ARTIST: James Lechay (Massachusetts, Iowa, 1907 - 2001)
NAME: Cityscape
MEDIUM: gouache and watercolor on paper
CONDITION: Very good. Minor wear to frame.
SIGHT SIZE: 15 x 21 inches / 38 x 53 cm
FRAME SIZE: 22 x 27 inches / 55 x 68 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right
Gregory
CATEGORY: antique vintage painting
SKU#: 117048
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BIOGRAPHY:
The late Wellfleet artist James Lechay (1907-2001) was an abstract impressionist who painted with a combination of bravado and subtlety. Loose bold contours defining an image on a flat ground is typical of his work. Lechay was also incredibly versatile and inventive. Works in oils, gouache, casein, and
lithography show his mastery of various materials and techniques. His oeuvre encompasses the traditional genres in representational painting, but often made in unusual ways. His landscapes include cityscape some abstracted to their essence. For a short time in the 1930s Lechay was a social realist, taking
part in exhibitions protesting such injustices as homelessness and racism. Though he soon removed politics from his painting, he remained politically active and became a leader of the Artists Union, an organization of artists employed in the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In 1938 the WPA sent him to
Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he organized a gallery and set up exhibitions of work by Milton Avery, Max Weber, and other WPA artists. Back in New York, he was once arrested along with several other artists for demonstrating at WPA headquarters. When the police asked for his name, he answered with
James Picasso. Following suit, the others called themselves after their favorite artists – Manet, Cezanne, Matisse, etc. Ultimately, they were all released, the police never having caught on to the deception.At the time, Hans Hoffman was exposing New York artists to European Modernism. Analytical,
synthetic, and mechanical Cubism coupled with Surrealism and Naive/Primitive Painting were heady influences, and in their midst the New York School of Painting was born. Lechay was immersed in and affected for the rest of his life by the surface-oriented painting that emerged in that era. Numerous Award
winning achievements and in many museums and private collections world wide.