Cot and Table with Flowers (Primary Title)
Nell Blaine, American, 1922 - 1996 (Artist)
I never really left abstraction; the sense of organization and the way of putting a picture together come from the abstract days.—Nell Blaine
Born in Richmond, Blaine studied with Theresa Pollak from 1939 to 1942 at what was to become Virginia Commonwealth University and received VMFA junior fellowships in 1943 and 1946. After leaving Virginia in 1942, she studied in New York with the eminent teacher Hans Hofmann. In 1944, Blaine became the youngest member of the American Abstract Artists; however by 1948, she gradually returned to figurative painting, incorporating what she had learned about composition and color from her experiments with abstraction. Cot and Table with Flowers demonstrates her ability to combine a loose, gestural style with more traditional genres, such as the interior still life portrayed here.
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