William Corasick (1907 - 2002)

Still Life in Window (Untitled), c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 29 1/2 x 18 inches, presented in the artist's original frame

$2750

William Corasick was a Pennsylvania-based painter best known for his modernist still lifes, such as the present example. His paintings were critically praised in the Philadelphia newspapers, with one author noting that his large floral compositions were "capital bits of work." C. H. Bonte, art critic for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote concerning one of Corasick's solo shows, "He is a young Philadelphia artist, locally trained, whose notable versatility is inherent, rather than a matter of cultivation. With equal facility and allure he presents a series of abstractions . . . and a large group of still lifes."

Largely self-taught as an artist, Corasick studied education at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania and was a member of the Philadelphia Art Alliance. Corasick exhibited extensively in and around Pennsylvania including four times at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the National Academy of Design, the Butler Art Institute, the Philadelphia Art Alliance, which hosted a solo exhibition in 1953, the Philadelphia Art Museum, Philadelphia Pyramid Club, and the Philadelphia Art Teachers Association, where he won prizes in 1944 and 1945. He also had a solo exhibition at New York's Galerie Neuf in 1945. In addition to his studio practice, Corasick was an art teacher in the Philadelphia Public Schools. He took a sabbatical from teaching in 1941 to study and paint in Mexico, producing a body of abstractions. He is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and other standard references.