Bois de Vincennes (1964)

Oil on canvas 44 x 54 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Saidenberg Gallery, NY Makler Gallery, Philadelphia, 1968 „ Balcomb Greene was a founding member and first chairman of the American Abstract Artists group. His early career focused on abstraction, although the artist began to introduce figurative elements into his work in the mid-1940’s. In the early 1960’s Greene embarked on a series of large canvases, including this painting, in which individuals engaged in their own private dramas are placed in the context of crowded urban environments. In their monograph on the artist, Robert and Niké Hale write of the Greene’s attempt to connect the figure to his environment both thematically and compositionally. In doing so, the artist considered the background as “reflecting an imposed and restrictive world which is constructed by man.” These striking works, executed while Greene was living in Paris, poignantly portray the point where humans “merge with their loneliness.”