LOT 1L
Artist: Bradley Walker Tomlin (1899-1953)
Title: “NUMBER 2”
Medium: oil on wallpaper
Size: 30” x 18 1/4” inches
Date: 1952
Notes: signed “Tomlin” lower right, inscribed “Pour Richard Sobel 1952, Bon #2 Dalton School, Bradley Tomlin” verso.
In 1945, Tomlin met Adolph Gottlieb and through him some of the leading Abstract Expressionists including Robert Motherwell, Phillip Guston and Jackson Pollock. At this point in Tomlin’s career, his work became assertively distinctive. He stopped teaching in order to focus on his own painting. He began to experiment with automatism using themes like calligraphy and typographic shapes. In the 1940s and 50s his work was abstract but focused on geometry and order. The present work “Number 2” was created in 1952 at a time when Tomlin had found his own artistic voice, a year before his untimely death.
EST: $10,000-15,000
