Lot 133: REBECCA SALSBURY (STRAND) JAMES 1891-1968

inscribed To celebrate a/Friendship/To Cady Wells from/Rebecca James/Rebecca to Cady/September 25, 1937/Santa Fe N.M. on the backing

oil reverse painted on glass

Executed circa 1940.

sight size: 1 7/8 by 2 7/8 in. overall size: 2 3/8 by 3 7/8 in.<br><br>(sight: 4.7 by 7.3 cm overall: 6 by 9.7 cm)

Cady Wells (gift from the artist)

Dr. Suzan Campbell writes, "The earliest known shell painting by Rebecca Salsbury (Strand) James (1891-1968) is an oil on canvas, which she painted in Maine, in the mid-1920s. Completely self-taught, her interest in art was sparked when she became romantically involved with photographer Paul Strand, whom she married in 1922. After meeting Strand's mentor, photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, and other artists who were members of his avant-garde circle, she decided to teach herself to draw and paint.

"By the mid-1920s, her determination, self discipline, and deep concentration were rewarded when her friend Georgia O'Keeffe recommended that she be given a show at New York's Opportunity Gallery, a free exhibition space for emerging artists. Not wanting to be recognized as Paul Strand's wife, she exhibited under her maiden name, Rebecca Salsbury, and received favorable reviews.

"When Beck (as she was known to her friends) and O'Keeffe traveled together to Taos, New Mexico, to visit Mabel Dodge Luhan, in the summer of 1929, she began to paint reverse oils on glass, the unusual medium she favored for the remainder of her thirty-year career.

"That summer the two women befriended the artist Cady Wells (1904-1954), also a guest of Luhan's. He moved to New Mexico in 1932, and in 1944 O'Keeffe praised him highly, writing that she believed them to be 'the two best painters working in our part of the country.'

"Beck moved from New York to Taos after her 1933 divorce from Strand, and soon married rancher Bill James. She and Wells resumed their relationship, which continued until his death. In the mid-1940s, she furnished a studio near her Taos home exclusively for his use. This small painting is typical of the gifts she often gave Wells, for whom she had deep affection.

"In the mid-1930s, James painted a series of reverse oils on glass featuring shells?both single shells and groups of shells with seaweed?against a featureless background of pale sand and blue sky, similar to the composition in this painting. She completed a pair of paintings, both titled Shells on the Sand (9 x 12"), in 1935; in 1936, she painted Shells On A Shore (12 x 16"), the largest known work in the series. Around 1950, she painted a shell at least once again, in her outstanding reverse oil on glass, Earth and Water (22 x 20"), now in the collection of the Museum of New Mexico's Museum of Fine Arts."

Dr. Suzan Campbell is currently writing a biography of Rebecca Salsbury (Strand) James In the Shadow of the Sun: The Life and Art of Rebecca Salsbury James