WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987)
Sea Movement #2.

Oil on masonite board, 1951. 584x883 mm; 23x34¾ inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left verso. Signed, titled and dated "8-51" in oil, upper right verso.

Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston.

This beautiful organic abstraction by Walter Sanford is an excellent example of the modernist repertoire of this Chicago painter. Born in Detroit, Walter Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Beginning with exhibitions at the Southside Community Art Center in the 1940s, Sanford had a wide-ranging, international career. Like many other African-Americans after World War II, with the G.I. Bill, he found his way to Paris and in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows, and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.