"Nude Tondo" is an oil on copper panel painting by acclaimed portrait artist Steven Assael. A short-haired woman sits with one knee folded under her arms. Light diffuses from the left of the round panel, enveloping her side profile with a warm glow.
Signed verso.
Clad in a black floating frame under museum glass.
Framed dimensions: 15 x 15 inches.
Steven Assael 1957 New York, NY
Artist Bio:
One of the most accomplished representational figurative artists of his generation, Steven Assael has spent his life mastering the art of proportion and devoting himself to realistic renderings of the human figure. Born in New York City in 1957, he showed interest in art from a very young age and began taking classes at the museum of modern art when he was just four years old. He graduated from the Pratt institute in Brooklyn in 1979 and his first solo exhibition was produced by the National Arts Club at Gregg gallery one year later.
A gifted portrait artist, Assael has taught for several institutions including the School of Visual Arts, New York Academy Graduate School, and his own alma mater. His work is in numerous public and private collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Racine Art Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Frye Art Museum, and the Murray Collection.
Assael’s work carries a contemporary, post-modern sensibility anchored in classical technique. The rich colors, dramatic lighting, and carefully wrought composition of his paintings evoke the style of Old Master’s, balancing realism and romanticism in a single image. He aims to capture the human image emotionally within its specific context as well as in a grander context of human iconography, so that the viewer is left with an intimate relic of that experience.
As a classically trained portrait artist, Assael works from life as part of his unique methodology for turning the human experience tangible. Rather than recreating a split second captured on film, this process involves working with live models to capture a sequence of moments into a collective image. In the words of Art historian, Arlene Raven, "Assael wants the greater possibilities of duration. More variety, and a broader range of values and colors, a chronicle of the transformations of changing light, spent over real minutes and hours with his model."
WORK EXPERIENCE
1997- Present Senior Critic New York Academy Graduate School, New York, NY
1999-2001 Instructor, Oil Painting and Figurative Drawing Classes Pratt Institute, Brooklyn,
1991-1992 Instructor, Oil Painting and Figurative Drawing Classes Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
1985 - Present Instructor, Oil Painting and Figurative Drawing Classes School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
EDUCATION
1975-1979 Pratt Institute Brooklyn, NY Awarded full scholarship including independent study in Europe
AWARDS
1980 and 1990 Elizabeth T. Greenshields Grant, Montreal, Ontario
1977 Charles Romans Award, National Academy of Design, New York, NY
1975 Pratt Institute Full Scholarship, Brooklyn, NY