A precisionist and surrealist painter, especially noted for nocturnes, George Ault had the ability to depict lonely, everyday beauty of the world in a moment of absolute stillness. He also experimented with more traditional styles of realism, but was relatively untouched by modernist abstraction. His paintings were based on what he saw around him, many of them architectural subjects, and rendered in a quietly controlled manner.

He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and in 1899 moved to London with his family and attended the Slade School and St. John's Wood Art School. He traveled extensively on the Continent, which exposed him to avant-garde art movements. In 1911, he returned to the United States, and by...