Wallace Bassford (American 1900-1998) Oil on Linen “Mood Picture Cape Cod Swim”, signed lower right Bassford, titled and signed on the reverse of the canvas. Bassford’s exhibitions include the Metropolitan Museum, MOMA and the Carnegie Institute, as well as at galleries across the United States, including the St. Louis Art Museum, San Fransisco Museum of Art and the Ogunquit Maine Art.

Overall 42 in. x 50 in.

The son of a prominent St. Louis newspaperman, Wallace Bassford attended classes at the School of Fine Arts of Washington University in St. Louis in 1919-20. His early work included newspaper cartoons, then impressionist landscapes, seascapes of the Cape Cod area and portraits of Missouri politicians. In 1947 Bassford left St. Louis for Provincetown, MA. He also maintained a New York studio, where he became a fashionable celebrity and society portrait painter. He taught at the North Truro School of Art on Cape Cod in the summers, eventually wintering in Palm Beach, Florida.
Exhibitions include the Metropolitan Museum, MOMA and the Carnegie Institute, as well as at galleries across the United States, including the St. Louis Art Museum, San Francisco Museum of Art and the Ogunquit Maine Art Center. Bassford’s book “Painting the Female Figure” was published by Reinhold in 1967.