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RONALD JOSEPH (1910 - 1992)
Paris Vista (#6)
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Oil on linen canvas, circa 1950-52. 991x813 mm; 39x32 inches. Signed and titled in pencil on the
canvas, verso. Signed, titled and inscribed “Return to Bob Blackburn, 44 East 21 St.” in graphite on
the stretcher bars, verso.
Provenance: private NewYork collection.
This modernist painting is one of the largest oil canvases by Ronald Joseph that we have seen -
only a handful of his Paris oil paintings from the early 1950s are known today. Joseph’s early oil
paintings were influenced by Picasso, Braque and other European artists while most of his
contemporaries focused on social realism.
A native of St. Kitts in the British West Indies, Ronald Joseph moved to NewYork as a child. He
was quickly identified as a very talented young artist - his student works were included in an
exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he studied at the Ethical Culture School,
Fieldston School and Pratt Institute. He worked in the mural section of the Federal Art Project of
theWPA, and was a representative of the Harlem Artists’ Guild to the NewYorkWorld’s Fair (1939-
1940). By 1943, Joseph had received recognition - James A. Porter described him as New York’s
“foremost Negro abstractionist painter.” He experimented with abstraction alongside his friend Bob
Blackburn through the 1950s. Joseph had met Blackburn in Reva Helfond’s lithography studio at
the Harlem Art Center soon after he graduated from high school. After service in the Army Air
Corps, Joseph was awarded a Rosenwald Fellowship in 1948. The funds allowed him to live and
work abroad—first in Peru, then Paris. His work from these travels is large undocumented; according
to Rosenwald scholar, Daniel Schulman, many are undated or simply dated “1948-1952”. He later
settled permanently in Brussels. Porter p. 130; Schulman p. 136.
[12,000/18,000]
