1940s Figurative Paintings

'Market Day in Piazza Grande, Locarno, Switzerland', oil on board, by unknown artist (1947-48). Locarno is an utterly charming Italian-speaking resort located on the northern shore o...

"NYC Subway" American Modernism Scene WPA Mid-Century Realism Cityscape Transit. 26 x 28 inches. Oil on canvas, c. 1940s. Signed lower left. Hand carved frame. Max Arthur Cohn (1903 – 1988) Born in London, England, Cohn became an artist primarily known for scenes of New York City, rural views, and abstract figural compositions. His style has ranged from realism in the 1920s to 1940s to abstraction from the 1950s to 1990s, with some reintroduction in the later years of realism and re-working of earlier subject matter. His primary studio...

"A Girl with Her Cat" was painted by EM Watts in 1947. The portrait is oil on canvas The painting measures 26 3/4" x 22 3/4" with its frame.

Symbolic figurative of woman having visions with religious themes and icons (cross, bride, salamander, crown, meeting Christ) while reading by Marguerite Louis Blasingame (American; 1906-1947), circa 1940-45. Marguerite and her husband Frank Blasingame...

Mischievous Child, Impressionist Portrait, Signed Oil Painting By French artist Claude Benard, (1926 - 2016) Signed by the artist on the lower right hand corner Oil painting on board...

An original oil painting by American artist Rudolph Wedow. This fantastic painting depicts Antelope Dancers in San Felipe Pueblo in New Mexico. Created...

Le port de la Chaume. Oil on canvas, 33x41 cm

A period work by a Russian artist working in a Cubist approach. The canvas is 24 1/4 x 22 1/4 inches and the above dimension is the framed size. The frame is an older frame, with a flat gold/brown finish. In Woman with Guitar, Simkhovitch plays on his his early fascination with Cubism and Constructivism (and his background in illustration) expressing and compressing with planes and color the spatiality of a domestic scene. Considered a master draftsman and an adherent of certain classicism, Simkhovitch’s compositions are often built up in a complicated but well-managed counterpoint, at heart, he is a romanticist preferring the dreamy colors of a Russian fairy tale.

Signed indistinctly, lower right, and painted circa 1935. A strongly animated, vertically stacked figurative painting filled with compressed energy and an atmosphere of psychologic...

Jules Schyl (Sweden, 1893-1977) Title: Ballet Dancers A Ballet Dancer painting is a rare find for an artist mostly known for his oeuvre with Cubism and Expressionist paintings. The current painting has many similarities with Degas sketches...

August Wilhelm Dressler, Behind the Curtain, 1940, Oil on Wood Panel, 60 x 50 cm. Signed lower left.

Oil on masonite. Russian-Jewish-American artist Nahum Tschacbasov (1899-1984) is known for his intriquing cubo-surrealistic-symbolist works which feature a strong psychological elem...

Original vintage 1945 oil painting with an interior still life with a vase of flowers, tea cup, and drapery by 20th century Colorado modernist, John E. Thompson (1882-1945). Oil on c...

5-3475 Oil on canvas applied to board Set in a vintage gilt wood frame

Estate stamped and accompanied by a COA from the estate. The history of the New York School painters is still being written, but Price earned a well-deserved place from the beginnin...

WPA era signed framed modernist oil painting of houses and trees in summer with a stormy cloud in Colorado by Paul K. Smith in shades of green, ...

Overflight over the city. 1947, paper, mixed media, 23x20 cm Adolfs Zardins (1890 08 II Riga, Latvia – 1967 07 II Jurmala, Latvia), painter. Only in 1990 his relatives give his arti...

Constantin Kluge was a Russian-born French painter best known for his naturalistic scenes of Paris and French countryside. Kluge was born to a wealthy military family on January 29, ...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the 1940's by Spanish painter Julio Moises. Mostly known for his abstract figures on canvas, this piece is a w...

Four women with puppets. 1947, paper, mixed media, 16.3x11 cm Adolfs Zardins (1890 08 II Riga, Latvia – 1967 07 II Jurmala, Latvia), painter. Only in 1990 his relatives give his art...

Castelli Romani is an original painting realized by Luigi Campanelli (1943). Hand-signed, dated and numbered on the back: L. Campanelli 1982 "Castelli...

Love at sea. A nautical romance is captured as a handsome couple embrace. The big splash of water at the peak moment of drama symbolizes passion and defines Falter's creativity in communicating a romantic narrative. This is a companion piece to a romance story. Most likely done on assignment for a major newsstand magazine. Hand-signed by artist, sticker label, Magazine Illustration circa 1940 Oil on board Signed lower right h: 28.5 x w: 30 in / h: 72.4 x w: 76.2 cm Morris Weiss collection...

Original oil on canvas painting of Les Halles de Paris by the London born artist, H.F. Root. Signed lower left. Circa 1945. Very good condition, no restorations. Les Halles de Paris was the largest food market...

Original oil on canvas painting by Nahum Tschacbasov of his daughter Sondra Tschacbasov (Sasha) at approximately the age of eleven or twelve. Signed lower left and dated 1942. Condition is very good. The painting has been relined. Sasha Tschacbasov later became the second wife of the famous American writer Saul Bellow...

This elegant Art Deco oil painting on canvas was realized in Sweden, circa 1945. It presents a stylized nude man crouching against a sea of abstract forms in tones of forest green, m...

UNION SQUARE Depression Era Oil Painting WPA Realism American Scene Realism NYC Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) "Union Square," 24 x 36 inches. Oil on canvas, c.1940s, ...

Charming mid century watercolor painting of late 19th Century Paris street scene circa 1950. Signed lower left "Julius" , attributed to Julius Rosenbaum...

A fine figural oil painting of a mother and three children with worried looks on their faces as military planes fly overhead by American artist Hope Shipee Bunin (1908-1970). Bunin w...

WILLIAM DIDIER - POUGET French, 1864 - 1959 BRUYÈRES EN FLEURS signed and dated “Didier-Pouget / 1949” (lower right) inscribed, located and signed ““Le Malin dans la vallée du Lot.”...

43 x 37.5 is the FRAMED SIZE. , 36 x 30 is the live size. Post-impressionist pointillist bush strokes describe this image of Americana. The location looks like New England. Signed ...

John Edward Costigan, N.A. American, 1888-1972 Woman and Child Oil on canvas Signed ‘J.E. Costigan N.A.’ lower left 24 by 30 in. W/frame 32 by 38 in. John Costigan was born of Irish-American parents in Providence, Rhode Island, February 29, 1888. He was a cousin of the noted American showman, George M. Cohan, whose parents brought the young Costigan to New York City and was instrumental in starting him on a career in the visual arts. They were less successful in encouraging him to pursue formal studies at the Art Students League (where, however, he later taught) than in exposing him to the commercial art world through the job they had gotten him with the New York lithographing firm that made their theatrical posters. At the H. C. Miner Lithographing Company, Costigan worked his way up from his entry job as a pressroom helper, through various apprenticeships, to the position of sketch artist. In the latter capacity he was an uncredited designer of posters for the Ziegfeld Follies and for numerous silent films. Meanwhile, he had supplemented his very meager formal studies in the fine arts with a self-teaching discipline that led to his first professional recognition in 1920 with the receipt of prizes for an oil painting and watercolor in separate New York exhibitions. A year earlier, Costigan had wed professional model Ida Blessin, with whom he established residence and began raising a family in the sleepy little rural New York hamlet of Orangeburg, the setting for the many idyllic farm landscapes and wood interiors with which he was to become identified in a career that would span half a century. John Costigan’s first national recognition came in 1922 with his winning of the coveted Peterson Purchase prize of the Art Institute of Chicago for an oil on canvas, “Sheep at the Brook.” It marked the start of an unbroken winning streak that would gain him at least one important prize per year for the remainder of the decade. The nation’s art journalists and critics began to take notice, making him the recurring subject of newspaper features and magazine articles. The eminent author and critic Edgar Holger Cahill was just a fledgling reporter when he wrote his first feature, “John Costigan Carries the Flame,” for Shadowland Magazine in 1922. Costigan had his first one-man show of paintings at the Rehn Gallery on New York’s 5th Avenue in November, 1924, to be followed less than three years later by another at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, Costigan’s work has been—and continues to be included, side-by-side with that of some of America’s most high-profile artists, in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country. His renown had peaked in the early 1930s, by which time his work had been honored with nearly every major award then being bestowed in the fine arts and had been acquired for the permanent collections of several prestigious American museums, including New York’s Metropolitan (which only recently, in 1997, deaccessioned his “Wood Interior,” acquired in 1934). Although Costigan’s celebrity had ebbed by the late 1930s, the Smithsonian Institution saw fit in 1937 to host an exhibition exclusively of his etchings. And, in 1941, the Corcoran Gallery (also Washington, D.C.) similarly honored him for his watercolors. (Another Washington institution, the Library of Congress, today includes 22 Costigan etchings and lithographs in its permanent print collection.) During World War II, Costigan returned briefly to illustrating, mainly for Bluebook, a men’s pulp adventure magazine. A gradual revival of interest in his more serious work began at the end of the war, culminating in 1968 with the mounting of a 50-year Costigan retrospective at the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oils, watercolors and prints were borrowed from museums and private collections throughout the country, and the exhibition was subsequently toured nationally by the Smithsonian Institution. John Costigan died of pneumonia in Nyack, NY, August 5, 1972, just months after receiving his final prestigious award —the Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal of the Artist’s Fellowship, Inc., presented in general recognition of his “...achievement of exceptional artistic merit...” in the various media he had mastered in the course of his career. This painting depicts one of the artist's favorite themes --the farm family bathing...

Outdoor View is an original painting in mixed media and oil realized in the 1940s by Caroline Hill (1935-1983). The artwork is hand-signed on the lower left. Good conditions. This...

American Still life of Sea Shells A totally unique scene of seashells and objects painted Late 20th Century by an American Painter. Original driftwood influenced frame and in com...

There is a reason why there are few contemporary painters who can paint a portrait this good. It's hard to do. It's easy to throw some paint or spray a mess of graffiti on canvas. That's easy art. Executing a portrait with a great depth of anatomy and structure takes years of academic training. In Riggs's time, there were teachers who knew how to pass on this knowledge. He studied at the Art Students League and the Académie Julian . Today, they are very few and far between. Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel - Robert Riggs was a Gay Artist...

Signed lower right, 'Mogens Hertz' (Danish, 1909-1999) and dated 1949. A large, Post-Impressionist figural oil showing a pregnant young woman, draped from the waist down, with her hands resting serenely in her lap. Seated beside a garden door, she is gently dappled by golden sunlight that filters in through verdant foliage. Painted when the artist was forty years old, Hertz has accomplished a lyrical, light-suffused study of his beautiful and enigmatic young subject. Mogens Hertz first studied with the Academician, Laurits Ring and, subsequently, with the Danish Impressionist, Rostrup Boyesen. In 1930, after an influential study trip to Paris, Hertz continued his formal studies at Copenhagen's Charlottenborg Academy before moving to the countryside outside Gudhjem. There, he became a co-founder of the Bornholm School. His work there came to exemplify the group's lyrical portrayal of idyllic landscapes, painted in a loose and painterly, Impressionist style that often borders on abstraction. From 1930-1941, Hertz traveled and studied widely, including to France, Holland, Germany, Norway and Sweden. He was the recipient of numerous medals, prizes and juried awards including the August Schiøtt scholarship (1948) and the Frederik Sødring prize (1939). Over the course of a long and distinguished career, he exhibited widely and with success including, from 1937, at the Royal Danish Academy's Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition, at the Bornholm Art Museum and the Vejen Art Museum, among others. Mogens Hertz is well-listed in relevant art biographical reference works including Benezit's definitive dictionary of artists. We are pleased to offer a major work from the artist's middle period. Reference: E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 6, p. 954; Weilbach, Dansk Kunstnerleksikon, the Castle and Cultural Agency, Copenhagen; Chr. F. Beck i: Da. Kunst, nr. 90, maj 1950; Helge Ernst...

Initialed lower right, 'A.F' (American, 20th century) and painted circa 1940. A tonalist study of a young woman with bobbed brown hair, shown gazing to the ...

ANTONI CLAVÉ Spanish, 1913 - 2005 STILL LIFE signed "Clavé" lower right also inscribed "Ce tableau a ete peint par moi vers 1946, Clavé" on the reverse oil on canvas glued to artist ...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Right and Titled on reverse Dimensions: 28.13" x 25.13" (71.45 cm x 63.83 cm) Literature: Temple Bailey, Bridal White, The American Mag...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Left Dimensions: Sight Size 30.50" x 34.75," Framed 36.00" x 39.50"

Charming and bright mid century California figurative landscape with a female figure walking down a verdant and inviting path by William Hiller (America...

"Riggs openly identified as gay to his friends in the Philadelphia art community, but did not disclose his orientation to his employers." - Woodmere Art Museum Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel "Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed Riggs was a Gay Artist...

Medium: Oil on Board Signature: Signed Lower Left

Gorgeous pointillist egg tempera portrait of young blonde girl by Robert Joseph Collins (American, 1922-2011), 1947. Signed "Collins" and dated "'47." U...

Russian-Jewish-American artist Nahum Tschacbasov (1899-1984) is known for his cubo-surrealistic works which feature a strong psychological element. Some of his work bears a resemblan...

5-3494 Oil on canvas figurative traveling to orient. Set in a silvered wood frame

"Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed - work is unframed. - Riggs was a Gay Artist.

Ponte Garibaldi is an original oil on canvas realized by the Italian artist Antonio Vangelli (Rome, 1917 – Rome, 2003) in 1941. Hand-signed and dated by the artist on the lower righ...

Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel "Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed Riggs was a Gay Artist...

Signed lower right 'Muff' for Orla Muff (Danish, 1903-1984) and painted circa 1940. Orla Muff received his first formal art instruction at the Copenhagen Technical School from 1917-21, where he studied with the theatrical painter, Carl Lund. He subsequently traveled, studied and painted throughout Europe including in France, Germany, Sweden and Holland. In the early years of his career, Muff was celebrated as a designer of sophisticated Art Deco sets and costumes for prominent theatrical productions and revues throughout Europe. These included productions for Max Reinhardt...

Adolf Dehn: 1895-1968. Well listed American artist with a high auction record of $20,000 which was achieved this year. He was born in Minnesota and studied at Minneapolis School of F...

"Le Roi de Rome, d'apres Laurance", Impressionist Portrait, Signed By French artist Claude Benard, (1926 - 2016) Signed and dated '1942' by the artist on the lower right hand corner Titled verso Oil painting on board, unframed Board size: 8.5 x 6.5 inches Wonderful portrait of a little boy, who we believe was called 'Laurance'. Also, 'Le Roi de Rome' translates to 'The King of Rome' which is a mystery. The painting itself is quite exceptional. He has strawberry blond coloured hair, piercing big blue eyes and a beautiful mouth, a very handsome little boy. This would make a lovely addition to an interior looking to add some vintage oil painting portraits...

Beautiful mid century Dutch figurative landscape watercolor of a group of figures at a harbor, two young girls and three men conversing beside a fishing dock with sailboats in the ba...

A modern interpretation of the biblical story Suzanna and the Elders. Signed lower right Ink and wash on paper The Downtown Gallery Felix Landau Gallery Ernest Brown & Phillips, Ltd...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Left This work was featured on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post, June 11, 1949 The Post described the cover as follows: "Having found the setting he wanted for his circus-theme cover painting - on the Brotherton farm near Westport, Connecticut- Stevan Dohanos began rigging up a beam for the farm boy...

Serenity is an impressive, giant oil painting realized by the Italian painter Felice Carena in 1948. Signed lower left. Not framed, framing optio...

Constantin Font, born January 11, 1890 in Auch (Gers) and died in 1954 in Paris, is a French artist, painter of genre, nudes, landscapes, orientalist, sculptor and engraver. Outstand...

Russell Sambrook: 1891-1956. Well listed American illustrator with auction results as high as $23,900. This fantastic illustration is an oil on board. I believe this was used for an ...

Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel "Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed Riggs was a Gay Artist...