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George Copeland Ault (October 11, 1891 – December 30, 1948) was an American painter. He was loosely grouped with the Precisionist movement and, though influenced by Cubism and Surrealism, his most lasting work is of a realist nature.

George Ault 1924

Ault was born in Cleveland, Ohio into a wealthy family and spent his youth in London, England, where he studied at the Slade School of Art and St. John's Wood School of Art. Returning to the United States in 1911, he spent the rest of his life in New York and New Jersey. His personal life henceforth was very troubled. He became alcoholic during the 1920s, after the death of his mother in a mental institution (Schwartz, 301). Each of his three brothers committed suicide, two after the loss of the family fortune in the 1929 stock market crash (Lubowsky, 7).

Ault, George (1891-1948) - 1921 Provincetown Waterfront

Ault, George - 1921 Provincetown Waterfront

Although he had exhibited his works with some success, by the early 1930s his neurotic behavior and reclusiveness had alienated him from the gallery world (Lubowsky, 24–26). In 1937, Ault moved to Woodstock, New York with Louise Jonas, who would become his second wife, and tried to put his difficulties in the past. In Woodstock the couple lived a penurious existence in a small rented cottage that had no electricity or indoor plumbing (Lubowsky, 28). Depending on Louise for income, Ault created some of his finest paintings during this time, but had difficulty selling them (Schwartz, 302). In 1948, he apparently committed suicide by drowning. In his lifetime, his works were displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Addison Gallery of American Art (in Andover, Massachusetts), among others.

Ault, George (1891-1948) - 1923 Miss Whiting (Brooklyn Museum)

Ault, George - 1923 Miss Whiting (Brooklyn Museum)

Ault worked in oil, watercolor, and pencil. He is often grouped with Precisionist painters such as Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford because of his unadorned representations of architecture and urban landscapes. However, the ideological aspects of Precisionism and the unabashed modernism of his influences are not so apparent in his work—for instance, he once referred to skyscrapers as the "tombstones of capitalism" and considered the industrialized American city "the Inferno without the fire" (Fryd, 57). Ault painted what he saw around him, simplifying detail slightly into flat shapes and planes, and portraying the underlying geometric patterns of structures. An analytical painter and ultimately a realist, he was especially noted for his realistic portrayal of light—especially the light of darkness—for he commonly painted nighttime scenes (Schwartz, 300). Of his later paintings, such as January, Full Moon; Black Night; August Night; and Bright Light at Russell's Corners (pictured), The New York Times wrote:
“ The setting is the same in each case—a solitary streetlight, the same bend in the road, the same collection of barns and sheds—but seen from different vantage points. In them, Ault has summoned up the poetry of darkness in an unforgettable way—the implacable solitude and strangeness that night bestows upon once-familiar forms and places. ”

Ault, Geoerge (1891-1948) - 1938 Studio Interior (Smithsonian American Art Museum)

Ault, Geoerge - 1938 Studio Interior (Smithsonian American Art Museum)


References

* Fryd, Vivien Green (2003). Art and the Crisis of Marriage: Edward Hopper and Georgia O'Keeffe. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-2262-6654-0I [For quotations only.]
* Lubowsky, Susan (1988). George Ault. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art. ISBN 0-87427-058-8
* "What's New in Art". New York Times, December 16, 1973.
* Schwartz, Sanford (1990). Artists and Writers. New York: Yarrow Press. ISBN 1-878274-01-5
* Smith, Roberta. "Review/Art; George Ault's Sad, Everyday Beauty in Stillness." New York Times, April 29, 1988.

 Artist from USA

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