KENNETH STUBBS American, 1907-1967 Cubist Composition with Figures, 1960 Casein on paper Signed and dated "KS 1960" upper right. An example of Stubbs's mature Cubist idiom, this composition divides its ground into flat planes of ochre and vermilion against which two faceted, totem-like figures are constructed from interlocking triangles and angular shards of color.A smaller cluster of angular shapes in the lower left echoes the larger figures above.Executed with Stubbs's typical precision of line and confident handling of color, the work exemplifies the inventive figural abstraction for which he is best known among mid-century Washington, D.C. modernists.Framed. Not examined out of frame. 5.25 x 3.75 inches; $2,000-3,000
ARTIST PROFILE:KENNETH STUBBS (American, 1907-1967): Born in Ochlocknee, Georgia, Kenneth Stubbs moved to Washington, D.C. with his family as a young boy and studied at the Corcoran School of Art from 1926 to 1930. In 1931 and 1934, he studied in Provincetown with E. Ambrose Webster, one of the country's pioneers in modern art, an experience that, along with the influence of Cubists Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris and the Italian Renaissance painter Piero della Francesca, shaped his lifelong engagement with geometric structure and the golden section in composition. Regarded as one of the preeminent American Cubists of the twentieth century, Stubbs developed a painting style concerned with flat or semi-flat patterns, where bright colors and angular, faceted forms combine to give the full work a sense of motion or action, working primarily in oil and casein, alongside extensive pen drawing and watercolor. From 1935 to 1953, Stubbs taught painting and drawing at the Corcoran School and also taught art classes at George Washington University from 1941 to 1953, with time out for three years in the Navy during World War II. He exhibited frequently in the Corcoran Biennial, the Society of Washington Artists, and the Artists Guild, as well as in shows of the Provincetown Art Association, from 1930 until his death in October 1967.
