“Space Odyssey”. Framed oil on canvas signed by American artist, John Little (1907-1984) and dated 1970. Titled on verso. Gilt-wood faced artist frame.

Little, who attended the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy and worked under George Grosz at the Art Students League, began to seriously paint abstraction after studying with Hans Hofmann, through whom he also became a close friend of Lee Krasner and Jackson Pollock. While Little’s early style had a linear quality inspired by Surrealist automatism, his later works featured thick impasto and gestural brushstrokes. He explained: “I was trying to get away from the drawing, letting form and color carry the idea rather than the line.”