Jon Corbino (1905 – 1964)

Riders of Pigeon Hill, c. 1946-47, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 24 x 36 inches, label verso with title, artist’s name and address; same information inscribed verso; previously with Frank J. Oehlschlaeger Gallery (Chicago, IL) 

$15,000

Jon Corbino was a well acclaimed artist best known for his energetic, nearly Baroque, depictions of floods and other disasters, as well as his portrayals of circuses, ballets, religious themes, and, as in the case of the present work, horses and riders.  Riders of Pigeon Hill is typical of Corbino's canvases which burst with brilliant colors applied loosely across the surface creating powerfully expressive images of his beloved Rockport, Massachusetts. A native of Sicily, Corbino came to the United States with his parents at the age of eight. He was raised in New York City and studied art at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School, the Art Students League with George Luks and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts with Daniel Garber. Corbino mainly worked in New York and Rockport before moving to Sarasota, Florida later in life. Corbino found early success with his paintings being published in both Time and Life magazines. At thirty-four, he was honored with a full-scale retrospective at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1940, he received two Guggenheim Fellowships and was elected a member of the National Academy of Design. Corbino received the first grant awarded to a visual artist from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1941. During the award presentation, Stephen Vincent Benet, noted that Corbino "has brought to American art rare gifts of color and design, and because of the honesty, richness and variety of his work." During the 1930s into the 1950s, Corbino’s works were often accepted into juried exhibitions and won prizes at major museums and institutions across the United States, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Corcoran Gallery. Corbino’s work is represented in over ninety museums across the United States, as well as dozens of other institutions and private collections. He is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and all other standard references. His art is reproduced in over five hundred books.