Lot 66: RONALD JOSEPH (1910 - 1992) Untitled (Abstract Composition).

RONALD JOSEPH (1910 - 1992)
Untitled (Abstract Composition).

Goauche and pencil on mixed paper collage, mounted to illustration board, circa 1950-55. 125x143 mm; 4 3/4x5 5/8 inches. Initialed in pencil, lower right.

Provenance: Gift from the artist; private collection, New York.

Born in St. Kitts, the West Indies, Joseph moved as a child to New York where he received early recognition of his talents. In 1929, he was honored as the "most promising" young artist in New York''s public schools and given an exhibiton of 60 works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He studied lithography with Riva Helfond at the Harlem Community Art Center during the WPA. He joined the mural section in New York, and represented the Harlem Artist''s Guild at the New York World''s Fair in 1939-40. After military service, he lived and worked in Peru on a Rosenwald scholarship, and later studied in Paris under the G.I. bill. He experimented with abstraction alongside his friend Bob Blackburn through the 1950s. He then moved permanently to Brussels. His prints are in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, gift of the Reba and Dave Williams Collection. Lisa Mintz Messinger, African-American Artists, 1929-1945, p. 31.