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Margaret F. Browne (1884-1972). Before the Fight. browse these categories for related items... All Items: Fine Art:Paintings:Oil:N. America:American: Pre 1940: item # 648129 Please refer to our stock # 2468 when inquiring.
Raymond Agler Fine Arts 16 Pleasant Street Gloucester, Massachusetts 01930 978-281-5048 Guest Book Price on request |
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| Oil on canvas, 36 x 40 inches plus frame, signed and dated lower left, titled verso. Browne spied Ray Curley, the subject of this painting, entering the Fenway Studios in Boston on October 30, 1935. Curley was actually a professional wrestler and supplemented his income by modelling for Boston artists. Browne wrote in her diary for November 5, 1935: "...went upstairs. My colored Prize Fighter was there. Got my set-up and model posed. It will be called "Before the Fight," and he is shown in his dressing room with boxing gloves on before a whitewashed wall,...I am keen about it and think it will make a corking picture." Browne, a Bostonian with a summer studio in Annisquam, was by this time a nationally-recognized portrait painter (Henry Ford, Bobby Jones, King Alfonso XIII of Spain) and author ("Portrait Painting" New York, Pitman, 1933). Her "Blesse de Guerre", painted the same year, was recently exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston exhibition "A Studio of Her Own." That work portrays a blinded WWI veteran (actually a sighted Gloucester neighbor) with his little dog on his lap. Both of these paintings were highly unusual subjects for a female painter of the time. Locally, Browne was famous for her "Wax Works", the tableau vivants that she produced every summer for 25 years for the Annisquam Sea Fair. Browne had an uncanny sense of spotting characteristics of personality or points of resemblance to famous people on her walks in the village. These people were then recruited to pretend to be wax figures, the subjects ranging from Marat (with a gob of ketchup on his chest) in his bathtub, to Little Miss Muffet. The "Wax Works" performances continue as an annual event to this day. It is likely that Browne chose Ray Curley to model for this painting because of his close physical resemblance to the legendary Jack Johnson in his prime. "Before the Fight" descended by gift from Browne to an artist friend and thence through his family. | ||
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