Antiques Roadshow

1970 my parents had been dealing with a gallery in Great Neck New York called the evilly gallery and they purchased a large oil on canvas by the painter Ralph Scarlett the story was told to them that Ralph Scarlett had met Peggy Guggenheim who was interested in having a retrospective of his work he painted did prints sent them to her she put them in the Guggenheim in the basement waiting to get a retrospective done it took too long for him he was running out of money and the story goes that he went out west to paint sets Peggy Guggenheim was angry and somehow evilly gallery got ahold of some of the work so no retrospective never and even though it was dangled in front of him so the story goes it didn't eventually happen that's what I was told yes these works ended up at this gallery were you then purchased them yes in 1970 my husband and I purchased them for two hundred and fifty dollars each it says on the back that they were circa 1946 oal on paper Ralph Scarlett was born in 1889 in Canada and he passed away in 1984 so Scarlett in 1939 was contracted to teach at the Guggenheim which was then known as the Museum of non-objective painting and he taught there from 1939 to 1947 so he had an eight-year tenure there and he certainly had a relationship with that institution which is why I think your background story about his work having been there in his subsequent disappointment and not getting a retrospective show might be a possibility and I found it interesting that on the back the labels say circa 1946 and that was just prior to his leaving in 1947 he did move out west for a very brief stint to work in other means he was a set designer he was a jewelry designer he ended up working in Woodstock New York and he spent about 25 years toward the end of his life teaching and working there and much of his body of production that surfaces today is from that period these two examples they're identified on the reverse probably by the gallery and they may have been a bit more contrived I don't know that these are necessarily landscape subjects they're more studies in abstractions the larger work actually has a title two red stars again that might have been determined by the gallery they may have assumed that was sort of a working title and it also says dated circa 1946 which is accurate and it's a bit larger 18 by 24 inches and they're cited as oil on paper but really these should be identified as mixed-media works on paper there is some watercolor there is some gouache and they're laid down into these frames probably where they were presented for the gallery that you bought them in yes Rolph Scarlett was one of the first American artists to actually exhibit his work and have works acquired by the Guggenheim today and looking into their permanent collection his work is some of their earliest acquisitions so they're both top-notch examples in this medium today at auction the smaller of the two the vertical example would be expected to fetch somewhere in the region of 2,000 to $4,000 and larger example which is what he's well known for would be expected to fetch somewhere in the region of three thousand to five thousand dollars that's lovely I appreciate it thank you so much there's been a lot of scholarship on his work and a lot of appreciation for his work especially more recently