Dunbar Dyson Beck

Estate of the artist
Henry Kroeger, Sacramento (acquired directly from the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1986

Canvas is not lined. SURFACE: in good condition UNDER ULTRA VIOLET: no apparent inpainting
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Beck was a muralist, teacher, interior designer, as well as a painter.  Born in Ohio, he received his BFA from Yale University in 1926 and was invited to teach there during the following academic year.  In 1927, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome for his painting, "Adoration" and spent the following three years studying at the American Academy in Rome and traveling extensively in Europe and Africa.

On his return to New York in 1930, he accepted teaching positions, first at Columbia and then at Cooper Union.  He also began receiving several important commissions for murals, altar paintings and portraits.  Among them were a mural for the lobby of Radio City Music Hall in 1934 and a frieze for the case of a grand piano from C.F. Theodore Steinway.  Not just any piano, this one was a gift from Steinway & Sons to President Franklin Roosevelt for the White House and was decorated in gold leaf with five forms of music indigenous to America as the subject.  It is still in the White House.  In the late 1930s, Eleanor McClatchy, his patron in Sacramento, persuaded Beck to live and work permanently in California and from then on, he spent most of his time on the west coast.

The present two paintings (lots 221 and 222) are part of an impressive series Beck created sometime after 1947 around the theme of a prize-fight.  They were inspired by an unpublished play of unknown origin entitled "The National Ring".  Two other paintings from the series, "The Big Fight" and "The Night of the Big Fight" were offered in these galleries on March 4, 2009 (as lots 135 and 137 respectively).  These works show Beck at his best. 

In both of the present paintings, the artist creates a sense of spectacle with his dramatic placement of key elements in the composition and theatrical lighting effects.  In "The Fight Promoters", the powerful diagonal thrust of the glowing skyscrapers behind the small, but clearly defined figures discussing the coming fight imbue the scene with tremendous power and energy.  "The Lone Fighter" sits detached and isolated in a brief moment of concentration in between bouts.  The lights in front of him both illuminate and separate him from an audience we cannot see.  He is further confined and set apart by the ring itself which separates him from us, his other audience.  Reminiscent of George Bellows' fight paintings,  details are minimized to emphasize emotional tension and a sense of anticipation.