"Color Daffodil". Lithograph in colors, signed and dated 1973 in the lower right margin, marked A/P in the left margin, matted in a double-thick rag mat and framed in a welded aluminum frame under glass, image size 16-1/2" x 23-1/4", overall with framing 30-3/4" x 37-1/2".
Lowell Nesbitt, who was born in Baltimore on Oct. 4, 1933, was a graduate of the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia and also attended the Royal College of Art in London, where he worked in stained glass & etching. He often said that a sting working as a night watchman at the Phillips Collection in Washington inspired him to paint. In 1964, the Corcoran Gallery or Art in Washington gave him one of his first museum exhibitions, and by the mid 1970's he had decided to leave the museum a bequest of more than $1 million. But in 1989 Mr. Nesbitt publicly revoked the bequest after the Corcoran canceled a disputed exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe, who was an old friend. Mr. Nesbitt named the Phillips Collection as a beneficiary instead. Mr. Nesbitt was frequently grouped with the Photo Realists, but his images were more interpretively distorted, somewhat loosely painted and boldly abbreviated. He had many subjects: studio interiors, articles of clothing, piles of shoes and groupings of fruits and vegetables. He also painted his dog, a Rottweiler named Eric, the Neoclassical facades of SoHo's 19th century cast-iron buildings and several of Manhattan's major bridges. Despite such variety, Mr. Nesbitt was best known for gargantuan images or irises, roses, lilies and other flowers, which he often depicted in close up so that their petals seemed to fill the canvas. Dramatic, implicitly sexual and a little ominous, they earned the artist a popularity with the general public that tended to overshadow his reputation within the art world. In 1980, the United States Postal Service issued four stamps based on Mr. Nesbitt's floral paintings. He also served as the official artist for the space flights of Apollo 9 and Apollo 13. Mr. Nesbitt exhibited frequently in both the United States and Europe and is represented in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His first one-man show in New York City was at the Howard Wise Gallery in 1965, and over the years he was represented in New York by the Stable Gallery, the Robert Stefanotti Gallery and the Andrew Crispo Gallery. His most recent New York show was in 1986 at the Marco DiLaurenti Gallery in Soho.
300/500 Sold $241.50
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