Description:

Margit Beck
New York / Romania, (1911 - 1997)
Harlequin
pastel on paper
signed lower left.

Biography from the Archives of askART: Margit Beck was born in Tokay, Hungary, and received her art education at The Institute of Fine Arts, Oradea Mare, Romania. Coming to the United States in the 30's she studied at The Art Students League in New York. During the 1940's, Miss Beck's style as a cubist took form making use of angular patterns using the most striking contrasts, by applying paint with the palette knife while using brilliant bursts of color amid prisms of light. Her early work utilized highly stylized figures in abstract form.

By the mid 1950's she became a MacDowell fellow, and the time spent in the mountains of New Hampshire, gave her a new perspective by utilizing dazzling incandescent colors, vibrating movements applied to ethereal scenes of forest, mountain and universe. Each painting uses bold conceptions that are adroitly developed through the patterning of light and color into congruity of design, Margit Beck was no stranger to the American art scene. She has had 22one-man shows, including Contemporary Arts Gallery (New York City), The Babcock Galleries (New York City) and ACA Galleries (New York City) all of which have met with wide spread critical acclaim by newspapers and art publications. Miss Beck's paintings have been shown in nearly every major National as well as International exhibitions. She is represented in major permanent collections throughout the country. Miss Beck has been the recipient of some of the most prestigious award and honors awarded in the art field including 3 Childe Hassam Fund Purchase awards (1968,69,71). Miss Beck is a member of numerous art associations including, the National Academy of Design where she received academician in 1975.

In reviewing her work The Herald Tribune wrote:
"Painting becomes a God-like act as Margit Beck recreates the breadth and wonder of the west's open spaces in imaginative canvases that combine realist and abstract idioms with stunning effect. Aerial landscapes, mountain fastnesses, lowering storms are done with power, vision and verve that are close to breathtaking. Miss Beck's paintings, watercolors and drawings show a rarity of singular beauty and subtlety. Her imagery is based on complexed aerial views of cities and farmlands, and mountains, with their built-in geometric configurations and dizzying rush of space. Her work contains the contradictory, ambiguous elements of things seen from a great distance, but she distills from this telescopic approach a brilliant montage of shapes, stunningly distorted by space, yet enveloped by an overall logic, serenity and colorist quietude. It is Miss Beck's gift to make us experience her vertiginous heights without once disturbing the equilibrium required to see her paintings as first-rate works of art."

By the 1970's Miss Beck's broad sweep of color indicating fields, hills, and valley, are replaced by trees, clusters of farm buildings and the geometric grid of roads, fences and plowed fields all put down giving great attention to the illusion of deep space. These canvases huge in size (70"x80") give the viewer a sense that the landscape is a patchwork quilt of patterns, with her mountains undulating with the concentric rhythm of their contours, and her villages and farms sparkling with a radiance of tiny jewels.

In 1976 Ms. Beck was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. That along with the death of her husband of 40 years ultimately devastated the creative spirit that was essential in the creation of her mystical masterpieces. By 1984 it became impossible for her to hold a paintbrush and ultimately her body was ravaged by the deteriorating affects of her worsening condition. In 1997 she passed away.

  • Dimensions: 16"H x 10 1/8"W
  • Medium: pastel on paper

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June 4, 2022 11:00 AM EDT
Indianapolis, IN, US

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