"Collage Composition"

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by:

Dwinell Grant (1912 – 1991)

Non-objective artist, Dwinell Grant, was born in Springfield, Ohio in 1912. His interest in the arts began with landscape painting lessons from his grandfather at the young age of 12. In 1931, Grant enrolled at the Dayton Art Institute, where he was first introduced to modernism. In pursuit of this new style, Grant left Dayton Art Institute in 1933 for the National Academy of Design in New York. Before arriving in New York, he had the opportunity to view the Lillie P. Bliss art collection, one of the most substantial collections of modern art from the early twentieth century, furthering Grant’s interest in abstraction.

By 1935, Grant had returned to Ohio to teach art and dramatics at Wittenberg College. Although he was not painting consistently, Grant’s set designs for students’ theater work were becoming progressively non-objective. Despite his avant-garde ideals drawing criticism at Wittenberg College, Grant was supported by his peers from the Dayton Institute of Art. These associates encouraged him to contact Hilla Rebay of the Museum of Non-Objective Paintings and the Guggenheim Foundation. In one of his letters to Rebay, Grant describes non-objectivism and its role in art as “is a part of the earth itself. … In creating it we do not say something about something else, but rather we produce a rhythm which is a part of nature's rhythm and just as deep and fundamental as a heartbeat, a thunderstorm, the sequence of day and night or the growth of a girl into womanhood. . . . Nature is not something to be commented on, it is something to be”. In response, Rebay began sending monthly stipends for Grant’s materials; included his paintings in a group exhibition at the Museum of Non-Objective Paintings in 1940; and even arranged for Solomon Guggenheim to purchase two of Grant’s drawings.

While in New York in the 1940s, Grant associated heavily with the figures surrounding the Guggenheim Foundation, including artists John Sennhauser, Jean Xceron, Irene Rice Pereira, and of course, Hilla Rebay. In 1948, Grant even received a fellowship at the Guggenheim Foundation. Despite his growing success in the non-objective art movement in New York, Grant moved to Solebury, Pennsylvania in 1956 and prioritized his commercial film work over that of his creative pursuits until his retirement in 1980. He received the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1988.

Grant’s works can be found in the collections of the Art Council of Great Britain; the Centre George Pompidou, Paris, France; the Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the National Library of Australia; and the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C.