This is a fantastic and RARE Vintage Mid Century Modern Urban Cityscape Oil Painting on canvas, by the seldomly seen Central California Modernist painter, Joseph Ullery. This piece depicts an expressive and evocative urban scene at dusk, with a two-story brick tenement building in the distance. Several lights can be seen in the windows and a water tower and smokestacks are visible on the roof. In the foreground, a small table with red flowers, and a smoking chimney pipe is visible, with the tendrils of wispy white smoke cascading across the left side of the canvas. This artwork was likely painted by the artist en plein air from the roof of a nearby building. Signed and dated: "Ullery '62" in the lower right corner. Ullery is notable for the fact that his career as an artist began while he was incarcerated at California State Prison, Solano in Vacaville, California in the late 1950's - early 1960's. To my knowledge, only two other paintings by this artist have ever been offered for sale since the invention of the Internet. Approximately 46 x 46 3/4 inches (including frame.) Actual artwork is approximately 45 x 46 inches. Good condition for over half a century of age and storage, with one noticeable dimple to the canvas in the upper left corner. This could be easily remedied by re-stretching the canvas or applying steam to the area. Due to the large size of this piece, S&H costs will be unavoidably high. However, Free Local Pickup from Los Angeles County, California is also an option. Acquired from an old estate collection in San Gabriel Valley, California. If you like what you see, I encourage you to make an Offer. Please check out my other listings for more wonderful and unique artworks!
About the Artist:
Joseph Ullery (American, 20th century), San Francisco, California artist.
Joseph Ullery participated in art shows at the Stanislaus County Art Festival in Modesto and pursued his artwork in residence at the Vacaville Medical Center, part of the California prison system. The prisoners in the California Medical Facility know they cannot win all the prizes in all the art shows all the time. But their record of winning comes close to that: they "copped" two of the top prizes in this month's Stanislaus County Art Festival in Modesto--a first and a second. A fine arts program was started as therapy for men confined in the prison at Vacaville, Solano County. It has grown into something much more than that: art has become a means of income to many of the men; to some, a prospect for a happier future upon release. Encouragement in fine art "as a release for pent up emotions and frustrations that cause men to go to prison" was begun a year ago in the prison, the psychiatric center for California's Department of Correction. Of the prices received for the paintings sold, 75 percent went to the artist and 25 percent went to defray the cost of the shows. Once out of prison, Ullery taught painting to local artists and exhibited in San Francisco art Galleries.
A NEW GALLERY IN MORAGA (Oakland Tribune, 4/3/1966)
"Joseph Ullery, who made his reputation in art shows of the California Medical Facility and lost his gallery in Lafayette, is represented notably by charming miniature landscapes layered with varnish to resemble enamels and "White Only," a white sign in a field either a pictorial or social comment."
"Joseph Ullery's work is showing at Kray Galleries, on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, and three have sold in a week all three to psychiatrists, which must have connotation somewhere." (Oakland Tribune, 4/9/1968)
Reverend Stephen Tatar (1905 - 1988)
In 1962 Father Tatar was ministering as the Catholic Chaplain at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, a penitentiary where convicts were treated or processed for assignment to prisons to serve out their sentences. He was mentioned in the July 1964 issue of "Catholic Digest" in a story entitled "Painting Toward Freedom." The article involved the artistic pursuits of the prisoners at the Vacaville Penitentiary where in one eight month period five major shows were conducted by prisoner-artists. The article stated in part that Father Tatar steered many prisoners into the study of art. During Father Tatar's time as chaplain prisoner-artists, Victor Heady and Joseph Ullery worked for many weeks producing a huge mural in the Chapel honoring St. Dismas, the penitent thief who died on the cross beside Jesus.
Hansen Bang
Resident Gallery (November 1964)
Hansen Bang contrasts dark impasto calligraphy with transparent backgrounds for an orientalism that is derived both from Kishi, with whom he studied, and the abstract expressionism of Franz Kline. When he reverses this procedure and rubs a veil over the impasto image until it glows, his expression becomes more personal, authentic and successful. The Great Mogul and Meditation are examples of this latter technique.
One can also see here the work of Joseph Ullery, who runs the gallery and whose main claim to distinction seems to be that he is a discovery of Bill Fiset (an Oakland columnist who professes to know nothing about art), who saw his work while Ullery was in prison on a narcotics charge. Ullery paints rather gentle, amateurish rubbed masonite panels—subject matter: a sweet social satire or a lonely horse—and transparent abstractions.