{"product_id":"1950s-noir-chiaroscuro-oil-portrait-painting-of-a-mysterious-man","title":"1950s Noir Chiaroscuro Oil Portrait Painting of a Mysterious Man","description":"\u003cp\u003eHere we have a 1950s oil portrait that shows you half a face and keeps the rest. A pale head leans into one hand, fingertips pressed under the chin. Everything else drops into black. The light comes hard from the left, film noir style, and cuts the face clean down the nose. It haunts!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStand close and the canvas weave shows through the cheekbone like skin under a lamp. A heavy lacquer seals the whole surface and gives the flesh an otherworldly sheen, as if the face were surfacing through dark water. One eye catches a single white highlight. The other sits somewhere in the dark doing whatever it wants. Then there is the second hand. A loose fist rises from the lower right corner, cropped by the edge. It appears to belong to the sitter, mid-gesture before an argument resumes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is mid-century figurative painting in a near monochrome palette of cream and olive light against black. It suits a dark academia room or a hallway that needs a witness. The pose has held since Eisenhower's first term. Somebody gets to keep it company next.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe vintage noir painting is signed and dated HAMBY '56 in pale block capitals at the lower left. I could not match the signature to a documented painter so we have a mystery artist on our hands. The paint reads as oil with a thickness in the highlights of the eye and brow. The modeling of the face and hands points to a practiced hand. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 1950s painting came out of a collector’s estate in Chicago. The toned canvas on the reverse fits that age. The canvas sits in an older wooden inner frame whose face appears painted black. That assembly is housed in a modern handmade frame of thin stained wood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe framed mysterious portrait measures 13 1\/2” x 10 1\/2” x 1 inch. The canvas is taut with no tears or punctures that I can find. Small white specks are scattered across the black ground, heaviest along the right side. Some look like surface debris and some look like pinpoint paint losses. The upper left background has a few raised nubs and gritty patches in the paint. Fine scratches show in the black at the right when light rakes across it. Both lower canvas corners show evidence of wear (see pics). Please see all pics as they are part of the description.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI ship FedEx to street addresses in the continental USA only (no PO Boxes). Free shipping on the brooder with one eye on you.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeventy years of thinking and not a word out of it. Some houses could use a listener like that.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mad Van Antiques","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67557374722125,"sku":null,"price":250.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0116\/3637\/5610\/files\/IMG_0976.jpg?v=1790737752","url":"https:\/\/madvanantiques.com\/products\/1950s-noir-chiaroscuro-oil-portrait-painting-of-a-mysterious-man","provider":"Mad Van Antiques","version":"1.0","type":"link"}