Strands by Gar Sparks (Ohio/New Jersey, 1888-1954), oil on canvas, signed and dated 1942, framed - 15" x 18"
 
Sparks is an another example of a prolific artist who left a lot of work behind but little of his history. Purportedly he was born in Ohio, later moved to New York and then New Jersey. He may have studied at the Art Students League in NYC in 1913. While there, and in need of a job, he worked as a salesman at the momentous 1913 Armory Show in NYC, which introduced the US to avant garde Eurpoean art. Supposedlly he had the highest record of sales at that show ($45,000 at that time (about $1.5 million in 2025), and even sold Marcel Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase. He apparently gave up on making a career from painting, and, therefore, went in a crazy direction - he opened a candy and nut store in New Jersey called "Sparks Nut House" soon after WWI. However, he maintained his connections to the art world. He commissioned American modernist artist Stuart Davis to paint a mural in his nut house, and continued to stay in contact with Duchamp. It was at Duchamp's encouragment that Sparks went back to painting starting in the 1940s. This time around Sparks concentrated on painting in a surrealist style, a style still new to the American audience. Nonetheless, his work was good enough such that he was representd by the Julian Levy Gallery in NYC, a gallery that was a major destination for surrealist artists in the 1930s and 1940s. After the Levy Gallery closed, Sparks went on to be represented by the Hugo Gallery, also in NYC. The Hugo Gallery was a prominent modern art gallery and was responsible for introducing the art world to works by Andy Warhol and René Magritte.