Items Similar to "Two Seas and a Moon" Surrealism American Scene WWII Modern WWI Denver WPA Era
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8
Arnold Rönnebeck"Two Seas and a Moon" Surrealism American Scene WWII Modern WWI Denver WPA Era1943
1943
About the Item
"Two Seas and a Moon" Surrealism American Scene WWII Modern WWI Denver WPA Era
Arnold Ronnebeck (1885 - 1947)
Two Seas and a Moon
30 x 22 1/2 inches
Oil on Canvas, c. 1943
Signed upper left
Unframed
Provenance: Estate of the artist.
Exhibited at Denver Art Museum January 1943 and Santa Barbara Museum of Art June 1943.
From the artist's granddaughter:
Yes, it is surrealist. AR did about 15 paintings, mostly surrealist, in the early 1940s. A review in the Santa Barbara Press Telegram in June 1943 said that it was the Santa Barbara Museum of Art's first surrealist show.
WW2 brought up all sorts of issues for him regarding his experience in WW1. I think, but don't know for sure, that this work has something to do with his lying injured on the battlefield and staring at the moon. He wrote an essay in 1943 entitled "The Moon Stinks" describing the experience.
Concerning the figure. It is funny, all of my guy friends say it is a man. The women all see a woman. So, I don't know. Re the red up top. I always saw it as a woman's red hair. However, based on the idea of the battlefield, it could be blood.
The R-14. I don't know. My guess is it is Ronnebeck and 1914. He was injured in 1914. That is just a guess on my part.
The label with the title on was written by Arnold. There is a tag on a string also, but I don't know what that was for.
The painting will ship from the granddaughter's home.
BIO
Born in Nassau, Germany, Arnold Ronnebeck became a noted sculptor and lithographer and was a strong advocate of modernist art. He traced his lineage back to nobility, and his father was a professor of architecture, a subject that the son studied for several years. Ronnebeck served in the German Guards in World War I and earned an Iron Cross for being wounded. He studied sculpture at the Royal Art School in Berlin and in Munich, and in 1908, moved to Paris where his teachers were Aristide Maillol and Emile Bourdelle. There he was a part of the avant-garde circle of Gertrude Stein, Marsden Hartley and Charles Demuth.
In 1921, still recovering from war wounds, he visited the Italian coastal village of Positano and did landscape drawings from which he did his earliest prints. However, in that subject matter, he also had sculptural focus and described the scenery as "one enormous work of sculpture, houses and rocks seemingly one."
A year later, his fiancee Alice Miriam, a young American opera singer, died, and this tragedy combined with his family's increasing financial problems led him to emigrate to America. In 1923, he arrived in Washington DC and lived briefly with Miriam's family before moving to New York City. There he became a part of the avant-garde circle of creative people around Alfred Stieglitz. Ronnebeck's prints of the city skyscrapers reflected his fascination with the energy of that cosmopolitan atmosphere and also showed through his abstract, precisionist style his emotional responses to that environment.
It was at this time that he began to regard himself as a graphic artist, and working from photographs, he did pencil sketches that served as the basis for his lithographs. Several of his prints were reproduced in "Vanity Fair" magazine.
Through Stieglitz, Ronnebeck met Erhard Weyhe whose gallery had his first solo exhibition in May 1925. Composed of prints, drawings, and sculpture, the show had sixty pieces expressing subjects that had interested him for the last fifteen years.
That summer, Ronnebeck first went to Taos, where he was a guest of Mabel Dodge Luhan. He had been encouraged by Marsden Hartley to visit this artist's colony, and it was a life-changing experience relative to both his artistic and personal life. He was deeply impressed by the landscape and the native people, and he met his future wife, Louise Emerson (1901-1980) whom he married in New York in 1926. The couple returned to New Mexico through the late 20s and 1930s, and Ronnebeck completed a series of terra-cotta wall reliefs of Pueblo ceremonial dances for the public area of the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe.
In 1926, the Ronnebecks settled in Denver, where he became Director of the Denver Art Museum. He resigned that position in 1930, but the couple remained in Colorado where both were active with WPA mural competitions. He also did numerous lithographs of landscapes and townscapes, especially mining towns, and his prints were distributed nationally by the American Artists Group.
By 1940, he was deeply discouraged by World War II, which brought back the painful memories of World War I, and his artistic productivity declined. He died in 1947 at age 62, having been very much a part of the art scene of early 20th century America. It is thought that removing himself from the East Coast to live in Colorado essentially removed him from the prominence in the art world that that mileau could have brought him.
- Creator:Arnold Rönnebeck (1885 - 1947)
- Creation Year:1943
- Dimensions:Height: 30 in (76.2 cm)Width: 23 in (58.42 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Framing:Framing Options Available
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU1156214186632
Arnold Rönnebeck
Modernist sculptor, lithographer and museum administrator, Rönnebeck was a noted member of European and American avant-garde circles in the early twentieth century before settling in Denver, Colorado, in 1926. After studying architecture at the Royal Art School in Berlin for two years beginning in 1905, he moved to Paris in 1908 to study sculpture with Aristide Maillol and Émile-Antoine Bourdelle. While there he met and befriended American modernist painter, Marsden Hartley, of whom he sculpted a bronze head that was exhibited at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1912 and the following year at Hartley’s solo show of paintings at Alfred Stieglitz’s Gallery 291 in New York. After World War I Rönnebeck traveled in Italy with German writer, Max Sidow, and German poet, Theodor Daubler, doing a series of drawings of Positano and the Amalfi Coast that formed the basis for his lithographs on the subject. The death of his finacée, the young American opera singer Alice Miriam in 1922 and his own family’s increasing financial problems in post-World War I Germany led him to immigrate to the United States in 1923. After living briefly with Miriam’s family in Washington, DC, he moved to New York where he became part of the avant-garde circle around Alfred Stieglitz. In the summer of 1925, as the guest of Mabel Dodge Luhan, Rönnebeck first saw Taos, New Mexico, which Marsden Hartley had encouraged him to visit. It was there that he met his future wife, Louise Emerson, an easel painter and muralist. A year later they were married in New York before relocating to Denver. He served as director of the Denver Art Museum from 1926 to 1930 where he invited Marsden Hartley to lecture on Cézanne’s art in 1928. Rönnebeck fostered the development of the museum’s collection of American Indian art and the curation of modernist art exhibitions. In addition to his work at the museum, he was professor of sculpture at the University of Denver’s College of Fine and Applied Arts from 1929 to 1935, and wrote a weekly art column in the Rocky Mountain News. In Colorado, the subject matter of his lithographs became the state’s landscape and its mining towns, as well as Native Americans from the pueblos in neighboring New Mexico. By the early 1930s Colorado’s old mining towns became a popular genre for artists because they were easily accessible, and their architectural components provided a welcome break from the nineteenth-century panoramic landscape tradition and the overwrought cowboy-and-Indian subject matter of the previous generation. As an amateur actor and music enthusiast, Rönnebeck had an additional connection with Central City. In June 1947, some five months before his death, the Denver Art Museum organized a solo exhibition of his sculptures, watercolors and prints. © copyright Stan Cuba for David Cook Galleries
About the Seller
5.0
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 2008
1stDibs seller since 2019
165 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: <1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Pawling, NY
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 3 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- "Shattered" WPA Mid 20th Century Modernism American Scene Surrealism FigurativeBy Leon BibelLocated in New York, NY"Shattered" WPA Mid 20th Century Modernism American Scene Surrealism Figurative Estate stamp on the stretcher, verso. Provenance: Estate of the artist. 20 x 24 inches. BIO Leon Bibel continued painting through 1941 and resumed work in both painting and especially wood sculpture by 1960. He worked until his very last day in 1995. His last series of large wood sculptures were modeled on spice boxes, which were miniature buildings...Category
1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- UN Poster Design American Scene Mid 20th Century Modernism WPA World PeaceBy Jo CainLocated in New York, NYUN Poster Design American Scene Mid 20th Century Modernism WPA World Peace Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) We Are All Members of the Human Race: UN Poster Proposal 21 x...Category
1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsBoard, Egg Tempera
- Till the Clouds Roll By 1945 Frank Sinatra Mid Century Modern Hollywood Film WPABy Richard WhorfLocated in New York, NYTill the Clouds Roll By 1945 Frank Sinatra Mid Century Modern Hollywood Film WPA TILL THE COULDS ROLL BY (Film Set), oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches signed “Richard Whorf” lower right and signed and dated on the verso “R. Whorf/ Dec. 21, 1945. Frame by Hendenryk. ABOUT THE PAINTING This painting is from the collection of Barbara and Frank Sinatra, dated December 21, 1945 (just nine days after Frank Sinatra’s 30th birthday), and depicts the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Culver City backlot during the filming of Till the Clouds Roll By, the direction of the film having been taking over by Richard Whorf in December 1945. It is not presently clear if Whorf gave the Sinatras this painting as a gift, as the presence of the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries label on the verso indicates the painting may have been sourced there. Frank and Nancy Sinatra acquired a number of works from Dalzell Hatfield Galleries during the 1940’s, or perhaps they framed it for the couple. Sinatra performed “Old Man River’ in the film. Sinatra and June Allyson are depicted in the center of the painting. PROVENANCE From the Estate of Mrs. Nancy Sinatra; Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. An image of the Dalzell Hatfield label and the back of the original frame (which we replaced with a stunning Heydenrk frame) are attached. Nancy Sinatra was Fran's first wife. Nancy Rose Barbato was 17 years old when she met Frank Sinatra, an 18-year-old singer from Hoboken, on the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1934. They married in 1939 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Jersey City where Frank gave Nancy a recording of a song dedicated to her titled "Our Love" as a wedding present. The young newlyweds lived and worked in New Jersey, where Frank worked as an unknown singing waiter and master of ceremonies at the Rustic Cabin while Nancy worked as a secretary at the American Type Founders. His musical career took off after singing with big band leaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey...Category
1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- NYC EL American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern WPA Era FigurativeBy Cecil Crosley BellLocated in New York, NYNYC EL American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern WPA Era Figurative Cecil Bell (1906 – 1970) Street Life Under the EL 22 x 30 inches Oil on canvas, c. 1930s Signed upper...Category
1930s American Realist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- NYC 1939 World's Fair Mural Study American Scene WPA Modern Mid 20th CenturyLocated in New York, NYNYC 1939 World's Fair Mural Study American Scene WPA Modern Mid 20th Century Eugene Savage (1883 – 1978) 1939 World’s Fair Mural Study 45 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas Signed lower right The painting is part of a 1,000 piece collection of art and objects from the 1939 World’s Fair. The collection as a whole is available. Savage created the mural for the facade of the Communications Building. An image of the completed mural, along with a published postcard, is part of the listing. Note the center top female figure, she resembles the figure in the offered painting. BIO Eugene Francis Savage was born in Covington, Indiana 1883. He underwent various forms of art training in the early years. He was a pupil of The Corcoran Gallery and The Art Institute of Chicago, and was later awarded a fellowship to study in Rome at The American Academy. While under the spell of that ancient city the young artist began to render historic figures that were suitable for the classic style needed for mural painting in the traditional manor. During this period he was able to study and observe Roman and Greek sculpture, although much of the academic training was accomplished by using plaster casts along with the incorporation of live models. This method survived and was used efficiently throughout Europe and the United States. After leaving the Academy, Savage was commissioned to paint numerous murals throughout the United States and Europe. This artist received acclaim for the works he produced while under commissions from various sources. This young master was a contemporary of Mexican muralists David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), Jose Clemente Orozco (1883-1949) and Diego Rivera (1886-1957). In this period he was to show the influence of his contemporaries in formulating a modern style. Savage also played a vital role in the WPA Federal Art program, and he was a member of The Mural Art Guild.. Savage was elected an associate member of The National Academy of Design in 1924 and a full member in 1926. From 1947, he held a professorship at Yale University where he taught mural painting, and some of his students went on to significant positions. By this time the artist had painted large-scale murals at Columbia, Yale University, Buffalo N.Y., Dallas, Texas, Chicago, Indiana, along with other commissioned works. He also achieved recognition for a series of murals commissioned by the Matson Shipping Line and completed around 1940. For this commission, Savage made many exacting studies of customs and folkways of the Hawaiian natives. However, the award-winning murals were not installed as planned but were put in storage during the war years when the ships were used for troop transportation and were in danger of attack. However the mural images were reproduced and distributed by the shipping company including nine of the mural scenes that were made into lithographed menu covers in 1948. The American Institute of Graphic Arts awarded certificates of excellence for their graphic production, and the Smithsonian Institute exhibited the works in 1949. Today Savages' Hawaiian Art production is held in high regard by collectors of Hawaiian nostalgia. In later years the artist focused his attention on a theme that dealt with the customs and tribal traditions of the Seminole Indians of Florida. He produced many variations of this theme throughout his lifetime, and the pictures were usually modest scale easel paintings, precise and carefully delineated. Many of these pictures incorporate Surrealistic elements and show some minor stylistic influences of the painters Kay Sage...Category
1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism ModernismBy Henry Ernst SchnakenbergLocated in New York, NYBoys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism Henry Schnakenberg (1982 - 1970) Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape 11 1/2 x 15 1/2 sight Oil on Canvas Signed lower left 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches, Framed Bio In many cases, American artists visited the Armory Show in New York in 1913, and returned to their studios to react to or against what they saw. However, for Henry Ernest Schnakenberg it was much more life altering. Prior to visiting this important exhibition of American and European modernist art...Category
1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings
MaterialsOil, Canvas
You May Also Like
- L'epreuveBy Roberto MattaLocated in Palm Desert, CAA painting by Roberto Matta. "L'epreuve" is a surrealist painting, oil on canvas in palette of grays, greens, and yellows by Latin American artist Roberto Matta. It is signed in the ...Category
Mid-20th Century Surrealist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Armageddon finale. 2005, canvas, oil, 73x100 cmLocated in Riga, LVArmageddon finale. 2005, canvas, oil, 73x100 cmCategory
Early 2000s Surrealist Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- 1970’s French Surrealist Signed Oil Painting - Pink Red Abstract Pierrot FigureLocated in Cirencester, GloucestershireTristan Fabris 1970's French Surrealist artist Abstract Surrealist Figurative study oil on canvas, unframed inscribed verso canvas: 32 x 21 inches private collection, France The pain...Category
1970s Surrealist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Surrealist Woman Oil painting French-Moroccan Israeli Bezalel School PainterBy Simon AvissarLocated in Surfside, FLTwo Women. Colorful Surrealist Portrait Genre: Surrealism Subject: woman Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: Israel Simon Avissar, painter, born 1948, Morocco. Moved to U.S.A. Wo...Category
20th Century Surrealist Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- 1950’s French Surrealist Signed Oil Painting Cubist Blue Green Cream AbstractLocated in Cirencester, GloucestershireTristan Fabris 1950's, French Surrealist artist Abstract Surrealist Figurative study oil on canvas, framed signed and dated 55' inscribed verso framed: 25 x 33 inches canvas: 23 x 32...Category
Mid-20th Century Surrealist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- 1970’s French Surrealist Signed Oil Painting Green Abstract CompositionLocated in Cirencester, GloucestershireTristan Fabris 1970's, French Surrealist artist Abstract Surrealist Figurative study oil on canvas, framed signed and dated 74' inscribed verso framed: 32.5 x 26 inches canvas: 32 x ...Category
Late 20th Century Surrealist Abstract Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
