Walter Tandy Murch (1907 - 1967)

Cylinder and Pear, c. 1959, oil on board, 18 x 24 inches, literature: W. Meyers, Walter Tandy Murch: Paintings and Drawings 1925-1967, New York, 2021, p. 176, pl. 41, illustrated; provenance includes Betty Parsons Gallery (label verso) and Hirschl & Adler Galleries

$18,000

Walter Tandy Murch was a New York-based painter who was known for mysterious, light-filled still life paintings featuring aged and deteriorating objects. He was influenced by the look and emotional resonance of old photographs with their hazy, often out-of-focus ethereal appearance. Cylinder and Pear is a prime example of Murch's mature work from the 1950s when he was represented by Betty Parsons Gallery together with a number of Abstract Expressionist painters, including Jackson Pollock. Although Murch created clearly defined representational compositions concerned with the materiality of objects, his layered paint handling and complex backgrounds often adopted abstract aesthetics.

Murch was born in Canada. After studying at a technical high school, he attended the Ontario College of Art and later New York's Art Students League and the Grand Central Art School where he met Arshile Gorky. During much of the 1930s and 1940s, Murch worked as an illustrator for fashion magazines, as a commercial artist, and as a mural painter. During the 1940s, Murch's star rose as a fine art painter and through the rest of his life Murch's works were exhibited at dozens of major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Corcoran Gallery. Murch was a devoted art instructor who taught at the Pratt Institute, New York University, Boston University and Columbia University. Murch is listed in Who Was Who in American Art and all other standard references. His paintings and drawings are in dozens of major museums both in the United States and abroad.