85. Molly Luce (American, 1896-1986)

"Coastline".
Oil on masonite, signed lower center, unframed.
48" x 36".

6,000/10,000     SOLD: $1,380.00

ewolfs is pleased to offer sixteen works by the American painter Molly Luce in the present auction. During the 1930s, Luce was hailed as "the most important New England painter of the American scene." In 1934, together with Georgia O'Keefe, Molly Luce became the second living American woman to be honored by having one of her painting enter the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (Luce and O'Keefe were preceded by Mary Cassatt.)

Luce was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, spent her youth in Plainfield and Glen Ridge, New Jersey, and Kingsville, Ohio. She received her artistic education at the Art Students' League in New York where she studied under L. Luis Mora, Kenneth Hayes Miller and George Bellows. In 1922, she traveled and painted in Europe, and following her return, participated in several New York exhibition, In 1924 she had her first "one-person show" at the Whitney.

In 1926, Luce married the art historian Alan "Bryson" Burroughs, the Metropolitan's first curator and a painter in his own right. They began spending summers at Little Compton, Rhode Island in 1932, and moved there permanently in 1942.

During her lifetime, Luce was keenly aware of her role as a professional woman artist, and participated regularly with the Society of Women artists as well as in a host of annual exhibitions across the United States, particularly in Boston and New York. From the 1930s through 1950, she was a regularly exhibitor at the Whitney Annuals--a forum which accorded her work significant public exposure.

Condition: handling wear at edges, slight surface soil, minor spots of mildew.