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Charles Murray Foster - Artist (1919-1994)



C. Murray Foster - Artist, born 1919


C. Murray Foster (1919-1994) Artist

"The Work Yard"


Oil on Canvas

Approximately 26 X 20 Inches

From Foster's MacDougal Street Studio

Foster's Monogram Signature

A "F" inside a Circle with a Tie on Top

Original Wood Frame

Charles Murray Foster is one of the great mystery men of the artworld.  A talented remarkable man. He recently made the news again by having one of military letters published by the New York Historical Society (Nov. 2015).  Foster was deployed to northern France in 1944.  This recently published letter to a friend included sketches and written graphic details of the French landscape and people.  


After the war, Foster found his way back to New York, where he attended the Art Students League.  He was a student of Reginald Marsh, Kenneth H. Miller, Julian Levi and John Carroll.  In 1947, Foster was the winner of the McDowell Fellowship at the League, as well as it was his breakout year for artistic recognition.    


The fellowship opened the doors and he exhibited at juried shows in 1947 and 1948 at the National Academy of Design.  In 1947, he exhibited a painting called Closed Bar and in 1948  the painting called Shoreline. Closed Bar had a style of social realism, however many of his works during this time were semi-abstract to Braque-like still lifes.  He also exhibited a painting at the Corcoran Biennial Exhibition in 1947.  Then in 1951, his first major New York show was held at the Morris gallery (NYC) where he exhibited eight canvases.


By 1952, Foster’s art career was red-hot, as he participated at the juried painting annual at the Whitney Museum of American Art.  He exhibited, Fishers, Simon and Peter, a primitive allegory.  Other participants in the exhibit were Edward Hopper and Robert Motherwell. Time Magazine (60:88 N. 52) November 24, 1952, ran a review of the exhibit entitled “Whitney, 1952.”  The Time’s article called out Foster and ran a reproduction of the painting.  


Then in 1955, he was part of a three man show at the Morris Gallery, located at 174 Waverly Place (a noted New York institution).  The review of this exhibit stated that “C. Murray Foster, (who) has proved himself to be a versatile painter, sensitive to color nuances within one key hue.  Of this three phases of autumn, Season’s End #1 caught best the shades of starkness and decay. Metropolitan, of building shapes seen through a misty scrim of browned colors comes even closer to reaching that desirable and difficult statement of equilibrium.”  by S.B.


Morris Gallery loaned one of Foster’s painting to the Art USA: 1958, an exhibit at Madison Square Gardens. The 1958 exhibit was designed to showcase the works of artists from all across the United States.  Morris Gallery selected a painting entitled:  Stone Wall #1. In the 1960s, Foster’s work became more abstract and frequently more colorful.  That is the great mystery: Whatever happened to his art career after the early 1960s?  His public art records appear to dry up, yet we know that he went on to create art.


Foster frequently signed his paintings with a monogram: a “F” inside a circle with a tie at the top. Please see the example above.  Perhaps there are numerous wonderful painting out there not unidentified due to this obscure monogram signature. The painting had a tag “Near Georgetown” (a work-yard scene with water tower and 1940s truck).  It is from part of his social realism period. The oil on canvas is approximately 26 X 20 inches in its original frame.     


Art auction records from the mid-1990s demonstrate that his work from the forties and fifties had value. Prices at auction started in the high hundreds up to three thousand, all sold in Philadelphia.  I haven’t seen much auction information since.     


Mr. Foster appears to have maintained a studio at 83 MacDougal St. (Greenwich Village) and in the forties and fifties lived at 617 Hudson Street.   



Comments

  1. Likely not much action since most of what would be considered major works were last I knew in private hands. I am thinking of the work that was in the Whitney exhibition.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for your comment. Are you a relative of Charles Murray Foster? Yes, I found little recent information on Mr. Foster

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    2. His major works were last I knew in the hands of relatives.

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  2. A couple of his works are up for auction at Aspire Auctions Dec. 2020. My grandfather George Foster Hill was his cousin. Several of his paintings had been in my Aunt's house in Columbus Ohio for decades. Now they are being sold as part of the estate. I have a couple of them myself. He used to play Monopoly with me when I was a kid! There is certainly a unique talent to Murray's work. (He always went by Murray). I'm glad to see they are still circulating out in the world and people are still enjoying them.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much for your comments. It is always my goal to keep track of artists that I have spent hours researching. It is important to have documents - that are easy to find for others so they can understand the importance of an artist within the context of American Art History. Clearly, Charles Murray Foster, was an artistic talent that could adapt to the artistic changes in America, from post war to modern abstraction. His skill was highly recognized in the 1950s and it is time for a second wave of recognition again. Unfortunately, I do not have access to his catalogue of paintings, and I am not sure if Mr. Foster kept track of each painting, he accomplished.

      Delete
  3. A couple of his works are up for auction at Aspire Auctions Dec. 2020. My grandfather George Foster Hill was his cousin. Several of his paintings had been in my Aunt's house in Columbus Ohio for decades. Now they are being sold as part of the estate. I have a couple of them myself. He used to play Monopoly with me when I was a kid! There is certainly a unique talent to Murray's work. (He always went by Murray). I'm glad to see they are still circulating out in the world and people are still enjoying them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am assuming this is Skylar. My mother used to tell me that he was Charlie up until the death of his father. Then he became Murray. That would have been before your time.

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