William S. Schwartz

"Mums" William S. Schwartz, Yellow Flowers, Cubist, Modern Still Life

circa 1950

Bela de Kristo Nature morte, circa 1956 Signed lower right Oil on board 19 5/8 x 11 3/4 inches Provenance: Alexander Kahan Fine Arts, New York Private ...

Edward Millman (1907 - 1964) Candelabra, 1962 Signed lower right; titled and dated on the reverse Oil on canvas 41 3/4 x 31 1/2 inches Provenance: The ...

Albert Swinden (1901 - 1961) Still Life of Fruit, 1937 Oil on canvas 18 x 30 inches Provenance: Graham Gallery, New York Albert Swinden (1901–1961) was an English-born American abstract painter. He was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists, and he created significant murals as part of the Federal Art Project. Albert Swinden was born in Birmingham, England in 1901. When he was seven, he moved with his family to Canada, and in 1919 he immigrated to the United States. He lived in Chicago, where he studied for about a year and a half at the Art Institute. He then relocated to New York City, where his art education continued briefly at the National Academy of Design. He soon changed schools again, to the Art Students League, which he attended from 1930 to 1934. He studied with Hans Hofmann and gained an appreciation for Synthetic Cubism and Neoplasticism. According to painter and printmaker George McNeil, Swinden "could have influenced Hofmann ... He was working with very, very simple planes, not in this sort of Cubistic manner. Swinden was working synthetically at this time." While still a student, Swinden began teaching at the Art Students League, in 1932. Swinden married Rebecca Palter (1912–1998), from New York. Their daughter, Alice Swinden Carter, also became an artist. Carter, who attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, received an award from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston for her large sculptures. Swinden was hired for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and he is best known for the murals which he painted as part of that project. In 1935, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia attended the opening of the inaugural exhibit at the Federal Art Project Gallery, accompanied by Audrey McMahon, New York regional director for the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project. Among the works on display was Abstraction, a sketch by Swinden; it was the design for a mural planned for the College of the City of New York. A newspaper account described it as consisting of "brightly colored T-squares, triangles and rulers in horizontal, vertical and diagonal positions". La Guardia asked what it was, and upon being told it was a mural design, he said he didn't know what it depicted. Someone joked that it could be a map of Manhattan. The displeased mayor stated that "if that's art, I belong to Tammany Hall." (Tammany Hall, which the Republican mayor referenced, was the New York Democratic Party political society.) Fearing that the mayor's negative attitude could jeopardize the future of abstract art within the Federal Art Project, McMahon dispatched an assistant to summon an artist who could speak to the mayor in defense of abstraction. The assistant returned with Arshile Gorky. Swinden played an important role in the founding of the American Abstract Artists. In 1935, he met with three friends, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, her future husband Byron Browne, and Ibram Lassaw, with the goal of exhibiting together. The group grew and started meeting in Swinden's studio, which adjoined those of Balcomb and Gertrude Greene...

Everett Lloyd Bryant (1864 - 1945) Floral Bouquet Still Life Oil on canvas 30 x 25 inches Signed lower right; signed on the reverse and on stretc...

Nicholas Alden Brooks Still Life with Pink Ewer and Sheet Music, 1891 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 20 1/8 x 16 inches Considerable mystery surrounds the name Nicholas Alden Brooks. Other than having been active in New York City between 1880 and 1904, very little is known about the artist. There are no records of any art societies showing him as a member or his having participated in any exhibits. The name Brooks, in fact, could possibly be a pseudonym for Robert Fullington, whose name appears on theatrical memorabilia in Brookss trompe loeil still-life paintings. William Harnett...

Edith Kramer (1916 - 2014) Still Life with Mask, n.d. Oil on canvas 26 x 20 inches Signed and titled on the stretcher Provenance: Estate of the artist Kramer was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary in 1916. At age 13 Kramer began art lessons with Friedl Dicker. Dicker was graduate of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany and was an artist and art teacher of note. Kramer studied drawing, sculpture and painting, and was influenced by the method for teaching art developed by Bauhaus artist Johannes Itten. It was in 1934 after Kramer graduated from Realgymnasium that she, then 18, followed Dicker to Prague to continue to study under her. During this time in Prague, Kramer witnessed the therapeutic impact of art when she assisted Dicker in teaching art to the children of political refugees. With the threat of Nazi invasion looming, Kramer took refuge in America in 1938. In New York City, she worked for three years teaching sculpture at a progressive school called the Little Red School House. During World War II Kramer worked as a machinist at a tool and die shop in the Soho district of New York City. She stayed after her shift to draw the other workers in their industrial setting. These works were rendered in the social realist style. In 1947 Kramer visited some of the earliest known artwork, in the caves at Lascaux. Kramer spoke of these cave paintings as an example of the universal language of art. At the age of 33 she returned to New York City, with hopes of making a living as an artist. Still in her 33rd year, Kramer was offered a job at Wiltwyck School for Boys, a school and residential treatment facility for children with behavioral and emotional needs. This job was arranged for her by psychoanalyst and board member at Wiltwyck, Dr. Viola Bernard. Dr. Bernard gave Kramer the title, "Art Therapist," noting that few teachers were willing to work with such challenging students. It was here that Kramer worked with disturbed boys, ages 8 through 13, for the following seven years. Raised in a family which was interested in psychoanalytic theory, Kramer herself became a follower of Sigmund Freud. Kramer especially believed in the concept of sublimation. Freudian theory describes sublimation as a process in which primitive urges coming from the id are transformed into socially productive activities that lead to gratification of the original urge. Kramer's training was in art, art education and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. Kramer believed sublimation to be one of the most vital goals of art therapy...

An exceptional cubist oil painting by Arna Brittin. The painting retains its original frame, and was exhibited at the Minneapolis Institute of Art Annual Exhibition in 1927. The Si...

Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24H x 30L

Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Image size, 23 1/2H x 29 1/2L

Silhouette. 1997, oil on canvas, 57x69 cm Abstract still life with guitar in red colors In 1958 he graduated from the Riga Art School of J. Rosenthal, in 1964 Art...

Vintage American modernist cubist abstract painting. Watercolor gouache and pastel on board. Unsigned. Framed. Image size, 11"L x 11"H.

An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist painting was created in the 1950's. Estate stamped on the reverse. The painting com...