From The Dauer Collection Mid 20th Century Colored Pencil & Ink on Paper 17.5"x21" framed, 10.25"x13.75" unframed Entitled The Sculptor, this mid 20th century colored pencil and ink on paper abstracted portrait is by signed and titled in the lower left by the artist Frederic Taubes. Excellent vintage condition. Framed in a contemporary wood frame with grooved details and distressed beige finish using archival matting behind conservation clear glass. About the Artist Frederic Taubes (1900-1981), an important 20th Century painter and printmaker, was born in Lwow, Poland and fled with his family to Vienna at the outbreak of the First World War. Private lessons in pre-war Poland formed the foundation of his art education. In Vienna, he enrolled at the Vienna Academy of Art where he studied under Franz von Stuck. At war's end, he continued his studies at the Academy in Munich under Max Doerner. Taubes became interested in the new art forms arising from the turmoil occasioned by the dislocations of the recent war. He left the Munich Academy after one year, and enrolled at the Bauhaus in Weimar. During the 1920s, Taubes experimented with several styles and worked as an itinerant portrait painter. In the early 1930s, Taubes settled permanently in New York, where he became a highly successful society portrait artist and achieved the recognition and respect worthy of his talents. He spent 1942 as the Carnegie visiting professor of art and resident painter at the University of Illinois in Urbana, where he studied materials used in 14th and 15th century Flemish paintings. He wrote several important books and articles during this period which led to a series of lectures at the invitation of Oxford University and the Royal Society of Art. After 1955, Taubes seldom showed his work, but remained an active painter for the rest of his life. He died in New York City. About the Collector John A. Dauer (1933-2017) was a collector of many things, the vast majority of which convey stories of hard work, craftsmanship, industry, unsung histories, and associations with those he loved and respected. Born and raised on Staten Island, New York in 1933, John grew up among a close-knit family of entrepreneurial bakers, wood carvers, and leather merchants. He graduated in 1954 from Columbia College with a bachelor’s degree in anthropology. He went on to work with his father John Sr., at the New York City-based John A. Dauer Leather Company. During and after his undergraduate studies, John enrolled in painting, print making, and sculpture classes at Columbia, the New School for Social Research, and Greenwich House. Many of his teachers (including Margot Kempe and Peppino Mangravite) were recent European emigres and WPA artists, sympathetic to the themes of social realism and late modernism. Although he made his living and supported his family as a leather salesman, John consistently maintained an interest in, and passion for, the creative work of artists and craft people throughout his life. The subjects and scale of his collecting varied over the years (from large 18th century cupboards to hand carved fishing lures), but let’s just say his houses and barns often resembled mini-Mercer Museums. During his last 2 decades, John focused his collecting efforts on the work of print makers and painters who reminded him or were directly associated with those who influenced him during his New York youth. Images and the stories of sailors, stevedores, factory workers, craftsmen, pushcart vendors, musicians, stoop sitters, and artists abound.
