Charles Winstanley Thwaites (born Thwaits, 1904-2002). Portrait of a Taos Pueblo Native American- oil on board, ca. 1950s. A striking portrait of a Taos Pueblo Native American by Charles Winstanley Thwaites. The handsome sitter is presented in 3/4 view with a solemn, realistic visage - peering into the distance with his large brown eyes, knitted brow, aquiline nose, pursed lips, and centrally-parted, long black hair plaited into two braids adorned with red ties. He wears a chambray blue shirt with a white shirt beneath, and in the background are impressionistic renderings of the Taos Pueblo adobe buildings beneath the blue skies of New Mexico. The portrait is set in an attractive, custom frame with finely carved decorative motifs adorning the corners. Size of sight view: 23.625" L x 17.5" W (60 cm x 44.4 cm) Size of frame: 31.625" L x 25.625" W (80.3 cm x 65.1 cm)

Charles Thwaites studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1924-1925, but after seeing a portrait painting demonstration, decided to pick up a paint brush and began studying at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin under Gerrit V. Sinclair in 1926. In 1928, Thwaites taught art classes at the Dubuque Art Association in Iowa in 1928, and was teaching at the Layton School of Art by 1930. By 1933, he was part of an artist colony in the Plankinton Building in downtown Milwaukee as well as a member of the Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors.

During the Great Depression era, Thwaites worked for President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's WPA (Works Progress Administration) on the Public Works of Art Project, Federal Art Project and the Treasury Relief Art Project, painting four WPA Post Office murals - two murals in Wisconsin, one in Chilton called "Harvest (Threshing Barley)" 1940, and another called "Cheese Making" in Plymouth, 1941. Thwaites also painted two murals out of state - "Lumbering" in Greenville, Michigan in 1940 and another in Windom, Minnesota in 1943.

Thwaites married a Milwaukee watercolorist and WPA artist named Antoinette Gruppe (1908-1991) in 1941. They visited New Mexico in the 1950s and were taken by the Southwest. Throughout his career, Thwaites would paint many beautiful portraits, including a series of the Taos Pueblo Indians of New Mexico during the 1950s. Thwaites began exhibiting with the Taos Moderns in 1957 and he and Antoinette moved to Santa Fe in 1962. In 1973-74, Thwaites was named an artist-in-residence at St. John’s College in Santa Fe from 1973 to 1974. The creative couple would live in Santa Fe for the rest of their lives.

Provenance: ex-Walter Earl collection, Anchorage, Alaska, USA

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#166922

Painting is in very nice condition save a few minute scuffs commensurate with age that are difficult to see. Labels are attached to the verso, one from "The Estate of Charles W. Thwaites" as shown. Wired for suspension and ready to display