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Lot description
Virginia 'Tito' Gay American (St. Louis), 1932-2024 Page Boy Cut Oil on canvas Circa 1965, signed upper left and to verso. Bust length portrait, unframed. Tito attended Washington University where she studied painting under Fred Conway, earning her a Master of Fine Arts. He recognized her potential and urged her to apply to the National Academy School of Fine Arts in New York. She ultimately studied there for six years, learning from Raphael Soyer, Louis Bouche, and Robert Philipp, and twice was awarded the Julius Hallgarten Prize. She returned to St. Louis in the late 1960s. Tito was most accomplished as a portrait painter, and it was the genre that she most appreciated. "It is this ephemeral quality of personality that I have aspired to in my career as an artist." She sought to capture the essence of her sitters, not to recreate their likeness as to imitate a photograph. She started taking portrait commissions around St. Louis, and grew the skill into a business with which she could support herself and her family. She completed portraits for St. Louis University, Washington University, City of St. Louis, Missouri Botanical Garden, and the Missouri Historical Society, among many others. She exhibited nationally with the American Watercolor Society, the American Artists' Professional League and the Audubon Artists, won the Knickerbocker Society award, and was a Distinguished Artist of the St. Louis Artists' Guild, having participated in more than forty juried exhibits. She taught painting at Fontbonne College, the St. Louis Missouri Botanical Garden, and the St. Louis Art Museum.