Carole Pinto Fine Arts
Sasha Moldovan
Russian-American Artist (1901-1982)
'Bouquet of Poppies'
Oil on canvas
20 x 21 in.
'Street Scene'
Oil on Masonite
9.25 x 10.5 in.
Charles Basing was born in Austria but spent most of his professional life on the East Coast of the U.S. He studied art in Paris under the prestigious academic painter William Adolph Bouguereau, who taught him rigorous technique and encouraged him to copy the masters at the Louvre.
When he came to the U.S., he became a member of the Salmagundi Club in 1911 and expanded his professional activities to encompass architecture and mural painting. He was commissioned to paint murals for Columbia University, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and participated in completing the ceiling at Grand Central Station in New York. His works were exhibited at the Salmagundi Club, where he received a prize in 1921, as well as at the American Institute of Architects in 1924.
His is considered to be a romantic modernist, taking liberties with his arrangements of complex compositions and dramatic tonal contrasts, applying thick layers of pigment to add density and texture to the pictorial surface. He was particularly inspired by the beauty of Atlantic seascapes, and maritime and coastal scenes along Long Island and Cape Cod.