Max Arthur Cohn (American born in England, 1903-1998). "Figures" oil on canvas board, ca. 1940. Signed at lower right. A cubist painting depicting two female nudes by Max Arthur Cohn. The woman at the left sits in a classic reclining pose, placing one of her hands behind her back and the other behind her head, while the woman at the right stands facing front with both arms raised and crossed behind her head. Their voluptuous bodies are delineated in an abstract figurative manner and rendered in neutral tones that contrast with the background of colorful geometric blocks. Given the Cubist style and vibrant hues of this painting, Cohn most likely painted it following his enrollment at the Academie Colorossi in 1927 when the works of Picasso and Matisse served as an important influence on his oeuvre. A superb painting by Max Arthur Cohn who is best known for his work as a WPA artist during the 1930s and 1940s as well as his pioneering silk-screening techniques. What's more, during the 1950s, Cohn helped none other than Andy Warhol create his first screenprints! Size (painting): 13.875" L x 17.875" W (35.2 cm x 45.4 cm) Size (frame): 19.5" L x 23.375" W (49.5 cm x 59.4 cm)

About the artist: "Cohn was born in London and emigrated with his family to America in 1905, settling in New York. In 1920 he worked at a commercial art studio, where he was introduced to the screenprint process. In 1922 he enrolled at the Art Students League where his teacher John Sloan was a formative influence and his classmates included Alexander Calder, Adolph Gottlieb and John Graham. To broaden his knowledge of art and painting, Cohn left for Paris in 1927 and enrolled at the Academie Colarossi, which had a large number of American students. He claimed that he was influenced by Matisse and Picasso in his use of colour, and his paintings of this period were shown in his first solo show at the New York Civic Club in 1929.

Following a second stay in France in the early 1930s, Cohn joined the Easel Project of the New York City WPA/FAP from the mid-1930s. His paintings were largely industrial scenes of power plants, factories and waterfronts. He also began to make screenprints; the earliest date from the mid-1930s and show rural activities, such as Wheatfield Harvest, 1935... From the late 1930s Cohn focused primarily on the colour screenprint, extending his themes to the industrial waterfronts of New York. Many of his screenprints imitated the transparency of a watercolour in their effect; others, like Red Abstraction (cat.91), were printed with opaque colours. Between 1941 and 1949 he produced at least fifteen screenprints, several of which were abstract, and as a founding member in 1944 of the National Serigraph Society became a leading advocate of the screenprint as a fine-art technique. In 1942 he co-authored with J.I. Biegeleisen, Chairman of the Silk Screen Department in the School of Industrial Art, New York, the widely used technical guide, Silk Screen Stencilling as a Fine Art (enlarged and republished in 1958 as Silk Screen Techniques). During the 1950s Cohn ran a commercial graphics studio in New York where he helped the young Andy Warhol make his first screenprints. He died in 1998 in New York, aged ninety-five." (The British Museum website)

Provenance: private Los Angeles, California, USA collection

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#177872

Signed at lower right. Painting shows normal age wear but is still strong with vivid imagery and hues. There are a couple of minute specks and near invisible scuffs at the peripheries of the painting that do not impact the central imagery. Normal age wear and stains to verso of canvas board that do not impact the painted imagery. There is a label that reads "20 FIGURES" on verso as well. Frame has expected surface wear commensurate with age with inactive insect holes, scuffs and abrasions as shown.