Aline Rhonie
Portrait of a Gambler, Reno, Nevada, 1930
Oil on board
22 x 30 inches
With Rhonie's signature and date bottom right.
With Rhonie's signature and date bottom right.
An intriguing Ashcan-style painting, this portrait of a dapper Black gambler seated at a card table, with a cocktail in his hand and a spicy little painting behind him, was...
An intriguing Ashcan-style painting, this portrait of a dapper Black gambler seated at a card table, with a cocktail in his hand and a spicy little painting behind him, was painted in 1930 by the iconoclastic artist and aviator Aline Rhonie while she was living in Reno, NV, awaiting a divorce.
In 1909, Aline Rhonie was born into the prominent Hofheimer family of York Township, PA. As a teenager, she took art classes from John Sloan and attended the Dalton School before marrying a wealthy New Yorker named Richard Bemberger in 1926, when she was just seventeen. Around this time, Rhonie became interested in aeronautics after a single-engine airplane crashed on her grandfather’s lavish estate (blighting the landscape work which had been completed by Frederick Olmstead).
Two years later, Rhonie relocated to Nevada so that she could secure a divorce, which she did in 1930. A year later she returned to the East Coast, training at Roosevelt field and earning her transport licence when she was just 21. In 1934, she became the first woman to make a round-trip solo flight from New York to Mexico City. While in Mexico, she befriended Diego Rivera and showed him the tempera technique which she had learned from John Sloan. Rivera, in return, taught her fresco mural painting.
When she returned to the US, she spent the next four years completing artwork for which she is best remembered - a 126-foot fresco titled “The Pre-Lindbergh Era of Aviation on Long Island.” Painted inside Hangar F at Roosevelt Field, the work depicts 600 different pilots and 268 types of aircraft, telling the story of Long Island’s aviation history from 1909 to 1927. In 1958, the mural was sent to storage when the hangar was set to be demolished. It eventually made its way to Vaughn College in Astoria and in March of 2025 it was donated to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, L.I.
During the second World War, Rhonie was one of the nine original members of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. She passed away in Florida in 1963.
Some paint loss around the subject's head and face, otherwise good condition.
In 1909, Aline Rhonie was born into the prominent Hofheimer family of York Township, PA. As a teenager, she took art classes from John Sloan and attended the Dalton School before marrying a wealthy New Yorker named Richard Bemberger in 1926, when she was just seventeen. Around this time, Rhonie became interested in aeronautics after a single-engine airplane crashed on her grandfather’s lavish estate (blighting the landscape work which had been completed by Frederick Olmstead).
Two years later, Rhonie relocated to Nevada so that she could secure a divorce, which she did in 1930. A year later she returned to the East Coast, training at Roosevelt field and earning her transport licence when she was just 21. In 1934, she became the first woman to make a round-trip solo flight from New York to Mexico City. While in Mexico, she befriended Diego Rivera and showed him the tempera technique which she had learned from John Sloan. Rivera, in return, taught her fresco mural painting.
When she returned to the US, she spent the next four years completing artwork for which she is best remembered - a 126-foot fresco titled “The Pre-Lindbergh Era of Aviation on Long Island.” Painted inside Hangar F at Roosevelt Field, the work depicts 600 different pilots and 268 types of aircraft, telling the story of Long Island’s aviation history from 1909 to 1927. In 1958, the mural was sent to storage when the hangar was set to be demolished. It eventually made its way to Vaughn College in Astoria and in March of 2025 it was donated to the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, L.I.
During the second World War, Rhonie was one of the nine original members of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron. She passed away in Florida in 1963.
Some paint loss around the subject's head and face, otherwise good condition.