The following description for IMPRESSIONIST FLOWERS IN A VASE has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S. Fastov, Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans & Kenyon

Note 1) Dorothy Poses Fastov was born in 1912 in Brooklyn, New York. She was an excellent high school student winning New York State Regents Scholarships and a scholarship to Barnard College, which was the female sister school at Columbia University, and Pratt Institute, a fine art school and was offered a contract with the Metropolitan Opera, all at the time of her graduating from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, New York. Her father, Joseph Poses, was very concerned that a career in music and art was not sufficiently secure, and he wanted her to get a good education to be a high school English teacher. He also was also concerned for Dorothy’s safety and opposed the long subway rides Dorothy would have to take to reach and return from the Barnard campus Her mother, Minnie, wanted Dorothy to pursue the art or the music, whichever, Dorothy preferred. Joseph, as usual, was dominant and prevailed. Thus, he insisted that she forego the artistic/cultural opportunities afforded her by Metropolitan Opera, Pratt Institute and Barnard College. He insisted that she matriculate at Hunter College, in New York, which had relatively low tuition costs. Dorothy was an excellent, very serious and diligent student, graduating with honors, and, having taken in high school 3 years of Latin, she took 4 more years of Latin and 3 years of Greek. English teaching jobs in the New York City system in the Depression and tight city budgets of the 1930’s were very difficult to obtain by recent college graduates and few and far between. Nonetheless, she was able to attain an English teaching position at East New York Vocational High School, which was in a very tough, poor neighborhood. She was an inspiring and excellent teacher. The children showed their appreciation, care, concern and respect for what she was doing for them by insuring that everyday some strong, large boys acted as, in effect, bodyguards for her and accompanied her from the school steps to her subway train and preserved her safety.

In 1937, she married Charles Fastov, another Brooklyn, New York native, as he was completing his two master’s degrees, one in political science, the other in social work, at Columbia University, having been graduated from college at CCNY, where he was on the fencing team and pursued vigorously tennis and horseback riding, Charles entered the Brooklyn, New York Probation Department in the early 1940’s and by the 1950’s he had been appointed Chief Probation Officer of what was then the 4^th largest probation department in the U.S. Charles served in such capacity, turning down a number of job offers, including the job as head of the Connecticut State Probation Department, until 1974. At that time, he accepted the offer from New York City Mayor Abraham Beame to appoint him to be the first Director of Probation of the City of New York, a position, which had just been created by the New York state legislature to provide better probation services in the city, through integrating the independent probation departments of the 5 boroughs of the City, including the Borough of Kings County, which was the independent Brooklyn branch, in which Charles had long served, into a city-wide, integrated probation department. Thus, he became responsible for setting up and implementing the administrative structure and policies of this newly created city-wide probation department, which was then the largest probation department in the U.S., which he ran for several years.

Dorothy and Charles had two children, Alice and Rob, who they raised in Rockville Centre, New York on Long Island. Dorothy, who was quite brilliant and very loving and caring, provided excellent parenting, judgment, guidance and assistance to her kids and supported them in their activities, concerns and school work. She served in the PTA at the elementary school, which the children attended, and was elected President of the PTA. She was a great and inventive, experimental cook and hostess. She and Charles had a bevy of very bright, witty, interesting, funny, curious, empathetic and vital friends, who shared Charles and Dorothy’s support for and love of liberal Democratic political policies. She often invited them to large, sumptuous dinners, at which she permitted Rob, the elder son to attend and to listen and participate in; intending to stimulate Rob’s mental processes, listening and verbal and intellectual skills and to acquire the characteristics, knowledge and judgment of her friends. Both Charles and Dorothy were very active in liberal Democratic politics and enlisted Rob’s help in 1952 and 1956 in delivering and passing out Adlai Stevenson political literature in what was essentially a Republican town.

As Rob was leaving the elementary school, Dorothy decided to go back to teaching English at Oceanside High School; soon became Chairman of the Department of English; and served in such capacity for many years. She was always very busy. She still had a marvelous operatic voice and would sing for her friends and her children pieces like “Summertime” from George Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess,” requiring her to demonstrate her ability to glide through, soar and move down, with grace and fluidity, the ascending and descending notes on the scale, without almost taking a breath, as is required by this beautiful song. Dorothy was always pressed to find time for painting, but find time she did. She never took any lessons, but sometimes would partner on a painting excursion with her trained artist friend, Sophye Biederman, from whom she picked up tips and derived great joy.. Her palette and brush strokes were Impressionistic. The still life that is being offered at auction is one of her earliest works and manifests her first attempts to paint in an Impressionist mode. Thus, this still life is not great art, but her son Rob has always enjoyed it and has hung it in his bedroom for many years along with his high-priced art, created by professional painters, some very famous. He believes that this simple still life has held its own esthetically against the professional artwork for which it competes for space in Rob’s bedroom and in his heart, attention and affection. Dorothy’s greatest gift to Rob was her love and esthetic gratification for art of all schools, periods and types. If the reader finds Dorothy’s still life appealing and wants to bid on it, her son, Rob, wishes the reader best of luck.