Joseph Lomoff (American, New York/1889-1951) large oil on canvas moonlit fantasy cubist landscape titled "A Fairy Tale". Depicts a white castle emerging from cliffs upper left flanked by a setting sun above orange/red cliffs with the moon face visible to the right, above dark highlighted water to the center with a small village, lizard and male figure with staff and long white beard lower left, a cliff with crown depicted as a king mid-right margin, and a figure holding a broom in a white cave lower right corner. Signed en verso in black marker JOS LOMOFF together with the artist's address and phone number; additionally titled lower center A FAIRY TALE. Housed in a gilt and ebonized wood frame. Sight: 55 1/2" H x 58 1/2 W. Framed: 58 7/8" H x 61 3/4" W. 1st Half 20th century. Biography: Born in Russia, Lomoff traveled to the US in 1912 and immigrated in 1925, where he found employment as (among other jobs) a sign painter. His Futurist-influenced works like "Mystery" and "Legend of Atlantis" began to appear in group shows by the late 1920s. Lomoff exhibited numerous times with the Society of Independent Artists between the mid-1920s and early 1940s. In 1934, as part of the Public Works of Art Project, he painted a mural titled "Nursery Tales" in the Children's Hospital on Charity Island (now named Roosevelt Island). In 1937, amidst Congressional cuts to the Federal Arts Project, he was among those painters showing at a "Pink Slip Exhibition" in New York City. Subsequently, "Toilers of the Sea" appeared at the Brooklyn Museum (1943), and he was part of an innovative 1946 exhibit at Loew's Mayfair Theatre in Times Square--which had been organized following Thomas Hart Benton's statement that art should be in public places and not "buried in mausoleum-like art galleries." He is known for his Abstract cubist, and social realist paintings. (Adapted from Genesee Valley Council on the Arts).

Canvas partially detached from frame in several areas resulting is some buckling and light craquelure to canvas. Reverse L-shaped tear to canvas, right margin above the king's crown, approximately 2" x 1 3/4". Some minor rubbing/loss to canvas left and right mid-margins. Canvas will likely need to be reframed or lined.