Gussow, Bernard (American, 1881-1957) Oil and gouache watercolor on artist board. Theatre Magazine Illustration Cover Art of Hansel and Gretel. Signed lower right B Gussow. Original cover artwork for Theatre Magazine. Painting includes a copy of the original March 1925 Theatre Magazine for which this illustration painting was commissioned and featured on the cover. Painting came from the same Shelter Island, NY artist estate as the other Theatre magazine illustration cover art being offered. In good condition. Measures 20 ” x 17 ”. Frame measures 24 ” x 19 ”.

From Askart.com: Russian-born Gussow (born 2 January 1881) was trained at both the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design; in addition he studied under Bonnat at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His first claim to fame seems to have been exhibiting two works at the Armory Show in 1913 (Movement and Figures). Gussow exhibited at the Society of Independent Artists between 1917 and 1934 and at Salons of America in the 1930s. By the mid 1930s Gussow stopped exhibiting but was as regular as clockwork up until then. By that time, he had moved from abstract compositions to recognizable urban subjects. The Whitney Museum of American Art, for example, has his Subway Stairs. The Barnes Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art also have his paintings. Gussow even participated in the Federal Art Project, contributing a post office mural (Recreation Hours) in East Rochester, NY. The figures in this painting might owe something to his contemporary Max Weber, who used similar simplified, mask-like faces. Or he may have gone directly to the Blue Rider Group or German Expressionists such as Franz Marc or Erich Heckel who were interested in "primitive" figures in landscapes. Weber also painted similar gently curving, cylindrical trees.