William Sommer

Girl in Profile

c. 1930

Interior Scene with Figures Ink and watercolor on paper, c. 1930's Signed with the Estate stamp lower center Condition: Loss upper right corner; two small tears lower margin Colors very fresh and vibrant Provenance: Jem Hom Gallery, Washington, D.C. Martin Dimanond Fine Arts, NYC (?) Louis Schanker (1903–1981)[1] was an American abstract artist. "He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Sam, a tailor, and Fannie Schanker, were of Romanian descent.[2] He had five siblings.[3] At an early age he had an interest in both art and music He took art courses at Cooper Union, The Educational Alliance and The Art Students League with Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Milton Avery amongst others. During this time he shared a coldwater studio with the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross and Adolph Gottlieb. In 1920 he traveled across the country. He lived the hobo life, joined the Sparks and then Barnum and Bailey circuses, later working as a thresher in the wheat fields of the Great Plains. There are elements in his works such as the circus murals...

Signed lower right Provenance: Joseph M. Erdelac, Cleveland, OH Possibly deaccessed from the Columbus Museum of Art THOMAS FRENCH FINE ART, LLC Stephen Longstreet (1907-2002) A...

Wire Haired Girl and Cat Pen and ink with watercolor, c. 1930 Signed with the Estate stamp "B" Provenance: Estate of the Artist By d...

Head of a Young Woman with Blond Hair Watercolor on paper mounted on rag paper support, c. 1930 Signed with the Estate Stamp B Provenance: Estate of the Artist ...

Watercolor on paper Most probably related to the artist's creation of images surrounding Haggadah (Passover) which he started in 1930 and finished with the publication of his book in...

Chain Gang Music Watercolor on paper, dated '39, but created in the 1970's Signed "Longstreet" lower left corner Titled and annotated "George - '39" in pencil at top of sheet Provenance: Acquired from the artist Joseph M. Erdelac, friend and patron of the artist Born Henri Weiner (sometimes spelled Wiener), the artist tried alternate names and personae including Paul Haggard, Thomas Burton, and David Ormsbee before settling on the name Stephen Longstreet in 1939. Longstreet dates his art based on the period he means to represent, not the actual date of execution. Stephen Longstreet (1907-2002) The artist’s own grandchildren attempt to fathom the real life and nature of Stephen Longstreet, prolific author, artist, screenplay writer, and jazz aficionado. Born Chauncy Weiner (sometimes spelled Wiener) in New York City in 1907, Longstreet reinvented himself on a regular basis. Changing his name first to “Henry,” then “Henri,” he started his career as a commercial artist for a department store. In various public biographies he claimed to have studied in New York, London, and Paris, and said he was a student of cartoonist Ralph Barton...

Two Dueñas. c. 1960. Watercolor and gouache. 13 x 17. Signed and annotated 'SPAIN' lower right. Housed in a 21 x 25-inch black wood frame. Donn Russell is one of Nantucket Island's...

Lighthearted Illustration of Outdoor Pursuits This one of a fisherman signed "W. Steig" Provenance: from Mrs. Joseph B. Ryan, Commissioned by Joe Ryan for the bar at his ski resort, Mount Tremblant Lodge, in 1938. Mont Tremblant, P.Q., Canada Watercolor and ink on illustration board, sights sizes 8 1/2 x 16 1/2 in., framed. In 1938 Joe Ryan, described as a millionaire from Philadelphia, bushwhacked his way to the summit of Mont Tremblant and was inspired to create a world class ski resort at the site. In 1939 he opened the Mont Tremblant Lodge, which remains part of the Pedestrian Village today. This original illustration is on Whatman Illustration board. the board measures 14 X 22 inches. label from McClees Galleries, Philadelphia, on the frame backing paper. William Steig, 1907 – 2003 was an American cartoonist, sculptor, and, in his later life, an illustrator and writer of children's books. Best known for the picture books Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Abel's Island, and Doctor De Soto, he was also the creator of Shrek!, which inspired the film series of the same name. He was the U.S. nominee for both of the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Awards, as a children's book illustrator in 1982 and a writer in 1988. Steig was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1907, and grew up in the Bronx. His parents were Polish-Jewish immigrants from Austria, both socialists. His father, Joseph Steig, was a house painter, and his mother, Laura Ebel Steig, was a seamstress who encouraged his artistic leanings. As a child, he dabbled in painting and was an avid reader of literature. Among other works, he was said to have been especially fascinated by Pinocchio.He graduated from Townsend Harris High School at 15 but never completed college, though he attended three, spending two years at City College of New York, three years at the National Academy of Design and a mere five days at the Yale School of Fine Arts before dropping out of each. Hailed as the "King of Cartoons" Steig began drawing illustrations and cartoons for The New Yorker in 1930, producing more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers for the magazine. Steig, later, when he was 61, began writing children's books. In 1968, he wrote his first children's book. He excelled here as well, and his third book, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969), won the Caldecott Medal. He went on to write more than 30 children's books, including the Doctor DeSoto series, and he continued to write into his nineties. Among his other well-known works, the picture book Shrek! (1990) formed the basis for the DreamWorks Animation film Shrek (2001). After the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, Steig became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel. Along with Maurice Sendak, Saul Steinberg, Ludwig Bemelmans and Laurent de Brunhofff his is one of those rare cartoonist whose works form part of our collective cultural heritage. In 1984, Steig's film adaptation of Doctor DeSoto directed by Michael Sporn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. As one of the most admired cartoonists of all time, Steig spent seven decades drawing for the New Yorker magazine. He touched generations of readers with his tongue–in–cheek pen–and–ink drawings, which often expressed states of mind like shame, embarrassment or anger. Later in life, Steig turned to children's books, working as both a writer and illustrator. Steig's children's books were also wildly popular because of the crazy, complicated language he used—words like lunatic, palsied, sequestration, and cleave. Kids love the sound of those words even if they do not quite understand the meaning. Steig's descriptions were also clever. He once described a beached whale as "breaded with sand." Throughout the course of his career, Steig compiled his cartoons and drawings into books. Some of them were published first in the New Yorker. Others were deemed too dark to be printed there. Most of these collections centered on the cold, dark psychoanalytical truth about relationships. They featured husbands and wives fighting and parents snapping at their kids. His first adult book, Man About Town, was published in 1932, followed by About People, published in 1939, which focused on social outsiders. Sick of Each Other, published in 2000, included a drawing depicting a wife holding her husband at gunpoint, saying, "Say you adore me." According to the Los Angeles Times, fellow New Yorker artist...

Mitchell Mitch Becker, painter, born November 12, 1938, Chicago, Illinois. 1972, Emigrated to Israel. Education 1961 - School of the Art Institute, Chicago, Illinois. Bachelor of Art Education, 1971 - University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Master of Fine Arts, Teaching 1968-1972 High School, Skokie, USA. 1973-1974 Thelma Yellin Art School, Givatayim 1974-1976 Institute of Visual Art, Beersheba 1977-1981 Art Teachers College, Ramat Hasharon 1981-1982 Bezalel, Jerusalem Awards And Prizes 1958-61, Anna Tucson Scholarship, USA Mitchell Becker emerged into the art world of late 1950s Chicago, between gestures of Abstract Expressionism and declarations about the "death of painting." The hot names of his youth, such as Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Larry Rivers, provided him with interest and challenges for years to come, and his awe for them is still evident in his voice to date, many years after drawing away from them. This work is reminiscent of the work of Saul Steinberg and Philip Guston. Heroes - Past and Present, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach-Tikva Artists: Shalom Moskowitz, (Shalom of Safed) Yohanan Simon, Boris Schatz, Motti Mizrachi, Hanan Milner, Mitchell Becker, Edith Samuel, Ludwig Schwerin, Igael Tumarkin, Talia Tokatly. EDUCATION: 1971 Master of Fine Arts,University of Chicago, Illinois 1961 Bachelor of Art Education School...

Chaim Gross (American, 1904-1991) Watercolor painting Rabbinical Talmudic Discussion Hand signed 17 x 29 framed, paper 10 x 22 Chaim Gross (March 17, 1904 – May 5, 1991) was an American modernist sculptor and educator. Gross was born to a Jewish family in Austrian Galicia, in the village of Wolowa (now known as Mezhgorye, Ukraine), in the Carpathian Mountains. In 1911, his family moved to Kolomyia (which was annexed into the Ukrainian USSR in 1939 and became part of newly independent Ukraine in 1991). When World War I ended, Gross and brother Avrom-Leib went to Budapest to join their older siblings Sarah and Pinkas. Gross applied to and was accepted by the art academy in Budapest and studied under the painter Béla Uitz, though within a year a new regime under Miklos Horthy took over and attempted to expel all Jews and foreigners from the country. After being deported from Hungary, Gross began art studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, Austria shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1921. Gross's studies continued in the United States at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied with Elie Nadelman and others, and at the Art Students League of New York, with Robert Laurent. He also attended the Educational Alliance Art School, studying under Abbo Ostrowsky, at the same time as Moses Soyer and Peter Blume. In 1926 Gross began teaching at The Educational Alliance, and continued teaching there for the next 50 years. Louise Nevelson was among his students at the Alliance (in 1934), during the time she was transitioning from painting to sculpture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he exhibited at the Salons of America exhibitions at the Anderson Galleries and, beginning in 1928, at the Whitney Studio Club. In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed optimistic, affirming themes, Judaica, balancing acrobats, cyclists, trapeze artists and mothers and children convey joyfulness, modernism, exuberance, love, and intimacy. This aspect of his work remained consistent with his Jewish Hasidic heritage, which teaches that only in his childlike happiness is man nearest to God. In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, Israeli President, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. He also did some important Hebrew medals. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work.In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School (which Gross ran briefly with Alexander Dobkin...

An ink drawing Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. It depicts a portrait of an old Jewish man. Coming over from Europe on a ship crossing. The work is signed "Ben-Zion". Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. In 1920 he settled in America, where he found little interest in his writing. He began teaching Hebrew to support himself and then in the early 1930s returned to painting. He used his art to comment on the rise of fascism in Europe, events he felt could not be adequately explored with words. Largely self-taught, Ben-Zion visited the museums of New York City to learn his new trade. His first painting on a large scale, Friday Evening (1933, Jewish Museum, New York), depicts a Sabbath dinner table as recalled from his family home. Ben-Zion supported himself by working odd jobs until the establishment of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Under the auspices of the wpa, Ben-Zion thrived and galleries began to show his work. In 1936, after his first one-man show at the Artists' Gallery in New York Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s...

Lighthearted Illustration of Outdoor Pursuits This one being cross country Snow Shoes signed "W. Steig" Provenance: from Mrs. Joseph B. Ryan, Commissioned by ...