Initialed and dated ED ‘59 in red pencil at the top and bottom sheet edges. Signed Dieringer in the bottom center mount margin.
Image size 9 x 10 15/16 inches (229 x 278 mm); backing board size 13 1/2 x 16 3/4 inches (343 x 425 mm).
A fine, spontaneous, abstract expressionist work; watercolor on white wove paper, with fresh, bright colors; the image painted to the sheet edges, spot glued to the artist's original cream, wove drawing board mount. The watercolor in excellent condition; the mount with minor surface soiling, toning and light foxing at the top edge, all well away from the image.
Provenance, ex. collection Alexander Raydon. Raydon Gallery was a well-known New York gallery established in 1962 at Madison Ave. and 82nd Street.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
While not widely known today, Ernest Dieringer exhibited alongside preeminent artists of the mid-20th-century including Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, and Frank Stella.
Dieringer studied at the Art Institute of Chicago on a National Scholastic Scholarship, beginning his career with the Chicago-based Wells Street Gallery in 1957. He showed his work with other abstract artists, including Robert Natkin and John Chamberlain. The gallery was considered a vanguard space in Chicago for exhibiting emerging abstract artists from the surrounding area. Artists associated with the gallery eventually became known as the Wells Street Group. Due to the success of the gallery, Dieringer and other group members were invited by the Manhattan-based contemporary art dealer Elin Poindexter to join her gallery in the 1960s. Beginning in 1962, Poindexter exhibited Dieringer in six one-person shows.
Dieringer’s work was also included in numerous group and one-person shows, including the Art Institute of Chicago, 1955, 1956, 1957; Hyde Park Art Center, 1959; Montana Historical Society, 1961; Contemporary Arts Association (Houston); Dayton Art Institute, 1964; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, traveling exhibition, 1964; New England Annual (abstract painting award); Greenwich Art Center 1973.
The artist's work is held in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
