Looks like John R. Pinkley but artist is unknown
This 30.125 x 24.125 inch work which has no known artist, depicts an interior scene of what appears to be a room within a household. The style that the work is painted in is modernist, seeing as though the artist strays away from a more realistic representation, and adheres to a more impressionistic and painterly approach. The artist does so by using thick, messy, and undefined strokes and by not blending colors, creating a sense that the work is unfinished or partially completed. This stylistic approach guides us to look at the painting for what it is, a canvas with paint, allowing us to focus on the design and the overall feel rather than studying tangible objects within a scene.
The focal point of the work seems to be the light colored chair that takes up the middle area of the composition. The chair is facing the 3-paned window that takes up the majority of the wall seen in the background. The window has bright light coming in from it, highlighting the chair that sits in front of it and casting a dark shadow behind it. Next to the window on the right, is a depiction of a hanging piece, which looks to be an abstract representation. The other wall meets the corner perpendicularly, just to the right of the hanging artwork. Against this wall is a trunk with a rounded top, decorated with red and yellow vertical stripes that are also highlighted from the light coming in from the window. One leg of the chair, the front left, is on top of a rug while the others are set on the blue/grey floor. The rug is round and appears to be ornate with detail; however, the artist's style makes the ornamentation ambiguous, almost like an abstract representation of various colors, in this case: reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. Only a portion of the rug is visible, as the rest is cut off by the canvas, and it takes up the bottom left corner of the work. There is a table that is also cut off by the left hand side of the canvas and is positioned on top of the ornate rug. Only a small portion of the table is visible and on top of the table is a vase of flowers, represented again, in a painterly way and depicting mainly white, yellow, and pink blossoms with a few dark green leaves. Green leaves are also slightly seen through the window, but painted with a lighter color of green. The light from the window is reflected on the surface of the table and makes it appear shiny, like the table is lacquered. This adds to the slight realistic representation, yet still adheres to the overall impressionistic qualities by incorporating the nonobjective flowers and the unfinished look of the chair besides it. The artist utilized a somewhat limited color palette, mainly using a dark blueish/gray color while including hints of red, yellow, pink, orange, and white within the work on the wall, the rug, the flowers, and the trunk. The colors work well together, with the warmer colors complimenting the darker muted blue that takes up the majority of the work. The work itself is calm, yet almost mysterious as the chair is not facing the audience, creating a disconnect from the room and the viewer but encouraging more contemplation from the observer.
- Framed: 30.125 x 24.125 x 2 in (76.52 x 61.28 x 5.08 cm)
- Subject Matter: Interior of Parlor
- Created: 1990
- Collections: 1stDibs, 1stDibs Upload for week ending 2/18/23