American Modern Figurative Paintings

Byron Browne was an important American modernist painter. Ink, tempera, and crayon on paper Signed and dated lower right.

GLORIA STUART (1910 – 2010) WATTS TOWERS, 1971 Oil on canvas, signed lower right, 24” x 50 ½”. Gloria Stuart, an Academy Award nominated actress was also a painter, illustrator and printmaker. She most recently portrayed Rose in the blockbuster film “Titanic”. She was a Santa Monica native. In 2013 The Los Angeles Museum of Art, LACMA exhibited a nearly identical painting looking from the south, the same size and frame. Last 5 photos show the example at LACMA. One shows theirs in a distant room with a major Thomas Hart Benton painting in the foreground A VERY IMPORTANT MULTI-LEVELED DOCUMENT OF LOS ANGELES AND HOLLYWOOD CULTURAL HSTORYi The following is from her obituary in the Los Angeles Times upon her death in September 2010 at the age of 100 Gloria Stuart, a 1930s Hollywood leading lady who earned an Academy Award nomination for her first significant role in nearly 60 years — as Old Rose, the centenarian survivor of the Titanic in James Cameron’s 1997 Oscar-winning film — has died. She was 100. .......She devoted much of her time to designing and printing artists’ books (handmade, letter-press printed books in limited editions, with her own artwork and writing). Her work is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and other museums. Stuart, a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild who later became an accomplished painter and fine printer, died Sunday night at her West Los Angeles home, said her daughter, writer Sylvia Thompson. Stuart had been diagnosed with lung cancer five years ago. “She also was a breast cancer survivor,” Thompson said, “but she just paid no attention to illness. She was a very strong woman and had other fish to fry.” In July the actress was honored at an “Academy Centennial Celebration With Gloria Stuart” at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. “She was a charming and beautiful leading lady in the ‘30s, and I never understood why her career didn’t go further at that time,” film historian and critic Leonard Maltin, who interviewed Stuart on stage at the event, told The Times on Monday. As for Stuart’s high-profile comeback in “Titanic”: “She was thrilled by the attention that that performance brought her and really wanted to win that Oscar. I thought she hit just the right notes in that performance. She was wry and engaging.” As a glamorous blond actress under contract to Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox in the 1930s, Stuart appeared opposite Claude Rains in James Whale’s “The Invisible Man” and with Warner Baxter in John Ford’s “The Prisoner of Shark Island.” She also appeared with Eddie Cantor in “Roman Scandals,” with Dick Powell in Busby Berkeley’s “Gold Diggers of 1935” and with James Cagney in “Here Comes the Navy.” And she played romantic leads in two Shirley Temple movies, “Poor Little Rich Girl” and “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.” But mostly she played what Stuart later dismissed as “stupid parts with nothing to do” — “girl reporter, girl detective, girl nurse” — and “it became increasingly evident to me I wasn’t going to get to be a big star like Katharine Hepburn and Loretta Young.” After making 42 feature films between 1932 and 1939, Stuart’s latest studio contract, with 20th Century Fox, was not renewed. She appeared in only four films in the 1940s and retired from the screen in 1946. By 1974, “the blond lovely of the talkies” had become an entry in one of Richard Lamparski’s “Whatever Happened to” books. Writer-director Cameron’s $200-million “Titanic” changed that. Stuart played Rose Calvert, the 100-year-old Titanic survivor who shows up after modern-day treasure hunters searching through the wreckage of the sunken ship find a charcoal drawing of her wearing a priceless blue diamond necklace. Stuart’s performance as Old Rose frames the 1997 romantic- drama that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as lower-class artist Jack Dawson...

Original Painting. Colliers Cover Published American Scene Christmas Modern Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Man with Ribbon Colliers published,...

Original Painting New Yorker Cover Proposal American Scene Modern Santa's Feet Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Santas Feet At Midnight New Yorker c...

Fireman Textile Fabric Design 1920s American Scene Modern Working Men Art Deco Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Firemen Textile design, c. 1929 19 1/4 ...

Oil on cradled board. Signed and dated on back. Part of an ongoing series of man vs beast by the artist

LARRY KANTNER Boy with Dog 1980 Acrylic on canvas 52.5 x 40.5 inches

Original Painting Steel Workers Fabric Design Industrial Deco American Modernism Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Steel Workers Textile design 19 1/4 X ...

William Stephens Shields, Jr., 1925 - 2010 "Utopia" 1988 Oil on canvas 60"x48" artist framed Signed lower right William Stephens Shields, Jr., 1925 - 2010 He was born in san Francisco, in 1931, Bill moved to Texas, where he grew up. Moved to New York in 1940 and later joined the Naval Air Corps at the age of 18. He served as an Aviation Cadet in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1945. At the end of WWII, Bill returned to Texas. At 21, Bill re-focused his energy and enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Art as an Illustration major. What followed was a whirlwind of success, great friendships and a sense of belonging he had never before experienced. Art was his calling and the art-world could not have been less prepared for the likes of Bill Shields...

Industrial Mid-20th Century WPA Modern Men Working American Scene Social Realism George Pearse Ennis (American, 1884-1936) "Forging a Gun Tube #1...

Bryon Browne was an important American modernist painter. Signed upper right; signed, dated and situated 'New York' on reverse

Julio De Diego’s Atomic Series paintings made an extraordinary statement regarding the shock and fear that accompanied the dawn of the nuclear age. In the artist’s own words, “Scientists were working secretly to develop formidable powers taken from the mysterious depths of the earth - with the power to make the earth useless! Then, the EXPLOSION! . . . we entered the Atomic Age, and from there the neo-Atomic war begins. Explosions fell everywhere and man kept on fighting, discovering he could fight without flesh.” To execute these works, De Diego developed a technique of using tempera underpainting before applying layer upon layer of pigmented oil glazes. The result is paintings with surfaces which were described as “bonelike” in quality. The forms seem to float freely, creating a three-dimensional visual effect. In the 1954 book The Modern Renaissance in American Art, author Ralph Pearson summarizes the series as “a fantastic interpretation of a weighty theme. Perhaps it is well to let fantasy and irony appear to lighten the devastating impact. By inverse action, they may in fact increase its weight.” Exhibited 1964 Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas This work retains its original frame which measures 54" x 42" x 2" About this artist: Julio De Diego crafted a formidable persona within the artistic developments and political struggles of his time. The artist characterized his own work as “lyrical,” explaining, “through the years, the surrealists, the social-conscious painters and the others tried to adopt me, but I went my own way, good, bad or indifferent.” [1] His independence manifested early in life when de Diego left his parent’s home in Madrid, Spain, in adolescence following his father’s attempts to curtail his artistic aspirations. At the age of fifteen he held his first exhibition, set up within a gambling casino. He managed to acquire an apprenticeship in a studio producing scenery for Madrid’s operas, but moved from behind the curtains to the stage, trying his hand at acting and performing as an extra in the Ballet Russes’ Petrouchka with Nijinsky. He spent several years in the Spanish army, including a six-month stretch in the Rif War of 1920 in Northern Africa. His artistic career pushed ahead as he set off for Paris and became familiar with modernism’s forays into abstraction, surrealism, and cubism. The artist arrived in the U.S. in 1924 and settled in Chicago two years later. He established himself with a commission for the decoration of two chapels in St. Gregory’s Church. He also worked in fashion illustration, designed magazine covers and developed a popular laundry bag for the Hotel Sherman. De Diego began exhibiting through the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, and participated in the annual Chicago Artists Exhibitions, Annual American Exhibitions, and International Water Color Exhibitions. He held a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1935. Though the artist’s career was advancing, his family life had deteriorated. In 1932 his first marriage dissolved, and the couple’s young daughter Kiriki was sent to live with friend Paul Hoffman. De Diego continued to develop his artistic vocabulary with a growing interest in Mexican art. He traveled throughout the country acquainting himself with the works of muralists such as Carlos Merida, and also began a collection of small native artifacts...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. This is a watercolor and gouache beach scene three young men bathing...

1950s oil on board painting by George Cecil Carter portraying a modernist couple, thought to be Alfred Stieglitz & Georgia O'Keefe. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 20 ⅝ x 13 ½ x 1 ⅞ inches. Image sight size is 16 ⅞ x 9 ⅞ inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Provenance: Private Collection, Denver Colorado Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: George Cecil Carter was born in Oklahoma in 1908 and became a noted Colorado abstract expressionist alongside contemporaries including Al Wynne, Mary Chenoweth...

Julio De Diego’s Atomic Series paintings made an extraordinary statement regarding the shock and fear that accompanied the dawn of the nuclear age. In the artist’s own words, “Scientists were working secretly to develop formidable powers taken from the mysterious depths of the earth - with the power to make the earth useless! Then, the EXPLOSION! . . . we entered the Atomic Age, and from there the neo-Atomic war begins. Explosions fell everywhere and man kept on fighting, discovering he could fight without flesh.” To execute these works, De Diego developed a technique of using tempera underpainting before applying layer upon layer of pigmented oil glazes. The result is paintings with surfaces which were described as “bonelike” in quality. The forms seem to float freely, creating a three-dimensional visual effect. In the 1954 book The Modern Renaissance in American Art, author Ralph Pearson summarizes the series as “a fantastic interpretation of a weighty theme. Perhaps it is well to let fantasy and irony appear to lighten the devastating impact. By inverse action, they may in fact increase its weight.” Exhibited 1950 University of Illinois at Urbana "Contemporary American Painting" 1964 Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas This work retains its original frame which measures 54" x 36" x 2". About this artist: Julio De Diego crafted a formidable persona within the artistic developments and political struggles of his time. The artist characterized his own work as “lyrical,” explaining, “through the years, the surrealists, the social-conscious painters and the others tried to adopt me, but I went my own way, good, bad or indifferent.” [1] His independence manifested early in life when de Diego left his parent’s home in Madrid, Spain, in adolescence following his father’s attempts to curtail his artistic aspirations. At the age of fifteen he held his first exhibition, set up within a gambling casino. He managed to acquire an apprenticeship in a studio producing scenery for Madrid’s operas, but moved from behind the curtains to the stage, trying his hand at acting and performing as an extra in the Ballet Russes’ Petrouchka with Nijinsky. He spent several years in the Spanish army, including a six-month stretch in the Rif War of 1920 in Northern Africa. His artistic career pushed ahead as he set off for Paris and became familiar with modernism’s forays into abstraction, surrealism, and cubism. The artist arrived in the U.S. in 1924 and settled in Chicago two years later. He established himself with a commission for the decoration of two chapels in St. Gregory’s Church. He also worked in fashion illustration, designed magazine covers and developed a popular laundry bag for the Hotel Sherman. De Diego began exhibiting through the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, and participated in the annual Chicago Artists Exhibitions, Annual American Exhibitions, and International Water Color Exhibitions. He held a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1935. Though the artist’s career was advancing, his family life had deteriorated. In 1932 his first marriage dissolved, and the couple’s young daughter Kiriki was sent to live with friend Paul Hoffman. De Diego continued to develop his artistic vocabulary with a growing interest in Mexican art. He traveled throughout the country acquainting himself with the works of muralists such as Carlos Merida, and also began a collection of small native artifacts...

An oil on board Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. The work depicts a standing prophet with white robes raising his arms towards heaven. The work is signed "Ben-Zion" in the bottom right corner. The work is signed and dated "4/14/59" on verso. Provenance: Ex. Sotheby's Parke Bernet 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. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant-garde group, Painted on anything handy. Ben-Zion often used cabinet...

Original Painting. Vanity Fair Illustration Proposal. Art Deco Modern 1930s Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Vanity Fair Illustration proposal, c 1930’s 18 X 13 3/4 inches (sight) ...

Richard Marshall Merkin (American, 1938-2009) Gladys and Half-Pint Hand signed 'Merkin' (center right), Titled, inscribed, dated, and initialed 'GLADYS BENTLEY AND FRANKIE 'HALF-PINT' JAXON 1997/R.M.' verso. Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 72 in. (95.3 x 182.9 cm) framed 39 1/4 x 74 x 2 in. Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tailcoat and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She tried to continue her musical career but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era she started wearing dresses and married, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, born Frank Devera Jackson was an African American vaudeville singer, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, orphaned, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with medicine shows in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a female impersonator, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, often with such performers as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, whose staging he helped design. He served slightly less than a year in the United States Army in 1918–1919 and rose to the rank of sergeant. In the late 1920s he sang with top jazz bands when they passed through Chicago, working with Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard and others. He performed and recorded with the pianists Cow Cow Davenport, Tampa Red and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, recording with the latter pair under the name of The Black Hillbillies. He also recorded with the Harlem Hamfats. In the 1930s, he was often on radio in the Chicago area, and led his own band, titled Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and His Quarts of Joy. Jaxon appeared with Duke Ellington in a film short titled Black and Tan (1929), and with Bessie Smith in "St. Louis Blues" (1929). Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" (1931) is based both musically and lyrically on Jaxon's "Willie the Weeper" (1927). Richard Merkin, Sometimes described as Rhode Island’s most famous New York artist, Richard Merkin has led a dual life for nearly 40 years - teaching at RISD while enjoying a celebrated painting career based in New York City. He has exhibited in countless gallery and museum shows in the US and abroad and is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the RISD museum and many others. In addition to contributing drawings and paintings to The New Yorker (along with, Art Spiegelman, Saul Steinberg, Harper’s, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and several books on Erotica and Baseball, he is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a former style columnist for GQ. Merkin’s honors include a Tiffany Foundation Fellowship and the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Museums and Selected Collections : The American Federation of Arts, New York, NY Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA First city Bank, Chicago, Ill Fisk University Art Gallery, Nashville, TN Hallmark Collections, Kansas City, MO Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Maimi-Dade Junior College, Miami, FL Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Minnesota Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Pennsylvania Acadamy of the Arts, Philadelphia PA Prudential Insurance Company, Boston, Ma Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Sara Robey Foundation, New York, NY Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC State University of Brockport, Brockport, NY Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Selected Publications : 1986-Present Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair ..1988-Present, New Yorker... 1988-Present, style column, GQ...1997, Text and Illustration for The Tijuana Bibles, published by Simon & Shuster, 1995, Illustrated book, Leagues Apart: the Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues published by Morrow. 1967 Cover of the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” Album (Mr. Merkin appears in the back row, right of center) RISD: MFA in Painting, 1963; Professor, Department of Painting special skill: Merging his role as flaneur (connoisseur of city life) with his role as painter and social historian, Merkin retrieves lost cultural artifacts – a Turkish cigarette, a gangster, a bowler and generally “things most people don’t know about” – and reconstitutes their Jazz Age virtues on canvas in cubist, comic-laced landscapes of tropical color. (ala Robert Crumb and Ben Katchor) breaking in: Perpetually on the fly from his middle-class Brooklyn background, Merkin found the perfect escape in the mid ‘60s in George Frazier, a dapper Boston columnist who inspired the emerging New York painter’s overnight reinvention of himself. The elements of structure, stability and surprise he admired in this well-dressed dandy – a cool linen suit, a splash of suspender, a polka dot scarf and pearl-handled walking stick – soon surfaced in paintings peopled by impeccable underdogs of café society along with his personal pop heroes: William Burroughs, Bobby Short and Krazy Kat...

Bricklayers House Beautiful Cover Proposal American Scene Modern WPA 1930s Industrial Workers Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Brick Layers House Beautiful cover proposal, c. 1939 ...

Mervin Jules (American, 1912-1994) Folk Singer, 20th century Oil on masonite 18 x 7 1/2 in. Signed lower left: Jules Provenance: Garelick's Gallery, Detroit Matte included, no fram...

Seymour Chwast, B. 1931, American, 'Girl on a Buick', Painted Sheet Metal. A label on the reverse reads: "Seymour Chwast, 'Girl on a Buick', Metal Cut-Out, $2,000" Provenance: Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery, Kent CT Seymour Chwast (born August 18, 1931) is an American graphic designer, illustrator, and type designer. Chwast was born in Bronx, New York, and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cooper Union in 1951. With Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, and Reynold Ruffins, he founded Push Pin Studios in 1954. Often referred to as "the left-handed designer," Chwast's unique graphic design melded social commentary and a distinctive style of illustration. Today, he continues to work and is principal at The Pushpin Group, Inc. in New York City. In 1979, he was hired by McDonald's to design on the first box for their Happy Meals. He is the font designer of Chwast Buffalo, Fofucha, Loose Caboose NF, and Weedy Beasties NF. He is a member of Alliance Graphique International (AGI). In the pantheon of American (nay, world) illustration, he stands, albeit slightly shorter and a little more rumpled, beside N.C. Wyeth, J. C. Leyendecker, and Normal Rockwell...

Julio De Diego’s Atomic Series paintings made an extraordinary statement regarding the shock and fear that accompanied the dawn of the nuclear age. In the artist’s own words, “Scientists were working secretly to develop formidable powers taken from the mysterious depths of the earth - with the power to make the earth useless! Then, the EXPLOSION! . . . we entered the Atomic Age, and from there the neo-Atomic war begins. Explosions fell everywhere and man kept on fighting, discovering he could fight without flesh.” To execute these works, De Diego developed a technique of using tempera underpainting before applying layer upon layer of pigmented oil glazes. The result is paintings with surfaces which were described as “bonelike” in quality. The forms seem to float freely, creating a three-dimensional visual effect. In the 1954 book The Modern Renaissance in American Art, author Ralph Pearson summarizes the series as “a fantastic interpretation of a weighty theme. Perhaps it is well to let fantasy and irony appear to lighten the devastating impact. By inverse action, they may in fact increase its weight.” Bibliography Art in America, April 1951, p.78 About this artists: Julio De Diego crafted a formidable persona within the artistic developments and political struggles of his time. The artist characterized his own work as “lyrical,” explaining, “through the years, the surrealists, the social-conscious painters and the others tried to adopt me, but I went my own way, good, bad or indifferent.” [1] His independence manifested early in life when de Diego left his parent’s home in Madrid, Spain, in adolescence following his father’s attempts to curtail his artistic aspirations. At the age of fifteen he held his first exhibition, set up within a gambling casino. He managed to acquire an apprenticeship in a studio producing scenery for Madrid’s operas, but moved from behind the curtains to the stage, trying his hand at acting and performing as an extra in the Ballet Russes’ Petrouchka with Nijinsky. He spent several years in the Spanish army, including a six-month stretch in the Rif War of 1920 in Northern Africa. His artistic career pushed ahead as he set off for Paris and became familiar with modernism’s forays into abstraction, surrealism, and cubism. The artist arrived in the U.S. in 1924 and settled in Chicago two years later. He established himself with a commission for the decoration of two chapels in St. Gregory’s Church. He also worked in fashion illustration, designed magazine covers and developed a popular laundry bag for the Hotel Sherman. De Diego began exhibiting through the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, and participated in the annual Chicago Artists Exhibitions, Annual American Exhibitions, and International Water Color Exhibitions. He held a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1935. Though the artist’s career was advancing, his family life had deteriorated. In 1932 his first marriage dissolved, and the couple’s young daughter Kiriki was sent to live with friend Paul Hoffman. De Diego continued to develop his artistic vocabulary with a growing interest in Mexican art. He traveled throughout the country acquainting himself with the works of muralists such as Carlos Merida, and also began a collection of small native artifacts...

Subtle and moody portrait of a Pensive man by Joan Tidwell (American, 1930-2002). The sitter in the portrait is a middle-aged man looking slightly downwards, wearing a collared shirt. This piece is completed in a tan and green palette, creating a somber feeling. Of particular note are the confident, thick brushstrokes - each one is well-placed in the modernist style. Similar in some ways to Picasso's portraits. Signed "Joan Tidwell" on verso Unframed. Canvas size: 30"H x 22"W oan Gay Tidwell (American, 1930-2002) was born and raised in Hollywood, CA, where she had some success as a child actor. Later, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Washington with a Master's Degree in English Literature and Drama. Tidwell moved to the Bay...

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...

Oil on canvas signed by artist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992) featuring two young figures reading a book together while sitting from 1947. Painted in shades of green, orange, red, gray, and green. Image measures 28 x 38 inches, framed dimensions are 33 ¾ x 39 ¾ inches. Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born New Jersey 1913 Died Central City, CO 1992 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934. In 1937, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York – his first solo show. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States doing regional paintings. During the war in 1941, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission based in Eritrea, Africa before the Allied invasion. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer in the District of Columbia. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Airfield in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. He settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. In 1950, Di Benedetto teamed up with Frank Vavra...

Henry Schnakenberg is mostly known for New York City scenes. This is clearly a departure. It is signed at the lower left and dated '4-53' on the r...

Genre: Modern Subject: Landscape Medium: Oil Surface: Board Country: United States Dimensions: 30" x 22" EMANUEL ROMANO Rome, Italy, b. 1897, d. 1984 Emanuel Glicenstein Romano was born in Rome, September 23, 1897. His father Henryk Glicenstein was a sculptor and was living in Rome with his wife Helena (born Hirszenberg) when Emanuel was born. His father obtained Italian citizenship and adopted the name Enrico. Emanuel was brought up in Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England and Poland. In 1926 Emanuel and his father sailed for New York. They briefly visited Chicago. Romano's sister, Beatrice, and mother only joined them in New York years later. Romano changed his name on his arrival to America and some have erroneously speculated that this was to avoid antisemitic discrimination. In truth, as the son of a highly-regarded artist, Romano changed his name to ensure that any success or recognition he would later attain, would be the result of nothing other than his own merit as an artist, and not on account of his father's fame. In 1936 Romano was worked for the Federal Art Project creating murals. During and immediately after World War II, Romano created a series of allegorical works depicting graphic holocaust images that were held closely by the family until after his passing. One of these works is now on permanent display in the Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg Florida. Emanuel's father died in 1942 in a car accident before they could realize their shared dream of visiting Israel. In 1944 Romano, having completed his degree at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago, began teaching at the City College of New York. Romano moved to Safed, Israel in 1953 and established an art museum in his father's memory, the Glicentein Museum. COLLECTIONS Indianapolis Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art Boston Fine Arts Museum Fogg Museum Musée Nacional de France Recently his work has been added to the Florida Holocaust Museum collection. His notable works include his holocaust themed allegorical paintings as well as portraits of Marianne Moore, his father and William Carlos...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, oil on canvas, 36 x 28 inches, c. 1936, signed lower right, ex collection of Platt Fine Art, Chicago, Illinois (label verso). About the Painting Joseph Meert’s painting, Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, depicts the short-lived resurrection of a once prominent city just outside Denver. Central City was founded in 1859 soon after John Gregory struck gold in the area. As word spread, thousands of miners converged into “Gregory’s Gulch” and its surroundings became known as the “richest square mile on earth.” Mining production quickly increased resulting in Central City to becoming Colorado’s largest city in the early 1860s. Despite some technical difficulties transitioning to lode mining and the rise of competition from Leadville, Central City remained an economic boom town through the turn of the century. But, with every boom, there is a bust. World War I marked the end of Central City’s prominence as ore production ground to a halt and by 1925, the town’s population shrank to only 400 people. The desperation of the Great Depression and a nearly 100% increase in the price of gold lured labor and capital back to Central City. Meert painted in Colorado during the mid-1930s, a time when he created his most desirable works. It is during this period of renaissance that Meert captures one of Central City's outlying dirt streets bordered by 19th century wooden houses from the town's heyday and the more recently installed electric lines leading to a distant gold mine. A lone figure trudges up the hill, a mother with a baby in her arms, putting us in mind of the rebirth of the town itself. Meert had solo exhibitions at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1936 and the Denver Art Museum. Although it is not known whether Goldmine, Central City was included in either of these exhibitions, it seems likely. Moreover, the painting is closely related to Meert’s painting, The Old Road, which was painted in 1936 and exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and at the Dallas Museum of Art. About the Artist Joseph Meert was a well-regarded painter and muralist, who initially made a name for himself in the American Scene and later as an abstract expressionist. Although initially successful, Meert struggled financially and with mental illness later in life. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, but moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, a chance encounter at the Union Pacific Railyard changed his life. Meert happened upon a worker repainting and stenciling a design on a railroad car. Meert later recalled that this experience introduced him to the idea of being a painter. Without support from his father, Meert obtained a working scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. After four years at the Kansas City Art Institute, Meert studied seven years at the Art Students League and in Europe and Los Angeles. At the Art Students League, Meert fell under the spell of Thomas Hart Benton and Stanton MacDonald-Wright. In 1931, he befriended Jackson Pollock. By 1934, Meert was part of the Public Works of Art Project when he met his wife, Margaret Mullin...

William Meyerowitz (1887 - 1981) Oil painting on canvas Depicting a still life scene with fruit bowl, bananas, flowers and quilt. Post Impressionist oil painting. Hand signed low...

Untitled (Portrait of Bessy Lyon, Artist Wife) is an oil on canvas painting by Hayes Lyon (1901-1987) from 1945. Presented in a wood frame, outer dimensions measure 35 ¼ x 29 ¼ x 1 ¾ inches. Image size is 30 x 24 inches. About the Artist: A native of Athol, Kansas, Lyon is primarily associated with Colorado. After several summer vacations at the Boulder Chautauqua and at Manitou near Colorado Springs, his family relocated in 1920 to Boulder where his father had a lumber business. Nine years later they settled in Denver where his father owned the Acme Lumber Company. To comply with his desire for his son’s financial self-reliance, Lyon graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1931 with a B.A. degree in economics. But shortly thereafter he returned to his first love – art – that ultimately became his career. His interest in the arts was nurtured by his mother, herself a talented amateur artist, and by two of his aunts who served as role models. Beginning in 1932, he pursued a five-year course of study at the Chappell School of Art in Denver which by then had become part of the University of Denver. During his time at the school he studied with John E. Thompson and Santa Fe artist, Józef Bakoś. He also met two other Santa Fe-based artists, Willard Nash and B.J.O. Nordfeldt, when they exhibited at Chappell House, then the home of the Denver Art Museum. Lyon likewise attended the Cooke-Daniels Lecture Series there on the arts in the 1930s. Following graduation with a B.F.A. degree from the University of Denver in 1937, he studied privately for about a year with Andrew Dasburg in Taos, New Mexico, that redirected his attention to the rugged Rocky Mountain landscape, which he saw with directness and painted with an economy of means. His canvas, Winter Vista, done following his study with Dasburg, received the Edward J. Yetter Memorial Prize at the 45th Annual Exhibition of the Denver Art Museum in 1939. The painting was reproduced in the September 1939 issue of the Magazine of Art (Washington, DC). That same year his painting, Mount Evans, was included as one of Colorado’s entries in the American Art Today Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The money he received from the Yetter Prize financed his trip to Mexico City and Guadalajara in 1939 to see firsthand the frescoes of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera and the easel paintings of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Their work was admired by many Americans who participated in the WPA-era mural projects in the United States in the 1930s and early 1940s. The economic fallout from the Great Depression affecting many American artists at the time likewise resulted in Lyon’s participation in the Colorado Art Project, part of the WPA’s national program. Under its auspices he produced three murals in 1940 about the pioneer era of Fort Lupton, Colorado, which were installed in the auditorium of the local high school. Covering 367 square feet of wall space, one of the murals – Behold the West (the largest one) – incorporates the old fort for which the town is named. Before Lyon painted the murals, the students at Fort Lupton High School researched the history of their community and contributed to their cost, facilitating the murals’ allocation to their school under the Colorado Art Project. In the early 1940s Lyon shifted his focus to two new subjects – bathers, and canyons with conifers – reflecting his ongoing search for personal artistic growth. However, his reliance on structure to create form in his paintings and works on paper alienated some of his longtime followers. Nonetheless, his painting Conifers and Canyons won recognition at the 47th Annual Exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. The watercolor version of the piece was among three hundred works in that medium selected by John Marin, Charles Burchfield and Eliot O’Hara from a national competition held by the Section of Fine Arts (Federal Works Agency) and shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in 1941. Later that year Lyon spent time in California where he saw Orozco’s Prometheus, influencing him to increase his range of originality and expression. In 1942 Lyon enlisted in the U.S. Army, spending almost three years in the Mediterranean Theater – Africa and Italy – preparing camouflage operations and scale models of proposed landing sites. He used his free time in Italy to expand his artistic vocabulary by seeing cultural masterpieces in Rome, Florence, Siena and Milan, and through his extensive contact with Giorgio de Chirico, founder of the scuola metafisica art movement, and Gino Severini, a leading member of the Futurist movement. Because of Lyon’s low army rank and pay, de Chirico did a small watercolor for him signing it, "For Mr. Lyon; G de Chirico, 1944." Lyon often visited de Chirico and his wife, Isa, at their apartment near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Following his Army discharge in 1945 fellow Kansas native, Ward Lockwood, invited him to join the Art Department at the University of Texas at Austin where he taught painting from 1946 to 1951. During this period some of Lyon’s work employed the palette of the School of Paris which he had seen while stationed in Europe, while other paintings had a certain flatness found in some of Lockwood’s work from the 1930s. From 1951 to 1953 he was affiliated with the Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin as an illustrator and editor of the employee magazine. In 1953, following time spent in Mexico, he returned to Denver, working as an illustrator at Lowry Air Force Base until retirement in 1961. During that time he did little of his own art because he also was designing and building a home in Arvada, Colorado, and re-establishing himself in the Denver art community after a decade-long absence. His painting, Autumn Aspens (1953-present location unknown) illustrates his experimentation with abstraction. In the early 1960s he began painting from memory that continued until the steadily degenerative effects of Alzheimer’s disease took their toll a decade later. He depicted scenes from his wartime European sojourn and from his early adulthood. The latter include Souvenir of Boulder (1962), a nostalgic return to his boyhood home in Boulder; and Holly Mayer and Friends, a painting of Glenn Miller and his musicians, inspired by Lyon’s first encounter with jazz in Boulder in the 1920s. His lifelong passion for vintage cars and automobile racing...

Betsy Podlach (American, born 1964.) Still life with Tin Cup, 1996 17.5 X 16.5 inches. Framed it measures 18.25 X 17.25 Betsy Podlach graduated from Harvard, cum laude, (she studied at Harvard with Alfred Decreido and William Reimann as well as Carlos Fuentes continuing her studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, Ms. Podlach was awarded an art fellowship and residency at The International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. Betsy Podlach is an American painter who considers the Italian Venetians and the american abstract expressionist painters her mentors. The two painters she is most inspired by are Titian and Jackson Pollock, Both use the picture plane and abstraction and space, light, movement and form to communicate a physicality built entirely on the principals of painting, in the “classical” sense of a flat plane and lines, color, shape, space and light applied to that flat surface to create magic – light, space, form, emotion, force, movement, the physical and the spiritual. She describes her work as a figurative version of abstract expressionism. She was influenced by many of the abstract expressionists from the NY school...

R.P. Overmyer (American, 1948-2010). An original oil painting (this might be acrylic) on canvas. A figural Pop Art work painted in an abstract whimsical style, featuring an interior scene of bloody murder, with corpse figure, bullet riddled wall and chair, picture frame with photograph, and additional forms. Artist signature to bottom R.P. OVERMYER. The artist was a syndicated cartoonist and creator of the popular strip, "Hollywood Dog." Work Size: 29.5 x 39.5 in. Dimensions: 30 X 40.25 X 1.75 in. Overmyer was a longtime LA-based cartoonist and designer. His newspaper clients included LA Weekly and the San Jose Metro Weekly; his animation employers included Fox and Universal Studios. He may be best known for his Hollywood Dog feature, which was nationally syndicated in its current, political-cartoon illustration art form since I believe January 2006 and included the Los Angeles Times among its clients. The feature was originally a comic strip for the Los Angeles Reader, was trademarked for t-shirt production in 1989, and was briefly the basis for a television show in the post-Simpsons 1990s. That show appeared in 1993 and feature Simpsons utility performer Hank Azaria as the voice of the title character. He is from a long line of outsider, alternative, underground comics, cartoonist movement like Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, Harvey Pekar, Ben Katchor, Ralph Bakshi...

"Mutual Admiration" Flower Mid-Century Modern Oil Painting Monterey Artist Mid-Century Modern painting of a little blonde girl in a white apron adoring her flowers by Monterey Artist Rose Marie (Smith) Ansel, (American, 1921-2012) Rose Marie was born and lived in the Monterey area all her life. She volunteered in various city government associations and founded the Parade of Nations in 1970 which celebrated the many ethnic cultures on the Monterey Peninsula...

"Dusseldorf, Germany" 1993, oil on canvas, hand signed and dated lower left, Canvas (unframed):18 X 48. framed: 19.5 X 49.5 Provenance: directly from the artist. Exhibited at Phyllis Kind Gallery in NYC in 1987. Archie Rand (American, born 1949) is an artist from Brooklyn, New York. Rand's work as a painter and muralist is held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His graphic works and books are held by the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute Of Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and The New York Public Library; and are owned by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, and Johns Hopkins universities. Born in Brooklyn, Rand received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in cinegraphics from the Pratt Institute, having studied previously at the Art Students League of New York. His first exhibition was in 1966, at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. He has since had over 100 solo exhibitions, and his work has been included in over 200 group exhibitions. He is currently Presidential Professor of Art at Brooklyn College which granted him the Award for Excellence in Creative Achievement in 2016. Before joining Brooklyn College, Rand was the chair of the Department of Visual Arts at Columbia University. The Italian Academy For Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University presented him with The Siena Prize in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Foundation Fellowship in 1999 and was made a Laureate of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, which awarded him the Achievement Medal for Contributions in the Visual Arts. In 2002 he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching from Columbia University. In 2002 he became the artistic advisor to film director Ang Lee for his production of The Hulk, and was asked by Milestone Films to provide a commentary track for the DVD release of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic 1955 film The Mystery of Picasso. Archie Rand’s earliest major works are “The Letter Paintings” (or “The Jazz Paintings”) (1968–71), a radically positioned series of technically inventive, mural-sized canvases. The Letter Paintings, by incorporating the names of mainly male and female African-American musicians, undermined prevailing aesthetic categories by conflating many contemporary movements including Conceptual Art, Color Field, Pattern and Decoration, diary entry and social commentary. In 1974 Rand received a commission from Congregation B’nai Yosef in Brooklyn. Rand was asked to paint thematic murals on the complete 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) interior surfaces of the synagogue. The work took three years, and completing this commission made Rand the author of the only narratively painted synagogue in the world and the only one we know of since the 2nd Century Dura-Europos. The religious legal controversy raised by placing wall paintings in a traditionally iconoclastic space was resolved by the verdict of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, then considered to be the world’s leading Talmudic scholar, who declared the paintings to be in conformity with the law. His subsequent turn to figuration may have been influenced by his friendship with Philip Guston, whose own work was transformed in the late 1960s. Like Guston, Rand "chafed at the limitations of purely abstract forms." A near-cult figure who started out as a child prodigy and whose admirers range from John Ashbery to Julian Schnabel. Rand’s paintings display a vast and savvy menu of inventive and finely executed approaches. He has completed many series after the works of Paul Celan, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Eugenio Montale, Yehuda Amichai, Rainer Maria Rilke, Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard and Jack Spicer. Working often with poets, he has produced books and continues to engage in publishing collaborative projects. He maintained a correspondence with the American British Jewish painter R.B. Kitaj. In 2008, on a warehouse wall, Rand mounted the painting, “The 613”, which at 1700 square feet (17’ x 100’) is nearly twice the size of James Rosenquist’s F-111. It is one of the largest freestanding paintings ever made. Reminiscent of “The Segments” paintings it is intimidatingly enormous. Paradoxically, despite the raucous cartoony bytes that shoot colorful flashes from the manic surface, “The 613” glows warmly. Its overall effect is strangely calming and majestic. In an article on a 2011 exhibition of Rand's "Had Gadya" series, David Kaufmann wrote: Rand displayed his work in 15 solo exhibitions between 2008 and 2017, many of them showcasing paintings done after Scripture, or his workings with poets: Including “Had Gadya, 2005”, Borowsky Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2011); “Gods Change, Prayers Are Here To Stay (after Yehuda Amichai), 2000", Katz Gallery, Atlanta, GA (2014); “Psalm 68, 1994”, Derfner Museum, Riverdale, NY (2014); “The Chapter Paintings”, Tribeca Gallery, NY (2015); “Men Who Turn Back (after Eugenio Montale), 1995", SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2016); “Sixty Paintings From the Bible” & “The Book of Judith, 2012”, Cleveland State University Galleries, Cleveland, OH (2016) & The American Jewish Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (2017); “Archie Rand: Early Works With Poetry: Jack Spicer, 1991 and Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard, 1993”, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY (2017). "The 613" In 2015 Blue Rider/Penguin/Random House published The 613, allotting one color plate per page for each of the 614 units in the painting. The Wall Street Journal labeled The 613 as “dynamic…remarkable…thrilling” The New York Times selected the book as “Editors' Choice” and praised it in two separate reviews calling it “wonderfully garish” and declaring that “nothing prepared the art world for 'The 613.' Recent Activity In 2016 Rand showed two bodies of work that were done in Italy, “La Certosa Di Pontignano, 1995” and “Mount Etna, 2005,” at The Interchurch Center Galleries, New York. From 2016 to 2017 he served as the Curator and Juror for the Governor of Wyoming’s Capitol Arts Exhibition at The Wyoming State Museum, Cheyenne, WY. A 2017 exhibition, “Archie Rand: Early Works With Poetry”, featured two series of work from 1991 and 1993 after poems by Jack Spicer and Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard. This painting was exhibited in the Phyllis Kind Gallery in NY in 1987. (Phyllis Kind was an American art dealer active in Chicago and New York. She promoted the work of the Chicago Imagists, The Monster Roster and The Hairy Who and outsider artists. Kind opened a gallery in Chicago in 1967. Called Pro Grafica Arte, the gallery dealt in master prints and drawings. In 1975, she opened a gallery on Spring Street in New York's SoHo district. She gave some of the artists in the movement their first solo shows: Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson...

Rabbit Hunters, egg tempera on Masonite, 12 x 9 inches, 1947, signed and dated lower left, signed, titled and dated verso “Rabbit Hunters Egg Tempera Roger Medearis 1947,” exhibited ...

John August Groth (American, 1908-1988) "Wrestling Match," Watercolor painting, hand signed upper right and inscribed upper left, "Las Palmas Canary Islands Lucha Canary Wrestling". Framed Size: 21'' x 29'', 53 x 74 cm (sight); 28.5'' x 36.25'', 72 x 92 cm (frame). Depiction of a wrestling match in a city square. John August Groth (1908 - 1988) was an illustrator and art teacher. He gained recognition as a war correspondent-illustrator. He studies at the Art Institute of Chicago and at Art Students League with Todros Geller, Robert Brackman, Arnold Blanch and George Grosz. He was a member: Society of American Etchers; American Newspaper Guild; Society of Illustrators; Associate Member of the National Academy of Design; American Water Color Society. Positions : Art Director at Esquire 1933 - 1937, Parade Publications 1941 - 1944; War Correspondent for Chicago Sun 1944; American Legion Magazine 1945; Artist-Correspondent in Vietnam 1967.Teacher at Art Students LeagueHe was the first art director of Esquire Magazine and taught at the Art Students League, the Pratt Institute, and the Parsons School of Design. In 1940, he was included in an exhibition at MOMA, titled, "PM Competition: The Artist as Reporter." The exhibition included Philip Guston, Reginald Marsh, John Tworkov, John Heliker, Adolf Dehn, and Chet La More. Groth began sketching intently during the Great Depression after studying at the Art Institute of Chicago. Following the advice of an editor, he penned 100 sketches a day for years. He learned to increase his speed by listening to sports on the radio and sketching the action as fast as he could. "I would listen to the games on the radio at night, and sketch the plays. It made me very quick." His break came when Arnold Gingrich, an editor for Esquire magazine, approached him at an art show in Chicago and offered him a position. "The way (Arnold Gingrich) told it," John Groth says, "he found this barefoot, bearded kid in the park, and the next day made him art director of the world's leading men's fashion magazine. But I swear I was wearing shoes." Groth went on to work as a correspondent and illustrator for the Chicago Sun, Collier's, Sports Illustrated, and The Saturday Evening Post. He developed a passion for war zones. He covered six different wars and was one of the first correspondents in Paris after its liberation. "It is only at war that I feel complete... There, you meet all sort of men -- farmers, mechanics, college professors. It rains on them and it rains on you. The shells burst in the air, and you are there, too." He would make a splash when he beat out friend and rival, Ernest Hemingway, into Paris in 1944. Hemingway was writing for the Chicago Tribune and Groth for the Chicago Sun. Groth was in the first jeep into Paris and got the scoop. His headline read, "Yanks are in Paris!" Hemingway would later write about Groth's technique. “None of us understood the sort of shorthand he sketched in. The men would look at the sketches and see just a lot of lines. It was a great pleasure to find what fine drawings they were when we got to see them. Groth went on to illustrate such classic books as: A Christmas Carol, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Grapes of Wrath, The War Prayer, and Gone with the Wind. Deborah Churchman described Groth's work in a 1980 Washington Post article: "Groth's pictures center on the day-to-day life of people caught in terrifying circumstances -- armies occupying cities, soldiers sweeping roads for land mines, bullfighters facing death." Bernie Schonfeld, a photographer for Life Magazine said of Groth, "John is one of the gentlest people in the world, and he always gets himself into the wildest hell hole." He joined the First Congress of American Artists Against War and Fascism in 1936, along with Stuart Davis, Peter Blume...

We are proud to present outstanding original oil on canvas by American artist William Gropper (1897-1977.) William Gropper was an artist and illustrator, known for his exceptional a...

Solitary Mister 1964 Oil on canvas 52 x 38 inches (132.1 x 96.5 cm) This work is offered by CLAMP in New York City.

The Demagogue or Tale in a Tub, 1952, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, signed, titled, and dated verso About the Painting The Demagogue is an iconic Bendor Mark painting from the prime of his post-war period. Beginning early in his career, Mark was fascinated with depictions of the human figure and their capacity to tell stories of the world around him. Mark was a keen observer of his times and in The Demagogue we see Mark’s portrayal of a faithless politician holding up a “V” for victory sign as he appeals to the wanton desires and prejudices of the masses. Below the demagogue is a swirl of humanity representing the common man who is being pushed down by the powerful, while the robed figure of liberty with her scales of justice held high is brushed aside. Behind the demagogue, Mark places two other powerful supporting institutions which were often co-opted by the world’s dictators, the Church and the Military. Mark was an internationalist, so it is difficult to know exactly which demagogue inspired him to create this work, but in 1952 there were many to choose from. Whether depicting Argentina’s Peron (the demagogue and the women to the right resemble Juan and Eva Peron), Spain’s Franco or the United States’ homegrown fear mongers like Joseph McCarthy, Mark tells a universal story that unfolded in dramatic fashion during the post-war period as nations and their peoples grappled with authoritarianism and anti-democratic impulses. Stylistically, The Demagogue draws on the elements which make Mark’s work from this period immediately recognizable, a saturated palette, a closely packed and frenetic composition, exaggerated figuration and stylized facial features. But, above all, we see Mark’s ability to tell the stories of the rich and powerful and their ability to oppress. Like Mark’s work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art (The Hourglass - 1950-51) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Execution – 1940), The Demagogue pulls no punches, as the artist lays bare the threats to freedom and basic human rights. About the Artist Bendor Mark was an American modernist and social realist painter. Born as Bernard Marcus on June 5, 1912, in Brooklyn, New York, Mark trained at The Cooper Union during the 1920s where he studied with William Brantley van Ingen and became a prize-winning artist with a focus on painting the human figure. After his time at Cooper, Mark continued to live in New York and worked as a commercial artist and textile designer in addition to his pursuit of a career in painting. Like many Depression Era artists, Mark engaged with social progressives and in 1934, he joined the Artist’s Union which had the goal of advancing artists’ position as “worker.” Mark’s painting, Restaurant, which is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, appeared in the February 1936 edition of the Union’s publication, Art Front, as part of a review of an exhibition at ACA Gallery in New York. Mark worked on the Federal Art Project and by the mid- to late-1930s, began a series of paintings exploring the working conditions and hazards of the mining industry. Mark believed that miners were “in the forefront of the struggle for emancipation” and that the mere “struggle for existence is like moving mountains.” He became passionate about the Spanish Civil War and painted sympathetic images in support of the Spanish Republic. Mark was a premature anti-fascist and throughout his career painted works critical of dictators and other oppressors. During the late 1930s, Mark entered mural competitions with designs influenced by the Mexican muralists, taught adult art education in Queens, New York, and was an instructor at the WPA’s Queensboro Art Center. He was so committed to socially progressive art that by 1934, he had changed his name to Bendor Mark, in part, to distinguish his social realist paintings from his earlier work. During World War II, Mark worked as an artist for military contractors. After the war, he was employed as a graphic artist and in the printing industry before moving to Southern California in 1948, where he returned to a fine art practice the following year with politically and socially charged images which reflected his view of the shortcomings of the post-War period, the continued threat of fascism, and the international tensions of the Cold War. As the mood of the country shifted towards the right during the McCarthy Era and the art world’s attention focused on abstraction at the expense of figuration, Mark’s career as a painter suffered. From the 1950s through the 1980s, Mark continued to depict the events that shaped the world around him, often employing a highly stylized approach characterized by dynamic multi-figure compositions, a subtle muted palette, and exaggerated expressive features. A review of Mark’s oeuvre suggests that few people escaped Mark’s attention. He painted presidents, prime ministers, royalty, evangelists, musicians, and dictators (and their henchman), along with miners, farm workers, the urban poor, protesters, the unemployed and dispossessed. He laid bare the arrogance, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the world’s elites. Mark noted, “A work of art cannot be fully appreciated or wholly understood without considering the socio-political and cultural ambience that gave it birth.” He continued, “I have the ability to foresee the direction of social and political events while they are actually taking place.” He was not himself a direct political activist, however. Although Mark commented, “It’s a misconception to separate art from the social aspect of life,” he viewed artists as being neutral. According to Mark, “An apolitical attitude reflects the fact that the artist is passive. . . An artist never affects society; he merely reflects it.” In addition to the Mexican Muralists, Mark was influenced by the old masters Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Masaccio, as well as the more modern master, Van Gogh. Mark’s writings directly acknowledge these influences and archival material from his estate includes magazine articles, pamphlets and transparencies related to these artists. Mark also collected materials related to several of his social realist contemporaries, including Reginald Marsh, Ben Shahn, Leonard Baskin, and Raphael Soyer, who was Mark’s good friend. For years, Soyer sent Mark holiday cards and Soyer inscribed a message of friendship on a self-portrait he gifted to Mark in the 1970s, all of which are still held in the collection of Mark’s family. From the late 1920s through the mid-1950s, Mark’s work was well received. His paintings won prizes and were accepted into major juried exhibitions including at the Brooklyn Museum, the New York World’s Fair and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He gained national recognition for paintings depicting the oppressed and the common worker. Despite the decline in popularity of representational art during the 1950s and 1960s, Mark stayed true to his interest in depicting the human figure and by the last two decades of his life, his work underwent a reassessment as curators included Mark’s paintings in exhibitions showcasing the role of labor in art during the Depression Era. This recognition continued in recent years when Mark was honored by having his work included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s ground-breaking exhibition, Vida Americana, which explored the pioneering role that the Mexican muralists played in the development of modern American art during the inter-war period. The influence of Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco on Mark is unmistakable and his paintings from the 1950s (and beyond) sit comfortably in dialogue with other Los Angeles artists who continued to paint in the social realist tradition long after the mainstream art world had moved toward abstraction. Mark’s concern for underserved Brown and Black communities was shared with artists such as Charles White and his ally, Edward Biberman...

We are proud to present outstanding original oil on canvas by American artist William Gropper (1897-1977.) William Gropper was an artist and illustrator, known for his exceptional a...

Morris Kantor, American, 1896-1974 Seaside View, 1930 Hand signed M. Kantor and dated 1930 lower right Oil on canvas 22 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches 24 1/2 x 21 (frame) Morris Kantor (Belarusian: Морыс Кантор) (1896-1974) was a Russian Empire-born American painter based in the New York City area. This is a beautiful boat scene with a river or lake probably on Long Island. Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously relocated to the states. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974. He produced a prolific and diverse body of work, much of it in the form of paintings, which is distinguished by its stylistic variety over his long career. Perhaps his most widely recognized work is the iconic painting "Baseball At Night", which depicts an early night baseball game played under artificial electric light. Although he is best known for his paintings executed in a realistic manner, over the course of his life he also spent time working in styles such as Cubism and Futurism, (influenced by the Art Deco movement) and produced a number of abstract or non-figural works. A famous cubist, Futurist, painting of his "Orchestra" brought over 500,000$ at Christie's auction house in 2018. Kantor found employment in the Garment District upon his arrival in New York City, and was not able to begin formal art studies until 1916, when he began courses at the now-defunct Independent School of Art. He studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). In 1928, after returning to New York City from a year in Paris, Kantor developed a style in which he combined Realism with Fantasy, often taking the streets of New York as his subject matter. He did some moody Surrealist Nude paintings and fantasy scenes. In the 1940's he turned towards figural studies. Later in his career, Kantor himself was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s, and taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil...

Isabel Bishop portrays two people riding on a crowded subway using bright color in her painting “Study for Subway Reading.”

Early oil on canvas painting by the well known American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov done in the “Social Realism” period of the artist’s career. Signed lower left. Original artist inventory label on stretcher verso dates the painting to 1937. Condition of the painting is very good. The painting is housed in a contemporary version of a House of Heydenryk frame that measures overall 14.25 by 27.25 inches. Provenance: Estate of the artist Nahum Tschacbasov. Nahum Tschacbasov Biography : Russian-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 resemblance to work of another Russian-American artist--David Burliuk. He was somewhat of a late starter, moving to Paris in 1932 to study under Adolph Gottlieb, Marcel Gromaire and Fernand Leger. He had his first exhibition in Paris in 1934. He then returned to the US where he joined Rothko and Gottlieb at the Galery Seccession. He was one of the co-founders of The Ten, a group of social conscious abstract painters which included Rothko, Gottlieb, Joseph Solman and Ilya Bolotowsky, among others. In 1944, he began to work at Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17, a center for surrealistic ideas. Between 1936 and 1943, he had five one-man exhibitions at the ACA Galleries and participated in five group shows. He also exhibited at the Whitney, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Knox Albright Museum, the Chicago Institute of Fine Art and Corcoran, among others. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Met, the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum and the Jewish Museum. Tschacbasov has been the subject of two recent retrospective at Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, NY and Arthur...

"Spring" is a 25 x 30 inches, oil on canvas painting by American modernist and surrealist, female artist Peter Miller. The work is signed and titled on verso, and painted in a vibran...

African American artist Alvin Hollingsworth created an inventive and intriguing close-up portrait with figures in the distance. Found objects such as swatches of burlap, plastic spoons, press type and wood shapes are adhered to the surface make this work an object as much as an image. The overall image is bathed in a super hot orange-yellow. This is Hollingsworth interpretation of the soul of Africa. Indistinctly signed lower right in red. The work makes a powerful statement in person. Provenance: The Artist to a personal friend. Private collection Framed dimensions 19 1/4 x 25 1/4 in. Alvin Carl...

Monumental original painting by listed artist Frank Nelson Ashley The subject matter of this painting is a vibrant scene in New Orleans of the "Poo-Pah Club" jazz band, acrobat performers, finely dressed ladies, and cherubs that have fallen from the heavens to be a part of such a joyous parade. The colors are magnificent! Oil on canvas Signed & dated lower left and verso Title: "Parade of the Poo-Pah Club Jazz Band" 48" x 82" Artist Bio: Frank Ashley American 1920-2007 Joined Carmel Art Association 1970. Frank Ashley grew up in St Paul Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in England during WWII, and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Purple Heart and four Air Medals. He studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Minneapolis...

Framed Maurice Kish (American, 1895-1987) Genre painting of a man carrying water buckets Signed lower left: Maurice Kish Framed dimensions: 12 1/8 x 9 1/8 in. Maurice Kish, painter and poet, was born in Dvinsk, Russia (also known as Denenburg while under Russian rule) which is now known as Daugavpils, Latvia. Dvinsk was one of the leading Jewish cities in Russia in the 19th century, and a center of Jewish culture and debate. It was also a poor city where an estimated 30% of the Jewish population applied for aid in 1898. (1) Maurice (Moishe) Kish was born February 19, 1895 (2). A census conducted 2 years earlier indicated 330 industrial establishments owned by Jews, and 99 owned by non Jews. The dominant trades were tailoring and shoemaking. (1) "Kish… immigrated to New York in his teens. He pursued studies in art at Cooper Union and the National Academy of Design, gaining a foundation solid enough to support himself as a painter and to place his work in exhibitions, by the late 1930's, at such prestigious venues as the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art." (3) Kish also exhibited at the New York World's Fair in 1939, and by 1945 had exhibited 13 times at the National Academy and won 30 art prizes. He was a member of numerous art associations, including the Educational Alliance, the American Veteran Society of Artists, and the Brooklyn Art Alliance. (4) During the Depression Kish often portrayed "factory and street scenes in New York with the tired faces of workers revealing the weight of wage-labor upon their lives." (5) Kish himself was no stranger to the proletarian life - he was a skilled craft worker for decades in a factory which made glass vases. He was short and sturdy, a former amateur boxer, and also served as a dance instructor in the Catskills. In the 1970's, at the age of 75, he was still playing handball in the famous Brighton courts. (6) By the last decade of his life, however, he had lost his eyesight and was infirm. Kish lived most of his adult life in Brooklyn, initially in Brownsville but mainly in Williamsburg, and then Brighton Beach where he became enchanted by Coney Island...

Original framed oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Autumn Harvest" from 1987. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Presented in a custom framed, outer dimensions measure 20 x 29 x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 19 x 28 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak Painting is clean and in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...

Art Seiden was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1923. He received a BA at Queens College and studied for eight years (!) at the Art Students League. Mario Cooper was among his instructors. Up...

Joseph Wolins 1915-1999 Wolins was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He studied at the National Academy of Design from 1935 to 1941 under Leon Kroll. He also studied in Europe in ...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. Simka painted what he thought was typical of Jackson. His impression of pre-civil rights Mississippi was evidently Greek Revival column houses, weeping willow trees, working class families, and the oppression of African Americans. He painted African American men picking cotton, while a white man took account of the harvest and a white judge advised a white family, calling it Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. Though clearly endorsed by the government and initially generally well-received, the mural soon raised concerns with locals as the climate toward racial segregation began to change. The main concern was whether depictions that show African Americans in subjugated societal roles should be featured in a courtroom. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...

"In Soquel (California)" is an original oil on board painting by Jon Blanchette (1908-1987) circa 1955. Farm landscape with figure hanging laundry and silo, painted in colors of blue...

Basketball Player Gouache on card stock, c. 1940 Signed by the artist in ink lower center A study for the fresco mural in the Social Security Buildin...

"Homesteaders" is an original oil on board painting by artist Harold Vincent Skene (1883-1978) painted in 1960. The painting depicts two figures plowing a field with a pair of oxen, ...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Still Life with Apples, 1940 Oil on canvas Signed and dated upper right 18 x 24 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of national artistic success that was nearly unprecedented among Cleveland School artists of his day, with representation by major New York dealers...

"Untitled" portrays a young female nude in an intimate setting within the artist's studio. This painting is done in the classical vein of full portraiture. The model, however, is not posed quietly, but is engaged with a person or object off the frame, or, perhaps in an interior monologue with herself. Regardless of which, the viewer's attention is not only attracted to the beauty of the model's figure, but the intention of her actions. Charles Pompilius...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. Simka painted what he thought was typical of Jackson. His impression of pre-civil rights Mississippi was evidently Greek Revival column houses, weeping willow trees, working class families, and the oppression of African Americans. He painted African American men picking cotton, while a white man took account of the harvest and a white judge advised a white family, calling it Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. Though clearly endorsed by the government and initially generally well-received, the mural soon raised concerns with locals as the climate toward racial segregation began to change. The main concern was whether depictions that show African Americans in subjugated societal roles should be featured in a courtroom. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Hospitalities Long Past, 1941 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 37 x 27 inches "Looking into store front windows has always i...