Bonnie Beech Ryan (1901 - 1940)

Floral Still Life, c. 1930s, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 22 x 28 inches, presented in a newer Shawn Speck frame, provenance includes Spencer Jon Helfen Fine Arts (Los Angeles)

$3750

Bonnie Beach Ryan was a Los Angeles-based designer and painter who was best known for her vibrant impressionistic still life paintings such as the present example. The daughter of prominent Hollywood parents, she was a graduate of Marlborough College and St. Mary's College. Ryan initially intended to pursue a career in music, but elected to study art at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco. In addition to oils, Ryan worked in batik early in her career and this work was exhibited at the Los Angeles Art Center in the early 1920s. She had a favorably noted solo exhibition at Los Angeles' Bartlett Galleries in 1933, which The Angeles Times art critic Arthur Millier described as having "colorful and decorative" flower and still life paintings. The same year, she also exhibited at Los Angeles' May Company Department Store Gallery. She was a member of the Women Painters of the West, and acted as Chair for the Third Annual Echo of the Olympics show at the State Building in Los Angeles' Exposition Park. Ryan died unexpectedly after a three-day battle with pneumonia, making her artwork rare. She is listed in Eden Hughes' Artists in California 1786 - 1940.