Ray PROHASKA (1901-1981) - Lot 126

Ray PROHASKA (1901-1981) Elegant woman in a chair Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. Fragment of a label printed on the stretcher reading: "M.H. Hoelzer. New York. 16 [...] oar. 16074 [...] cture. "Fragment of label printed on frame stating: "J.H. Sieg [...]. Picture fram [...]. 131 East 45 [...]. Plaza [...]. New [...]. Dimensions : 91.5 x 66.5 cm. (Restorations to the canvas). Montparnasse-style frame in molded, carved, stuccoed and white ceruse wood. Provenance : Private collection in Paris. American painter and illustrator Raymond Josef Gracia Prohaska, known as Ray Prohaska, was born in Mulo, Yugoslavia. He moved with his family to the United States in 1909. A graduate of the California School of Fine Arts, he opened his first studio on Sutter Street in San Francisco, before running a larger establishment in Chicago between 1921 and 1929. He then moved to New York, where he began a career as an illustrator for several magazines, including Woman's Home Companion. From 1961, he also taught at the Art Students League in New York, before taking up a residency at Washington and Lee University. Not many of Ray Prohaska's paintings are presented at public auction. All the more so when they are figurative portraits with geometric lines typical of the Art Deco period, such as ours. Indeed, Prohaska's abstract period appears to be the best-known of his painted corpus. The label printed on the stretcher most probably corresponds to an intervention by the renowned New York art restorer Hiram H. Hoelzer.