KENNETH REXROTH PAINTING, 1920s

Kenneth Rexroth. Wax, silica and color on board, 19 3/4" x 15 5/8" (sight). Circa 1925-1930. Two-inch-wide black-painted and gilded wood frame; framed dimensions 23 3/4" x 19 5/8". Defects: 3/4" x 5/16" piece of paint missing from the beige-painted rectangle (upper center of the composition), the white underpainting exposed there, a quantity of primarily vertical checking (craquelure) within this rectangle, some lifting of the paint there (this rectangle measures 4 1/2" x 3 3/4"); a quantity of primarily vertical craquelure within the yellow-painted rectangle, lifting in one place, two losses (each 1/8" x 1/16") at the lower-center left edge of this rectangle (which measures 10 1/2" x 6 1/2"); a network of fine (still largely vertical) lines intermittently across the painted surface. Until conservation is achieved, the center of the composition should be considered brittle. We assume that the slip of brown paper bearing the artist's signature (or name) and date ("1945") is from the picture back (prior to its being covered in black paper). A 1994 clipping from "The New Yorker," describing a November 1948 soirée and Rexroth's role in it, is taped to this black paper. Kenneth Rexroth, 1905-1982. 

Reference: "Kenneth Rexroth Paintings" (New York: James S. Jaffe Rare Books, ca. 2014), where nine paintings are illustrated and described, six of them in wax, silica and color, variously on fiberboard, masonite and wooden board. Of the three linear abstractions, "Untitled Abstraction with Magnets" (described as ca. 1925-1930) is similar to the painting offered here: "The magnets that appear in this piece are a recurring motif in Rexroth's paintings of this period..."