Enamel tray of multi color birds by Karl Drerup

Multi colored Enamel made by Karl Drerup of two fantastic birds on a green back drop.
Drerup quickly rose to national prominence in the early 1940s.  His enamels were featured in numerous exhibitions across the country as he emerged as one of the most influential artists working in the enamels field.  The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased a piece in 1940 and another in 1950 and in 1941 he was featured in a one-person exhibition that toured nationally.  In 1959 Drerup’s work was presented in depth in the exhibition Enamels at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts.
Disavowing the widespread movement toward pure abstraction in the mid-twentieth-century, Drerup pursued a more pictorial approach.  Describing himself as a “traditionalist” and an “irrepressible romantic,” he stated, “Art without a subject is really not attractive to me…I can’t help it; I have no excuses to make for my flight backwards instead of looking forward and taking all the cues.  Part of my inner need, in a sense, is to tell a story.”