$3,500. Melville Price, American 1920-1970. In 1946, Kingston, New York native Melville Price returned to New York City after four years living & painting in Woodstock, New York. It was during his Woodstock period from 1942-1946 that Price emerged as an abstract painter of note having met & come to know a number of modern & abstract painters/artists working there including Philip Guston, Raoul Hague, William Baziotes & and young Richard Diebenkorn. By 1948 Price was exhibiting in a number of NYC galleries exhibiting the latest avant garden painters when abstract painting began to make a significant cultural mark in The United States. Between 1948-1952 Price exhibited in New York at Charles Egan Gallery, Bodley Gallery, Peridot Gallery, Iolas Galley and in 1951 was included in the groundbreaking '9th Street Show' which pushed New York into the center of the new Post War art world.