Gouache, oil and ink on paper, 1949, signed with the artist's monogram and dated on the reverse.

20 x 25 in. (sheet), 25 x 29 1/2 in. (frame).

Note: Artist Alfonso Ossorio was born in the Philippines into a wealthy sugar-manufacturing family of Hispanic, Filipino and Chinese heritage. After attending school in England, Ossorio moved to the United States in 1930 where he attended private school in Rhode Island and then went on to study Fine Art at Harvard University and the Rhode Island School of Design. During this period, Ossorio created meticulously rendered drawings that combined Surrealist imagery with the religious symbolism that was part of his life-long engagement with Catholicism. Close friendships with Abstract Expressionist painters in the late 1940s influenced his movement towards Abstraction.  This work was a gift from the artist to friend and fellow artist Ingeborg Ten Haeff and her husband, John Githens. Ossorio and the Ten Haeff/Githens were part of the same social circle in the Hamptons where Ossorio, at the urging of Jackson Pollock, had purchased the 60-acre estate known as The Creeks. Ingeborg Ten Haeff and John Githens were fixtures in New York and East Hampton artistic circles, along with friends Alfonso Ossorio, Alexander Calder and Willem de Kooning. Together, this group of friends represented the golden era of New York bohemia and provides an interesting and unique perspective on some of the 20^th century's most acclaimed artists and movements.

In very good condition.

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