Ochre Lines by John Alfred Begg (FL/NY, 1903-1974), pastel on paper, signed, circa 1950s-1970s, framed - 11 3/4" x 16 3/4" 
 
Begg was an artist, scupltor and book designer. He graduated from Columbia College, and soon thereafer worked as an art director at several publishing companies, designing book covers.  He retired in 1968 as art director and vice president of Oxford University Press, which he had joined in 1939. He also was an art director at Art In America, where he won the Readerscope Award in 1945. He also taught art and lectured on basic design at New York University from 1950 to 1958. He exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Wakefield Gallery, the Nierendorf Gallery, the Buchholz Gallery, and at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Worcester Art Museum and the Hudson River Museum. Begg's work can be found in the collections of the Indiana Museum of Modern Art, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Hudson River Museum, and the New York Public Library.