Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Chuck Oberstein
Clown with Balloons

c.1980

About the Item

This artwork "Clown with Balloons" c.1980 is an oil painting on canvas by American artist Chuck Oberstein, 1935-2002. It is signed at the lower left corner by the artist, also signed on the back of the canvas. The canvas size is 30 x 15 inches, framed size is 40.75 x 25.75 inches. Custom framed in a wooden brown frame, with fabric liner and brown fillet. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Chuck Oberstein (December 18, 1935-May 8, 2002) was an American painter, best known for clown paintings. Born December 18, 1935 in Los Angeles, California, he graduated from Montebello High School. He was a jeweler in the family business and once worked at a diamond retail store, when he was encouraged to be an artist by a friend, and quit the same day. Oberstein is widely regarded as the definitive clown painter. He was sometimes called "The Magician" for his unique superimposing of clown faces and was known for his sparkling tear drop on his sad clowns, especially the Wall Street Journal Clown. Oberstein also painted seascapes, horses, portraits, children, and various other subjects, at first doing landscapes and still life. Chuck began in Europe and painted over 40 years. He worked in both oil and acrylic, and used live models including many family members as themselves and as clowns. His original art can be seen in prints, lithographs, posters, cards, figurines, and collector plates around the world. He worked at the Disneyland art gallery, and also at Warner Brothers, quitting there after one day. His favorite artist was Rembrandt. At one point he joined the Army, creating murals for the buildings where he was stationed in England. Chuck put the number 442 in his paintings, sometimes interestingly hidden and often obvious in reference to 442 Ackley St. Monterey Park, CA, the place where he first began to paint again after he returned from Europe. For many years he let collectors guess what the 442 was all about and loved not telling and just hearing their guesses. Oberstein believed clowns represent freedom, because they will do anything. He was a vegetarian and loved jazz, playing the piano, weight lifting, running, golf, skiing, body surfing, dancing, sports, tennis, dogs and horses, family and friends. His whimsical clowns represent the many things he loved in life as well as a deep spiritual knowing that comes through his lighter clowns in his later years. His portraits are of masterpiece quality similar to Rembrandt's style although he painted fewer of these and they are not in print.
  • Creator:
    Chuck Oberstein (1935 - 2002)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1980
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 40.75 in (103.51 cm)Width: 25.75 in (65.41 cm)Depth: 2.65 in (6.74 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    San Francisco, CA
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: ober/clow/ball/011stDibs: LU666310746402
More From This SellerView All
  • Untitled, Two people in the field
    By Edna Hibel
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This artwork "Untitled, Two People in the Field" c.1970, is an oil painting on canvas by American artist Edna Hibel, 1917-2014. It is signed at the lower left corner by the artist. The canvas size is 30 x 40 inches. It is in good condition, It has been recently revarnished. About the artist:Edna Hibel, a painter of sentimental pictures of children, has had a more than 60-year career as painter and lithographer and promoter of peace through exhibitions of her artwork. She was born in 1917 in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents were Abraham and Lena Hibel, and she was raised in the Boston area and educated at Brookline High School where she met her future husband, Theodore Plotkin. She began to paint when she was nine years old and learned watercolor during summers at the shore where her family vacationed in Maine and Hull, Massachusetts. Hibel studied at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, from 1935-39, receiving a Sturtevant Traveling Fellowship to Mexico. In Boston, in 1966, she began lithography, continuing in 1970 in Zurich, where she still works every year. She has created lithographic works with up to 32 stones (or colors) on paper, silk, wood veneer and porcelain. The latter pieces are called lithographs on porcelain and result from a complicated process, that she keeps a secret, whereby she transfers stone lithographic color separations onto Bavarian hard paste porcelain. Hibel has created the "Arte Ovale" series and various plaques with this technique. She organized the Edna Hibel Museum of Art, in Jupiter, Florida, to display and promote her work and also created a United Nations stamp, "Mother Earth." In 1995, she was commissioned by the Foundation of the U.S. National Archives to commemorate the 75th anniversary of women receiving the universal right to vote. At the ceremony, Ms. Lucy Baines Johnson referred to Hibel as the "Heart and Conscience of America." In November, 2001, the World Cultural Council based in Mexico City gave her the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts. Hibel's work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in more than 20 countries including Russia, Brazil, China, Costa Rica, and the United States, and under the royal patronage of Count and Countess Bernadotte of Germany, Count Thor Bonde of Sweden, Prince and the late Princess Rainier of Monaco and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England. Pope John Paul II gave her a medal of honor as did the late Belgian King Baudouin. She also received honorary Doctoral degrees including from Eureka College, and Northwood University of Florida, Michigan and Texas. She also has received many humanitarian honors for her charitable efforts for children's and medical charities. Her exhibitions "Golden Bridge" and " Peace Through Wisdom" were efforts to promote peace and cultural understanding between China, the United States, Yugoslavia and Russia, and a television documentary titled "Hibel's Russian Palette" was based on her trips and art shows in Leningrad, now St. Peter...
    Category

    Late 20th Century American Impressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Spring Flow (Lake Tahoe)
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This artwork titled "Spring Flow (Lake Tahoe)" 2016 is an oil painting on canvas by noted American artist Andrew (Andy) Skaff, b.1945. It is signed at the lower right corner by the a...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Fallen Leaf III
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This artwork titled " Fallen Leaf III" 2015 is an oil painting on canvas depicting the Lake Tahoe area by noted American artist Andrew (Andy) Skaff, b.1945. It is signed at the lower...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Seaview, Fire Island, New York, Sand Dunes, Ocean Side
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This artwork titled "Seaview, Fire Island, New York, Sand Dunes, Ocean Side" 1956, is an oil painting on canvas board by Italian/American artist Xavier Barile, 1891-1981. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artist. Also signed, dated, and titled on the back. The canvas board size is 12 x 16 inches, framed size is 22 x 26 inches. Framed in an ornate wooden gold frame, with black velvet liner. It is in generally excellent condition, the frame have some minor restorations, barely visible and 2 small area where the velvet is scratched. About the artist: Xavier J Barile was a Social Realist painter, teacher, lecturer, graphic artist, and writer. He was born March 18, 1891, in Tufo, Italy. His love of beauty manifested itself at a very early age. During his early teens, he used to design monograms for the young girls of his home town, Tufo, Italy, to embroider on their most precious possession, their hope chest and trousseau. In 1907, his mother brought him, his two younger brothers and two sisters to New York, to join their father who had been in New York for several years, preparing the way. He quickly learned English and spent some time helping his father, who was earning a living for the family as a tailor. Having learned English well, Barile then enrolled in the Evening Art Classes at Cooper Union Institute in New York. In due course he enrolled in the Art Students League, New York City. Here he came under the influence of John Sloan, Reginald Marsh and Victor Perard as teachers and George Luks, Robert Henri and Everett Shinn of "the Eight" as friends and colleagues. In 1939 John Sloan dedicated his book, Gist of Art as follows, "To my old friend, first monitor of my first class at the Art Students League 1914." This friendship and mutual regard lasted until Sloan's death in 1951. Of course, it was only natural that Barile should be a part of the "Ashcan School," painting the New York Scene. During this time that he was on his own he worked with all mediums - oil, watercolor, pastel, casein, charcoal, etc. - and he did some fine work with monotypes. It was during these years, the 20's and 30's, that he began to exhibit in such places as the Whitney Studio Club (forerunner of the Whitney Museum of American Art), The Kit Kat Club, The Anderson Gallery, The Cincinnati Museum, The New Mexico Museum, National Society of Painters in Casein, The Salmagundi Club and many other exhibits throughout the United States. He is currently represented in The National Collection of Fine Arts (NCFA) Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. In the mid 30's, like many another struggling artist, XJB worked on the WPA Art Project. One of the murals he worked on is in the U.S. Customs House, Bowling Green, N.Y.C. In this project he collaborated with Reginald Marsh who was the supervisor of this phase of the work. The years until 1939 were spent working in all parts of the United States and in conducting his own classes for aspiring artists. In 1939, on the recommendation of John Sloan, he became the founder, first teacher and Chairman of The Department of Fine Arts, Pueblo Junior College, Pueblo Colorado...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Silence
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    Artist: Cornelius van Fulpen– American (1905 - 1987) Title: Silence Year: 1984 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 19.5 x 23.75 inches Framed size: 25.5 x 29.75 inches Signature: Signed, da...
    Category

    1980s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • Yosemite
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This artwork titled "Yosemite" 1952, is an oil painting on board by noted California artist Jean Martin (Eugenia Victoria Weir Martin) 1906-1986. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artist. The artwork (board) size is 16 x 20 inches, framed size is 24.25 x 28.25 inches. Framed in original wooden gold with grey patina frame, with fabric liner. It is in excellent condition. About the artist: Eugenia "Jean" Victoria Weir Martin 1906-1986 San Diego, California Landscapes, Seascapes artist Eugenia Victoria Weir Martin was a painter and art instructor in Southern California. She was born in Tennessee on March 7, 1906. "Jean", as she was called, was brought to La Jolla, California as a small child by her parents, and remained in that area the rest of her life. Her Father was a businessman in the early stages of the development of La Jolla. He operated a General Store in the early village. They resided in "Windemere", which is now the home of the La Jolla Historical Society. At the age of 10 she studied art with a Mrs. Fletcher, an artist in residence at the 1916 California Exposition in Balboa Park. She also studied at the San Diego Academy of Fine Arts. Early in her career she also studied with Maurice Braun, Alfred Mitchell, Edward Langley...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

You May Also Like
  • "James" Impressionistic Black & White James Dean Portrait Oil Painting on Canvas
    By Cindy Shaoul
    Located in New York, NY
    A stunning depiction of James Dean done in an abstract impressionistic manner with a heavy use of paint and we also can find bold strokes of white, gray and black. Creating a black a...
    Category

    2010s American Impressionist Portrait Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • "The Train Station at Night in Winter" contemporary oil plein-air painting
    By Marc Dalessio
    Located in Sag Harbor, NY
    An oil painting by Marc Dalessio. Painted en plein air at night. The setting appears to be a vast plaza lined with trees, and benches. A figurative statue centers the plaza. An illum...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Panel, Oil

  • "Vendemmia" 2016 - contemporary plein air painting of grape harvest in Tuscany
    By Marc Dalessio
    Located in Sag Harbor, NY
    An oil painting by renowned American Plein Air Painter, Marc Dalessio. "Vendemmia" means "Harvest" in Italian. A few figures pick grapes off the vines and into buckets on the ground....
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

  • "On the Way to Work" Impressionist Winter Street Scene Oil Painting on Panel
    By Cindy Shaoul
    Located in New York, NY
    This painting depicts an impressionistic scene of New York City in the snow of a figure walking down a long sidewalk with wide casting shadows. Following the great artists from the A...
    Category

    2010s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • "Restaurant Cafe - Amsterdam" Impressionist Street Scene Oil Painting on Panel
    By Cindy Shaoul
    Located in New York, NY
    A charming depiction of Restaurant Cafe, located in Amsterdam. A cozy impressionistic street scene with colors of vibrant turquoise, lush greens, and yellow ochres. This painting was...
    Category

    2010s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

  • "Splashes at the Beach" Impressionistic Beach Scene Oil Painting on Panel
    By Cindy Shaoul
    Located in New York, NY
    This painting depicts an impressionistic scene at the beach with beautiful brushwork and whimsical colors. The splashes and children playing are captrued with a nostalgia, as the col...
    Category

    2010s American Impressionist Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Panel

Recently Viewed

View All