Lowell Nesbitt (1933-1993) American, Signed and Numbered Mixed Media Floral Aquatint. Title on label on back: "Purple Flower." Signed and dated 1982 in pencil bottom right. Numbered 19/125 in pencil bottom left, above an embossed copyright marking. Unique intaglio process is described on an accompanying letter from the Lowell Nesbitt Studios, where the aquatint plate is combined with handmade paper and dried flowers to create the final product. 

Condition: Great. 

Overall Size: 31 x 31 in. 

Sight Size: 24 x 24 in.  

Lowell Blair Nesbitt was born on October 4th, 1933 in Towson, Maryland. His affluent background and upbringing led him to an early interest in art, and he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1955. He also studied stained glass, and printmaking the following year on a fellowship at the Royal College of Art in London, England. Upon returning to America he enlisted in the United States Army, serving for two years. After his discharge he lived in Washington, D.C. where he worked as a night watchman at The Phillips Collection while developing his style. In 1958 he held his first solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art , and in 1964 he relocated permanently to New York City to work as a visual artist full time after his show at the Corcoran Gallery of Art brought him international acclaim. Fellow artist Robert Indiana suggested that he attempt to make a conversion from abstraction to realism, which resulted in his most famous works, oversized botanical-themed masterpieces to rival Georgia O’Keeffe. In 1976 Nesbitt moved into a massive studio living space that included an indoor swimming pool, a four-story atrium, and a rooftop entertainment area, which became a popular gathering place for major art world figures, celebrities and dignitaries including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and Robert Motherwell. Nesbitt was often classified as a Photorealist artist, but his last series in the 1980s, titled “Impossible Series,” was a grouping of surrealistic landscape paintings and drawings. He was commissioned as the official artist for the NASA space flights of Apollo 9 and Apollo 13, and in 1980 the United States Postal Service honored his work with four stamps based on his floral paintings. In 1989 he made waves in the artistic community by threatening to revoke a bequest to the Corcoran Museum in his will if they canceled an exhibition of Robert Mapplethorpe’s works due to Congressional pressure over its sexually suggestive content. Nesbitt was found dead in his New York studio on July 8th, 1993, and despite various theories about the cause of his young death police have stated he died of natural causes. His work is displayed in museums around the world, including the Smithsonian Institute, the Vatican Museums in Rome, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, and Te Papa in Wellington, New Zealand. 

Great.