Lot 100: Basil Marros (Greek 1897-1954)

Figures in a forest
signed 'MARROS' (lower right)
oil on hardboard
53 x 41 cm. (20 3/4 x 16 in.)

Athens, Hellenic American Union, Basil Marros, December 1998, (illustrated in the catalogue, p.182)

Marros left Greece for San Francisco in 1916, but little is known about his life until 1921 when he won a scholarship to the Art Students' League and moved to New York. Ever restless, he left for Paris in 1924, where he fell under the influence of Fernand Léger and Emile-Othon Friesz. By the time he returned to America in 1930, he had embraced cubism, fragmenting forms like Cézanne but imbuing his work with motion and rhythm, like the Italian Futurists. He exhibited frequently, and also participated in an art exhibition at the New York World's Fair in 1940 with Louise Nevelson and Ad Reinhardt. In many other works, Marros reveals that he was also familiar with the paintings of the surrealists. Mannequins with oval faces that distantly recall Cycladic idols are frequently depicted in desolate landscapes reminiscent of de Chirico.