Lisa Mangor (active 1929 - 1950)

Still Life with Poppies (Untitled), 1939, oil on canvas, signed and dated verso, 25 x 16 inches, exhibited ACA Galleries, New York, NY, unknown date (annotated verso), presented in a new frame

$2750

Lisa Mangor was a New York-based painter, who grew up in an artistic household with her father who was a painter and mother who descended from a family of writers. She attended the Art Students League on scholarship in 1929 and studied with Boardman Robinson and Vaclav Vytlacil, who was credited with influencing her work. New York Times art critic, Howard Devree, noted, "She has put Vytlacil's principles to good use without imitating and seems to be well on her way to a quite personal and rewarding expression. This is sensitive, imaginative work." Mangor also studied sculpture under William Zorach and attended the National Academy of Design, where she worked with Charles Keck.

She exhibited at New York's Montross Gallery and ACA Galleries, where Still Life with Poppies (Untitled) was shown. Later, Devree added, "Lisa Mangor has developed steadily as a colorist. She never in her figure pieces or still-lifes forces color completely to take the place of form, although it might easily do so under a less disciplined touch." Mangor exhibited with other significant New York artists, including Reginald Marsh, Minna Citron, and Raphael Soyer, including in a group exhibition at Montross Gallery to raise money for Walter Broe, an elderly model who was a favorite subject for many artists during the Great Depression.

In addition to Montross and ACA, Mangor exhibited with Henry Kleemann Gallery in 1943, where her work was critically acclaimed for having "a sound abstract basis" and "a very personal style." The art critic for The Daily Worker reported on the show, "all of us, from factory workers in war plants, or doctors meeting ever fuller schedules, to mothers organizing for child care centers, would benefit from the moving experience gained through closer acquaintance with the beauty and profound observations that are ever present in the creative, artistic mind . . . In her still-life canvases we become mindful of the serenity and beauty that are often present in inanimate objects." One of Mangor's paintings entered the collection of New York gallerist and arts administrator, Onya LaTour, and was exhibited as part of a traveling exhibition in 1940. Mangor was again included in a significant exhibition in 1947 organized by the American Contemporary Galleries, the Downtown Gallery and the Durlacher Galleries, which traveled to various southern cities. Other artists in the show included Charles Sheeler, Ralston Crawford, Arthur Dove, Jacob Lawrence, and John Marin. In 1950, Mangor had a well reviewed solo exhibition at the Three Arts Gallery (New York).

Mangor was married to a physician and a humorous story was widely reported in the newspapers that she used a human skeleton as a model, which suited her need for a patient sitter, but did not go down well with her eight-year old daughter. Her paintings are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian), Syracuse University Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Newfields).