Expressive Abstract Painting
Mid Century Oil
#C6478
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Hubert Crehan
This mid 20th century oil on canvas is by Bay Area Abex/Figurative painter and critic Hubert Vincent Crehan (1917-1984). Crehan studied under Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko in San Francisco at the California School of Fine Arts (also known as SFAI) in the late 1940s. He was closely mentored by Still during those two years. Soon after graduating, he moved to New York and exhibited alongside Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Robert Motherwell at the now legendary 1954 Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture at the Stable Gallery. In the 1960s, his second career as an art critic reached its zenith as he interviewed and reviewed shows for Marcel Duchamp, Robert Rauschenberg, and Willem de Kooning, among many others. His friendship with Alice Neel resulted in a portrait she painted of him in 1961. Yet, in spite of all this, Hubert Crehan’s work has gone largely unseen for the past sixty years. At some point in the 1960s, his focus shifted to a more reliable career for a family man—reviewing art for the leading magazines of the day—and his canvases were rolled up and shipped back to family in California, not to be seen again until now.
Mid 20th Century
Oil on Canvas
22"x28" framed, 20.75"x26.5" unframed
Signed on the back. Double framed in the original artist-built lath wood frame and a contemporary wood floater frame with a stained walnut finish. Good vintage condition with a lot of age and patina showing; bubbling of canvas and tear at top. We chose to frame this in a floater frame with the original wood frame inside to better show off the full age and history-worn condition of the piece.
