Portrait of Jack Caswell by Edward Christiana

Portrait of Jack Caswell (c. 1933-35), an oil on canvas by Edward Christiana, is one of several portraits that the artist created during the 1930s, when he was a student at Pratt Institute and shortly thereafter when he lived in the central New York community of Ilion. While at Pratt Christiana’s portraits were deemed best-of-class. Caswell, like many of Christiana’s sitters, were friends and neighbors.

Christiana’s portraits tend to focus on the characteristics that identified the individual, intentionally blurring the other compositional elements – the face is more important than the hands, for example. And in this portrait the artist appears to address the sensuality of the individual, Jack Caswell.

Though unsigned Christiana identified the sitter with an inscription on the bottom tacking margin.

$585