Skip to main content

Charles Beckendorf Art

American, 1930-1996

Charles Beckendorf, during the 1960s, was thinking about launching his first series of prints, the public was not as educated in art as they are today. Beckendorf knew that his subject matter would have to appeal to the majority. He also knew that his products had to be priced so that anyone could afford to purchase what he created. Beckendorf felt that if people started buying inexpensive prints and visiting art galleries, they would develop a taste for art and in time would become serious art buyers. He was right…. People have developed a taste for quality art. Beckendorf grew up in Mathis, Texas, where he had the opportunity to spend hours on large ranches. Generous land owners gave him permission to wander freely over their ranches and he observed creatures in their natural surroundings. Beckendorf developed a lifelong love of nature, whether it be in the tiniest of flowers or the largest of animals. It was at this time that he became a true naturalist. Art classes were not offered in the Mathis schools, and most of Charles’ teachers were annoyed with his innate interest in drawing. Beckendorf was told that he would never amount to anything if he just sat around the drawing. After graduating from high school in 1948, Beckendorf enrolled in the University of Corpus Christi and delightfully discovered that he could actually major in art. He later attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos (now Texas State University). It was there that he met his future wife, Dawn Laurence. After a year in San Marcos, Beckendorf decided to enlist in the U.S. Air Force and serve during the Korean War Conflict. Beckendorf and Dawn were married in 1951. A few years later- after Beckendorf left the Air Force- they moved to Austin, and he enrolled in the University of Texas where he earned a Fine Arts Degree. For several years, Beckendorf worked as a technical illustrator. He then did advertising art and illustrations for many companies including Lone Star Beer and Texas Game and Fish Magazine. In the early 1960s, Beckendorf and Dawn moved their family- which now included five children- to Houston. Beckendorf did a series of pen and ink prints as a trial to see if there would be an interest and to see if anyone would buy them. There was indeed interest and they sold very well. In 1965, the Beckendorfs moved to the Texas Hill Country near Fredericksburg. Beckendorf released his second series of prints which were also from pen and ink drawings of animals. He sold these prints wholesale to different businesses- sporting goods stores, restaurants, icehouses, art galleries- throughout the state of Texas. Beckendorf then individually watercolor 100 of each of the 13 subjects. Since these hand watercolor prints sold out quickly, he realized there would probably be a demand for full-color reproductions of paintings. Since clients from around the state traveled to Beckendorf’s residence outside of Fredericksburg to purchase his prints and paintings, he thought perhaps he should have a gallery in town. Beckendorf said, “Any fool artist who opens an art gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas, should open on April Fool’s Day.” On April 1, 1971, Beckendorf and Dawn opened their first gallery. From the very first black and white prints of 1964 through April of 1996- when Beckendorf passed away- he painted thousands of originals in all mediums, produced over 1500 different prints, sculpted several bronzes and created six books. The legacy of Charles Beckendorf lives on in his art.

to
2
2
2
1
1
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
2
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2
6,886
3,210
2,514
1,217
2
Artist: Charles Beckendorf
Naturalistic Modern Texas Bobcat Black and White Animal Wildlife Print
By Charles Beckendorf
Located in Houston, TX
A signed and numbered print of a bobcat from Texas artist Charles Beckendorf. Charles did the original in pencil for this series. The print is displayed in a chrome frame and white m...
Category

1960s Naturalistic Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Black and White, Paper

Naturalistic Texas Black Tailed Prairie Dog Black and White Animal Print
By Charles Beckendorf
Located in Houston, TX
A signed and numbered print of two prairie dogs from Texas artist Charles Beckendorf. Charles did the original in pencil for this series. The print is displayed in a chrome frame an...
Category

1960s Naturalistic Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Black and White, Paper

Related Items
Portrait de Priscilla Le Petit Chien
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in New York, NY
Mickalene Thomas Portrait de Priscilla Le Petit Chien, 2012 Pigment print on 100% cotton rag paper Edition 148/150 Frame included with official COA affixed to the back Hand numbered from the edition of only 150 with plate signed official Certificate of Authenticity on the verso of the frame. This exquisite print, published in 2012, is based on an original collage made by the artist of her long-haired miniature dachshund (a gift from fellow artist Kehinde Wiley), Priscilla. Highly acclaimed contemporary art star Mickalene Thomas created this collage specifically for children- though adults will appreciate it as well - as will pet lovers! Portrait de Priscilla Petit Chien features Priscilla, Thomas' own dog who frequently attends the artist's photoshoots. This limited edition archival pigment print is printed on cotton rag paper and accompanied by a plate (facsimile) signed and uniquely hand numbered certificate of authenticity. It is matted and comes in a 1"-deep wooden frame with Plexiglas®. Wired for hanging. Edition of 150. This professionally framed limited edition pigment print on 100% cotton rag paper is based on an original collage made by the artist of her long-haired miniature dachshund (a gift from fellow artist Kehinde Wiley), Priscilla. The print is matted and comes in a white wooden frame (16" x 19" x 1") with Plexiglas, wired for hanging. Dimensions: 11" x 14" sheet, 9-1/4" x 12" image. Mickalene Thomas Biography: Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971, Camden, NJ; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power. Blurring the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary, Thomas constructs complex portraits, landscapes, and interiors in order to examine how identity, gender, and sense of self are informed by the ways women are represented in art and popular culture. Rhinestones—the artist’s signature material and a symbol of femininity—serve as an added layer of meaning and a metaphor of artifice. Thomas uses rhinestones to shade and accentuate specific elements of each painting, while subtly confronting our assumptions about what is feminine and what defines women. Thomas has drawn inspiration from multiple artistic periods and cultural influences throughout Western art history, particularly the early modernists such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edouard Manet, and Romare Bearden. She models her figures on the classic poses and abstract settings popularized by these modern masters as a way to reclaim agency for women who have been presented as objects to be desired or subjugated. Though Thomas draws from a number of time periods and genres, her use of pattern and domestic spaces often references various periods throughout the 1960s to the 1980s. This was a time of immense social and political conflict, change, and transformation—the civil rights movement, the black is beautiful movement, and the second wave of feminism—during which many women, particularly African-Americans, rejected and redefined traditional standards of beauty. Thomas received a BFA from the Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, in 2000 and an MFA from Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT, in 2002. Solo exhibitions of her work have been organized at The Dayton Art Institute, OH (forthcoming, 2018); Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, WA (forthcoming, 2018); Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA (forthcoming, 2018); Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA (forthcoming, 2017); Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA (2017); Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA (2017); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2016); Aspen Art Museum, CO (2016); Aperture Foundation, New York (2016); George Eastman Museum, Rochester, NY (2014); Brooklyn Museum, New York (2012-13); Santa Monica Museum of Art (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2012); Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2011); and La Conservera Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Ceuti, Spain (2009). Select group exhibitions featuring her work include Third Space / Shifting Conversations About Contemporary Art, Birmingham Museum of Art, AL (2017); Constructing Identity: Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African-American Art, Portland Art Museum, ME (2017); The Color Line: African American Artists and the Civil Rights in the United States, Musée du quai Branly, Paris (2016); SHE: International Women Artists, Long Museum, Shanghai (2016); No Man’s Land: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, traveled to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC (2015); 30 Americans, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2011), which has traveled extensively around the United States (2011-2017, ongoing); and Americans Now, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC (2010). Thomas’ work is in numerous international public and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Art Institute of Chicago; MoMA PS1, New York; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Yale University Art Collection, New Haven, CT; and Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo. Thomas has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the USA Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz...
Category

2010s Realist Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Digital Pigment, Permanent Marker, Laid Paper

THE BANNISTER
By Will Barnet
Located in Aventura, FL
Lithograph on arches paper. Hand signed, dated titled and numbered in pencil by the artist. From the deluxe edition of 125. Image size 32 x 25 inches. Sheet size 36 x 26.5 inches. ...
Category

1980s Contemporary Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

THE BANNISTER
No Reserve
H 45 in W 35.5 in D 1 in
Equipoise
Located in Mount Vernon, NY
Lithograph by C.W. Anderson from 1948 folio edition, All Thoroughbreds. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1948. Nebraskan born Clarence William Anderson...
Category

20th Century Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Lithograph

Original "The Greatest Show on Earth" US 1 -sheet vintage movie poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original "The Greatest Shown on Earth" US 1-sheet vintage movie poster, linen backed. 1952. Now over 70 years old! Restored original theater fold marks. A- condition. Bright and vibrant colors. Linen backed original 1952 one sheet U.S. Movie poster by Cecil B. DeMille: The Greatest Show on Earth. Starring Betty Hutton, Cornel Wilde, Charlton Heston, Dorothy Lamour, James Stewart, Gloria Grahame, Henry Wilcoxon, Lyle Bettger, Lawrence Tierney, and Emmett Kelly...
Category

1950s American Realist Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Offset

First Try
Located in Mount Vernon, NY
Lithograph by C.W. Anderson from 1948 folio edition, All Thoroughbreds. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1948. Nebraskan born Clarence William Anderson...
Category

20th Century Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Lithograph

Vintage Signed and Numbered Limited Edition Serigraph "Child Reading"
By Will Barnet
Located in Buffalo, NY
Vintage hand signed serigraph. Framed. Image size, 10.5L x 19.75H.
Category

1970s Modern Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Going to the Post
Located in Mount Vernon, NY
Lithograph by C.W. Anderson from 1948 folio edition, All Thoroughbreds. Published by Harper & Brothers, New York, 1948. Nebraskan born Clarence William Anderson...
Category

20th Century Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Lithograph

White-throated Capuchin Monkey: Framed Audebert 18th C. Hand-colored Engraving
Located in Alamo, CA
This is a framed 18th century folio-sized colored stipple engraving with hand-finishing entitled "Le Sai a gorge blanche. Variete A. Buff. Simia capucina. v.a.", which was drawn and engraved by Jean Baptiste Audebert...
Category

Late 18th Century Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Engraving

M016-Figurative, Street art, Pop art, Modern, Contemporary, Abstract Mickey Mous
By Francisco Nicolás
Located in London, London
Mickey Mouse, 2019 Edition of 25 Digital pigment print Ultrachrome ink on Fabriano Rosaspina paper. Hand signed by the artist, and certificate of authenticity, (Unframed) His work...
Category

2010s Pop Art Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Archival Pigment

Girl with Foxes
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Mount Vernon, NY
This piece is of special interest because I like to think it is an illustration of his father's literary work. Raphael Soyer's father is the noted Hebrew scholar Abraham Soyer, autho...
Category

20th Century Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Etching

Leonardo Da Vinci's Dog, Limited Edition Print, Animal Portrait
By Mychael Barratt
Located in Deddington, GB
Leonardo da Vinci’s Dog by Mychael Barratt [2021] limited_edition Silkscreen print on paper Edition number 100 Image size: H:21.5 cm x W:21.5 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Silk, Paper, Screen

Antique Rooster Woodblock Print circa 1910 by Prosper Alphonse Isaac
Located in SANTA FE, NM
Antique Rooster Portrait Prosper Alphonse Isaac (France, 1858-1924) Woodblock Print circa 1910 9 x 7 1/8 (15 1/4 x 17 frame) inches The excellent book "The Great Wave: The Influence of Japanese Woodcuts on French Prints" which was an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1974, recounts the phenomenal "cult of Japan" in late nineteenth-century France and reveals through direct comparisons its particular impact on the graphic work of Manet, Degas, Cassatt, Bonnard, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Gauguin. This print directly relates to the discovery of Japanese art most notably through the woodblock prints which found their way to the West oftentimes as stuffing or packing materials from consumer goods that were being imported to the West at the end of the 19th century. Prosper-Alphonse Isaac was born in a well-to-do family. This gave him the means not only of leaving his native Calais to pursue a career as an artist in Paris, but also the means to acquire art. Isaac was particularly drawn to Japanese arts, which he collected avidly. Many of the objects he bought were eventually given to museums. As a printmaker Isaac started drawing seascapes in dry point, but eventually moved on to become one of only a handful of artists versed in color woodcut techniques in France. His compositions, generally small in scale, are heavily influenced by the arts of Japan. He printed small editions of these works. Aside from this artistic activity, Isaac was also an active textile decorator. "This mark, which he borrows from Hokusaï and Totoya Hokkeï...
Category

1910s Art Nouveau Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Ink, Laid Paper

Previously Available Items
"Indian Warriors" Native American War Dance
By Charles Beckendorf
Located in San Antonio, TX
Charles Beckendorf (1930 - 1996) Texas Artist Image Size: 20 x 16 Frame Size: 24 x 20 Medium: Oil Indian Warriors Biography Charles Beckendorf (1930 - 1996) During the 1960's, when Charles Beckendorf was thinking about launching his first series of prints, the public was not as educated in art as they are today. Charles knew that his subject matter would have to appeal to the majority. He also knew that his products had to be priced so that anyone could afford to purchase what he created. He felt that if people started buying inexpensive prints and visiting art galleries, they would develop a taste for art, and in time would become serious art buyers. He was right… People have developed a taste for quality art. Charles grew up in Mathis, Texas, where he had the opportunity to spend hours on large ranches. Generous land owners gave him permission to wander freely over their ranches and he observed creatures in their natural surroundings. He developed a lifelong love of nature, whether it be in the tiniest of flowers or the largest of animals. It was at this time that he became a true naturalist. Art classes were not offered in the Mathis schools, and most of Charles’ teachers were annoyed with his innate interest in drawing. He was told that he “would never amount to anything” if he just sat around drawing. After graduating from high school in 1948, he enrolled in the University of Corpus Christi and delightfully discovered that he could actually major in art! He later attended Southwest Texas State Teachers College in San Marcos (now Texas State University). It was there that he met his future wife, Dawn Laurence. After a year in San Marcos, Charles decided to enlist in the U.S. Air Force and serve during the Korean War Conflict. Charles and Dawn were married in 1951. A few years later- after Charles left the Air Force- they moved to Austin, and Charles enrolled in the University of Texas where he earned a Fine Arts Degree. For several years Charles worked as a technical illustrator. He then did advertising art and illustrations for many companies including Lone Star...
Category

1960s Impressionist Charles Beckendorf Art

Materials

Oil

Charles Beckendorf art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Charles Beckendorf art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Charles Beckendorf in paper and more. Not every interior allows for large Charles Beckendorf art, so small editions measuring 18 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Francois Nicolas Martinet, Joseph Webster Golinkin, and William Curtis. Charles Beckendorf art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $350 and tops out at $350, while the average work can sell for $350.

Artists Similar to Charles Beckendorf

Recently Viewed

View All