Arthur Durston (1897 – 1938)

Landscape, 1937, oil on canvas applied to panel, signed and dated lower left, 24 x 30 inches

$7,500

Arthur Durston was one of California’s leading modernist painters of the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Farnsborough, England, Durston immigrated to the United States and in 1921 studied art in San Francisco. In 1924, he returned to Europe and studied in Paris and England. He exhibited at the Berkeley League of Fine Arts in 1927, the San Francisco Art Association in 1927 through 1929 and various exhibitions in Los Angeles and San Diego from the early 1930s onward. Durston was active in the Federal Art Project in Los Angeles, where art critic, Arthur Millier praised him as one of the California’s “most individual talents.” Combining influences as diverse as German Expressionism, Mexican Muralism and the Cezanne/Gaugin vein of Post-Impressionism, Durston produced a stunning, but small body of work, which was unfortunately cut short by his early death at the age of only forty-one. Despite his artistic recognition and success, Durston struggled financially, and his premature death of a heart attack was often blamed on his poverty. In 1939, Stendahl Galleries in Los Angeles hosted a memorial exhibition of Durston’s work, organized by his friend and fellow modernist, Fletcher Martin. Durston is listed in Who was Who in American Art and all other standard references.