Nathaniel Dirk, Untitled (Gloucester), watercolor, with fresh colors, on watercolor paper; in fine, original condition, with the artist's tack holes (barely visible) at the sheet edges. Signed lower right, with the artist's notation verso G 24, indicating his 24th work of 1949. A mid-century rendering of the warehouse section of Gloucester with the town church steeples in the background. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Painter and art teacher, Nathaniel Dirk was born in Brooklyn in 1895. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League, in New York, with Max Weber, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Boardman Robinson, and in Paris with Fernand Leger. He taught at the Art Students League in the summer of 1939 and from 1947 through 1951. He also gave lectures on “Color for the Artist” at the League from 1957 through 1960.
Dirk exhibited widely, including thirteen one-man exhibitions in New York City between 1927 and 1957 and numerous shows throughout the U.S. He was a member of the Audubon Artists, the Rockport Art Association, and the Rockport Art Group. He was President of the Cape Ann Society of Modern Art and Director of Artists Equity, the Contemporary Art Center, and the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association, all in New York City.
Dirk’s exhibited widely, including at the Carnegie Institute, 1930, 1931; Art Institute of Chicago, 1932-34, 1936, 1938, 1942; Brooklyn Museum, 1935-41; Whitney Museum of American Art, 1933-40; Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1934; Smithsonian, 1941; Metropolitan Museum, 1941; Art Students League, 1942, 1944; and the Audubon Artists, 1945.
Dirk's work is held in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, Audubon Artists, and the Carnegie Institute.