Rolph Scarlett (1889-1984) Canadian/American
Gouache on paper
8 3/4 x 11 1/2 inches
Signed R.S. l/r
Provenance: Acquired from the artist by prior owner

Rolph Scarlett is an important painter of geometric abstractions during the American
avant-garde movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born in Guelph, Ontario, Canada in 1889 he left at the age of 18 to go to New York City and returned to Canada during the war years. But by 1924 he established New York City as his home. While he was beginning his career as an abstract painter he was designing stages for George Bernard Shaw's "Man and Superman" and for the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall.

While in the process of creating the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (later the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum), in 1939 Solomon Guggenheim and Hilla Rebay began to take an interest in Scarlett's work. By 1940 he became the new museum's chief lecturer.

By 1953, the Guggenheim owned nearly sixty of his paintings and monoprints. He later became a resident of the Woodstock art colony for more than twenty-five years and showed his work in the Woodstock exhibits.

Credits: Falk, P. Who Was Who in American Art