Featured Oil Portrait with bird? signature

Hello, my parents found this in their storage shed and were not sure where it was from, so they gave it to me. I think it's a great piece and was wondering if anyone has any ideas about the artist. It seems to be dated 1952 and signed with maybe a crow or raven in a circle. My Googling has not yielded any results so I figured I'd check with you guys. Also does anybody have any idea what is on his head?

Thanks!

 

NICE painting....maybe a winter cap or a fisherman's cap on his head??

 

I adore this painting. The brushstrokes are confidant and really lovely. This is also a super illustrative style...I would not be surprised if this artist's day job was advertising, editorial or similar illustration work.

Damn artists and their cutesy signatures. Sometimes the pictograph would be related to their name. I vaugely looks like the second "letter" is a G. First might be a C or G but whew they didn't make it easy. I'm assuming there is nothing on the back?

 

Nice painting, jeasta.

Yes, 1952.

I see Bastet in a circle:

 

Don't think that's the work of a fully formed artist; could well be a student work. But certainly done with brio. May very well be a self-portrait. Just a wool cap with pompom on head.

Debora

 

Anything on the back? And what part of the world was your parents' storage shed?

Debora

 

Looks a bit like Marlon Brando.

 

I see the Bastet too! It definitely looks more like that than a bird. Thanks!

 

It is framed with brown paper on the back, so no info there unless I take the paper off. Thanks!

 

Thanks! I just wasn't sure because it seems to be precariously perched on one side of his head.

 

Assured oil sketch-quickly executed.Illustrator perhaps sports/collegiate/frat related (just a very wild guess).
PS-A young Bud Brando would certainly be a find !

 

Just brown paper on the back of the frame. The storage shed was in their back yard in the Houston area, but they are originally from Florida.

 

I totally see it. Thanks! Definitely a possibility.

 

Take the paper off--we've got a mystery to solve! It's the easiest thing to put back on if you like. Only takes a roll of double sided tape (ATG is $5 at an art supply), Kraft paper and a razor blade to trim the edge. That said, you don't have to replace it as it's just a dust cover. Hopefully it's staying in the house now. It could stay at my house--I do enjoy a jaunty smile.

 

Bastet was a goddess which might point to a female artist.

Debora

 

Impressionistic and captures the subject's personality and style!
I believe you may find more info beneath the brown paper. Please show us the back either way! Please post the measurements too, is the painting somewhat small?
It appears to have been a souvenir portrait.

I agree it does look like a young Marlon Brando!

 

I think he's wearing a tam:



It reminds me of a passage from A Child's Christmas in Wales:

"sometimes two hale young men, with big pipes blazing, no overcoats and wind blown scarfs, would trudge, unspeaking, down to the forlorn sea, to work up an appetite, to blow away the fumes, who knows, to walk into the waves until nothing of them was left but the two furling smoke clouds of their inextinguishable briars"

 

The painting is 13.5" wide x 17.5" tall measuring from inside the frame but not including the frame. I did take the paper off and found that it is painted on board not a stretched canvas. Also there is quite a bit painted back there. I read "James Patterson" Charles Lecha Casablanca French Morocco 11/11/52. Maybe you guys can help me make sense of it. What a fun mystery!

 

11/11/52 + the subject + the artist = aren't you glad you tore the paper off the back?