Painting

Object number2008.1.3

MediumPaper; Tempera

Credit LineGift of Estate of Sibyl Barsky Grucci

DescriptionMulticolored tempera painting on paper. Fourteen female figures in shower/locker room, all Caucasian and mostly all nude, one fully clothed female on bottom right, with purple dress and braided brown hair. Mounted on larger piece of paper.Dimensions15.375 x 11 in. (39.1 x 27.9 cm)
Signed"E Phillips" in black, bottom right corner.
Historical NotesEsther Phillips was an honored painter in the 1930s. Her impressionist work was displayed throughout Pittsburgh, including the Carnegie and Warner Theater. She married Frank Roy Cohen and remained in Pittsburgh, where they had a son. Part of a collection from the estate of Jewish artist Sibyl Barsky Grucci. Sibyl Barsky Grucci had a long career as a sculptor based first in Pittsburgh and later in State College, Pennsylvania. She was born in Russia on March 20, 1905, and in 1907, emigrated from the Ukraine to Pittsburgh with her family at the age of eight. The family settled in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. By the age of twelve, Sibyl had experienced the deaths of a sister close to her in age and of both of her parents. She and her older sister Belle supported and cared for their four younger brothers. Sibyl studied painting briefly at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) but was self-taught as a sculptor. Among her Pittsburgh artist friends were Samuel Rosenberg, Sam Filner, and William Wolfson. At the suggestion of Samuel Rosenberg, Barsky taught art during one summer term at the Irene Kaufman Settlement. On September 24, 1940, Sibyl Barsky married Joseph L. Grucci, a poet and professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh and then at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, where the Grucci's made their permanent home beginning in 1950.

Previous owner Sibyl Barsky Grucci (born 1905)

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