{"product_id":"large-impasto-floral-still-life-oil-on-canvas-in-dusty-rose-sage-and-cream-signed-american-decorator-school-c-1975-1990","title":"Large Impasto Floral Still Life by Lee Reynolds for Vanguard Studios, Oil on Canvas in Dusty Rose, Sage and Cream, Signed, c. 1975–1985","description":"\u003ch3\u003eThe Piece\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA large floral still life worked in oil so thick it has to be read as relief before it is read as a picture. The paint stands off the canvas in ridges you can see the shadow of from across a room. In the passages where the palette knife was dragged, it has left a corduroy of parallel furrows; where it was pressed and lifted, the blossoms sit up in whorled fans a quarter inch proud of the ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe palette is deliberately dusty. A warm taupe-brown ground carries dusty rose, sage, cream and a soft mauve, with the flower heads built in cream and white over a rose underlayer that shows through at the edges. Small deliberate hits of turquoise, yellow, coral and blue are flicked across the ground as accents, most of them the width of a knife edge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe blossoms are not drawn so much as loaded and set down — each one a single charged sweep of the knife that turns as it lifts, so the ridges spiral out from the centre of the flower. It is a technique that cannot be corrected; the mark is either right or it is scraped off.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe canvas is signed at the lower right in a thin brown script.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe whole thing is stretched over a light wood strip frame and set in a plain narrow oak-toned moulding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eHistory \u0026amp; Provenance\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe canvas is signed \u003cstrong\u003eLee Reynolds\u003c\/strong\u003e, and that name carries a real and well-documented history — along with one thing every buyer of these should understand up front.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eLee Reynolds Burr\u003c\/strong\u003e (1936–2017) founded \u003cstrong\u003eVanguard Studios\u003c\/strong\u003e in Beverly Hills in \u003cstrong\u003e1965\u003c\/strong\u003e, and built it into the most successful operation of its kind in the country. Vanguard produced large-format decorative canvases for the American interior design and furniture trade, sold through showrooms and design centres, and it ran on that model from the 1960s into the 1980s. The subjects ranged across abstraction, mid-century geometrics, seascapes, still lifes, florals and bullfighters, and the studio was known for working at bold scale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eHere is the part to be plain about. \u003cstrong\u003e“Lee Reynolds” is a studio signature rather than one painter's hand.\u003c\/strong\u003e Burr directed the work creatively but did not personally paint the great majority of canvases carrying his name; Vanguard employed rotating teams of staff artists, and something on the order of half a million paintings went out under that signature over the studio's life. Burr's own original output was a few hundred works. So a Lee Reynolds canvas is an authentic product of a named and collected studio — which is a genuine thing, and the reason the market for them has revived — but it is not a unique work by a single identified artist, and we will not sell it as one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe construction says so plainly. The canvas is commercially pre-primed and machine-stapled to a machine-mitred stretcher, and the stretcher bar carries a \u003cstrong\u003estock number stamped in red ink: 132719\u003c\/strong\u003e — production inventory numbering, not an edition mark. That is how a studio tracked a canvas through a run.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe palette is the clearest dating evidence. Dusty rose, mauve, sage and cream against a warm taupe is unmistakably the late 1970s into the 1980s — the decade when interiors moved off the avocado and burnt orange of the previous one. Combined with the staple construction, the pre-primed commercial canvas and Vanguard's own operating span, that puts this at \u003cstrong\u003ec. 1975–1985\u003c\/strong\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe individual staff painter who executed this canvas is not identified and cannot be, which is true of essentially every Vanguard work. The signature is the studio's, and that is how it is described here.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eWhat is worth saying is that the painting is better than the category's reputation. The knife work is confident and unhesitating, the colour is held to a disciplined range rather than sprayed across the spectrum, and the impasto is thick enough to have required real paint and real time. Whoever stood at this canvas had done it many times before, and the surface is entirely hand-worked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eProduct Details\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003ctable border=\"1\" cellpadding=\"8\" cellspacing=\"0\" style=\"width:100%; border-collapse:collapse;\"\u003e\n    \u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eField\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003cth align=\"left\" style=\"text-align:left; vertical-align:top;\"\u003eDetail\u003c\/th\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\u003c\/thead\u003e\n    \u003ctbody\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eObject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eFramed oil painting\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eSubject\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eFloral still life\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMedium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOil on canvas, heavy impasto applied with palette knife and brush\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOrigin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVanguard Studios, Beverly Hills, California. Signed \u003cem\u003eLee Reynolds\u003c\/em\u003e lower right — a studio signature used across the works of many staff painters, not the hand of a single identified artist.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eConstruction\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCommercially pre-primed canvas, machine-stapled to a mitred wood stretcher; set in a plain narrow moulding; wire hanger fitted\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eMarks\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eStock number stamped in red to the stretcher bar: 132719\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eEra\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003ec. 1975–1985\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eCondition\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eVery good. The canvas is tight and even on the stretcher with no tears, punctures, or slack. The paint film is stable throughout with no flaking, lifting, or cleavage, and none of the high impasto ridges are cracked or crushed — unusual on a canvas this heavily loaded and the first thing to check on one. Colours are strong and unfaded. The frame is sound with light handling wear to the corners. The hanging wire is intact. Condition Guaranteed.\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n      \u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eAvailability\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd style=\"vertical-align:top;\"\u003eOne of a Kind — 1 Available\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n    \u003c\/tbody\u003e\n  \u003c\/table\u003e\n  \u003ch3\u003eWhy It Belongs in Your Home\u003c\/h3\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eScale is the whole argument. A big wall needs a big picture, and the market for large original canvases at a sane price is thin — which is exactly why this category has been rediscovered. Nothing printed does what this does, because a print is flat and this is not: raking light from a lamp or a window catches every ridge and the surface changes through the day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eThe colours are the second argument. Dusty rose, sage and cream on warm taupe is a quiet, room-serving palette that will not fight upholstery, and it sits especially well against white, greige, plaster and unpainted wood. It reads as texture from across a room and as a bouquet up close.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eFor a designer or a shop this is the piece that fills a wall over a sofa, a bed, a console or a mantel in one move, and it is one of a kind rather than a catalogue number that a client can find online for less.\u003c\/p\u003e\n  \u003cp\u003eA note on care. \u003cstrong\u003eDo not clean the surface yourself.\u003c\/strong\u003e High impasto is the hardest paint surface there is to clean safely — dust and grime settle into the valleys between ridges, and a cloth catches the peaks and can shear them off. Dust it lightly with a clean, dry, soft artist's brush, working with the ridges rather than across them, and nothing more. Never use water, solvent, or any commercial cleaner. Keep it out of direct sun and off an exterior wall that runs cold, and away from a heat source, since oil paint on canvas moves with temperature and humidity. Hang it on two points into studs or proper anchors — a canvas this size is heavier than it looks. If it ever needs real cleaning, a conservator is the answer, not a rag.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Viridian Eclection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48030729338985,"sku":"VE-0668","price":1625.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/0093\/9369\/files\/3642FD72-3D82-466B-A433-B3017345738D.jpg?v=1789016757","url":"https:\/\/viridianeclection.com\/products\/large-impasto-floral-still-life-oil-on-canvas-in-dusty-rose-sage-and-cream-signed-american-decorator-school-c-1975-1990","provider":"Viridian Eclection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}