This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/6/2023
WELLS, Albert (American, 1920-2001). A Group of Five Sketchbooks with Hundreds of Original Sketches. [V.p., ca. 1940s-1950s]. Five sketchbooks, each with approximately 150 sketches per book, totaling nearly 750 sketches (sketches are on rectos only). Sketches are in pencil or ink, or charcoal, one sketch is in watercolor. None are signed by Wells. Sketchbooks are bound in original textured black cloth over thin boards (bindings are somewhat worn, soiled, a few hinges starting, some occasional soiling to some sketches). One book has the name and New York address of Wells’ teacher, famed painter Hale Woodruff (American, 1900-1980). Wells was one of many Morehouse College men who studied painting with noted artist Hale Woodruff, the widely respected director of Atlanta University’s art department. Under Woodruff’s tutelage, Wells became a member of the so-called “Outhouse School,” an informal guild of African American painters known for their landscapes depicting the rural scenery of Georgia. Woodruff encouraged his fellow black artists to transcribe unvarnished details of everyday life in their work, drawing attention, as he told Time magazine in 1942, to “its peculiar run-down landscape, its social and economic problems, [and] the Negro people.” Following his release from the military in December 1945, Wells moved to Chicago, Illinois, and little is known about his artistic career after this point. He remained there and worked as a teacher in the public school system before his death in 2001. An excellent group.