Frank Nicholas ‘Resting Ballet Dancer’ Modern Painting -African American Artist

Original frank cardoza nicholas (1922-2003) ‘resting ballet dancer’ oil painting
this is just a great original piece. This is one of those paintings I bought without having any idea who the artist was. I picked it up on a recent trip to cape cod. After doing some research I learned that this is the work of important african american cape cod artist frank nicholas. For those not familiar with the artist, I have included his biography below. Out of all the paintings I have seen by the artist, this seems to be one of the better examples. This is a wonderful mid century modernist view of a resting ballerina. Looks like it is oil or acrylic on paper measuring 8 1/4 x 7 1/2 inches. Painting is in excellent original condition. Pretty much as painted. Looks as though it has the original matte that it was created with as it has the artist’s original signature in pencil on it just below the painting. Then it was framed with another matte. A nice presentation of this great painting. I did not examine it out of the frame as I thought it great as it was created. Frame measures 20 1/2 x 16 1/2 inches.

For those not familiar with the artist his biography from an article about his show at the Cape Cod Art Museum reads: “An African American native of Washington D.C., Frank Cardozo Nicholas honed his skill as a commercial artist, working as a freelance illustrator, graphic designer and art director in New York City for more than twenty years. He had been widely published by 1970 when he relocated to Cape Cod, where he eventually accomplished his goal of being a full-time fine artist and began to produce his Narrative Impressions paintings. The works, extensive, highly-researched series in oil and mixed media, focused on the human condition. He developed a fluid style that uniquely wove the classic with the contemporary, conveying a sense of richly layered and dramatic dimensionality. In the 1940s, Cardozo studied at Pratt Institute, the Brooklyn Museum School, the Art Students’ League and the Pennsylvania Museum School of Art.

Select works from Men and the Sea were previously exhibited at Heritage Hall, Hyannis (now the John F. Kennedy Museum); the Cardozo Gallery, West Harwich, MA, the Main Massachusetts House Gallery, Lincolnville, ME and the Tao Water Art Gallery, West Barnstable, MA. The artist was also a prize winner at the Mystic Maritime Gallery’s 1989 Annual International Competition in Mystic, Connecticut; six Men and the Sea works remained on exhibit at the Mystic Maritime Gallery for a year.Frank Cardozo Nicholas, an early supporter in the founding years of the Cape Cod Museum of Art, is represented in the museum’s permanent collection, as well as in private and corporate collections. His diverse work has been exhibited widely in galleries and art institutions ranging from Maine to Florida. The most recent exhibition of his work, Narrative Impressions: Native American Selections, drawn from another Cape-influenced series, received great public response at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod in September 2009. The artist’s work is maintained and managed by the Frank Cardozo Nicholas Trust of Marstons Mills; Tracy Nicholas Bledsoe, Trustee.”