Collections record Beta

Collection Record Detail

Object Name

Sketch - Morgan Memorial

Object Number

1953-17-22

Description

Watercolor and pencil sketch on paper of an interior with a decorated vaulted ceiling and floor. The vaulted ceiling depicts rough sketches of seven separate panels in blue, white, red, green, black and yellow. The panels are separated by yellow beams. there is a gray, white and blue strip running below the vaulted ceiling along the three walls depicted. Below the far back ceiling of the sketch are three brown and beige archways above an empty gray doorway. The floor of the sketch is bordered by a light blue strip on all three sides. The floor itself is covered in a muted green and red pattern with splotches of white in between. There are straight-edged pencil marks made throughout the sketch by the artist. On the back of the sketch is written in pencil: Sketch for/Morgan Memorial/Hartford Conn/A Purves/1931." Initialed in ink on the bottom right hand side of the front of the sketch.

Comment

Born in Philadelphia, Austin M. Purves Jr. (1900-1977) lived in the East Litchfield section of Litchfield for the last 40 years of his life. Purves studied art at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, before opening a studio in New York, where he was director of the day and night schools at the Cooper Union. After moving to Litchfield, Purves taught art at Bennington College and at Yale Art School and was a member of the Architectural League of New York, the National Society of Mural Painters, and the (then newly-formed) Hartford Art School. Over the course of his career Purves did commission work for R. H. Macy & Co., the Folger Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., the American Battle Monument in Draguignan, France, the 1939 World’s Fair, various churches, ship lines and private clients, among others. In addition to commission work, Purves drew primarily from people and nature for his own personal sketches and paintings.