1950 Hawaii Koa Framed Ink Drawing Hawaiian Woman Head by Madge Tennent (PeNe

Up for sale from a well known collector in Honolulu this 1950 Hawaii koa wood framed ink drawing that is untitled, depicting a Hawaiian woman head that is signed and dated by the well known artist Madge Tennent (1889-1972).  The condition is described above for more details please check the photos.  

Measurements

Artwork by Sight:  11 inches x 8.25 inches

Frame:  18 inches x 15 inches

More about the artist:

Madge Tennent, born Madeline Cook in Dulwich, England, moved with her family to Cape Town, South Africa when she was five.  At the age of twelve, she entered an art school in Cape Town, and the following year her parents, who recognized and encouraged her talent, moved to Paris to enable Madeline to study there.  In Paris, she studied figure drawing under William Bouguereau, an experience that laid the technical foundation for her later figural drawings and paintings.  She and her family subsequently returned to South Africa, and after her marriage in 1915 to Hugh Cowper Tennent, she relocated to his native New Zealand.  In 1917 they moved to British Samoa where Tennent started her love affair with the Polynesian people.  While on leave in Australia, she studied with Julian Ashton "and learned" she said, "to draw for the very first time.  Julian Ashton founded the Sydney Art School in 1890.  He was an ardent disciple of Impressionist painting and claimed to have executed the first "plein air" landscape in Australia.  In 1923 the Tennents left Samoa to go to England, stopping in Hawai'i.  They were entranced with the islands and decided to stay.

Madge Tennent helped to support her family by taking commissions to paint and draw portraits of children.  A friend's gift of a book on Gauguin set her on an artistic course that lasted fifty years, during which she portrayed Hawaiian women in a style that increasingly became her own.  She was active in Hawai'i from the 1930's to the 1960's.  "The Hawaiians are really to me the most beautiful people in the world: she once said, "no doubt about it - the Hawaiian is a piece of living sculpture".  Using grand swirls of oil Tennent portrayed Hawaiian women as solidly fleshed and majestic - larger than life - capturing in rhythmic forms the very essence of their being.  They are strong, serene and proud.  Her method of working with impasto - applying thick layers of paint to achieve a graceful, perfectly balanced composition - is evident in 

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