Marjorie Liebman (American/Tennessee)

Marjorie Liebman (American/Tennessee, 1911-2007), "Harbor", oil on canvas, signed lower right, 25 in. x 30 in., framed . Provenance: John Stoakley, Memphis, TN, c. 1980s Note: An important Southern abstract expressionist, Marjorie Liebman studied under Hans Hofmann at the Art Students’ League in New York, as well as at the Chicago Art Institute and Washington University before receiving her BFA from the University of Mississippi and beginning her career in her native Memphis. By 1953, Liebman’s work had been recognized throughout the United States, and she had been the subject of a solo show at the prestigious Betty Parsons Gallery in New York. The same year Liebman, along with fellow artists Adele Lemm, Dorothy Sturm, Nancy Glazer and art educator Mildred Hudson, founded the group Art Today, whose goal was to support contemporary art in the Memphis area. In addition to working with Art Today, Liebman also was a great proponent of the Memphis Brooks Museum, helping to build the collection and acquire works by fellow abstract expressionists such as Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. The abstraction of shape and color in the rare canvas offered here suggests a sense of controlled chaos. The composition, slightly tilted with a high horizon line and lines jutting into the sky, emphasizes the expressionistic atmosphere and foreshadows Liebman’s later work in abstraction.