Untitled

Staffel uses vertical lines in purple to suggest forms that meld into indefinable spaces, and she uses color—muted yellows, ochre, vibrant blues, and saturated greens—to create transitions in these mysterious spaces. It is remarkable that the artist, inspired by French Surrealism, automatic painting, and surrealist landscape, arrived at an entirely gestural abstract landscape in the early 1940s. This work is one that Frannie Maguire particularly enjoyed when she saw it on view at Woodmere.   

At age seventeen, Staffel moved from Brooklyn to Philadelphia to study at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where she took classes in painting, figure drawing, lithography, and art history. Her teachers included Philadelphia artists Earl Horter and Franklin Watkins.

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