Guy Pene Du Bois (American, 1884-1958).

Oil on canvas painting titled “Blonde Nude on White Bed” depicting a partially nude woman sitting on a bed with her back turned to the viewer, ca. 1932. She wears her hair in a chignon and has a pink wrap around her waist. Signed and dated along the lower left.

Provenance: Collection of Mrs. Leo Asbell, Philadelphia; Kraushaar Galleries, New York, May 25, 1978; Graham Gallery, 1981; The collection of Bruce Dayton and Ruth Stricker Dayton – Selections from The Marsh, Minnetonka, Minnesota. Exhibition History: City Art Museum, St. Louis, Summer 1932; Springfield Museum, October 1933; Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, April 1934; Cleveland Museum, June 1934. Lot Essay: Guy Pene du Bois was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 4, 1884 into a well-to-do intellectual New Orleans family. His father Henri Pene du Bois was a noted critic and his son grew up in a highly cultured atmosphere in literary circles. He was named for the French writer Guy de Maupassant who was a close family friend. He dropped out of high school in 1899, and he became the youngest student in William Merrit Chase’s school from 1899 to 1905. He also studied with J.C. Beckwith, Frank Dumond, Robert Henri, Kenneth Hayes Miller and at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere with Theophile A. Steinlen. He worked as police and court reporter for the New York American, New York Tribune, and the New York Evening Post and was editor of Arts and Decoration Magazine for seven years. He often pursued a dual career, earning a reputation as both an artist and a critic. He is best remembered for his paintings of the 1920s of Jazz Age America in which he subtly comments on the emptiness of the bourgeois life. In 1924, when he was in his forties, and with his wife, Floy, he spent six years in France, which was a turning point in his painting career. He turned to broader subject matter from New York Realism as taught by Robert Henri. Many of Pene du Bois’ paintings are satirical to the point that the figures were caricatures. Guy Pene Du Bois was the father of painters Yvonne and William Du Bois and Raoul Du Bois was a cousin. In the 1950s, Pene du Bois’ health substantially limited the number of pictures produced. He died in 1958.

Unframed; height: 35 in x width: 28 1/4 in.
Framed; height: 41 1/2 in x width: 34 in.