The Artist and His Wife in an Interior

Jack BealWW-1964-135405

1964·Charcoal with smudging on ivory wove paper·35.2 × 42.8 cm (13 7/8 × 16 7/8 in.)

<p>Jack Beal attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in the 1950s, when drawing from life was still an important part of the curriculum. Throughout his career he remained dedicated to the realist tradition, even though at the time realism was regularly accused of being old-fashioned and irrelevant. His wife, Sondra Freckelton, had been a fellow SAIC student, and many of Beal’s paintings during the 1960s depict her in various poses. In this drawing he portrayed her reading as he worked.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1964
Medium: Charcoal with smudging on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: 35.2 × 42.8 cm (13 7/8 × 16 7/8 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Jack Beal

Artist

Jack Beal

Drawing

Jack Beal was an American painter known for large-scale figurative and still-life works executed in a direct, realist manner. Working primarily in oil, he developed a practice centered on domestic and culinary subjects, rendered with close attention to texture, light, and spatial relationships. His work emerged from and engaged with postwar American figuration, maintaining a commitment to representation and craftsmanship through decades marked by abstraction's dominance.

Richmond, VA, USA

Full artist profile →