A Slice of Augustus Vincent Tack

a tall vertically oriented painting of an oval abstract painting is surrounded by gold. the abstraction is mostly dark blue, purple, brown, and seems like a steep cliff face running diagonally from the upper right. other sections in lighter colors might reference the sky or vegetation, part of a series of paintings by augustus vincent tack in the 1930s
Augustus Vincent Tack, Untitled Oval (Golden Morning), 1930, oil on canvas on board, 69 x 43 in., the Phillips Collection

I’ve been a fan of Augustus Vincent Hack’s landscape-based abstract paintings from the 1930s ever since I saw them at the Phillips Collection. To be frank, it’s hard to see them anywhere else. Duncan Phillips was a close friend and longtime supporter of Tack’s work, which, in the 1930s, looked like it could be as important to the American abstract avant-garde as anyone. It mostly was not, but the paintings are still nice, and sometimes a little strange.

a detail of the upper right corner of an abstract painting by augustus vincent tack reveals that the abstract part is set within a very representational painted frame, with painted shadows, and a different, smooth canvas surface that enhances its resemblance to wood. so the painting is at once abstract and not. or rather, it's a representational painting of an abstract painting, which is frankly a wild thing to have painted in 1934 or whenever
detail of Tack’s Evening, 1934-36, as it was exhibited at the Phillips in 2014

The first time I noticed the strangeness apart from the niceness was in 2014, when I realized that Tack had painted a trompe l’oeil frame around an abstracted view of the sky, essentially a representational painting of an abstract painting.

While his extremely conventional, even boring, portraits have sold at auction for nearly nothing, Tack’s abstractions do great. So I was very interested to see what happened to this wild painting that just came up for sale this morning:

a portrait of a young white lady with the beginnings of grey hair, seated, with her arm on a table, wearing a black dress with white polka dots and frills on the shoulders. on the cream wall behind her, a segment of an oval-shaped abstract painting with a gold frame peeks into the upper left corner, augustus vincent tack's portrait of lotte lehmann
Augustus Vincent Tack, Portrait of Lotte Lehmann, 30 3/4 x 25 3/4 in., sold at Copake’s, via Invaluable

Unlike all the judges or bank vice presidents whose names are lost, this Tack portrait is already rare for having an identifiable subject—and one who has a wikipedia page. Lotte Lehmann was an internationally famous soprano who discovered the Von Trapp Family Singers. She helped launch the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, and there’s a theater at UC Santa Barbara that still bears her name. But most importantly, this painting has a slice of another painting in the corner.

I haven’t been able to identify a specific picture Tack reproduced here. And it’s also not clear when Tack painted this. Lehmann was born in 1888, so she was in her 40s when Tack started painting his abstracts. In 1939 her husband died—is that his urn behind her?—and Lehmann she moved in with Frances Holden, a “psychologist who specialized in the study of genius.” So that puts her on the ground in Santa Barbara. Tack died in 1949, so that’s the window.

In any case, I love it, and I put a bid in so I wouldn’t forget to watch it. And then I completely forgot. And it ended up selling for just $300. Whoops. The greatest bargain ever–on a square inch basis—for one of Augustus Vincent Tack’s most important paintings. Or part of one, anyway.

Previously, related: From Evening to Dawn with Augustus Vincent Tack;
Edward Wadsworth’s Dazzle Ships in Drydock in Liverpool (1919)