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Molly Wheeler Wood was born in 1913 in Ambler, Pennsylvania. She studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art and was a member of the Philadelphia Art Alliance and the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. In 1935 she married Henry C. Pitz (1895-1976), a well-known Philadelphia artist, writer, and educator. Pitz exhibited at the Philadelphia Sketch Club's Annual Small Oil Exhibition from 1935-1945, winning a prize at the 1935 show. She also exhibited at the Woodmere Art Gallery from 1943-46, and taught at the Plymouth Meeting Friends' School near Philadelphia.
Pitz's painting, A Lime Kiln (Near Philadelphia), depicts a lime kiln as seen at night. The location given is the town of Williams, presumably the present-day Williams Station, located a few miles east of Norristown. Rendered in rich, dark tones of green, burgundy, blue and orange, A Lime Kiln has an angularity in its simplified geometric forms that is reminiscent of the Precisionist work of Charles Sheeler. Unlike the smoothness of Sheeler's work, however, Pitz's brushwork is bold and varies from form to form. The rocky foreground, the railroad boxcars and the various elements that make up the structure of the lime kiln have a faceted effect that show an awareness of modernism and perhaps some knowledge of cubism. Rays of light radiate from different areas of the building; some rays illuminating portions of the kiln, others shining out into the dark, cloudy sky.
Sources:
"Henry C. Pitz," American Artist, vol. 41, February 1977, p. 13. Falk, Peter Hastings (edit.). Who Was Who In American Art. Madison, CT: Sound View Press, 1985.
This document copyright © 1996, Eric John Schruers