92

Robert Chapman

(b. 1950)

Stair-Steps in the Water.

Oil on canvas, 1987.
Initialed, titled and dated in felt-tip pen, verso.
26 x 24 in. (66 x 61 cm.)
Frame: 27 x 25 in. (68.6 x 63.5 cm.)

  • Provenance:
    Benton Gallery, Southampton, New York.
    Purchased from the above by Stanley and Jane Moss, New York, July 14, 1987.
  • Notes:
    Robert Chapman is an American artist who served as a studio assistant to renowned Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning from 1980 to 1990 in East Hampton, New York. During this last decade of de Kooning's working life, Chapman worked alongside him, subsequently creating his own abstract oil paintings.

    Stanley Moss (1925-2024) was born in Queens, New York. He was an art dealer in the works of Old Masters and sold important paintings to the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid, the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, and to the National Museum of Canada, among others. Stanley was also a poet and a publisher who founded Sheep Meadow Press in 1977. As a young man, he lived in Greenwich Village and worked as an editor for New Directions; in the mid 1950s he moved to Rome and worked for the literary journal Botteghe Oscure. Stanley's poet friends included W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, and Stanley Kunitz; artist friends included Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Toti Scialoja.

    Stanley and his wife, Jane, were generous supporters of the artists and writers in their midst. They arranged exhibitions, bought paintings, and entertained artists in their homes in New York City and Watermill, on the East End of Long Island.

    Biography provided courtesy of the Stanley Moss Estate.
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