Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984)

We would like to thank Judith Nasby, Curator Emerita and Professor at the University of Guelph in Canada for her research on this lot.

From 1938 to 1949 Canadian-born Rolph Scarlett was a close associate of Hilla Rebay, founder of New York’s Museum of Non-Objective Painting, and her colleague, painter Rudolf Bauer. Rebay awarded Scarlett a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in 1938 and eventually purchased sixty Scarlett works for the museum's collection. The present work reveals Scarlett’s typical use of geometric layering, emphasis on circles, intuitive coloration and mottled or flat backgrounds dating to his 1940-45 period.