Sarasota Artist Ben Stahl (1910-1987) American, Acrylic on Board. Titled "Prancing Nude." Signed and dated 1970 in lower left. Inscribed with title, date, and signed on verso. Unframed. Depicts a reclining nude. 

Condition: Some damage in lower right corner. 

Size: 16 x 9 in. 

#3512 . 

Benjamin Albert Stahl was born September 7th, 1910 in Chicago, Illinois. He showed precocious talent early on and was considered an artistic prodigy, winning a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago at age twelve. His artwork appeared in the International Watercolor Show at the Art Institute when he was sixteen. He later taught at the Art Institute, as well as at the American Academy of Art, the Art Students League of New York, Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute, and various other universities. During World War II Stahl served as an official U.S. Air Force artist and as an officer in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He, his wife Ella, and his children moved to Sarasota, Florida from Weston, Connecticut in 1953, becoming one of the most prominent artists in the colony that formed there post-War. He taught alongside Syd Solomon at Syd’s Fine Art Institute on the grounds of New College of Florida. He won many prizes throughout his lifetime, including the Saltus Gold Medal of the National Academy of Design. His elaborate illustrations appeared in Women’s Home Companion, Cosmopolitan, American Artist, North Light, Esquire, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Picture Post, Southwest Art, and in over 750 stories in The Saturday Evening Post. He was featured in the 1976 television series “Journey into Art with Ben Stahl,” 26 half-hour programs consisting of lectures and painting demonstrations by the artist. Stahl was one of the founding faculty for the Famous Artists School, which encouraged an entire generation of new artists across the country through mail-in analysis and instruction. In 1986 he guest-starred on Season 7 of The Joy of Painting, wherein renowned artist Bob Ross referred to him as “one of the best painters in the country.” Stahl also produced advertising artwork for various companies and posters for several movies, including Ben-Hur. He illustrated a number of books, including The Innkeeper’s Wife by A.J. Cronin, a limited edition of Madame Bovary, and the 25th anniversary edition of Gone with the Wind. On a dare from close friend John D. MacDonald, Stahl wrote two novels: Blackbeard’s Ghost was published in 1965 by Houghton Mifflin and made into a movie by The Walt Disney Company in 1968, and The Secret of Red Skull, a sequel to Blackbeard’s Ghost, was published in the 1970s with illustrations by Stahl’s eldest son, Ben F. Stahl. His daughter Gail Stahl is also a painter. Sadly, Stahl’s personal legacy is permanently tied to a tragic incident that occurred in 1969, when a highly detailed series of 15 enormous religious paintings he was commissioned to make by the Catholic Press disappeared. Modeled after the fourteen Stations of the Cross with a fifteenth titled Resurrection, the oil paintings were hung in The Museum of the Cross, which Stahl had poured his personal fortune into building. Early on the morning of April 16, all the artwork from the museum, except two paintings, were stolen from the museum and never recovered. An investigation cleared Stahl of any wrongdoing, and as he took no insurance policy out on the art or building it left him and his family in dire financial straits for many years. In 1993, a television episode of Unsolved Mysteries featured the theft, and the investigation into it was reopened in 2013 by a joint task force comprised of the Sarasota County sheriff's department and Interpol in Washington, D.C., but they are still no closer to finding the paintings. Stahl died on October 19th, 1987, never learning what had become of his magnum opus.

Some damage in lower right corner.