David Fredenthal

NYC Watercolor Drawing American Modern 20th Century Modernism Mid-Century WPA

c. 1948

"NY Street Signs" Mid-20th Century WPA 1938 Modernist Abstract Realism Pop Art Stuart Davis (American, 1892-1964) "Street Signs" Modernist gouache and traces of pencil on paper in t...

Reginald Marsh "Brooklyn Bridge" NYC Modernism WPA Mid-Century Watercolor Modern Reginald Marsh (American, 1898-1954) Brooklyn Bridge, 1940, Signed and dated Reginald Marsh May 1940 (lr), Watercolor over traces of pencil on paper , 15 x 22 inches sight. Reginald Marsh was born in Paris, France in 1898, the child of artist parents. He was born over a small cafe on Paris' Left Bank. He was brought to the United States in 1900 and was drawing before he was three. He studied art at Yale University and the Art Students League, during which time he worked primarily as an illustrator for New York newspapers and magazines. After studying in Paris in 1925 and 1926, he turned seriously to painting. In 1929 he was introduced to the egg-tempera medium, which he used extensively the rest of his life. Marsh's gusto for painting the bottom crust of society contrasted curiously with his background. His parents, both well-known artists, were steeped in academic traditions. He attended Lawrenceville Academy and Yale; perhaps this elite background made it possible to paint the earthy people he did with a journalist's objectivity. An admirer of Rubens and Delacroix, he disliked modernist art; indeed, his lifelong preoccupation was with people - enjoying themselves at beaches, at amusement parks, or on crowded city streets. Marsh was a second-generation Ash Can School painter and printmaker, best known as an urban regionalist. He spent his days sketching in small notebooks...

VIEW OF THE BRONX Watercolor American Modern Modernism NYC 20th Century Drawing. Jan Matulka (1890 – 1972) "View of the Bronx," 15 x 20 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1920s. Signed lower Right. In 1907, he came to the Bronx, New York where he had a poverty-ridden childhood with a mother who tried to raise a family by herself. From 1908 to 1917, he studied at the National Academy of Design, and in 1917, received the first Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship with which he traveled and painted in the Southwest and Florida. His work from this period showed a turning towards a more abstract style, replacing his earlier realism. In 1919, he first went to Paris and then returned in 1927 on a scholarship from the National Academy. In Paris, he was exposed to Cubism, and his painting after that seemed always to carry that influence. He had his first one-man exhibit in New York City in 1925, and by 1930, he and Davis were experimenting with their version of Cubism. Concurrently for New Masses, a communist magazine, he did satiric illustrations expressing his sympathy for the working classes, and from 1929 to 1931, he taught at the Art Students League where he inspired emerging modernists such as David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, and I Rice...

"Rail Yard" Urban Industrial WPA American Scene Drawing NYC Mid-Century. Initialed "JS" upper right Solman was a pivotal figure in the development of 20th century American art. He ...

"Bathers" American Scene Social Realism 20th Century Modernism Ashcan Fauvism Charles Demuth (1883-1935) "Bathers" 10 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches watercolor on paper, c. 1930 Signed lower le...

"Times Square" Mid 20th Century 1937 Modernism Broadway Drawing NYC Cityscape Philip Goodwin (20th Century) "Times Square," 23 ½ x 17 ¼ inches. Gouache...

If you are interested in African American Art and in Women in the Arts, I will certainly not need to introduce Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1988). Often associated with the Harlem Renaiss...

Colorado Modernist landscape, watercolor on paper by Turner B. Messick (1878-1952) from 1938. Tree with houses and mountains in the background, pain...

Signed lower right, 'Richard Soderman N.W.S', (American, 20th century), titled 'China Cove' and dated 1972. Richard Soderman began drawing at the age...

Signed lower left, "Wesley Wright", and painted circa 1960. A substantial, mid-century watercolor view of an industrial area with grain containers and smokestacks.

Signed lower right, 'Gilberg' for Robert George Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) and painted circa 1965. Born in Oakland, Robert George Gilberg first studied at the Oakland Art Center during the 1930s. Following service during WWII, he settled in Nevada City, California where he lived and painted until shortly before his death in San Francisco. Gilberg exhibited widely and with success and was the recipient of numerous medals, prizes and juried awards, including at the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts...

Signed lower right, "Johnston" and dated 1981. Bearing exhibition label from 17th Pacific Grove Annual Watercolor Competition. A vibrant Modernist watercolor brimming with color and compressed energy. Born in California on May 26, 1907, Lucille Johnston settled in Glendale in the 1930's. She exhibited widely including at the California Watercolor...