Description:

Theora Hamblett
American/Mississippi, 1895-1977
"Sardis Lake"
oil on canvas
1965, signed and dated lower right, "A.W.C. Inc., Brooklyn, New York" framer's label on reverse of frame, framed.

Note: Renowned for her self-taught painting style, Theora Hamblett became one of Mississippi's most celebrated and distinguished artists. Hamblett began her professional career later in life at the age of fifty-five, eschewing the abstract style popular at the time in favor of subjects more personal. Over the ensuing twenty-two years, she developed an extraordinary oeuvre that is as unique as it is powerful. Many of Hamblett's paintings concentrated on her childhood memories, especially of the chicken farm in Paris, Mississippi where she spent her childhood. In nearly all her landscape paintings, she included animals or people, with the belief that those additions gave life to the scenes. After an accident which broke her hip and required surgery in 1954, Hamblett began to paint her dreams and visions, many with religious themes and elements. The same year, New York gallery owner and famous collector, Betty Parsons, discovered Hamblett's work and subsequently one of her paintings was included in a 1955 show of new acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art.

Hamblett's paintings have two main hallmarks that set them apart – pattern and color. Almost obsessively flat areas of color offset by the equally flat subjects are in dramatic contrast to her distinctive and highly patterned trees. The effect of the foliage evokes movement, as each leaf is individually painted resulting in layers of color. Hamblett was a lifelong resident of Lafayette County in Mississippi, and upon her death in 1977, she willed most of her collection of paintings to the University of Mississippi, making them rare to the market today.

The noteworthy painting offered here entitled "Sardis Lake" from 1965 is a masterful example of Hamblett's characteristic brushwork and deft utilization of color. Sardis Lake is a reservoir on the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi created by Sardis Dam which was constructed between 1938 and 1942. The lake is popular with anglers and known for its groves of bald cypress trees. The landscape around the lake was a source of inspiration for Hamblett as she captured the scene at least twice, in this large work from 1965 and a smaller one with the same distinctive cypress trees dated 1966, which was recently donated to the University of Mississippi Foundation. The sharply, curved shoreline, tilted towering trees, and off-kilter boat add to the dynamism of the composition and frame the small fisherwoman dressed in blue within the scene. With her innovative use of scale, perspective and color choice, Hamblett perfectly captures both the quiet, tranquil feeling of a day fishing alone on the lake and the vibrancy and energy of nature. She transforms a classic Mississippi landscape with her modern, fresh approach in a way that feels at once both personal and universal.

  • Dimensions: 24 x 36 in. (61 x 91.4 cm.), Frame: 33 x 45 x 1 3/4 in. (83.8 x 114.3 x 4.4 cm.)
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Condition: No signs of past restoration; light surface dirt; craquelure pattern visible throughout, particularly in darker paint colors and areas of thickest impasto; very few light scattered marks and accretions; areas of light brown discoloration along edges under frame rabbet, particularly upper and right edges, likely from contact with frame; frame has marks, nicks and abrasions with slight separation in corners; toning and light foxing of linen liner with slight separation in corners of liner.

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November 21, 2025 11:00 AM CST
New Orleans, LA, US

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