+ Expand

Artist or Maker: George Tooker (b. 1920)

+ Expand

Description: White Curtain
signed with initials 'G.T' (lower right)
tempera on board
18 x 13 3/4 in. (45.7 x 35 cm.)
Painted in 1951.

+ Expand

Provenance: Nelson A. Rockefeller, New York.
Gift from the above to the present owners.

+ Expand

Published: T.H. Garver, George Tooker, San Francisco, California, 1992, pp. 50, 142, illustrated.

+ Expand

Notes: Property from the Estate of Oscar M. and Zelia P. Ruebhausen

Oscar M. Ruebhausen was the General Counsel for the Office of Scientific Research and Development in Washington, D.C. during WWII. It was in Washington where Mr. Ruebhausen met his future wife, Zelia Peet, who was working for the League of Women Voters. Mrs. Ruebhausen remained active in philanthopy throughout her life, serving on the National Board of Women Voters, a Board Member of the African American Institiute while also chairing their Women's Africa Committee, and was an active member and life trustee of the Board of International House. In 1950, Nelson Rockefeller, appointed by President Truman to chair the International Development Advisory Board, asked Mr. Ruebhausen to be Counsel to the Board. This was the beginning of a professional and personal relationship that would continue until Governor Rockefeller's death in 1979. Beginning in the early 1950s, Governor Rockefeller gave the Ruebhausens eighteen pieces of modern and contemporary art, including the present work, Curtain. Proceeds from the Ruebhausen Collection will go to benefit the Oscar M. Ruebhausen Fund at The Yale Law School.