Waterfront Workers by Louis Bosa (Italy/US, 1905-1981), oil on board*, signed, circa 1930s-1940s, framed - 21 1/2" x 27 1/4" 
 
*Bonus industrialscape painting on back
 
Bosa grew up in Codroipo, Italy, a small village only a few miles from Venice. After studies at the Accademia della Belle Arti in Venice, Bosa emigrated first to Canada then to the U.S. and studied under John Sloan, a member of the Ashcan School, at the Art Students League in New York. Sloan’s poignant vignettes of everyday life in the city would have a lasting effect on Bosa’s own style. Bosa struggled financially through the 1930s and early 1940s, and many of his paintings reflect laboring people or obvious “down and outs” wandering streets or just standing idle. His first major award that brought notoriety was the John Wanamaker Prize at the Washington Square outdoor exhibition, given to him in 1938. He was awarded the Altman Prize at the National Academy of Design, but that was withdrawn when it was discovered that he was not American born. Further honors included an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters, and gold medals from the National Academy of Design, Audubon Artists, and the Legionnaires of Pennsylvania. From 1944 to 1946, he was an instructor at the Art Students League in New York City and from 1943 to 1946, he taught at the Cape Ann School at Rockport, Massachusetts. He was featured in the Whitney Museum Annual in 1948. In 1960, he was an instructor of Advanced Painting at Cleveland Institute of Art. Bosa’s works are in the collections of more than twenty museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.