Jane Piper

(American, 1916-1991)

Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1989-91

oil on canvas

44 x 40 inches.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance:

The Artist

Jan Baltzell, the Artist's daughter

Acquired directly from the above, c. 2002

Private Collection, South Carolina

Exhibited:

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Myrtle Beach Art Museum, Grand Strand Collects, September 28-December 4, 2017

Lot Note:

A student of Arthur B. Carles, Jane Piper ranks among Philadelphia’s most accomplished modern painters and is widely recognized as the most daring colorist of her generation. Celebrated for her bold, abstract still lifes, Piper channeled the energy and structure of Cézanne while forging a distinctly personal visual language. As one critic observed following her death in 1991, Piper “worked within a relatively narrow aesthetic range. She was interested in spatial organization and in creating space through color.”

As showcased by the present work, Piper’s work occupies a unique space between figuration and abstraction, marked by her fearless use of color and form. Here, she uses her signature palette, dominated by ice blues contrasting with soft pinks and warm oranges, to evoke her emotional response to nature’s abundance, reimagined here within a domestic interior. A glossy layer of white acrylic serves as negative space, lending the composition a luminous openness. This technique, inspired by Matisse’s oil paintings, allows her colors to breathe and her forms to pulse with life, transforming everyday objects (here flowers, fruit, and vases) into studies of rhythm and light.

Through her work, she forged a distinctive voice within the Philadelphia art scene, bridging American modernism with a uniquely personal, painterly sensibility.

Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1989-91

Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1989-91