Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9

Dorothy Dehner
The Dead Tiger

1955

About the Item

The Dead Tiger Ink and watercolor on paper, 1955 Signed and dated in ink (see photo) Condition: Aging to the entire sheet (it's 78 years old) Image/Sheet size: 18 1/4 x 23 inches One of a series of watercolors Dehner created in the Hudson Valley and gave to a patron. They are variations of the same composition with differing colors. Titled by the artist in pencil verso. Provenance: Gift of the artist Private Collection, Hudson Valley, NY Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994) Painter, sculptor, art writer, and poet, Dorothy Dehner explored abstraction, cubism, realism and surrealism during her artistic journey. Early in her career she was known for painting and for large-cast metal sculptures, but in the 1950s and 1960s, turned increasingly to wood cut into hard-edge geometric shapes. From 1950, she lived primarily in New York City. Dorothy Dehner was born in 1901 in Cleveland, Ohio, but, as a teenager in 1916, moved to Pasadena, California when her parents died. Her artistic interests were initially in acting. She majored in drama at UCLA for the school year of 1922-1923, then moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Art. After travel to Europe in France, Italy and Switzerland in 1925, where she saw Cubist and Fauve paintings as well as the great art of the ages, Dehner entered the Art Students League to study sculpture, but switched to painting because she felt the former was bound in academic formula. She studied drawing with Kimon Nicolaides and painting with Kenneth Hayes Miller. In 1929, she studied painting with Jan Matulka. Meeting artist John Graham in that year, he introduced her to Milton Avery, Stuart Davis and Arshile Gorky. She would also take art courses years later at Skidmore College in 1951. Dehner married sculptor David Smith in 1927. She was evidently very helpful in his artistic growth, but friction would develop because Smith allegedly saw his wife as artistic competition. Although she painted and drew Cubist and Surrealist works during their marriage, and realistic ones of life on their Bolton Landing, New York farm during the period 1941 to 1944, Dehner would essentially put her exhibition life on hold until their divorce in 1952. Meanwhile, they traveled to Europe in 1935. She later wrote about Smith, as well as painter John Graham and Jan Matulka, her teacher. Although she had shown in the 1946 Audubon Artists exhibition, winning first prize in drawing, and in the Whitney Annual of 1951, it was the year of her divorce, 1952, that Dehner had her first one-person exhibition at the Rose Fried Gallery in New York City. She met Louise Nevelson in the same year while making prints at Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17. It was at this time that her career began to take off, and she was working with the lost-wax sculptural process in the making of her bronzes. The following year, 1953, the Museum of Modern Art added one of her watercolors to its collection, and she was in a group exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1955, she was in a three-artist show at Willard Gallery in New York City, where she would exhibit through 1976, and a one-person exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1955 on, Dehner returned primarily to sculpture, working in a variety of materials over the years including bronze through the mid-1970s, then wood and Corten steel, moving from small to large scale. Her bronze sculpture, "Young Pharaoh," 1969, is a geometric, two-dimensional, abstract totemic figure similar in concept to "Scaffold" fourteen years later in 1983, a two-dimensional totemic structure, three layered-lintels high constructed in Corten steel. Dehner was a visiting artist at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in 1970-1971, awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Skidmore College in 1982, and received an award from the Women's Caucus for Art in 1983. She had major retrospective exhibitions of her work at the Jewish Museum in New York in 1965, City University of New York, 1991, Katonah Museum of Art, 1993, and Cleveland Museum of Art, 1995. Dehner's work is in numerous public collections. A long-lived artist, Dorothy Dehner was in her nineties when she died in 1994. Courtesy: Ask Art Sources: Jules and Nancy Heller, "North American Women Artists of the 20th Century" Ron Crider Fine Art
  • Creator:
    Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1955
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 18.25 in (46.36 cm)Width: 23 in (58.42 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Staining from previous hinging in all four corners of the sheet. Colors very fresh, never framed.
  • Gallery Location:
    Fairlawn, OH
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: FA114301stDibs: LU14015959482

More From This Seller

View All
Untitled Fabric Design
By Arthur Litt
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Fabric Design Gouache on paper, 1920-1930 Signed with the Atelier Stamp verso (see photo) Numbered with the Atelier Litt Archive number verso (see photo) Condition: E...
Category

1920s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

Bach Cello Suite No.3 in C Major - III Courante
By Hildegarde Haas
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Bach Cello Suite No.3 in C Major - III Courante Watercolor and mixed pigments on paper, c. 1960's Signed and titled recto (see photos) A masterful example of the artist's series of music inspired works of art. Haas had the condition known as synesthesia. Condition: Excellent Archival framing with OP3 acrylic Image size: 17 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches Frame size: 27 1/4 x 21 inches Synesthesia: Throughout her lifetime Haas had a condition known as synesthesia. Synesthesia, as defined by Wikipedia, is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. Many famous artists, poets, musicians and authors throughout history have had synesthesia including Vincent Van Gough, Duke Ellington, Billy Joel, and Vladimir Nabokov. Haas' form of synesthesia is known as 'projective synesthesia'. With projective synesthesia Haas saw colors, shapes and/or forms when experiencing audio stimulation. Haas used...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Untitled (six vignettes)
By Pierre Courtin
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Signed lower center edge Annotated verso: “5 Juin 1966 _____ et de soleil, de et d’oseille” Image: 6 3/4 x 4 5/8" Frame: 14 1/2 x 12 3/4" Finishe...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache

Untitled Abstraction
By John von Wicht
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Abstrraction Gouache, watercolor and pigments on paper, c. 1960 Signed lower right in pencil (see photo) Image: 17 x 22 inches Sheet: 25 1/4 x 29 3/4 inches Frame: 25 1/4 x ...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Untitled Fabric Design
By Arthur Litt
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Fabric Design Gouache on paper, 1920-1935 Signed with the Atelier Stamp verso (see photo) Numbered with the Atelier Litt Archive number verso (see photo) No. 24680 Co...
Category

1930s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

Untitled Fabric Design
By Arthur Litt
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Fabric Design Gouache on paper, 1920-1935 Signed with the Atelier Stamp verso (see photo) Numbered with the Atelier Litt Archive number verso (see photo) No. 05535 ...
Category

1930s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

You May Also Like

Linda Turner, Art Meditation 5, Collage, Pattern and Decoration, Automatism
Located in Darien, CT
Linda Turner, raised both in NYC and Northern Virginia, resides in Brooklyn, NY. She achieved a BFA in Surface Design/Textile Design from the Fashion Inst...
Category

2010s Abstract Geometric Mixed Media

Materials

Archival Ink, Watercolor, Gouache, Archival Paper, Pencil, Color Pencil

Dyptique: 'Ethereal Skies
Located in THOMERY, FR
This diptych captures the ethereal beauty of vibrant skies on paper, each piece measuring 56 x 76 cm. These watercolor artworks, elegantly framed in white wood and protected by plexi...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Abstract Impressionist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Watercolor, Handmade Paper

Silence - line drawing figure with red gloves
By Mila Akopova
Located in Fort Lee, NJ
Interior design paintings. The artwork was done with watercolor on watercolor paper 300g. The works are 15 by 11 inches in size, framed (black) with a styrene face on a mat board in ...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

"Homage to Daniel Smith: Flowers at the Edge of the Pond, " by David Barnett
By David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Homage to Daniel Smith: Flowers at the Edge of the Pond" is an original watercolor and iridescent acrylic painting by David Barnett, signed in the lower right. This piece is an abst...
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Acrylic, Watercolor

"Homage to Miro: Jwa Practicing Yoga Disguised as a Bird, " by David Barnett
By David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Homage to Miro: Jwa Practicing Yoga Disguised as a Bird" is an original watercolor and ink painting by David Barnett, signed in the lower right. This piece features abstract black lines painted in Chinese ink, embellished with vibrant watercolor in blue...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor

"Homage to Moishe Safde - Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, "
By David Barnett
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Buddha Board Water Series: Homage to Moishe Safde - Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art" is an original mixed media work by Daivd Barnett. The black lines of this piece were orig...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Mixed Media, Watercolor

Recently Viewed

View All