breckenridge, giving special attention to the scientific analysis of color as it applied to her needs and any given composition. Woodroofe was a confident painter who studied buildings and architecture for years, thus many of her canvases have houses and buildings in them. Her brushwork was laid down with vigor and speed. She painted in the picturesque fishing village of East Gloucester, where she painted in nature alongside Jane Peterson and Eleanor Parke Custis during the 1920s and 1930s. She also painted in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco (CA) and in Milwaukee (WS) before settling in the Chicago (ca. 1927). Woodroofe exhibited at the 32nd Annual Exhibition of American Art at the Cincinnati Art Museum (1925), was given one-woman exhibitions at the Findley Gallery (Chicago) and by 1928 she was an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University of Illinois (1928), becoming a full Professor of Art in 1948. She won numerous awards for painting excellence from 1930-1965 and was voted the "Most Supportive University Faculty Member" at the University of Illinois (1978).
She was a member of the North Shore Arts Association (1931-1937), the National Association of Women Painters and the American Watercolor Society. Her paintings were shown at the National Arts Club and the National Academy of Design. She also exhibited at the North Shore AA, Butler Institute of American Art, PAFA and galleries in Chicago and London, England.
After painting for over a decade in Gloucester, she traveled with the Ringling Brothers circus so that she could paint clowns and circus acts (1940s) and she was given free passes to the Ringling circus by John & Henry Ringling North throughout the 1960s. At the end of the 1940s the Crane Gallery of London, England gave Woodroofe a one-woman exhibition of her circus paintings and as late as 1955 she won an award for a circus subject at the National Academy. After 1940, when she was not teaching summer painting classes in Syracuse, she traveled throughout the U.S. painting villages and coastal towns. Never satisfied with her artistic output, Woodroofe continuously experimented with techniques and by the end of her life she was an Abstract Modernist. Well known throughout the U.S. and especially the Chicago area, The American Institute of Architecture gives deserving students The Louise Woodroofe Prize each year for artistic and academic achievement.
11 7/8" x 9"
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