# William Horace Littlefield artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/william-horace-littlefield/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T14:49:05.761Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: American
- Movements: Abstract Expressionist style in later work, New Deal-era public art context
- Common media: Painting, Mural painting

## About William Horace Littlefield

William Horace Littlefield (1902–1969), also identified as William H. Littlefield and Bill Littlefield, was an American painter. Public references describe a practice spanning figure studies—particularly male nudes—and, later, large paintings in an Abstract Expressionist idiom. Archival image records also connect him to Federal Art Project and Works Progress Administration mural activity in Massachusetts, including a 1936 work titled The Fisheries and documentation of a mural at Falmouth High School. These strands place his work at the intersection of New Deal-era public art, figurative study, and postwar abstraction. Collectors may therefore encounter his name attached to works that differ significantly in scale, subject, and visual language. The available source pack establishes his basic identity and these broad contexts, but it does not provide a detailed exhibition history, catalogue raisonné, or complete chronology. Individual objects should consequently be assessed through their inscriptions, documentation, physical characteristics, and relationship to securely identified works.

## Common works and media

Available sources point principally to paintings. Collectors may encounter figurative studies, especially male nude subjects; mural-related works or documentation connected with New Deal public-art projects; and larger paintings from Littlefield’s later abstract phase. The archival material also documents The Fisheries, a 1936 public-art subject, and a mural at Falmouth High School. The source pack does not establish a recurring market in prints, sculpture, ceramics, photographs, or numbered editions, so those categories should not be assigned to Littlefield without object-specific evidence.

## Market and appraisal context

Littlefield’s market context should be considered by work type and period. A smaller figurative study, a mural-related work from the New Deal era, and a large later abstraction are not automatically close comparables, even when they share the same artist attribution. Useful appraisal distinctions include medium, dimensions, date, subject, stylistic phase, and any documented relationship to Federal Art Project or Works Progress Administration commissions. Appraisily’s input indicates a substantial auction-directory record count, but the collected source material does not expose item-level lots, realized prices, condition reports, or provenance histories. Valuation should therefore rely on verified object details and genuinely comparable public sales rather than the record count alone. No price trend or future value can be inferred from this source pack.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine public artist-identity research with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. This profile distinguishes verified identity context from market evidence that still requires item-level review.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37999545
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Littlefield
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wm._Littlefield%27s_mural_at_the_Falmouth_High_School_-_DPLA_-_4068b914638b36f9b154764720bca4f1.jpg
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_fisheries_-_DPLA_-_df7496e1b860063577fd7b6ae23f8580.jpg
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/william-horace-littlefield/
- British Museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG35986
- National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.33720.html