Theodore Appleby (1923-1985)

Theodore Franklin (“Ted”)  Appleby, Jr. was born January 28, 1923 in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a very prominent family in Monmouth County. He attended the Pauling School in New York and studied at the atelier of John Corneal.

On December 12, 1942, Appleby enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, subsequently seeing action in the Marshall Islands. Upon the conclusion of the war, he was stationed for a year in Yokohama, Japan, where he studied local engraving techniques.

In 1947, after returning home, Appleby moved to Mexico for a year to study mural painting in San Miguel de Allende. Following his sojourn in Mexico, Appleby briefly returned home to the U.S. before ultimately relocating to Paris. There, he joined a lively community of expatriate American artists involved with what would come to be known as the “School of Paris.” Appleby befriended fellow Americans Sam Francis and Jackson Pollock, exhibiting extensively throughout France with the former. He also regularly visited the atelier of Fernand Léger, and was represented  in the "Salon de Réalités Nouvelles" and the “Salon d’Automne” during the 1950s and 60s.

From 1955 to 1961, Appleby participated in group exhibitions in Chicago, Leverkusen (Germany), Lisbon, London, and Paris. He also had three notable solo exhibitions during this period: Studio Facchetti, Paris (1956); Martha Jackson Gallery, New York (1957); and the American Cultural Center, Paris (1959). In 1957, Appleby’s work was presented at the 62nd American Exposition of Painters and Sculptors at the Chicago Art Institute, where he was awarded the Norman Wait Harris Bronze Medal and Prize.

Answering the famed artist André Lhote’s call to help save the village of Alba-la-Romaine in the Ardèche, Appleby and his wife - the artist Hope Manchester - purchased a home in the village in 1950, ultimately settling there until their deaths.

Source: Taylor | Graham Gallery