Mabel Alvarez (1891-1985)

Mabel Alvarez was one of the rare women artists of her day to receive encouragement at an early age to pursue her talents and passion as a painter. She received training in Los Angeles from prominent artists Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Morgan Russell, whose synchromist compositions and color schemes would have a profound impact on the young Alvarez. The present work, Flower Sellers, demonstrates the hallmarks of Alvarez's style, combining an Impressionist sensibility grounded in figural realism with a bold modernist composition of vivid planes of color. The subject of a major solo exhibition at the Los Angeles Museum in 1941 and a more recent retrospective at the Orange County Museum of Art, the work of Mabel Alvarez endures as testament to a painter who embraced the avant-garde of 1920s and 30s California while creating works of stunning beauty.