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William Thon Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

American, 1906-2000

William Thon was an American artist noted for his highly abstracted landscape images. He was born in New York City and spent his childhood summers camping on Staten Island. He developed a great love of travel, and in 1933 made an eight-month voyage to Cocos Islands in the Pacific. He debuted as a professional artist in the 1939 Corcoran Gallery Biennial exhibition. He joined the Navy during World War II, and shortly after the war won the Prix de Rome, a fellowship in Rome to the American Academy, for which he later served as a trustee. He received further recognition with his participation in the 1942 '"Artists for Victory" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He held his first one-person show at the Midtown Galleries in New York in 1944. The gallery continued to represent him throughout his career. He had subsequent solo exhibitions at the Smith College Art Museum, the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine. He received an honorary Doctor of Arts from the Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, in 1957. He was a member of The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Academy of Design. In 1947, Thon’s year-long study at the American Academy proved pivotal in his career, when he began working in watercolor. Upon his return to America, he submitted a watercolor to the 1949 exhibition of the National Academy of Design, and that year, he was voted into the Academy membership. From thereon, he frequently exhibited at the Academy and won prizes, including the Benjamin Altman Prize in 1951, 1954, 1961, 1967 and 1969. In 1951, Thon received a grant from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He often traveled to Italy, and in 1955 served in Rome as Artist-in-Residence at the American Academy. Thon chose to live in the relative isolation of Port Clyde, Maine, on a peninsula overlooking the sea, a quiet place, especially in winter. He preferred the company of sailors, craftsmen, lobstermen, a few fellow artists and his beloved wife, Helen. This area is credited as inspiring a stylistic breakthrough for Thon when he discovered an abandoned quarry near his property. There, he created numerous, increasingly abstract paintings of spidery trees with rectilinear slabs of interspersed granite. Each season, Thon would send his paintings off to the prestigious Midtown Galleries in New York City. His works bore the imprint of his vital connection to the raw, natural beauty of rural Maine, its rugged terrain, beautiful virgin forests, intemperate seas, and the human-made scatter of wooden buildings along its rocky shoreline. Thon continued to work even after macular degeneration had left him legally blind. From his estate gift of four million dollars, the Portland Museum of Art, Maine, received the biggest cash donation to that time. Thon was awarded numerous prizes and is represented in over 60 museum collections including, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Butler Institute of American Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, and in Maine, the Farnsworth Art Museum, the Portland Museum of Art, and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.

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Artist: William Thon
Alongside
By William Thon
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
William Thon, 'Alongside', watercolor, c. 1990. Signed, lower right; titled verso. A fine, expressionist work, on off-white watercolor paper; the image extending to the sheet edges, ...
Category

1950s American Modern William Thon Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

The Ruby R
By William Thon
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
William Thon, 'The Ruby R', watercolor, c. 1990. Signed, lower right; titled verso. A fine, expressionist work, on off-white watercolor paper; the image extending to the sheet edges....
Category

1950s American Modern William Thon Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

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By Frank Wilcox
Located in Beachwood, OH
Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Crashing Waves on the Atlantic Coast, 1957 Watercolor and graphite on paper Signed and dated lower right 22 x 29 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox was a respected librarian. In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer, and Frederick Gottwald. He also attended Keller's Berlin Heights summer school from 1909. After graduating in 1910, Wilcox traveled and studied in Europe, sometimes dropping by Académie Colarossi in the evening to sketch the model or the other students at their easels, where he was influenced by French impressionism. Wilcox was influenced by Keller's innovative watercolor techniques, and from 1910 to 1916 they experimented together with impressionism and post-impressionism. Wilcox soon developed his own signature style in the American Scene or Regionalist tradition of the early 20th century. He joined the Cleveland School of Art faculty in 1913. Among his students were Lawrence Edwin Blazey, Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, and Charles E. Burchfield. Around this time Wilcox became associated with Cowan Pottery. In 1916 Wilcox married fellow artist Florence Bard, and they spent most of their honeymoon painting in Berlin Heights with Keller. They had one daughter, Mary. In 1918 he joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, a conservative counter to the Bohemian Kokoon Arts Club, and would later serve as its president. He also began teaching night school at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute at this time, and taught briefly at Baldwin-Wallace College. Wilcox wrote and illustrated Ohio Indian Trails in 1933, which was favorably reviewed by the New York Times in 1934. This book was edited and reprinted in 1970 by William A. McGill. McGill also edited and reprinted Wilcox' Canals of the Old Northwest in 1969. Wilcox also wrote, illustrated, and published Weather Wisdom in 1949, a limited edition (50 copies) of twenty-four serigraphs (silk screen prints) accompanied by commentary "based upon familiar weather observations commonly made by people living in the country." Wilcox displayed over 250 works at Cleveland's annual May Show. He received numerous awards, including the Penton Medal for as The Omnibus, Paris (1920), Fish Tug on Lake Erie (1921), Blacksmith Shop (1922), and The Gravel Pit (1922). Other paintings include The Trailing Fog (1929), Under the Big Top (1930), and Ohio Landscape...
Category

1950s American Modern William Thon Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Graphite, Watercolor

Previously Available Items
Island Fisherman's Houses
By William Thon
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
William Thon, 'Island Fisherman's Houses', watercolor, c. 1950. Signed, lower right; titled verso in pencil. A fine, expressionist work, with fresh colors, on cream watercolor paper;...
Category

1950s American Modern William Thon Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

William Thon figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic William Thon figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by William Thon in paint, watercolor and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1950s and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large William Thon figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 24 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Harold Haydon, Raphael Soyer, and Abraham Walkowitz. William Thon figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,200 and tops out at $2,400, while the average work can sell for $2,300.

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