Watercolor paintings by Mary Turlay Robinson, including four views of homes and gardens in the Westchester County suburban town of Mt. Kisco, New York; a painting of the iconic pylon from the 1939 New York World's Fair; and three greeting card designs.

The Mt. Kisco set includes Mrs. Luquer's Garden, Miss Morgan's House and St. Francis by Malvina Hoffman, showing another view of Miss Morgan's garden, incorporating a statue by Malvina Cornell Hoffman (1887-1966). Hoffman was an American sculptor who studied in Paris with Rodin and had a distinguished career, exhibiting internationally as well as completing important commissions and authoring the book Sculpture Inside and Out (1939).

Mary Turlay Robinson was a painter and lecturer based in New York City . She studied at Vassar College, the Art Students League, and the Fontainebleau School of Fine Arts. She was a member of the American Federation of Arts and the French Fresco Society and served as an officer of the French Academy in 1933. Among her exhibitions were the Salon d'Automne (1925) and Les Independents (1926) in Paris and in New York at the National Association of Women Artists and the American Woman's Association in the 1930s. Her papers are in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution.

An interesting introspective note by Robinson was included with the above lot:

“In college my adviser Miss Laura Wylie, head of the English Dept. asked me Senior year whether I was engaged—I said ‘no' to which she answered ‘well, if you're not you ought to be, for you're a clinging vine-' Well, I have had because of circumstances beyond my control, to be a wind blown tree, battered by wars and Depression but with deep family roots that have held, thank heaven-”

Reference:

Falk, Peter Hastings, ed. Who Was Who in American Art. Madison, Connecticut: Sound View Press, 1985. p p. 523 (Robinson) and 286 (Hoffman).