Charles Whedon Rain (American/Tennessee, 1911-1985), "Night Music", 1950/59, oil on masonite, signed lower right, signed, titled, dated and inscribed "New York" en verso, pencil-inscribed with artist on reverse of frame, sight 17 1/2 in. x 28 1/2 in., framed. Exh.: Remembering Charles Rain: Selected Works from 1933-1973, Jonathan Edwards College, Yale University, New Haven, CT, Mar. 25 - May 25, 2004 and listed in the accompanying catalogue, cat. 13, p. 26. Note: Charles Rain’s artistic career spanned over five decades with an oeuvre that often defies traditional art historical categorization. His most celebrated works are photorealistic paintings of landscapes and still lifes, which he injected with his own imprint of surrealism to become quintessential examples of the magic realist style. He was quoted as saying: “My aim is to record…the view of one individual – what I see and what I imagine – in the methods of what may be called romantic or magic realism.” Born in Tennessee, Rain was raised in Nebraska and attended the Art Institute of Chicago for several years prior to traveling to Europe in 1933. While in Berlin, he was greatly inspired by a viewing of “Portrait of Ugolino Martelli” by Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572), and Bronzino’s classic technique of under-painting and glazing would stay with Rain throughout his life. Upon returning to New York, Rain was featured in a 1935 solo exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery, which was not well received by critics and led to the artist undertaking a short break from painting. While designing costumes for the New York City Ballet during this time period, Rain met photographer George Platt Lynes, who, along with Lincoln Kirstein, Monroe Wheeler and Paul Cadmus, became part of Rain’s sophisticated and artistic circle of friends. Curator Daphne Anderson Deeds described the assemblage as: “…members of a closely knit homosexual group…much of their work includes encoded imagery referring to their private cliquish world.”In “Night Music” and “Chinese White” offered here, Rain presents an original, surrealistic vision by combining his interests in the symbology that permeates popular culture with his own ideology and placing them within a mysterious context. As a result of the artist’s desire for perfection, his surviving body of work is smaller than most – each a treasured and complex glimpse into Rain’s unique ideas and endless imagination. Ref.: Deeds, Daphne Anderson. “Charles Rain: A Singular Realist.” Remembering Charles Rain: Selected Works from 1933-1973. New Haven: Yale University, 2004, pp. 7-15.

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