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Showing posts from February 7, 2016

Ronald Werner Muckelberg - A Young New Jersey Artist

Ronald Werner Muckelberg: A Young New Jersey Artist "The Sea" “The Sea” - Maine Oil on Canvas Board, Framed NYC   for the 6th Floor Nurses Dated: April 9th, 1956 Signed Ronald Muckelberg Ronald Werner Muckelberg Today we are going to celebrate the life of “Ronald Werner Muckelberg.”  His small oil on canvas board painting, The Sea , arrived in my house a couple of years ago.  It had a sketch quality and I put it under my desk.  One day I went to research the artist for fun of it and found the following memorial write-up for his class reunion:   Ronald Muckelberg:  After leaving Pascack Valley High School, Muckelberg was accepted to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY, where he studied Commercial Art. The courses were very rigorous. He was only able to stay in college from September to January due his Hodgkin’s disease that started when he was a freshman in high school. His parents knew for four years that his illness would progress to

Margaret Casey Gates, Washington, DC Artist (1903-1989)

Margaret Casey Gates, Washington, DC Artist (1903-1989) An Observer is lead into the paintings of Margaret Gates by their charming simplicity, and then is fascinated by the wealth of beauty they contain. Throughout her work there is a delicacy of touch and a consistent rightness of taste and feeling that has caused her paintings to be exhibited at museums and acquired by numerous private collectors.  Below is “Nancy’s Goldfish” - Exhibited at the Phillips Memorial Gallery in 1948; Oil on Canvas Board (18 x 21 inches).      “Nancy’s Goldfish” has a flat, cube, color plane quality.  The goldfish tank sits in the open window with a view out to the barnyard with pink petaled flowers and orange centers.  The barn is made up of a triangle, squares and rectangles of flat color and the day is almost done with evening setting in.  It is the fish tank that captures our attention, we see four goldfish swimming about in a green garden.   Example of her signature Ma

Louis H. Musgrove, New York Artist - Mid-Century Modernist (1893-1963)

Louis H. Musgrove (1893-1963) Detail of "Flowers on the Window's Ledge" Today we are going to look at a rare mid-century modernist painter, Louis H. Musgrove.  Musgrove considered himself a “Sunday Painter,” but that was far from the truth.  Born and trained in New York City, Musgrove studied under some art greats of the time:  Douglas Volk, Frederick Cecil Jones and Howard Giles.  Clearly Giles influenced his work, as Giles was an illustrator extraordinaire using watercolor and pastels.   With the skills Musgrove obtained from his instructors, he went on to be an advertising executive with such companies as Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company and Pepsi Cola.  During his prosperous career, he found time to exhibit and share his work.  He exhibited at the Whitney Studio Club, the Art Director’s Club and Manhattan’s famous Ferragil Galleries (which closed in 1955).  He was a member of Art Director’s Club and the Institute of Graphic Art.  He did well in bala