GLENN STUART PEARCE (1909-1986, PA) Chester Springs

Chester Springs landscape. Oil on canvas 36 x 30 in. From askart.com: Glenn Stuart Pearce (1909-1986) was a painter for the Pennsylvania WPA* known particularly for his skillfully executed watercolors and pastels of industrial scenes in and around his native Philadelphia. Two of this industrial works, one pastel the other a watercolor, are in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.Pearce was a student at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts* under Daniel Garber and Joseph Pearson, and he studied privately with Arthur Carles.Pearce also studied at PAFA's summer school in Chester Springs in the late '20s and early '30s.During the '30s and '40s, Pearce was influenced by socialism and his sympathies seem to lie with the left during the Depression era. Correspondence between him and a friend living in Greenwich Village discuss the labor unrest and strikes of the day and his friend urges him to move to the Village because the socialist women are into free love. In the end, Pearce remained in Philadelphia.His work was exhibited during his lifetime a the Pennsylvania Academy, the Woodmere Art Museum, the Philadelphia Pyramid Club, the Philadelphia Watercolor Club, the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Erie Arts Club (Pearce was born in Erie PA).From the '40s, Pearce was employed as an engineer with General Electric and lived in a large mansion in Elkins Park, a suburb of Philadelphia. He rarely sold his work, preferring to keep it for himself. Letters from the Woodmere and the Pennsylvania Academy request that he sell them his work; but it seems he never did.In addition to a large body of WPA industrial pastels and watercolors of industrial scenes, cityscapes, railroad yards and night time views of Philadelphia and the Schuylkill River, beginning in the late '40s, he began to paint large abstract expressionist* paintings with cosmic, astrophysical themes. Finally in the late '60s and '70s he turned back to a fauvist* impressionist* style, painting large scenes of Manayunk and other locations in the Philadelphia area.Submitted by Mick Byers, Fine Art Specialist
Condition Report: Good condition, crease in canvas on right side. Minor paint loss