JOHN VON WICHT (1888 - 1970, GERMAN/AMERICAN)
Untitled.

Oil, gouache and color crayons on paper, circa 1960. 217x278 mm; 8½x11 inches. Signed i, v. Wicht, lower right.

Provenance: Private collection, Chicago.

Von Wicht (1888-1970) was born in Germany. He immigrated to the United States in the 1930s, settling in New York and working under the auspices of the Works Progress Administration, creating works for the mural division alongside artists such as Stuart Davis (1892-1964) and Byron Browne (1907-1961). His shift to purely non-objective abstraction began with his "Force" series in the late 1930s. By the 1940s, von Wicht was among the first wave of New York-based artists to embrace Abstract Expressionism, to which he adhered throughout the remainder of his career.