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The Aristocrat
TAIT, Agnes
Lithograph on white wove paper, 1936.Exact edition unknown, but less than 200.Published by American Artists Group, New York, with their logo printe...
View full detailsAgnes TAIT
Agnes Tait (1897-1981) was born and raised in New York City, in a family of Irish and English immigrant parents of simple means. At a young age she was determined to become an artist and she was enrolled from 1908 to 1916 in drawing and then painting classes at the National Academy of Design, in Manhattan. While she had to supplement her income while launching her career, she never waivered in her resolve to become a professional, self-determined artist. She started to exhibit her work as early as 1915 and steadily made her own way. Over the years, she managed to travel far and wide, back to her mother’s native Ireland, to Florida, to Trinidad and Dominica, to Italy, and to France, where she learned lithography at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1927. While mostly known as a painter, on canvas mostly, but also as a muralist during the Works Progress Administration great depression years, she was also clearly an amazing lithographer. Her compositions are balanced, and her use of the crayon is assertive, with black ink applied with strength and contrast. The breath of her lithographic output is unclear, likely only counting a few dozen compositions, in which cats, of all stripes rule the world.
