Featured Help w/ID Mid Century Cubist Painting

hi everyone. this was a three dollar purchase at a local thrift store. i've had this painting for a while now. i thought it was nice then and i still think it's a nice little cubist painting now, but i've never been able to identify the signature. i've been meaning to list several of my "unidentified art objects" here, and this is the first one i've gotten to. The date is definitely 1956. i know the 5 sort of looks like a 6, but it's a 5. at one point i went through all of the Ks in Davenports, and still came up with nothing. i'm hoping someone here might be able to help me figure this out. it's a relatively cheap wooden frame and a piece of 16x20 art board, but the painting is good.

 

First name Victor. In what part of the world did you find it?

Debora

 

it's a far off land called Sacramento California. sorry(jk), but let me say, i've certainly found many things from every corner of the earth here. California is a pretty central place for modern trade and travel.

 

So it could have come out of UC Davis? 1956 a bit early though.

Debora

 

that's definitely a possibility. i think UCD was still the ag extension of Berkeley at that time, but i'm not certain.

 

Yeah, too early. The key date there is 1958. You have a guess about the surname?

Debora

 

UC Davis- Thibeaud,Arneson & too many other famous artists to count taught at Davis.It's still thought of primarily by many as an Enology school.It's where you go if you wanna be a Winemaker.

 

Krasnabajaw was always the best i could come up with. when i look at these pictures it takes me back to when i was seriously studying every mark and how much time i struggled with this a couple of years ago. i am genuinely stumped. i will say, i think your right with the Victor. I was thinking Vrene or Werner.

 

or a farmer, or raise sheep or cattle, or, for that matter a general veterinarian. i actually knew a professor over there that was a world authority in sheep husbandry. an old friend of mine got his law degree there. it is now a major university.

 

.

 

We lived close to Davis (Santa Rosa) & I was an art major.I was pleasantly surprised how many really well-known artists taught there thru the decades.The Administration had a knack for recruiting top-notch staff.
PS-Also 'Murder Burger's' a legendary memory. Crocker Art Museum & Old Town Sac's nice too.

 

thank you for this. i'm certainly seeing many more names that look closer than anything i saw in davenports. i'm gonna have to go through it when i'm not so tired. also, i might join mutual art for a month or something to try some other letter combinations. what i'm thinking is an "r" might be a "n" for instance.

 

https://www.google.com/search?clien...UjoKNAQtKgLegQIExAB&biw=1146&bih=548&dpr=1.67

-a shot in the dark

 

Krasnaya means red, also beautiful, so you will find countless paintings with krasnaya in the title.

 

Agree it’s good work. The date is too early (as Debora mentioned) to have any connection to UC Davis’ legendary art department but that doesn’t eliminate San Francisco or honestly anywhere else.

 

here's a closer image of the signature. you can see that it could be "Kr" or it could possibly be "Kn"(or even, or course, something else!) Kn actually makes more sense, in that all of the other letters are done in script and the r would be more of a cursive, but who knows.

 

I went down a rabbit hole earlier today trying to make out the second word at the lower right. To me it looks most like Krasn[_][b or h]ajaw. Didn't find that, but found a city in Poland called Krasnystaw that has some buildings with a similar look. I suppose that many places do have such buildings. But to me the letters I see on the painting are not close enough to all match the name of the city. Still, here is a picture.

 

thank you. this is a new and interesting theory of the case. i began the process of going through all of the Ks in the Mutual Art Index of artist's names as it seems more complete(or at least updated) than my 2004 copy of Davenports. one thing i did discover is there's a fair number of mostly Polish artists with names that begin with the letters Krz. if you look closely, that might be the actual spelling. also, there's every possibility that there's two names (or words) that are hyphenated. as i said above, i spent a lot of time a couple of years ago with this and just gave up. i like your term "rabbit hole."

 

Well, it was just an idea... lots of possibilities! Yes, it could start with Krz... and the fourth letter sure looks like "s" -- the possibility of letters extending lower is there, and that is the part of the word that mostly can't be seen.