1950s Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Roy Lichtenstein, ‘St. Macarius Before His Monastery,’ circa 1951: Included in the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, Roy Lichtenstein: A Catalogue Raisonné - this unique, rare early sket...

Preliminary drawing for the sculpture Diadem Black Crayon on paper, 1957 Signed and dated lower left The preliminary drawing for the 1957 sculpture of the same name in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art...

Alexander Calder Handwritten, signed letter, 1956 Ink on paper: 2 page handwritten and hand signed letter Hand signed by Calder at the end of the letter on the second page. Unique 11...

Mid-century oil pastel abstract incorporating a vast array of color and unique shapes by artist D. Wargon, circa 1950. Signed lower right. Original artwork on paper displayed on a...

Ink, graphite and colored pencil on graph paper The final composition measured 28 x 28 inches Annotated #615 in the lower right corner of the sheet Provenance: Francine Seders Galler...

Charmion von Wiegand Pillar of Zen #124, 1959 Gouache on paper painting Hand signed, titled and dated on the front Unique Provenance: Andre Zarre Gallery, with label verso (Estate of renowned gallerist Andre Zarre, ne Andre Sowulewski) Measurements: Framed 26.5 inches vertical by 25.5 horizontal by 2 inches Artwork: 21 inches vertical by 22 inches horizontal Mid century modern, geometric, spiritual abstraction, mystical The Estate of the celebrated artist Charmion Von Wiegand has been represented exclusively by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery since 1998. From March 3 to August 13, 2023, Charmion Von Wiegand was the subject of an acclaimed retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, and she has received major attention in the price, including a June, 2023 ArtNews feature entitled, "Who Was Charmion von Wiegand and Why Is She Important?". Her work was also featured in a solo presentation by Rosenfeld Gallery at the New York Art Show held at the Park Avenue Armory, which also received critical acclaim. Artists Biography - courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: Known for her vibrant, geometric paintings that originate a deeply personal language of spiritual enlightenment expressed through a constructivist mode of abstraction, Charmion von Wiegand (1896–1983) was born in Chicago but spent much of her childhood traveling. The daughter of a journalist for Hearst, von Wiegand eventually settled in New York in 1915 to attend Barnard College and Columbia University, where she took classes at the School of Journalism while nurturing a growing interest in art history. In 1925, von Wiegand realized that she wanted to be an artist and set up a studio in Greenwich Village, teaching herself how to paint while pursuing a career as a journalist. In 1929, she secured a position in Moscow as a foreign correspondent for Hearst, the only woman at the desk at the time. In 1932, von Wiegand returned to New York and married Russian émigré Joseph Freeman, who co-founded and edited the leftist journal New Masses. Von Wiegand began writing art criticism for New Masses as well as for other publications, including New Theatre, ARTnews, and Arts Magazine. When the Abstract American Artists (AAA) held their inaugural exhibition, von Wiegand reviewed it. An early champion of abstract art, von Wiegand became close friends with AAA founder Carl Holty. In 1941, Holty introduced von Wiegand to Piet Mondrian, who would have a profound impact on her art. Fascinated by Mondrian’s artistic philosophy, von Wiegand played a key role in the introduction of his work to American audiences, translating many of the Dutch artist’s writings into English and assisting in the composition of his influential article “Toward the True Vision of Reality” (1941). Through her friendship with Mondrian, von Wiegand re-kindled her interest in Theosophy (a religion established in the late 19th century that combines aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, occultism, and esotericism) and embarked on an extended study of neoplasticism. In her artwork, she incorporated Mondrian’s iconic grid but rejected the constraints of pure neoplasticism and embraced a wide range of influences including surrealism and German expressionism. In 1942, von Wiegand became a member of the AAA, exhibiting regularly with the group and eventually serving as its president from 1951 to 1953. In the late 1940s, sculptor and fellow AAA member Ibram Lassaw gave her a translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, which inspired von Wiegand to immerse herself in a study of Buddhist art. She began incorporating Buddhist motifs such as stupas and mandalas into her paintings, and her spiritual practice steadily intensified throughout the 1950s. In 1953, her husband gifted her a copy of the Taoist I Ching Book of Changes, a guide for divining meaning from randomly derived numbers arranged in a hexagram—a form the artist readily incorporated into her painting. Von Wiegand’s study of Theosophy also intensified over these years, bolstered by her increased access to the religion’s primary sources composed by the religion’s founders and their successors at the New York Theosophical Society’s library. Von Wiegand’s search for the sacred and transcendent ultimately led her to Tibetan Buddhism and, in 1967, von Wiegand met Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a Gelugpa monk who had recently arrived in New York, who would mentor her spiritual study in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism until her death. Her travels in the 1960s and 1970s took her to Tibet and India, where she had an audience with the Dalai Lama, who was living in exile in Dharamsala. Many works from these decades incorporate symbols and schematics drawn from Theosophical prismatic color charts, Chinese astrology and tantric yoga. In 1978, she was the subject of a PBS documentary titled The Circle of Charmion von Wiegand, which was scored by Philip Glass. In 1980, von Wiegand was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1982, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach (FL) organized her first retrospective exhibition. She died the following year in New York, bequeathing her estate to Khyongla Rato and the Tibet Center of New York. In 1998, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery became the sole representative of her estate and has presented her work in four solo and multiple group exhibitions. Recent notable exhibitions that have included her work are The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2009) and Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America (Newark Museum, NJ, 2010). In March 2023, the Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) opened the first comprehensive museum retrospective of von Wiegand’s work in Europe. Von Wiegand’s work is represented in numerous museum collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY); Arithmeum, University of Bonn (Germany); Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama); Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Brooklyn Museum (NY); Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA); The Cleveland Museum of Art (OH); Indianapolis Museum of Art (IN); Fondazione Marguerite Arp (Locarno, Switzerland); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Massachusetts); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey); Seattle Art Museum (WA); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College (Clinton, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); and Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT). More about gallerist Andre Zarre A tribute in the New Criterion: Dispatch August 11, 2020 Andre Zarre, 1942–2020 by Dana Gordon On the late New York gallery pioneer. Art should never be aggressively explained; art should be felt. —Andre Zarre, 1977 Often, in the starlit New York cultural mecca, a longtime important figure fades away through the penumbra and dies without notice. Such was the fate of Andre Zarre, the contemporary art dealer, who passed away a few weeks ago. Andy, as he wanted friends to call him, opened his eponymous gallery in 1974 just off Madison Avenue on Sixty-ninth Street. He soon moved it to the omphalos of the art world in that era, 41 East Fifty-seventh Street, the Fuller Building. Over the years he moved to SoHo and then to Chelsea, as fashion and real estate prices pushed the art souk hither and thither. To understand his importance, all you need do is take a look at a list of artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery. This includes such names, from an early generation, as Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Sari Dienes, and Perle Fine. Among a subsequent generation are Pat Lipsky, Jay Milder, Thornton Willis, and Kes Zapkus.1 And this list does not include the many knowns and unknowns who were in his lively group shows. Zarre had a real “eye” and was a champion of abstract art from the moment he founded his gallery—even among the gathering storms of conceptual and political art, which he eschewed. He showed a good deal of figurative art as well. His galleries were always spacious and unpretentious, oriented simply to show the art. In the words of Dee Shapiro, who showed with the Zarre gallery many times, “He had a photographic memory and knew a lot about art and was always interested in the artist’s life.” Reliable biographical information on Zarre is scarce, but he said of his background that he was born in Poland in 1942 and that his parents were a diplomat and a socialite. He left home for the United States at the age of fifteen. During his decades as an art dealer in New York, Zarre did not appear to accumulate wealth, though he acquired a collection and lived on Park Avenue. “He was not personally aggressive in that way. People had to come to him,” Dee Shapiro said. He was honest in his financial dealings with artists, which not all art dealers are. For a long time while running the gallery he had a second job as a supervisor in an airline office and he kept little to no additional staff in the gallery. He supported a brother who remained in Poland. Among artists, Zarre was known to be quite ornery. After my show at his gallery in 1997, I refused to enter it for seventeen years. Then I ran into him in Chelsea and he offered me another show, an opportunity I gladly accepted, but he remained just as disagreeable. He showed the work of many women, probably more than any other gallery, save those devoted to showing only women. Collectors, curators, and writers found him mostly friendly. As Peter Reginato put it, Zarre was a “strange guy but I liked him. I think he was a dealer who was more interested in the art than in making money, but somehow he lasted forty-plus years.” Zarre is not known to have kept extensive or extant records of his gallery’s long history, though these may emerge in time. Scouring the Internet, one may compile a partial list of more than eighty artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery:Nancy Azara, Ellen Banks, Mary Barnes, Tony Bechara, Juan Bernal, Stephanie Bernheim, Randy Bloom, Elena Borstein, Michael Boyd, Fritz Bultman, Ed Buonagurio, Yoan Capote, Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Cathy Diamond, Sari Dienes, Joseph Dolinsky, Beata Drozd, Ronnie Elliot, William Fares, Perle Fine, Lynne Frehm, Ben Georgia, Mikel Glass, Dana Gordon, Juanita Guccione, Fred Gutzeit, Don Hazlitt, Amy Hill, Clinton Hill, Monroe Hodder, Budd Hopkins, Arlan Huang, Richard Hunt, Rhia Hurt, Buffie Johnson, Alexander Kaletski, Robert Kaupelis...

Judith Brown (December 17, 1931 – May 11, 1992) was a dancer and a sculptor who was drawn to images of the body in motion and its effect on the cloth surrounding it. She welded crushed automobile scrap metal into energetic moving torsos, horses, and flying draperies. Brown attended Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, New York (B.A., 1954), where she learned to weld from her teacher, Theodore Roszak, a pioneering abstract expressionist sculptor. This is done in a style similar to Leonard Baskin. Select Commissions Mural Sculpture, Lobby, Louisville Radio Station WAVE Fountain, commissioned by Architectural Interiors, New York City Model, designed and executed for Festival of Two Worlds, Spoleto, Italy Sculpture, designed for Electra Film Productions, NYC Noah's Ark, exhibited at Bronx Zoo, New York City, at Rochester Museum and Science Center, Rochester, New York, and at Hopkins Center, Hanover, New Hampshire Store Windows, executed Tiffany & Company Windows, New York City, Christmas 1957, 1959, 1962, October 1969, Spring 1979, and October 1980 Wall Sculptures: for Youngstown Research Center (1963-4), commissioned by Youngstown Steel Company, Youngstown, Ohio; for Hecht and Company, Landmark Shopping Center, Alexandria, Virginia, Daniel Schwartzman, Architect; for Lobby, 570 Seventh Avenue, New York City, Giorgio Cavaglieri, Architect; for Lobby, Cities Service Company's New Research Center, Cranbury, New Jersey; for Ottauquechee Health Center, Woodstock, Vermont Eternal Lights: for Congregation Beth-El, South Orange, New Jersey; for Congregation Sharey Tefilo, East Orange, New Jersey Menorahs: commissioned by Architect Fritz Nathan for the Permanent Collection of the Jewish Museum, New York City; commissioned by Smith College for the Helen Hill Chapel, Northampton, Massachusetts; commissioned by Jules Scherman, of Wisteria Press, Inc., New York City Altar Cross, commissioned by Smith College for the Helen Hill Chapel, Northampton, Massachusetts Landscape, Memorial Piece for Gustave Heller, YM-YWCA, Essex County, New Jersey Memorial Plaque for Robert A. Ferguson, Westchester County Airport, Purchase, New York Sculpture for Vice President's office, Atlantic Richfield Company, New York City Bronze Relief Sculpture for Gymnasium Lobby, South Richmond High School, Staten Island, New York, Daniel Schwartzman, Architect Poster, Stratton Arts Festival, Stratton, Vermont Medallion, commissioned by Brandeis University National Women's Committee, New York City Model for Fountain for the Plaza at Windsor, Vermont Bronze Sculpture, commissioned by Intramural, Inc. for Building Lobby, N/E Cor. 79th Street and Second Avenue, New York City Presentation Piece, commissioned by Graphic Arts Associates of Delaware Valley, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Wall Mural, Noah's Ark, Roosevelt Hospital, New York City 1977: Designed and executed Hanes Hosiery "Million Dollar Award"; Designed and executed "Old Spice" Smart Ship Award 1978: Commissioned to design and execute the "Walter White Award" for the NAACP for presentation to Hubert Humphrey; Commissioned to design and execute the Award for the Honorees of the National Board YWCA's First Tribute to Women in International Industry 1979: Designed and executed Jewelry for the Museum of Modern Art, New York City; Designed and executed limited edition of Mazuzas for Brandeis University-National Women's Committee, New York City 1980: Bronze Cross commissioned for St. James Episcopal Church, Woodstock, Vermont 1982: Eubie Award, New York Chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences 1985: Two Sculptures, Marriott Hotel, Orlando, Florida 1986: Two large Sculptures for indoor reflecting pools, Palm Desert Hotel, Palm Springs, California; John Portman, Eight Sculptures for Peachtree Plaza Hotel, Atlanta, Georgia; John Portman, Beach House, Sea Island, Georgia 1987: Loan Installation, DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts 1988: Eleven foot outdoor Sculpture for Front Plaza, River Court, Charles River, East Cambridge, Massachusetts, H. J. Davis Development Corp.; Tomie dePaola...

Lithograph on paper by Roger Lersy (France, 1920 - 2004). This stunning abstract seascape cubist composition has a highly colorful design of old boats executed by the artist in Franc...

Dorothy Dehner Untitled Mid Century Modern abstract sculptural drawing, 1955 Marker and graphite on paper Signed and dated by Dorothy Dehner in black felt tip pen on the front Frame ...

lithograph in colors on Rives paper, edited in 1953, signed and dated in pencil by artist in lower right corner, numbered 10/20 excellent conditions Image size: 17 x 25 cm Paper size...

Ernest A. Dieringer, Untitled (Color is Life), watercolor, 1959. Initialed 'ED' and dated ' '59' in red pencil at the top and bottom sheet edges—the artist's indication that the work can be viewed from either side. Signed 'Dieringer' in pencil in the bottom support board margin. A fine abstract expressionist work, watercolor on white wove paper, with fresh, bright colors; the image extends to the sheet edges, spot glued to the original cream wove backing board, in very good condition. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 x 10 15/16 inches; backing board size 13 1/2 x 16 3/4 inches. Provenance: ex. Collection Alexander Raydon. The collector/dealer's well-known 'Raydon Gallery' was established in 1962 on 82nd Street and Madison Avenue, New York City. ABOUT THE ARTIST Ernest Dieringer studied at the Art Institute of Chicago on a National Scholastic Scholarship, beginning his career with the Chicago-based Wells Street Gallery in 1957. He showed his work with other abstract artists, including Robert Natkin and John Chamberlain. The gallery was considered a vanguard space in Chicago for exhibiting emerging abstract artists from the surrounding area. Artists associated with the gallery eventually became known as the Wells Street Group. Due to the success of the gallery, Dieringer and other group members were invited by the Manhattan-based contemporary art dealer...

LYONEL FEININGER 1871-1956 New York 1871-1956 New York (American/German) Title: Three Figures with Umbrellas, ca. 1954 Technique: Signed Pen Brush and Ink Drawing with Watercolour...

Untitled Abstraction Graphite on paper, c. 1950 Unsigned Signed with the estate stamp verso (see photo) Provenance: Estate of the artist Inherited by his neighb...

A handsome ca. 1950 black & white Abstraction by important Modernist artist Jan Matulka. Image size: 6" x 6 1/2". Framed size: 12 3/4" x 12 3/4". Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia...

Abstract black and white pencil drawing of a figure seated and gazing up into the sky, circa 1950. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Archival pl...

Rare color lithograph on Rives paper , built in 1958 Limited edition of 125 copies Signed and numbered in pencil by the artist Numbered specimen: 111/125 Sheet size: 76 x 56 cm Plate...

Pensiero Rosa, splendida cornice nera 1930 Opera astratta di Dora Maar periodo dopo Picasso,queste opere descrivono gli stati d'animo e paesaggi mentali dell'artista Dora MAAR (Pari...

This captivating watercolor and ink abstract composition by Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) features dynamic shapes in brown, orange, and blue, framed by bold black parallel lines. The wor...

A 1959 black and white, Mid-Century, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. Image size: 12" x 30". Framed size: 19 3/4" x 25 3/4". McL...

Provenance: Marlborough Gallery David McKee, Inc. Manny Silverman Gallery Private collection, Los Angeles

Preliminary drawing for a sculpture Black crayon on paper, 1959 Signed and dated middle right (see photo) A rare 1950's AbEx drawing. Provenance: Estate of the artist Michael and Ala...

abstract, yellow ,orange,grey,geometric,1954 Edgardo CORBELLI (Turin, 1918 - 1989) From the traditional composition of the 1930s, the painting of Corbelli leads to technical and exp...

Jane Freilicher Untitled I, 1958-59 Signed lower right Charcoal on paper 11 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches Provenance: Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York Jane Freilic...

A colorful 1950s textile design (Black, yellow, blue, pink, red tones) by noted set and costume designer Andre Delfau. Born in Paris, France in 1914, Andre Delfau became an internationally acclaimed stage, set and costume designer who worked world-wide from the 1930s to the 1980s. Delfau was a life long artist and painted independently of his noted design career. His artwork is recognized for it’s vibrant color and form, and a particularly keen use of line. He was highly influenced by the French Modern trends of Cubism and Surrealism, and his artwork is often infused with a dramatic sense of architecture and perspective. Delfau created fashion designs for such major Paris couture houses as Balmain, Jean Patou and Balenciaga. He completed noteworthy set designs and costumes for numerous international operatic and ballet productions, including those at the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Great Britain, the Paris Opera, the Dance Theater of Harlem, the Ruth Page International Ballet, the Civic Ballet of Chicago, the Chicago Opera Ballet and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, among others. Most notably, Delfau designed the elaborate stage sets and costumes for the 1986 PBS television production of the Viennese operetta, "Die Fledermaus...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Dehner's legacy has been overshadowed by he...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Despite her artistic cont...

This soft toned abstract expressionist watercolor painting, created by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968), is an exceptional example of his evolution as an artist. Featuring bold sw...

Transformista 3 - Original Figurative Drawing by Jose Luis Cuevas (b. 1934 d. 2017.) This original ink drawing by Cuevas depicts two distorted figures pressing their faces together....

Professor George De Goya. PhD. MA. FRSA. Born In Budapest, 1915-1992, related to the Spanish artist Goya on his mother’s side. Educated in Budapest and France where he received a de...

ABSTRACT American Woman Abstract Non-objective Mid 20th Century Modern Drawing Irene Rice Pereira (1902-1971) Abstract 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches Watercolor, gouache, and ink on black paper Signed lower right Framed by Bark BIO rene Pereira was born in 1902 in Chelsea, Massachusetts and grew up in Great Barrington. She was strongly influenced by her mother who was an amateur artist. Irene began art lessons at the age of fifteen; she took a secretarial job because her father had died. She took art classes at the Art Students League in New York City. At the age of twenty-one she married the first of three husbands, Humberto Pereira, whose name she kept. She traveled extensively in Europe and North Africa and was much inspired by the expansive vistas of the Sahara Desert. Returning to New York, she began incorporating these visions into her work, increasingly experimental in her styles and methods. At first she painted on canvas, then she devised a means of actually incorporating light into her works by painting on layers of glass and mounting the layers together. In 1942 she married George Brown, an engineer, who helped her experiment with a variety of materials. By the 1950s she became more interested in writing poetry and, divorced from Brown in 1952, she married George Reavey, an Irish Poet...

silkscreen print, made in 1953 for Art of Today, Masters of Abstract Art, Album I Limited edition of 300 copies , paper size: 65 x 50 cm framed size: 74 x 58 cm artist's pencil signa...

WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH HOUSES Signed original brush and ink on wove paper, circa 1950. WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH HOUSES is an original watercolor brush and ink on paper, hand signed in ink pen by African-American artist, teacher, and printmaker Ronald Joseph (1910--1992) Artwork depicts an abstract landscape, is in good condition, paper tape remaining on reverse side edges, mounted in an archival acid-free mat, unframed. Artwork paper size - 18 x 21.5 in. Year created - c. 1950 About the artist - Ronald Joseph (1910 -1992) was born on the island of St. Kitts, West Indies In 1910. When he was very young, his mother decided to move to the United States but she could not afford to take him with her. Mr. and Mrs. Theophilus Joseph, a childless couple who were friends of Joseph’s mother, adopted him. Afterwards, the Joseph family moved to the Island of Dominica, where they stayed for ten years. In 1921, his foster parents also decided to come to the United States. In New York, Joseph met his mother but remained living with his foster parents. In 1926 Ronald Joseph received a scholarship for the Ethical Culture School, were he spent two and half years of his high school period. At this time he obtained an art scholarship through Dr. Henry Fritz, with whom he became acquainted through his art teacher in public school. Joseph was taken into the Saturday art class, where he was the only black participant. An artistic prodigy, Ronald Joseph had his student works shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ronald Joseph graduated from Ethical Culture Fieldston School in 1929. He was honored as “the most promising” young artist in New York City’s schools. He began his study at Pratt Institute in 1931 and graduated in 1934. During the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph participated in many exhibitions of African-American art, the Works Progress Administration mural project, and the Harlem Artists Guild. Ronald Joseph enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the declaration of World War II and was posted as a member of the ground crew in Tuskegee, Alabama, and in Michigan. At the end of the war in 1945, he received his G. I. Bill of Rights scholarship. In 1948, he was presented with the Rosenwald Fellowship. The funds allowed him to live and work abroad – first in Peru for two years, then in Paris. Joseph used the G.I. bill to study in Paris at the Grande Chaumière. He described this period of his life as being “independent of economy”. His work from these travels is largely undocumented; according to Rosenwald scholar, Daniel Schulman, many pieces of art are undated or simply dated “1948-1952”. After this period he came back to New York without money and work and indicated this as period of hardship. Ronald Joseph left the U.S. in 1956, disappointed in the unreceptiveness of the art world to his work with mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, he felt guilty for having left the U.S. during a period when blacks were struggling for their civil rights; on the other, he felt “lucky” to have been able to live and work in place where he did not feel discrimination as intensely. He emigrated to Belgium and later settled permanently in Brussels. Ronald Joseph was married to Claire Joseph and they had a son, Robin Joseph. In 1989 Joseph returned to the United States after an absence of thirty-three years to attend the Lehman College exhibition and symposium and to renew his old friendships. Afterward, he returned to Brussels where he continued to work as a painter, living there for the remainder of his life. Ronald Joseph started his artistic career in Harlem, New York City at the Harlem Community Arts Center, where he was one of the youngest pupils. Joseph studied lithography and other printmaking techniques with Riva Helfond, who taught him many aspects of the process based on simple techniques, including how to operate the press, and how to prepare the stones. Helfond played a significant role as a teacher of lithography at the Harlem Art Center. Joseph produced his first lithographs under her supervision, and this was at a time when she was just beginning to learn the medium herself. At the Harlem Community Arts Center Joseph met Robert Blackburn, who was his classmate. In 1937 Ronald Joseph depicted Blackburn, in one of his most famous works, that is now located at The Metropolitan Museum collection. Experimenting with lithography and etching, as well as woodblock and silkscreen printing, Joseph explored the techniques of printmaking alongside his friend Robert Blackburn. Joseph described the Harlem Art Center as a “healthy and lively” place, where he had made wonderful friends. In the late thirties, he also served as a teacher at the Harlem Community Arts Center. There Joseph met younger artist Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight. They formed a friendship, where they enjoyed conversations and visiting museums together. Both Joseph and Knight would hire Lawrence to pose for them. Jacob Lawrence considered Ronald Joseph to be a very intellectual artist. In the 1930s, Joseph became chairman of the Harlem Artists Guild and represented it in Washington with Stuart Davis and Hugo Gellert. Ronald Joseph was also a participant in the mural section of WPA and a representative of the Harlem Artists’ Guild to the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940). Joseph’s early oil paintings were influenced by Picasso, Braque and other European artists while most of his contemporaries focused on social realism. By 1943, he was hailed by art historian James Porter as New York’s “foremost Negro abstractionist painter”. His pastels and gouaches from the late forties and early fifties showed a highly structured abstraction combined with a studied spontaneity. Ronald Joseph’s finely tuned abstractions often incorporated representational elements along with apparently “purer” forms. He described this aspect of his work in these terms: “It’s not abstract and abstract at the same time. It’s pure creation.” His works from the 1950s employed both still life and landscape as pretexts for masterly exercises in nearly abstract pictorial construction related to cubism and fauvism. During World War II, Joseph was drafted. After the war he formed “a kind of a group” with Robert Blackburn, Charles White, Larry Potter, and Reginald Gammon...

A drawing by Richard Diebenkorn. This Untitled work from the Urbana Series is an ink of paper, abstract drawing by Post War, Bay Area Figurat...

Venice is an original modern artwork realized by Zoran Mušic in 1959. Mixed colored pastel drawing. Includes frame. Hand signed and dated on the lower m...

Leonard Baskin (American, 1922-2000) ink and gouache drawing on paper titled "Darkened Man", signed lower right, circa 1957. Provenance: Grace Borgenicht gallery, Jeffrey M. Kaplan collection. bears label verso Art: 31" H x 22" W; Frame: 36" H x 27" W. Leonard Baskin was an American sculptor, illustrator, wood-engraver, printmaker, graphic artist, writer and teacher. Baskin was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. While he was a student at Yale University, he founded Gehenna Press, a small private press specializing in fine book production. From 1953 until 1974, he taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Subsequently Baskin also taught at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He lived most of his life in the U.S., but spent nine years in Devon at Lurley Manor, Lurley, near Tiverton, close to his friend Ted Hughes, for whom he illustrated Crow. Sylvia Plath dedicated Sculpto to Leonard Baskin in her famous work, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960). The Funeral Contege (1997) bronze, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C. His public commissions include a bas relief for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and a bronze statue of a seated figure, erected in 1994 for the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His works are owned by many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art and the Vatican Museums. The archive of his work at the Gehenna Press was acquired by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, England, in 2009. The McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario owns over 200 of his works (some religious and biblical), most of which were donated by his brother Rabbi Bernard Baskin. He was included in the MoMA show, Summer Exhibition: New Acquisitions; Recent American Prints, 1947–1953; Katherine S. Dreier Bequest; Kuniyoshi and Spencer; Expressionism in Germany; Varieties of Realism along with Alexander Archipenko, Francis Bacon, Balthus, Will Barnet, Leonard Baskin, Eugene Berman, Reg Butler, Lovis Corinth, Andre Derain, Otto Dix, Raoul Dufy, Max Ernst, Lucian Freud, George Grosz, Alexei Jawlensky, Oskar Kokoschka, Roberto Matta, Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp and more. In 1955, he was one of eleven New York artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery, they showed many great artists, Chaim Koppelman, for many years, headed the gallery's Print Division; printmakers such as Will Barnet, Leonard Baskin, Robert Conover, Edmond Casarella, Vincent Longo, and Nicholas Krushenick were frequent exhibitors. the gallery has represented many well-known artists, including Richard Anuszkiewicz, Robert Blackburn, Lois Dodd, William King, Chaim and Dorothy Koppelman, Roy Lichtenstein, Harold Krisel...

One of a group of over 100 works personally selected by the artist and gifted to a close personal friend in 1969, this work was never matted, framed, glued, taped or exposed to light...

'Raining in Formosa on the Tamsui River' by Taiwanese artist, Ran In-Ting (Lan Yinding, 藍蔭鼎) (1956-59). Although elements of landscapes often appear in paintings produced by various cultures, before the 17th century in the West they were only peripheral. In 5th century China, shan shui or landscape painting developed, expressing harmony and natural beauty. These were among the first paintings to make landscape their subject (ref: 'The Short Story of Art...

Louise (McClure) Schatz (1916 – 1997) Born in Vancouver, Canada, Louise Schatz moved with her family at age three to Minnesota. Her father, a stage director, was part of the local Bohemian culture and traveled the theater circuit around the U.S. She earned a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at the University of California, where she became a skilled water colorist. “My Japanese instructor showed me how to preserve several colors together on paper,” she noted. “Water colors can bleed into the paper, and the paper plays with the colors – some of which can even disappear. I have a great love of texture and what materials do to color. I was very excited to discover what happens to colors and how to achieve what I wanted.” Her interest in astronomy also led Louise to study science at the university. Louise joined the “California Seven” artists in 1945 and for the next three years created prints and textile patterns. During WWII, she earned her living as a sketch artist for ship builders in San Francisco Bay, and it was there she met her future husband, Bezalel. “Then, it was very avant-garde to hire women in ship-building,” she once recounted. “We used to take dimensions from engineers and make sketches. It was very trailblazing and exciting, and the ships were constructed very quickly and launched very quickly. Besides the fact that we contributed to the war effort, it was really beautiful art.” The Bohemian society developing in San Francisco at the time included the novelist Henry Miller, who was then married to Louise’s sister, Eve. “There was a group of artists in Big Sur, all of them poor,” according to Bezalel Schatz’s sister, Zohara. “They were a group of Beatniks before the hippy era of the 1960s. There were novelists, poets, and painters there who lived communally under primitive conditions and were close to nature.” Bezalel and Louise were married in 1948 and moved to Israel. There, together with Zohara, they founded the arts and crafts workshop, “Yad,” with the goal of creating and selling alternative art objects that differed in style from those of the Bezalel School of Art. The couple divided its time between the family home in Jerusalem and a residence in Ein Hod designed for them by the architect David Resnik. Despite her connection to the Schatz family and her active involvement in the Israeli art world at the time, Louise guarded her privacy and rarely granted interviews. As Henry Miller wrote, “Her paintings reflect and reveal the extent of her sensitivity, shyness, and gentleness…” Scenes of Israel were a source of inspiration for Louise, and, in addition to her abstract Bauhaus geometric works, she also painted landscapes, flowers, and other elements of the environment in which she worked. Louise worked mainly in water colors but also created collages, book illustrations, and applied art. Among her outstanding works are murals for Zim’s “Shalom” and “Theodore Herzl” ships (together with Bezalel), El Al’s London office, and Jerusalem’s tenth anniversary exhibition, as well as ceramic walls for Jerusalem’s Midreshet Amalia and Beit Ha’am Library. She was awarded the Silver Medal in 1954 at the tenth Triennale in Milan for her copper designs, and in 1952 she received the “Above Competition” prize for her textile designs at the Bezalel National Museum. She was also awarded the Shen Beit Haomanim Prize in 1970 and the Jerusalem Prize for painting in 1973. Louise took part in many art exhibitions in Israel and abroad. Her works are held by the Israel, Tel Aviv, and Haifa Museums, and in private collections in Israel, the U.S., England, Switzerland, France, and Italy. Following her husband’s death in 1978, Louise continued to live with her sister-in-law, Zohara, at the family home in Jerusalem on Schatz Street. Louise died in Jerusalem in 1997. She has been called in the pages of the Jerusalem Post " the greatest Schatz of all" and "Israel's finest watercolorist" Parts of her work summon up affinities with Paul Klee and Julius Bissier and occasionally even Joan Miro. But she never copied any of them. Her work also bears affinities for Lyonel Feininger and Wassily Kandinsky Between 1937 and 1951, Bezalel resided in the U.S. Near the end of WWII, he worked in a California shipyard, and it was there he met his future wife, Louise. He was also introduced to the novelist Henry Miller in California, and their friendship blossomed into a creative collaboration. The artist May Ray recorded his observations about the two, noting that “I have never encountered such smooth cooperation…” Bezalel produced silkscreen prints for Miller’s novel, Into the Night Life, an innovation for both the art and publishing worlds. In Florence, New Mexico, New York, San Francisco, and other locations, Bezalel exhibited his own work and participated in group shows with some of the greatest artists of his era – Picasso...

Initialed lower right, 'M. W.' for Margaret Wentworth (American, 1914-1999) and dated 1959. Exhibited: Feingarten Galleries, Carmel, California, 1960, and titled on label, verso, 'Ro...

Watercolor on heavy paper work is unframed Signed by artist in pencil, lower right verso. Property from the estate of Anne E. C. Porter, with the estate stamp, verso. ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Lloyd R. Ney (1893 – 1964) Called “Bill” by his friends, Lloyd Ney was one of the pioneers of Modernist art in New Hope. Ne...

Surrealist Drawing is an exceptional pencil drawing by the artist Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, who signed on the lower right of the paper “Matta”. The artwork is in ver...

Black,White,Picasso,abstract Atelier stamp lower right Dora Maar, original name Henrietta Theodora Markovitch (Marković), (born November 22, 1907, Paris, France—died July 16, 1997, ...

Louis Wolchonok, 'Rockport Harbor', gouache, c. 1950. Signed in ink, lower right. A fine, modernist work, with fresh colors, on cream wove drawing pape...

Executed in 1950 during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and non-representational art, Feininger reduces a landscape to the bare minimums of lines and wash. Moeller Fine Art

Abstract Composition is an original Ink and Watercolor drawing on paper applied realized by Maurice André in the Mid-20th Century. Good conditions. Han...

Manfred Schwartz (American, b. Poland, 1909-1970), The Trapezist, Pastel on Paper, 1953, signed in pencil and dated lower left, in mat, unframed. Image: 9" H x 7.5" W; sheet: 12" H x...

This intense abstract watercolor has drawed on sheet of Fabriano paper, an Italian high quality paper specially made for artists and its artworks. About Keller arworks was told many words but we want to add that every time we look at his creations we can feel at once his whole world. Erich Keller...

Gen Paul (1895-1955 Fr.) lived in Montmartre, Paris France. He is know for his action painting with quick brush strokes and this work of art was painted around 1955-1960. He was a mu...

We are proud to present the following suite of just discovered, mixed media paintings, c.1957, by American artist Robert McIntosh(1916-2010) Robert McIntosh was extremely prolific...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Abstract (P1.35), Year: circa 1957, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, Size: 18.5 x 23 in. (46.99 x 58.42 cm), Description: Eve Nethercott'...

Wonderful abstract expressionist drawing in shades and tones of grays and black by John Haley (American, 1905-1991), c.1956-7. Signed lower left corner. Presented in 3" mat. Condition: Very good: some edge wear consistent with age. Image size: 25"H x 19"W. A feature of the artwork of John Charles...

A 1959 black and white, Mid-Century, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. Image size: 15 1/2" x 22 1/2". Framed size: 25" x 21". McL...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Dehner's legacy has been ...

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 On...

Michael Lekakis Monemvasia, Greece, 1952 Ink wash on heavy watercolor paper Signed, titled Monemvasia (spelled Monembasia) and dated 1952 on the back of the artwork 11 1/4 × 15 1/4 i...

Untitled (Abstraction) Ink on textured paper, c. 1958 Signed lower right "Scarlett" (see photo) Condition: Excellent Archival framing with OP3 Acrylic Sheet size: 21 3/4 x 30 inches Frame size: 28 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches Note: A rare mid to late 1950s example of the artist's abstract expressionist style. Provenance: estate of the artist Private Collection, Hudson River Valley, New York Rolph Scarlett B. 1889, GUELPH, ONTARIO; D. 1984, WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK Born on June 13, 1889 in Guelph, Canada, and into an artistic family, Rolph Scarlett spent his teenage years as an apprentice in his uncle’s jewelry firm and briefly studied at the Art Students League, New York. While working in the jewelry industry, Scarlett found time to paint and design theatrical sets in his free time, including one for the 1928 world premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s drama Lazarus Laughed (1926). In 1923, while on a business trip to Switzerland, Scarlett had met the artist Paul Klee and soon after abandoned his figurative painting style in favor of an abstract language that suggested more universal, cosmic truths. In 1937, after permanently settling in New York, Scarlett became acquainted with the artist and curator Hilla Rebay, the first director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952). Rebay provided Scarlett with a Guggenheim Foundation scholarship to paint full-time and obtained several of his paintings for the museum’s collection. From 1940 to 1946, Scarlett served as the museum’s chief lecturer, giving Sunday afternoon talks on art. Through Rebay, Scarlett became acquainted with the nonobjective works of Rudolf Bauer and Vasily Kandinsky and further refined his abstract style. Works from this era such as Yellow Bar (1942) are defined by overlapping geometric planes of bright, primary colors set against mute backgrounds. Scarlett avoided any reference to the outside world and believed that nonobjective painting was an act, in his words, of “pure creation.” During his lifetime, solo shows of his work were held at the Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York (1949); Sioux City Art Center, Iowa (1951); and Washburn Gallery...

John Levee, an American abstract expressionist, served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. Following the war, he harnessed the educational opportunit...