Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts

Provenance:

Helen Ault, New York, niece of the artist, acquired directly from the artist

By descent in the family to the present owner, grandson of the above

George Copeland Ault was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1891. The son of a print-manufacturer, he began studying art at an early age when his family relocated to London for business. Taking classes at both the Slade School of Art and St. John’s Wood School of Art, Ault was heavily influenced by European modern avant-garde paintings, seen on his frequent sojourns to the museums of London and Paris. Ault’s first picture was exhibited in 1908, at the age of 17, for a show at St. John’s Wood School of Art. In 1911, Ault returned to the United States to paint in the rural community of Woodstock, New York.

Ault’s early works were primarily geometric urban landscapes, delighting in American subjects such as the skylines of New York City. In 1921, he was lauded by the Society of Independent Artists, who chose his work A New York Skyline for a show entitled “Our Choice of Independents.” Gradually, Ault’s style veered towards Precisionism, using flattened shapes, a variety of perspectives, and a palette of bright colors—including maize, sky blue, teal and mauve—infrequently seen in nature, adding a surreal quality to his work.

Unfortunately, George Ault’s life was marred by personal tragedy relatively early in his career. By the mid 1920’s, his family lost their fortune, his mother was committed to a mental institution where she eventually perished, and his three brothers committed suicide. Suffering from immense emotional pain, Ault began drinking heavily and his behavior isolated him from other artists. By the 1940’s, he subsisted living off of his wife’s income as a printmaker, having severed all ties from his former patrons. In 1948, Ault committed suicide at the age of 57. Today, Ault is frequently compared with American artists such as Charles Sheeler.

Though Precisionists such as Ault are more frequently identified with architectural themes, many Precisionists, including Ault, Charles Demuth, and Sheeler, also created still lifes. In Straw Flowers and Bittersweet, Ault depicts a vase of flowers on a rectangular, gray countertop set on a diagonal plane that cuts through the middle portion of the canvas. Ault creates the same immaculately brushed surface of the canvas in Straw Flowers and Bittersweet, creating an image of nature that is divorced from the chaos of the real world. Though Ault paints the flowers using small, nearly invisible brushstrokes, the flowers appear dried and artificial, their deep maize palette setting off a strong contrast between the gleaming countertop. Here, Ault has captured a scene from an ideal world, unchanging in time and space, clearly outlined and carefully ordered.