Henry Faulkner Folk Art Oil Painting "Reflections of Alice"

Item Details

Henry Faulkner (American, 1924 – 1981)
Reflections of Alice
Oil painting on board
Signed to lower left
Label to verso from Closson, Cincinnati, Ohio

Provenance
Private collection

An oil painting painting on board titled Reflections of Alice by the renowned Folk artist Henry Faulkner. Featuring the artist’s pet goat Alice on a spiraled staircase, this work is presented in the artist’s original frame, evident in the paint along the edges. The artist often purchased his frames at thrift stores and allowed his brush to extend to the edges. The composition is painted with a green border, decorated with a whimsical curvilinear design.

Faulkner was born in rural Egypt, Kentucky in 1924. An orphan, and listless wanderer, the artist lived a bohemian lifestyle and eventually arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, where he was primarily known. A lifetime of travel took him to Key West, Taormina, Italy, New York, and California where he befriended the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Ezra Pound, and many other literary and artistic dignitaries along the way. Anecdotes abound of his pet goat and oft-recurring subject in his work, Alice, with whom he drove to Florida, took to his gallery openings, and elsewhere. He is remembered as a complicated modernist, who left a body of work in paintings and poetry, and a fond impression by most who met him.

Condition

- scattered craquelure; dust and scattered accretion to painting surface; wear to board edges at frame; cracking, chipping and finish loss to frame.

Dimensions

- measures frame; visible image measures 19.5" W x 23.5" H.

Item #

ITMG639459