1950s Abstract Paintings

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. 41.75 x 61 in. 44 x 63 in. (framed) Custom framed in a hardwood floater with a matte white finish. Provenance Estate of the artist Eri...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Rex Ashlock (1918 – 1999) Born in Spokane, Washington in 1918 Rex Ashlock was known for his abstract, figurative expression...

Nicely painted mid century abstract expressionist painting. Framed in a silver modernist molding. Signed lower right.

Signed and dated oil on canvas landscape by French cubist painter André Lhote. The piece depicts a view of a mountainous landscape from a Mullion window - a decorative with a vertica...

The Hill Dwellers' JOHN BOLAM, 1922-2009 Oil on board, 1959, signed and inscribed verso. John Bolam is seen by many as following in the path of the neo-Romantics, most notabl...

Richard Andres American, 1927-2013 Untitled, c. 1950 oil on masonite 8 x 10 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art...

RICHARD ANDRES American, 1927–2013 Untitled, c. 1950 oil on canvas signed lower left 10 x 7 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate of the Clevelan...

Casein on paper Like many of his compatriots of the time, Shulman transitioned from representation to abstraction in the post-WWII period as he studied with Hans Hoffman. Yet, his wo...

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Vivid mid century landscape of autumn trees blurring into colorful abstraction by Helen Gleiforst (American, 1903-1997). Presented in a giltwood frame. Image size: 10" H X 8" W. G...

Jirayr Zorthian(1911-2004), went through two Turkish massacres before age eight. He left Turkey at age nine with his family and spent a year in Padua, Italy, waiting for his visa to open to the United States. This period was very important in his life because his father took him to many cities in Europe and exposed him to great works of art. Zorthian arrived in the United States at the age of eleven and settled with his family in New Haven, Connecticut. He obtained his formal education there, after graduating from Yale in 1932, the Winchester Fellowship granted him a year and a half at the American Academy in Rome with travel and study throughout Europe. His art career branched into various directions on his return to the United States. As a mural painter his reputation was established. He has forty two (42) murals throughout the United States. Zorthian worked and taught painting at some of the finest art academiJirayr Zorthian(1911-2004), went through two Turkish massacres before age eight. He left Turkey at age nine with his family and spent a year in Padua, Italy, waiting for his visa to open to the United States. This period was very important in his life because his father took him to many cities in Europe and exposed him to great works of art. Zorthian arrived in the United States at the age of eleven and settled with his family in New Haven, Connecticut. He obtained his formal education there, after graduating from Yale in 1932, the Winchester Fellowship granted him a year and a half at the American Academy in Rome with travel and study throughout Europe. His art career branched into various directions on his return to the United States. As a mural painter his reputation was established. He has forty two (42) murals throughout the United States. Zorthian worked and taught painting at some of the finest art academies on the west coast including both the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute. es on the west coast including both the Chouinard Art Institute and the Otis Art Institute. The Gathering...

Nicely painted mid century abstract oil painting by Ken Munowitz. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Acrylic on masonite. This is a pivotal work in deep and radiant cobalt blue from 1950. It dipicts calligraphic and hieroglyph structures over a grid and pyramidal base by the first generation abstract expressionist. Provenance: Skinner: November 13, 1992 [Lot 00219}, The entry in the Skinner catalog indicates that the painting came directly from the artist to the family of the consignor to Skinner. Kaminsky Auctions. There is an unbroken paper trail that traces the ownership of the painting from the current owner, through two auction houses to the artist. Perfect unbroken provenance. Pousette-Dart was among the most inventive of the Abstract Expressionist generation, His uncanny talent was to expand the nature of abstraction and still make each mark each element very much his own; a reflection of what he called   "the concealed power of the spirit," he said, “not of the brute physical form."   His was not aiming for a singular, realized aesthetic formula but to expand the possibilities of painting; the transcendental in painting. Typical of such invention and exploration is this  painting  Untitled 1950 when the artist was only 34 years old and represented by one of the champions of the new American painting, Betty Parsons.  
A banner year for Pousette-Dart, the Museum of Modern Art acquired their first painting by the Minnesota born artist.  He worked on easel size works such as this painting an oil on masonite. At the same time Pousette-Dart was also working on larger scale works such as Path of the Hero, running over ten feet in length now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Both contain fields of color articulated by a highly sophisticated white hieroglyphic vocabulary. Rather than demonstrate an expressionist sensibility, Pousette-Dart harnesses his more cerebral ideas transforming thick areas of paint into a more refined composition of geometric forms akin to the pattern and forms of say a stained glass window. In a way he is looking back at Fugue, 1940 a black and white composition which makes use of a similar format of painting albeit smaller. Color and form are minimal, but what Pousette-Dart has maximized is the rhythmic and syncopated character of painting casting his ideas into purely symbolic terms that one might link to the pictograms of Adolph Gottlieb. Nonetheless, nature is always at the core of Pousette-Dart’s thinking and dreaming. Here he has transformed the local Ramapo Mountains—where he will eventually move with his family to live and work— into a complex series of articulated fragments linked by style, scale and color.  The painting’s imagery built on two large triangles and reduced to just two colors, cobalt blue and white all outlined in black.  Pousette-Dart symbols stacked in horizontal and vertical rows:  blue is ground, white is language, symbolic of light, consciousness and awareness . The painting maintains a mystical character images compounded that formulate a secret code and linked to the series of white paintings Pousette-Dart authored in the first half of the 1950s. Get up close to the picture and you discover images within images a kind of picture puzzle...

Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Abram Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the University of Caen. In 1939 at the be...

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated verso. 49.5 x 34.5 in. 51 x 36.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a maple floater with a polyurethane clear coat finish. Provenance Howard Wise Galle...

Piero Sadun (Siena 1919 - 1974), Plastic space (late 1950s) Oil painting on canvas measuring 90 x 100 cm. The work appears to be archived at the Piero Sadun Archives. Provenance: ...

'The Harlequin', oil on board, by Richard Mandin (1952). Harlequin's traditional diamond patterned costume, bicorn hat, and the wooden sword that denoted his buffoonery have appealed...

George F. Welch (1926 - 2003) designed this lovely Mid-Century modernist enamel on copper artwork. The large square enameled plaque is wall-mounted and framed. The artwork boasts an ...

An abstract collage on wood by Kenneth Morrow Martin, American (1911-1983). Exhibited: 1st Knoxville Art Center National Exhibtion, 1961 White Landscape by Keith Morrow Martin, Amer...

Guinovart. Josep Guinovart i Bertran (Barcelona 1927-2007) was a painter, draftsman and engraver from Catalonia, Spain. After studying at the School of the Lonja and the Promotion ...

Very impressive mid 20th century summer beach scene oil painting. Framed in a modernist white wood frame. Great color and truly an eye grabbing piece in person. Subtle and superb!...

Jirayr Zorthian(1911-2004), went through two Turkish massacres before age eight. He left Turkey at age nine with his family and spent a year in Padua, Italy, waiting for his visa to...

Casein on paper Like many of his compatriots of the time, Shulman transitioned from representation to abstraction in the post-WWII period as he studied with Hans Hoffman. Yet, his wo...

SURFACE CP/869 Steel 1951 Tempera, pencil on twelve paper tiles, on sheet Tempera, pencil on twelve layers of paper, on sheet cm 31 x 24 (sheet) 15 x 20 (panel) EXHIBITONS F.R. Mor...

Charming and well painted rural New England modernist landcape by Vern Henry Smith (1927 - 2007. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.

Nicely painted mid century abstract expressionist oil painting. Titled in verso, "The Dragonfly and the Flower". Great color and composition. Framed in a simple white wood moderni...

Antique American modernist abstract landscape signed oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24L x 18H.

Very impressive mid 20th century cubist abstract. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Very impressive mid 20th century modernist interior view. So well painted with great color and bold expressive strokes. Signed illegibly. Housed in a period modernist frame. Oil ...

Monumental modernist oil on panel painting by Louis Demott Bunce (1907-1983), from an installation for the Oregon Centennial Exposition, 1959. A rare & important and monumental abstract painting by the celebrated Oregon artist Louis Bunce, the artist was commissioned to paint a mural for the 1959 Oregon Centennial & Trade Fair in Portland, the installation was titled " Gay Garden Way ", it was painted for the exterior of the Horticultural building. The mural having abstract plant abstractions, according to Bunce in his own words it was "the rounded shapes of flowers and the sun", the mural created a major furor from the conservative art public. The painting signed and dated by the artist lower left, the work was sold in the late 1980s through the celebrated Laura Russo Gallery, this painting is featured in Roger Hull's book; "Louis Bunce, Dialogue with Modernism". The painting is in good condition and ready to grace your wall. Louis Bunce attended high school and the Museum Art School before leaving for the Art Students League in New York. He established a New York connection that began when he first attended classes there in 1927 and continued over the years with frequent visits. He became friends with many promising artists, including Jackson Pollock and David Smith. In 1939 he worked for the WPA Easel Project in New York and by the time he returned to Portland he was an established artist on the East Coast. He worked at the WPA art center in Salem as an Instructor and Assistant Director. His work included murals, two of which are in the Post Offices in Grants Pass and St. Johns. Their subjects, mining and orchard farming, are activities of each region. "I have always been visually drawn to the landscape, at first the desert and mountain regions of Wyoming; then the lush and gentle color of the Pacific Northwest and the urban landscape of New York." From 1942-1945 he worked as an illustrator, a tool designer, and in assembly for the Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation. After WWII, Bunce joined the faculty of the Museum Art School in Portland, where he had been a student in 1925-1926. He taught there until his retirement in 1972. He excelled at producing screen-prints and introduced this technique to Oregon. While maintaining a national reputation throughout the 1950s and 1960s, some of New York's most prestigious galleries represented him. Theater buffs will remember his murals and portraits for Portland Civic Theater's 1938 production of Pride and Prejudice. In a career that made him one of the most recognized names in Oregon's art history, Bunce had many styles: cubism, expressionism, surrealism and abstractionism. His 1958 mural in the Portland International Airport presents this abstract style: "whirling propellers and shadows of the concourse as seen from above." It was controversial at the time as being too abstract for a public art project. Louis and wife Eda opened a full-time art gallery in Portland in 1949, called the Kharouba. Located first at 1016 SE Morrison, then at SW 11th and Alder, the gallery represented many of the leading artists of the day: Josephine Cameron, William Givler, Clifford Gleason, Jack Hammack, Charles Heaney, Frederick Heidel, George Johanson, Jack McLarty, Rick Norwood, C.S. Price, Arthur Runquist, Jolan Torok, Charles Voorhies...

Philip Krevoruck 1919-1999 an accomplished WPA artist . Surrealist Oil on board painted during the 1950s . Dimensions: 30inch X 25.5inch including frame . 24 X 19.5 without frame . M...

Persephone Oil on canvas, 1952 Signed lower left (see photo) Titled reverse "Persephone" Signed "V. 52" Exhibited: Columbus Gallery of the Arts label "71/30 Bt. 2", see label Condi...

John Walter Stephan was an early member of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism. He was born in Chicago and studied art at the University of Illinois and the Art Institute o...

Very impressive early abstract painting by Peter Busa (1914 - 1985). Oil on canvas. Signed lower left. Housed in a period modernist frame.

Abstract Moonlit Landscape, signed and dated "Douvos"

Expressionist Abstract Composition Canvas size 24"x32" gold leaf frame 27"x35", signed lower right corner. Sandro von Lorsch German painter born 1921-1993. Very dynamic and expressi...

Very impressive mid 20th century abstract cityscape painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.

Pastel on paper Collection of Samuel Esses, then by descent in the family Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, R...

"Spring" is a 38 x 50 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette. The work is sig...

Nicely painted mid century abstract expressionist oil painting by Erwin Wending (1914 - 1993). Great color and composition. Framed. Signed. Exhibition and museum labels verso.

Nicely painted mid 20th century French impressionist landscape. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.

"Harvest" is a 30 x 25 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant reds and orange, and estate s...

This abstract smaller work bursting with the effects of light which contrast with and relieve the deftly applied impasto, is dynamic for Busa. The painting was completed in 1955 duri...

"Orbs" is a 38 x 50 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is estate stamped 202141 on verso. The painting has been...

Antique modernist abstract painting by Elsie Orfuss (Born 1913). Oil on canvas. Signed on verso. Nicely framed. `

Original oil on canvas painting. Hand signed, titled and dated on verso by Roberto Matta. Frame size approx 38 x 46 inches. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of A...

Very unusual and boldly colored original oil on canvas abstract painting done by the Russian artist Gufor Malyanov. Signed in cyrillic verso, dated 1952 and titled in cyrillic “Abst...

Very impressive mid 20th century cubist abstract still life. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Great color.

Vintage American abstract landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.

"Dance Wands" is a 36 x 24 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is painted in a vibrant color palette, signed and...

"Untitled (The Opening)" is a 36 x 30 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is estate stamped #202157 on verso. Th...

Amaranth Ehrenhalt was a multifaceted artist best known for her paintings. She was part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, working first in New York in the early 19...

Nicely painted mid century abstract cubist oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed.

Antique modernist abstract painting by Elsie Orfuss (Born 1913). Oil on canvas. Signed on verso. Nicely framed. `

Vintage American school signed modernist cubist still life oil painting and collage. Oil and mixed media on board. Signed. Framed. I...

Like many of his compatriots of the time, Shulman transitioned from representation to abstraction in the post-WWII period as he studied with Hans Hoffman. Yet, his work, whether or a...

Amaranth Ehrenhalt was a multifaceted artist best known for her paintings. She was part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, working first in New York in the early 19...

Amaranth Ehrenhalt was a multifaceted artist best known for her paintings. She was part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, working first in New York in the early 19...