Charmion Von Wiegand American (1896-1983) Five Mountains, 1964 gouache on silk, faded signature, title and date lower right and left. Provenance: From a private collector, Indianapolis. Collection of the artist #211, Exhibited Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, Charmion Von Wiegand: Her Art and Life, 1982, Howard Wise Gallery, NY, #2220, and Marilyn Pearl Gallery, New York. From the Archives of AskArt: A leading mid-20th century Geometric Abstract painter, Charmion Von Wiegand was born in Chicago and attended Barnard College and the Columbia School of Journalism. She then worked as a newspaper reporter in New York City, being a correspondent for the Hearst newspapers in Moscow. She returned to New York where she had become associated with the Avant Garde art movement and had started painting in 1926. By 1929, she was devoting herself full time to painting and to writing about art for national magazines. She married novelist Joseph Freeman. She was a close friend of Piet Mondrian and until his death in 1944, worked with him on essays relating to his principles of abstract Neo-Plastic art. In fact, she wrote the first American published work about him. She was a member of the American Abstract Artists, a group formed to protest Social Realism, and served as President from 1950 to 1953. After 1960, she became much more expressive or emotional in her work and moved away from her former tight grid painting of color squares. She exhibited regularly until her death in 1983. Source: "American Women Artists" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein 9 1/4"H x 11 1/2"W (sight), 15 1/2"H x 18 3/4"W (frame)