Collection: John Little - Vintage Art for Sale

John Little was an important American Abstract Expressionist painter whose career bridged the worlds of fine art and modern design. Born in Jones Mill, Alabama, in 1907, Little studied at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy from 1924 to 1927 before relocating to New York City, where he pursued operatic vocal training while simultaneously establishing what became a highly successful textile and wallpaper design company, the John Little Studio. By the mid-1930s, the company had earned widespread recognition for its innovative designs that combined modern aesthetics with affordability.

Little formally returned to painting in 1933, studying at the Art Students League under the influential German artist George Grosz. His early paintings reflected the structural influence of Cézanne, focusing primarily on landscapes. A pivotal shift occurred in 1937 when Little began studying with Hans Hofmann in both New York and Provincetown. Hofmann’s theories on color, spatial tension, and abstraction profoundly impacted Little’s artistic direction and introduced him to many of the artists who would shape the New York School, including Lee Krasner, George McNeil, Gerome Kamrowski, Giorgio Cavallon, and Perle Fine.

During World War II, Little served in the United States Navy as an aerial photographer. After the war he returned to New York and temporarily lived in Hofmann’s 8th Street studio, where his neighbors included Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock. The paintings of the late 1940s reveal intense experimentation and a growing engagement with Surrealist automatism, Picasso, and Hofmann’s teachings. In 1946 Little received his first solo exhibition at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, followed by an important one-man exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1948.

By the early 1950s, Little had fully embraced the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionism, abandoning the flatter linear compositions of the previous decade in favor of richly textured surfaces and heavily worked paint. During this period he also created assemblages and constructions using driftwood and found beach materials. In 1951 he moved permanently to East Hampton, where he developed a close friendship with Jackson Pollock; the two artists exhibited together at Guild Hall in 1955. In 1957 Little helped found the Signa Gallery, which became an important East Hampton venue supporting the expanding New York avant-garde.

Little continued to exhibit actively throughout his career, with solo exhibitions at institutions and galleries including the Betty Parsons Gallery, Bertha Schaefer Gallery, Worth Ryder Gallery at the University of California, Berkeley, A.M. Sachs Gallery, and a major retrospective at the Guild Hall Museum in 1982. His work was exhibited internationally in Europe, Japan, and throughout the United States.

Today, John Little’s paintings are included in numerous important public and private collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guild Hall Museum, Ball State University Museum of Art, and Galerie Beyeler. He is remembered as a significant figure within the second generation of Abstract Expressionists and for his contributions to both modern American painting and mid-century design.