Dorothy C Neal African American Portrait Nicolai Fechin Student Oil Painting

  
DOROTHY C NEAL VINTAGE 1950S ORIGINAL PAINTING ON BOARD UNSIGNED. THIS PAINTING WAS PART OF A COLLECTION OF HER WORK ACQUIRED YEARS AGO. CONDITION: SMALL SCRATCH TOP RIGHT CORNER SOME MINOR PAINT LOSS. BOARD: 16 BY 20 INCHES. FRAME: 21.5 BY 25.5 INCHES.

Neal was born in St. In her teens she worked with a group of commercial artists where she studied life figure, as well as other art groups sponsored by the city of St. She moved to Chicago in the 1920's where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute. There she worked under the supervision of Forsberg in life studies. She worked sporadically for various publications as a commercial artist.

She moved to Los Angeles where she married Paul Neal, and gave up her art career for home making, and did not return to it until World War II. She became interested in landscape painting and joined a group painting in Griffith Park taught by Conrad Buff under the auspices of The Otis Art Institute. She further studied landscape painting for several years with Ralph Holmes. To broaden her scope, she studied a variety of art endeavors, including portrait study with Ted Withers. In this period, she experimented with different mediums eventually confining her work to oil.

Her greatest ambition was achieved when she was accepted as a student and protege by Nicholia Fechen. She worked under his tutelage at drawing, portrait, floral and still life studies painting. She continue with Fechen until his death in 1955. She was active and exhibited in many art clubs in California for the decades of the 1940's through the 1960's, including California Art Club, Westwood Art Club, Santa Monica Art Association, LACMA, Santa Cruz. She was a frequent prize winner in her exhibition where she was in the company of Milford Zornes, Sam Hyde Harris, Paul Lauritz, George Gibson, and a host of the early California art elite.

Submitted by William Scally, whose source is the personal noteboosk of the artists.