Lot 53: REX GORELEIGH (1902 - 1986) Untitled (Planting).

REX GORELEIGH (1902 - 1986)
Untitled (Planting).

Color screenprint on imitation Japan paper, circa 1973. 420x220 mm; 16 1/2x8 1/2 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 39/39 in ball point pen and blue ink, lower right. Numbered 39/39 in pencil, lower right. A very good impression with bright colors.

Rex Goreleigh, who has long been known for his scenes of rural life, made this series of screenprints based on his painting from the 1940s. Goreleigh studied in New York and Chicago. As a young artist he travelled Europe, studying at the Andre L'Hoté Academie in Paris. He went on to teach at several schools in Chicago and North Carolina. Goreleigh had early successes showing at the Anderson Galleries, the Harlem Foundation, and the American Negro Exhibition in New York in the 1930s. His work was also included in the important group exhibition, Contemporary Negro Art, at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1939, the first major museum show of living African-American artists. Rex Goreleigh moved to Princeton in 1947 where he became the director of the newly developed Princeton Group Arts Center. In 1955, he opened his "Studio-on-the-Canal" on Canal Road where he worked for 23 years. In 1973, he exhibited at the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Boston, and at the Studio Museum in Harlem. His paintings and prints today are included in the New Jersey State Museum, the Paul R. Jones Collection and the Harriet and Harmon Kelly Collection of African-American Art.