Allan Gould (1908 - 1988)

11. Ibiza, 1978, watercolor on paper, signed, dated and titled lower right, 13 x 12 inches (sight)

$1,500

Allan Gould was a New York-born painter, muralist and designer. He attended Dartmouth in 1927 where he served as the Art Editor for the Dartmouth Yearbook. In 1928, Gould moved back to New York City where he worked in advertising while also studying at the Arts Students League. In 1930, Gould became an art instructor at Albion College in Michigan, where he met his future wife, fellow artist Alice Dineen. Soon after, the two moved back to New York where they were married in 1932. Gould’s artistic career advanced in 1931 when he began exhibiting in New York at the G.R.D. Gallery. At the time, Gould’s work was described as the “forefront of regionalism,” as he painted rural scenes outside of his home in Bearsville, New York. In 1933, Gould exhibited at the John Becker Gallery in New York. Much of Gould’s work from the early 1930s can also be characterized as Magic Realist-infused Precisionism.  Gould received a commission from the Treasury Department Section of Fine Arts — creating a mural for the Roxboro North Carolina Post Office in 1938, and another for the Greenville Kentucky Post Office in 1940. Life Magazine published Gould’s Precisionist mural in its January 1941 issue.

In addition to his fine art practice, Gould taught alongside renowned furniture designer, Gilbert Rohde at the Design Laboratory.  In the late 1930s, Gould served as the Design Department Head at the University of Southern California, before returning to New York City where he taught interior design at The Pratt Institute. Gould focused on furniture design, working for Herman Miller and Functional Furniture Manufacturers. He was drafted into the army in World War II, where Gould served in the Army Corps of Engineers and was stationed in Puerto Rico. While there, Gould drew inspiration from the materials of the natural world, utilizing bamboo to create furniture for the Puerto Rico Development Co. in the late 1940s. Upon Gould’s return to New York in the 1950s, he established his own furniture company called Allan Gould Designs Inc. In 1955, Gould’s steel and plastic cord chair entered the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. 

Although most of Gould’s professional career after the 1940s focused on design, he continued to paint Neo Immaculate works into the 1970s, drawing on the aesthetic considerations of his Precisionist and Magic Realist works from the 1930s. He lived in Puerto Rico during the last decade of his life.