Ethel M. Dean (1900 – 1976)

The Show is On, 1940, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 24 x 20 inches, exhibited: 30th Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, February 8 – March 10, 1940 (label verso)

$3000

Ethel M. Dean was a Pittsburgh-based artist. A native of Indiana, Dean moved with her family to Pennsylvania by 1910. In 1918, she graduated from Pittsburgh’s Peabody High School. Dean’s profession in the 1940 census is noted as “Art Painter,” though she apparently also worked as a stenographer, clerk and secretary during the 1930s through the 1950s. Dean was a member of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, which hosted a positively reviewed solo exhibition of her work in 1939, the year prior to The Show is On. She also exhibited at the organization’s annual group exhibitions at the Carnegie Institute in the 1930s and 1940s. Dean exhibited at Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1940. Throughout this period, Dean's oeuvre focused on the American Scene. The 1948 Supplement to Mallet’s Index of Artists lists Dean as an illustrator with a New York address and notes that she was associated with the American Institute of Graphic Arts, also in New York. Dean is also listed in Who Was Who in American Art.