WALTER AUGUSTUS SIMON (1916 - 1979)

Untitled (Study in Brown) .

Casein on press board, circa 1955-60. 508x203 mm; 20x8 inches. Signed in casein, lower right.Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, New Jersey.Born in Brooklyn, Walter Augustus Simon studied art at Pratt Institute, the National Academy of Design and New York University in the 1930s. After army service during World War II and with help of the G.I. Bill, Simon re-entered NYU and earned a BS and MA in art history the late 1940s, and finally a PhD in 1961, with a dissertation on Henry Ossawa Tanner. The same year, Simon joined the diplomatic corps of USIA (the United States Information Agency) and managed to continue an artistic career while posted abroad in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Kabul and Cairo. Simon has exhibited his work in many museum and university galleries including the High Museum of Art, the Palais de Congress, Paris, and Spelman College Museum of Art. His art work is found today in the collections of Atlanta University, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, Cairo, Egypt and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.