Europa (alternate: Nude on the Rock)

1942

R. H. Ives Gammell painted this allegory of the destruction of Europe at the onset of the Second World War, shortly after he had suffered a mental breakdown. In addition to the international situation, Gammell was threatened by the modern art that surrounded him. His portrayal of Europa, from Greek mythology, might also express his despair over the demise of painting as he knew it. Ives Gammell was a Boston School painter and teacher who studied variously with Edmund Tarbell, William M. Paxton, Frank Benson and Charles Hawthorne. The son of the president of the Industrial (now Fleet) National Bank in Rhode Island, he came from a patrician Providence and Newport family, and was financially able to indulge his intellectual fantasies involving mythological and classical subjects in his painting. Gold and black painted frame.

Oil on canvas

frame: 45 in x 50 in; canvas: 40 in x 46 in

Gift of the R. H. Ives Gammell Studio Trust

1991.023.001