 |
| "The Yard Work" Oil on Canvas, 26 X 20" From Foster's MacDougal Street Studio |
Charles Murray Foster is one of the great mystery men of the artworld. He was a talented remarkable man who appears to still be living today at about 97 years old. 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 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-lives. He also exhibited a painting at the Corcoran Biennial Exhibition in 1947. Then in 1951, his first major New York show was held at a New York gallery 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 exhibit at Madison Square Gardens. The 1958 exhibit was designed to show the works of artists 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.
 |
| Script F inside a Circle w/Semi-Circle on Top |
Foster frequently signed his paintings with a monogram: a “F” inside a circle with a tie at the top. Please see an example below. 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.
Documentation and References:
GUARD AT MUSEUM HAS OWN RICH ART; Young Night Watchman Wins $2,500 Traveling Scholarship to Practice His Painting
New York Times: May 1, 1948
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.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment. Are you a relative of Charles Murray Foster? Yes, I found little recent information on Mr. Foster
DeleteHis son.
DeleteHis major works were last I knew in the hands of relatives.
DeleteAnd he died in January of '94.
DeleteA 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.
ReplyDeleteThank 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.
DeleteA 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
DeleteI own one of his works.
ReplyDelete"Dead Bird" from 1954. Bought it at a garage sale. Had no idea what i had purchased.
Thank you!! This was an early blog of mine. Since then there has been further scholarship/knowledge about Charles Murray Foster including a recently discovered New York Times article about him from 1948. I can't attach his photo, but here is the article:
DeleteGUARD AT MUSEUM HAS OWN RICH ART; Young Night Watchman Wins $2,500 Traveling Scholarship to Practice His Painting
New York Times: May 1, 1948
It was not an ordinary tour of duty last night for one of the night watchmen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as he made his way through the dimly lighted galleries and corridors that echoed with his footfalls.
Charles Murray Foster, 29-year- old veteran, by day a student at the Art Students League under the GI Bill of Rights, had been notified that he was the winner of the $2,500 McDowell Traveling Scholarship awarded by the league.
The award carries with it complete freedom for travel and study, and Mr. Foster plans to use it to see what other museums have.
"There are so many things that I've only seen in prints," he said. He doesn't mind the continuing dullness of his watchman's job.
"I'm protecting valuable public property, and besides I've become acquainted with the Met's collections," he said, and then added a little wistfully: "I'd like to see someone try to break in."
A veteran of three European campaigns, in north France, on the Rhine and in middle Europe, with the Seventh Army, he came out of the war without a scratch; he found it exciting and depressing, both, and considers himself lucky.
He was mustered out of the Army in 1946, and continued his studies, begun in 1940 at the National Academy of Design. At the academy he received his first for- mal teachings. That lasted for about seven months until his fam- ily moved to Washington. There he studied at the Corcoran Gal- lery for four months, "until the Army got me," he said. That was in September, 1941.
His talents became evident early, while he attended public school in New York and later when he took extension courses at Columbia University. They were most evi- dent to his biology teacher who, on examining Mr. Foster's anat- omy drawings, advised him to study art.
His favorite subjects are land- scapes and figures, done for the most part from imagination. He lives at 83 Macdougal Street in a cold water flat, gets up at 7 in the morning, for his art classes and quits the museum at 12:30 A. M.
He plans to ask for a six months' leave of absence from the Metro- politan in the late summer.
"I don't want to ask for a leave before then," he explained. "They're a little short here, and I don't want to leave them holding the bag."
Please know that I updated the blog...
Delete