George Ault (1891–1948)
A New York Skyline, 1921
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Oil on canvas
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18 x 24 inches
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Signed and dated lower left: G.C. Ault ’21.
Provenance
- Mr. and Mrs. Sol Brody, New York
- Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York, New York
- Angela Gross Folk, New Jersey, acquired from above
- Estate of above
- Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, New York, May 17, 2023, lot 426, from above
- Collection of J. Jeffrey and Ann Marie Fox
Exhibited
Fifth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, The Waldorf Astoria, New York, New York, February 26–March 24, 1921
Our Choice of Independents, Anderson Galleries, New York, New York, 1921
George Ault: Nocturnes, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, December 7, 1973–January 6, 1974
George Ault, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York, April 8–June 8, 1988; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, Tennessee, November 13, 1988–January 1, 1989; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska, February 4–April 2, 1989; New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, New Jersey, April 29–June 11, 1989
Literature
Fifth Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists (New York: The Society of Independent Artists, 1921), n.p., no. 19.
George Ault: Nocturnes (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1973), n.p., no. 10.
Karen Tsujimoto, Images of America: Precisionist Painting and Modern Photography (San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1982), 180.
Gerrit Henry, “George Ault,” Art News 82, no. 2 (1983): 146.
Henry Adams, American Drawings and Watercolors in the Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985), 158.
Susan Lubowsky, George Ault (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1988), 9–11, no. 4.
Innis Howe Shoemaker, Adventures in Modern Art: The Charles K. Williams II Collection (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2009), 30.
Marie Walker and Donald Myers, George Ault’s Lower Broadway and His Traumatic Career (St. Peter, MN: Hillstrom Museum of Art, 2022), 4.
Note
George Ault’s A New York Skyline quickly garnered great recognition. The work was chosen by English art critic C. Lewis Hind from the annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1921 for an exhibition titled Our Choice of the Independents at the Anderson Galleries in New York. Curator Susan Lubowsky describes, “A New York Skyline dramatically illustrates Ault’s artistic awakening,” continuing, “in the distance at the center of the composition, the steel skeleton of a building under construction symbolizes the dramatic evolution of the urban skyline. A towering symbol of prosperity, the skyscraper heralded a new era of progress in a changing world, an era that artists were eager to embrace.”
Related Work
New York Night, No. 2, 1921, oil on canvas, 20¼ x 14 inches; The Vilcek Foundation, New York, New York
Sullivan Street, Abstraction, 1924, oil on canvas, 24¼ x 20 inches; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Hoboken Factory, 1932, oil on canvas, 20 x 22 inches; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
catalogue
A Collector’s Journey
The catalogue, A Collector’s Journey, is designed specifically for museum directors and curators, by focusing solely on the appearance, provenance, and exhibition history of each painting. The collections are dynamic and will continue to expand as additional exceptional and historically important paintings are acquired.
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