Mylo Quam oil on canvas "Two Riders" dated November 1990.
Painting is 38 x 54 inches.
Mylo Quam (American, North Dakota and Woodstock, NY, 1941–1996) was a self-taught American painter, draughtsman, and actor who lived and worked in the Woodstock, New York area for over thirty years.
Quam had a successful acting career on television and on and off-Broadway in his twenties, including a leading role in The Royal Hunt of the Sun alongside stage legends Jessica Tandy, Katharine Hepburn, and Christopher Plummer. He left the stage in the late 1960s to focus entirely on visual art.
From 1965 until his death in 1996, he lived in the Woodstock NY area with his partner of 32 years, actor and sculptor Miles Baron.
Quam studied Classics at Brandies, Boston, and New York Universities. He designed sets and costumes for theatre companies including the Actor's Playhouse in NYC, and for ballets including the Lucas Hoving Ballet Company and the Opera Municipal de Marseilles, France.
He also created illustrations for a 1970 Grove Press edition of The Story of O and a 1975 series of lithographs inspired by Arthur Rimbaud's poem Une Saison En Enfer (A Season in Hell).
His provocative, visually dense figural works are often compared to Renaissance art and are known for being humorous, sometimes disturbing, erotically and homo-erotically charged. His father was a mortician which influenced his mysterious perceptions and portrayal of the human body. Quam’s work drew heavily from Shakespeare, mythology, eastern and western religions, pop culture, politics, and the occult.
Quam was a prolific and highly successful late 20th Century artist with pieces that have been shown in prominent galleries in New York City, San Francisco, Key West and Woodstock (including the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum). He was also one of four artists selected to represent the United States in La Bienalle di Venezia, Italia of 1986, the oldest art festival in the world. His last exhibitions were at the prestigious CFM Gallery, NYC in 1995 and 1996.
Painting is in a thin gold metal frame. Painting is in excellent condition.