Recently, I helped Roseline Cardinal (right) inventory the remaining artworks of her late husband, Marcelin. It was a very enjoyable task as Roseline, and I had the opportunity to view paintings that neither of us had seen for quite a while. We also took an inventory of Marcelin’s drawings and studies some of which date back to the late 1940s. What struck me most in viewing these studies was how early on Marcelin had formulated ideas that were represented on larger canvases many years later. This is something that I may return to in a later blog but, a quick example is a casein study from 1960 (below left) and the acrylic, collage on canvas on board, “Blaksno” from 2012 (below right).
Amongst Marcelin’s casein sketches was a study from 1958 (left) for an oil painting called “Harlem Girl With Blue Hat” which, presumably, was also painted early in 1958. I have never seen that oil painting or a photograph, but it was mentioned in a letter (below left) to Marcelin from James Johnson Sweeney who was the curator and director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum from 1952 to 1960. It would seem from his letter that Mr. Sweeney quite liked the painting. I have no idea what happened to “Harlem Girl With Blue Hat” or where it is today but I would love to know.
A second painting, “Harlem Girl Avec Blanc Chapeau” (below left) was sold at auction by the Heffel Gallery (Heffel.com) in 2022. In this case, Marcelin had returned to his earlier Harlem girl casein study and, presumably, “Harlem Girl With Blue Hat”. The overall composition of “Harlem Girl Avec Blanc Chapeau” is very much like that of the casein study and I assume that “Harlem Girl With Blue Hat” would match the casein study in both form and colour. Interestingly, there was a similar casein study from 1957 (below right). Maybe this was going to be a painting called something like, “Garçon Français Avec Béret Blu”.
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