(New York/Louisiana, 1919-1985)

The Ancestress, 1954, signed with encircled monogram lower left "FB", oil and crayon on canvas, 72-1/4 x 35-3/4 in.; original parcel gilt gallery frame, 73-1/4 x 36-3/4 x 1-1/2 in.

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibited: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Paintings, Sculpture, Watercolors and Drawings January 12 - February 20, 1955;

Stable Gallery, New York, New York, Solo Exhibition, March, 1958;

The Isaac Delgado Museum of Art (later New Orleans Museum of Art), New Orleans, Louisiana (artist requested inclusion) October- December, 1959 (facsimiles of loan requests and documents accompany the lot)

Reference: https://issuu.com/edelmanarts/docs/fritz_bultman_the_missing_irascible

Note: In 1950, Fritz Bultman aligned himself with the group of New York School artists, nicknamed the "Irascibles," seventeen other artists who also signed a letter to the Metropolitan Museum of Art protesting the institution's conservative policies and predjudices concerning Modern art. He was and friend of Hans Hofmann and rented his apartment in Germany where he witnessed intolerance toward modern art and the persecution of artists with exhibitions of “Degenerate Art” preceeding WWII. Abstract artists went underground and eventually migrated to New York, Chicago, Black Mountain, and other locations in the United States, in what would define the New York School and subsequently, Abstract Expressionism.

This painting is described by Jeanne Bultman as a "very important painting from the 1950s. It is the only painting of that year that is outstanding."

some crackle in heavy impasto, some areas of cupping, small points of flaking mostly near or at edge at bottom; frame with wear