Attributed to Emerson S Woelffer, it does not have a COA. Medium: acrylic canvas. 21 x 17 inches. Provenance: private owner.

Biography: Best known for his boldly colored abstract oil and acrylic canvases with jagged forms in sometimes dense compositions Emerson Woelffler was active in this style until his later years when macular degeneration made working in color difficult.He then began using white crayons on black paper in a looser style. He was also a sculptor and lithographer and lived in both Chicago and Los Angeles.Emerson Woelffer was a native of Chicago where he worked at the Institute of Design under Moholy-Nagy, and earned a B.A. Degree and taught there in 1942. Later he was instrumental in bringing modernism to Los Angeles where he taught at the Chouinard Art Institute (now Cal Arts) from 1959 to 1973.He also taught at the Otis College of Art and Design until 1989. Earlier he had been a teacher at Black Mountain College where he associated with Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. In 1967 and 1967, he went to Europe on a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and in 1970, he was an artist-in-residence at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.Retrospectives of his work were held at the Santa Barbara Museum in 1964, the Phillips Collection in 1974, and the Otis Gallery in 1992. During his lifetime, exhibition venues included the Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran Biennial, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Pennsylvania Academy.

All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:

Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.

By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.

Attributed to [Artist Name] : 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] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.

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

Circle of [Artist Name] : 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]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).

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

Mint