An inventive early offering by the noted industrial designer Paul Ritter MacAlister, titled “Spain” and dated 1929 in the lower right corner. The artist went on to be an interior designer especially noted for his mass-produced “Plan-a-Room” kit with scale furniture and room layouts that could be used to plan and organize home spaces for consumers. This is a very well executed work it is done in the style of Erté and features an art deco nude goddess of the darkness cowering under the bright sunshine radiating from the corner of the canvas – superimposed in front of a pipe smoking skeleton that appears from the clouds.
A colorful and evocative original oil painting conceived in a trompe l’oeil “trick of the eye” manner.
We purchased a few estate items near Chicago recently from the artist and designer’s estate including ten rare and important mural concept paintings done by Mahlon Blaine in 1939 for a Paul Ritter MacAlister design showroom in New York City.
Paul Ritter MacAlister —
U.S. designer in Chicago. He served in the U.S. Navy during WW II in its Department of Training Devices, along with designer Henry Glass, under the head of its design program, Cleveland designer Viktor Schreckengost. MacAlister came to Chicago in 1946 to reorganize design at Montgomery Ward, and to conduct a color survey for them. He was one of the first designers to venture into television. He later served as a consultant and appeared frequently on the NBC Home Show. He developed and mass-produced a “Plan-a-Room” kit with scale furniture and room layouts that could be used to plan and organize home spaces for consumers.
MacAlister was president of the Industrial Designers Institute (IDI) in 1953. He founded, and for many years chaired, IDI’s pioneer national design awards program, which began in 1951 and continued until 1965. He was awarded IDI Fellowship, which was honored by IDSA when it was formed in 1965 by IDI and other organizations. He lived in Lake Bluff, IL.
1901 (Camden, New Jersey) – 1990 Illinois
Designer, collector, writer, illustrator
Methods
* Design
* Illustration, Illustrator
Some Exhibitions
* Art Institute of Chicago
Schools
* Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts-Student
* Yale School of Fine Art-Student
