Artist: Sid Maurer
Title: Clark Gable
Year created: 2010
Medium: Original Mixed Media Painting on Wood Board
Edition: Original Unique Artwork
Height (inches): 23
Width (inches): 19
Signed by the artist twice, front and back
This piece is unframed.
Description of piece:
Sid Maurer’s mastery as a fine artist is evident in his strikingly accurate, personal and intuitive portraits of luminaries.
Imbued with warmth and vibrancy, Maurer’s portraits capture the essence of his subjects, and synthesize Maurer’s artistic vision with his technical and compositional roots in graphic design. Bold, visible paint texturing and layering bring added light, depth and dimensionality to the artwork.
An original mixed media painting on wood board, Maurer’s self-titled Clark Gable measures 23” in height x 19” width. The artwork is signed twice by the artist: first, on the front of the artwork, lower right; and on the reverse, where Maurer has also titled and dated the work.
Clark Gable is accompanied by its original Certificate of Authenticity from Allan Rich, Sid Maurer’s gallerist and lifelong personal friend. In addition to representing artists with Hollywood ties, Allan Rich was himself a well-known character actor, author and acting coach. The COA includes a photograph of the artwork; a photograph of, and personal statement by, the artist; and is signed and dated by Allan Rich.
CLARK GABLE (1901–1960), iconic film star, was often referred to as “The King of Hollywood”. Gable acted in more than 60 motion pictures in multiple genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as the leading man.
Born and raised in Ohio, Gable traveled to Hollywood where he began his film career as an extra in Hollywood silent films between 1924 and 1926. He progressed to supporting roles for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and his first leading role in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) was alongside Joan Crawford, who requested him for the part. His next role, in the romantic drama Red Dust (1932) with reigning sex symbol Jean Harlow, established him as MGM's biggest male star.
Gable won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), co-starring Claudette Colbert. He was nominated for the same award for his roles as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), and as Rhett Butler opposite Vivien Leigh's Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). He found continued commercial and critical success with Manhattan Melodrama (1934), San Francisco (1936), Saratoga (1937), Test Pilot (1938), and Boom Town (1940), three of which co-starred Spencer Tracy.
Gable appeared opposite some of the most popular actresses of their time. Joan Crawford was a favorite actress of his to work with, and he partnered with her in eight films. Myrna Loy worked with him seven times, and he was paired with Jean Harlow in six productions. He also starred with Lana Turner in four features and in three each with Norma Shearer and Ava Gardner.
Following two years as an aerial cameraman and bomber gunner in Europe during World War II, Gable returned to the silver screen, starring alongside newcomer Grace Kelly, actor, Burt Lancaster, and in comedies that paired him with a new generation of leading ladies such as Doris Day in Teacher's Pet (1958), Sophia Loren in It Started in Naples (1960) and Marilyn Monroe in The Misfits (1961). Clark Gable was one of the most consistent box-office performers in history, and was named the seventh-greatest male star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Artist bio:
Sid Maurer's (1926-2017) long career spanned decades in the world of Art and Music, beginning at age seventeen when he was hired as Assistant Art Director at Columbia Records in New York City. When the music industry exploded, Maurer designed album covers and promotional material for popular artists, alongside Columbia Records colleague Andy Warhol. Maurer expanded his commercial art studio to tackle a wide range of projects for the music and film industries, while his striking artistic style developed, influenced by artists he met including Pollack and Rauschenberg.
Maurer left the empire of music and art that he had helped to build to focus on his passion: painting. In the last decade, his work has been shown in a wide variety of venues, including the Georgia Capitol, the Carnegie Museum and U.C.L.A. His commissioned artwork includes work for ESPN, MotorSport America Magazine, David Bowie, Boy George, and Donovan.
As a painter, Maurer created large mixed media pieces that were very much a product of his varied training and experience. His style combined bold, dynamic colors and strokes with painstaking layouts and typographical elements. The result is the unique blend of a painter's passion tempered with the calculating compositional eye of a graphic designer, exploring his themes through the use of bold subject matter, symbols and graphics.