Depicts a skeletal hand over a blooming rose, with three geometric shading studies below them. Titled "Hand Over Rose" and numbered 11/20 in pencil bottom left. Signed and dated 1964 in pencil bottom right. "64-371 TSL $28" written in pencil at the bottom edge middle. 

Overall Size: 31 1/4 x 25 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 24 x 17 1/2 in. 

Lowell Blair Nesbitt was born on October 4th, 1933, in Towson, Maryland, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in 1955 before further honing his skills in stained glass and printmaking during a fellowship at the Royal College of Art in London in 1956. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, Nesbitt settled in Washington, D.C., working as a night watchman at The Phillips Collection while developing his style, and held his first solo exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art in 1958. In 1964, after acclaim from a Corcoran Gallery of Art show, he moved permanently to New York City to pursue art full-time, and was encouraged by Robert Indiana to transition from abstraction to realism, becoming renowned for his oversized botanical works often compared to Georgia O’Keeffe. In 1976 he moved into a sprawling studio with an indoor pool, four-story atrium, and rooftop entertainment space, hosting figures like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, and Robert Motherwell. He was commissioned as the official artist for NASA’s Apollo 9 and 13 missions, and in 1980 the U.S. Postal Service issued four stamps based on his floral paintings. Nesbitt was found dead in his New York studio on July 8th, 1993, reportedly of natural causes, and his work is still displayed in prominent institutions worldwide, including the Smithsonian, the Vatican Museums, the Israel Museum, and Te Papa in New Zealand.

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