Naive - folk art painting of Jesus in a modern farm setting by American painter, Lawrence Lebduska (1894-1966). Oil on masonite. Framed. Signed and dated lower right: “L.H. Lebduska ’34”. Inscriptions on the reverse including: an owners name, the artist’s name, the date of creation, and possibly a title “Return to Country Life” (indistinct). This work is quite figural and symbolic in nature for Lebduska who often painted scenes with animals and trees. Also very unusual as he has placed Christ, tied to the bottom of the cross, and looking up at a flying Angel, in a modern 20th century farm landscape, complete with a farmer wearing blue jeans, kneeling with head bowed. The sky is painted dramatically.

SIZE: Painting - 18” x 24” / Frame - 23.5” x 29.5”

PROVENANCE: James Naumburg Rosenberg (1874-1970) well-known artist and patron of the arts in New York directly from Lebduska); Clar's Auction Gallery, 2009; Private collection.

NOTES / REFERENCES: In 1936 Lawrence Lebduska had his first solo exhibition at the Contemporary Gallery in New York City. The exhibition was well received with a favorable review in The New York Times. Acquisitions were made by several prominent collectors including Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Eleanor Roosevelt. Later he was included in the WPA’s Art Project in New York and exhibited at Valentine and Kleeman Galleries during the late 1930s and early 1940s. Although his health began to deteriorate in the late 1950s, he continued painting and had exhibitions at the Krasner Gallery in 1960 and Tutti Gallery in 1962.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Lebduska was five when he returned with his family to their native city of Leipzig, East Germany. He was educated there and studied stained-glass making at a technical school. He had no formal artistic training but applied the skills he had learned from making stained-glass to his paintings. He returned to America in 1912, settling first in Baltimore and then moving to New York the following year. He was commissioned to paint murals by the interior designer Elsie de Wolfe and later created stained-glass and murals for several residences in New York.

His work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; University of Arizona, Phoenix, AZ; Milwaukee Art Museum, WI; New York State Historical Association, NY; the Newark Museum, NJ; the Smithsonian Museum of American Art among others.

NO RESERVE - INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING NOT OFFERED DUE TO SIZE

Excellent condition with no restoration visible. Gold-painted carved frame frame with wear.