Sarah Blakeslee (American, 1912-2005), Interior, Stairway (Speight Home, Bertie County)

Oil on canvas, 1962, signed at lower left, one stretcher bar stamped Mar 21 1934, presented in a contemporary frame with linen liner.

This quiet interior depicts the stairway in the Speight Home, Bertie County, North Carolina.


Stretcher size 16 x 20 in.; Frame dimensions 19 1/4 x 23 in.

Private Collection, Raleigh, North Carolina

From the Collection of Patricia Deerwester, Southern Pines, North Carolina
Leland Little Auctions, March 4, 2017, Lot 175
Acquired from the above

Exhibited:
Greenville Museum of Art, Sarah Blakeslee: A Retrospective, Greenville, NC, March 12 - April 30, 1993. (illustrated)

Born in Evanston, IL, Blakeslee began her art studies at the age of 13 at the Chicago Art Institute. Her family moved to Washington, D.C., where she enrolled at the Corcoran School of Art and Miss Catherine Critcher's School of Art. She took classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts during the first half of the 1930s and was awarded the Academy's prestigious Cresson Scholarship twice. During her studies at the Academy, she met and married her instructor, painter Francis Speight.

Blakeslee's artwork has been exhibited by the Art Institute of Chicago; Corcoran Gallery; National Academy of Design; North Carolina Museum; Pennsylvania Academy; and the 1939 World's Fair in San Francisco, California. Her work is held in numerous permanent collections, including the Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, NC; North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC; National Academy of Design, New York, NY; and The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC.

Good estate condition; no evidence of restoration visible under UV light.