Aleen Aked (Canadian/Florida, 1907-2003) , "By the Open Window", 1938-40, oil on canvas, signed lower left, "Southern States Art League / Witte Memorial Museum / San Antonio, Tex." exhibition labels and plaques with artist, title and dates on backing, 25 in. x 30 in., framed Provenance: Estates of Joyce and Donald Laidlaw, Bluffton, SC. Note: Aleen Aked was born in England in 1907 and immigrated to Canada in 1910. Aked was a close friend of the famed Canadian "Group of Seven" painters and found inspiration and tutelage from Arthur Lismer, Fred Varley and A.Y. Jackson among other noted artists. From 1929 to 1944, she wintered in Sarasota, Florida where she further developed her artistic talents. In the winter of 1935, she attended the Ringling School of Art, and in 1936, she studied privately with the acclaimed American artist, Abbott Fuller Graves. From 1932 to 1939, Aked was a member of the Sarasota Art Association, serving as president in 1942. She also was a member of the Southern States Art League and the Florida Federated Art program. In 1935, Aked won a prize for the best landscape painting at the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, and she acquired another prize there for the most popular oil painting in 1938. In 1940, Aked was the subject of solo exhibitions at the New York City Public Library and the Sarasota Art Association, where her beautiful impressionist renderings of the Florida landscape and its people were greatly admired. The painting offered here combines the best of Aked's work by melding the exterior with the interior in a quiet moment of contemplation framed by the lush foliage of Florida.