Oil on canvas painting. Featuring a landscape figural scene. Signed and attr. Joseph Tomanek (Czech-American, 1889-1974). 24.8 x 30.3 in. (63 x 77 cm). oseph Tomanek, a painter active mainly in Indiana and Illinois, was born on a farm in Straznice, Czechoslovakia (in Southeastern Moravia) on April 16, 1889 and died in 1974. . First he studied the rudiments of art at the School of Design in Prague, then emigrated to America, partly to escape three years of military service, and arrived in Chicago in 1910. His actual profession was interior designer but he took more art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago under a compatriot, Antonin Sterba (1875-1963), who had been trained in the Paris academies. Albert Krehbiel and Karl Buehr were Tomanek’s other teachers at the AIC. Between 1919 and 1931, Tomanek exhibited works at the Art Institute, including Cornfield ,_x000D_
Tomanek wrote about the difficulties he had when posing nude models in Chicago: “In Paris you can rent little garden studios and pose your models there in privacy. Here, if I work out of doors, I have to pose the girls in bathing suits.†(Paul Gilbert, Sunday Chicago Sun , 15 July 1945). Reportedly Tomanek followed the old eclectic method of creating an ideal nude, combining the best features from various models. This academic procedure goes back to seventeenth-century theorists Giovanni Bellori and André Félibien, and was continued through the eighteenth century when neoclassical art theorist Anton Raphael Mengs made the analogy of bees collecting nectar from a variety of flowers. Besides nudes, Tomanek painted intimate landscapes, neo-Rococo garden scenes much like those of Frederick Ballard Williams, floral still-lives and murals in local churches. By 1920 Tomanek was a member of the Bohemian Art Club; soon he joined the Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors, the Chicago Gallery Association and the Palette and Chisel Club. During the 1920s, thanks to three scholarships, Tomanek spent four years in Europe, which was one of the professional goals of many young American artists. In 1938 Tomanek won the Logan Prize at the Art Institute of Chicago for Thoughts of the Future , a half-length nude strumming a guitar, which recalled the Salon days of Cabanel and Bouguereau for Peyton Boswell ( Art Digest , 1 October 1938). PROVENANCE: Private Collection (Indiana, United States)

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By [Artist Name] : In our opinion, the work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : In our opinion, the work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.

In the manner of [Artist Name] : In our opinion, the work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

After [Artist Name] : In our opinion, the work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.

Circle of [Artist Name] : In our opinion, a work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.

Follower of [Artist Name]: In our opinion, a work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

American, 19th century : In our opinion, this work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).

Bears signature : In our opinion, the signature on the artwork may be spurious.
Apocryphal : Of doubtful authenticity.