20th Century Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Michel Debiève was born on May 29, 1931, with his twin brother Raymond, in a popular suburb of Maubeuge (North of France). Very early, encouraged by Emile, their father, the two brot...

Artist: Karl Fred Dahmen Title: Untitled 1 Year: 1980 Medium: Drawing with Mixed Media on Paper, signed and dated Size: 17 x 22 in. (43.18 x 55.88 cm)

Magnificent abstract work on paper by Swiss artist Albert Chubac measuring 65 x 82 x 3 cm

Jorge Camacho (Cuban, 1934-2011) Signed and dated 1997. 30 x 36 Inches Abstract Surrealist Artist. A self-taught artist, he quit his law studies in 1952 to dedicate himself to pain...

Abstract Expressionist design. Sealed on the back with the design studio name and number . Ilegible signature We offer a small number of these original illustration designs by this ...

Artist: Stephen Greene, American (1917 - 1999) Title: Untitled Year: 1986 Medium: Acrylic and Mixed Media on Paper, signed and dated l.r. Size: 40 x 30 inches

Artist: Ian Hornak (1944-2002) Title: View on Cherry Hill, Barbados Year: 1971 Medium: Pencil on heavy archival paper Size: 29 x 41 inches Condition: Good ...

"I don’t see shapes as much as I see the energy of elements interacting to move, stop, support or explode. I mostly use clean bright color to keep my world hot and alive. My painting...

"I don’t see shapes as much as I see the energy of elements interacting to move, stop, support or explode. I mostly use clean bright color to keep my world hot and alive. My painting...

"Art Deco Sailboat in Abstract Landscape #740" is an original colorful crayon drawing on paper by Sylvia Spicuzza, signed in pencil in the lower right corner. The sailboat of the title is in the center, set against a deep blue sky upon a dark green sea. It is framed by a abstract shapes of bright color that flow into one another in curving lines. The horizon line is maintained throughout the composition, and the effect is something like looking through a kaleidoscope. Art size: 8 1/2" x 7 1/4" Frame size: 16 1/4" x 14 1/2" Born in 1908, Sylvia Spicuzza was the daughter of noted painter Francesco Spicuzza. Sylvia devoted herself to teaching art to the students of Lake Bluff Elementary School in Shorewood, WI. During this time Sylvia produced a magnificent body of work that was undiscovered until her death. Sylvia's work is rich, diverse and fascinating collection of drawings...

Color lithograph on fine Arches paper Published 1966 Publisher: Maeght, Paris Limited edition Signature and numbering in pencil by the artist Numbered specimen: 68/75 Paper size: 54...

"Harlequin’s Birthday" Mid 20th Century American Abstract 1960s Color Field James Daugherty (1887 – 1974) Harlequin’s Birthday 17 1/4 x 11 inches Pastel on paper, c. 1965 Titled lo...

Artist: Jeff Hoare Title: Wave Cry Series #10 Year: 1977 Medium: Watercolor on Paper, signed and dated l.r. Size: 22 x 30 inches Frame: 33.5 x 40 inches

Large French Abstract Painting, Watercolour, Signed, Red and Purple Palette by Raphaelle Pia, French 20th Century artist Watercolour stuck on card, unframed Signed and dated '12-12-7...

You are viewing a modernist American watercolor painting by Robert Noel Blair Robert Noel Blair (American, 1912-2003) was an American artist, painter, sculptor, printmaker and te...

Energetic abstract expressionist watercolor painting of large black and orange splatters done by Norman Bluhm in 1962. Signed and dated in lower left corner. Hung in a black and gold...

Briggs is s significant Post War artist who can bring substantial prices and interest with his works from the 1950's. His style during this period was "action painting" and expressi...

Earl Horter (American, 1883-1940) Three Still Life Studies Pencil on paper, 7 1/4 x 13 1/2 inches; Framed: 17 x 21 inches NOTE: while originally mounted with archival materials, the...

Original piece, Mixed media signed 70 x 53 x 3 cm (framed)

Artist: Karl Fred Dahmen Title: Untitled 3 Year: 1980 Medium: Drawing with Mixed Media on Paper, signed verso Size: 33.5 x 45 in. (85.09 x 114.3 cm)

Artist: Lou Fink, American (1925 - 1980) Title: Condor Year: 1976 Medium: Pencil on paper, signed and dated l.l. Size: 30 in. x 40 in. (76.2 cm x 50.8 cm)

Artist: Cynthia Carlson, American (1942 - ) Title: Hornet Rocks Year: 1980 Medium: Roplex, acrylic, & wax crayon, signed, titled and dated verso Size: ...

Landscape with beach chair or lawn chair in bright vibrant colors. Iain Baxter& (the artist recently added the ampersand to his name) is recognized as Canada’s pioneering conceptual artist. For over forty years, Baxter& has continually produced works that question the role of art as commodity and as a medium for cultural commentary. Among his many innovations, Baxter& was the first artist to adopt a corporate persona: in 1966, he formed the N.E. Thing Company. NETCO output ranged from conceptual, satirical, vacuum-formed still lives to post-modern appropriations of famous artworks. His recent work includes neon signs, ‘animal preserves’, a grocery cart of ‘GMO’s’ (genetically modified organisms) and installations using obsolete technology.) He is a painter, photographer, sculptor, mixed media artist, installationist, film & video maker, interventionist & performance artist who has been a forerunner of conceptual art in Canada. BAXTER& has been considered the Marshall McLuhan of Visual Arts in Canada. Continuous themes in his work include information technology, landscape, art as commodity, & environmental & ecological concerns. These prominent themes throughout BAXTER&‘s work are often met with wit, parody, satire & word-play. Through his art, teaching, and mentorship, BAXTER& has widely influenced Canadian art, creating new movements such as the Vancouver School of Photo-conceptualism and blurring the lines between private and public through his N.E. Thing Co. among many other impactful projects. He has also directly influenced major Canadian artists, including Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Roy Arden, Ken Lum and Rodney Graham. BAXTER& has exhibited throughout Canada and internationally in the United States, China, Korea, Japan, and Europe including at the Guggenheim New York, The National Gallery of Canada & the Canadian Cultural Center in Paris, France, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York & the Tate Modern, London. In 2011, BAXTER&’s work was compiled into a major retrospective IAIN BAXTER&: 1958--‐2011, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario & The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His work can be found in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Vancouver Art Gallery, the F.R.A.C Art Museum in Bretagne, France, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, & the Tate Modern, London. He is a Member of the Royal Canadian Academy. His work was included in the seminal Made of Plastic show that included Abe Ajay...

Lawrence Kupferman (1909-1982) was an important American Abstract Expressionist painter credited with bringing Abstract Expressionism to Boston. Kupferman's work is included in the c...

Gray toned abstract watercolor painting on paper titled "Militair." Back side of the paper has another painting depicting red, yellow, green, and blue abstract shapes with figurative...

Artist: Ray Dougherty, American Title: Thrust Year: 1992 Medium: Watercolor on Paper, signed and dated l.l. Size: 22 x 28.5 in. (55.88 x 72.39 cm)

Untitled (Purple and Yellow) Pastel on paper, 1981 Signed and dated lower right Provenance: Collection of Jan Cowles Jan Cowles was married to Gardner Cowles owner of Cowles Media Company (1935–1998) which owned newspapers, magazines and information publishing company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The company operated Cowles Business Media, Cowles Creative Publishing, and Cowles Enthusiast Media units. Owners of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune from 1935 to 1998, other newspapers owned at one time by Cowles Media and its affiliates included the Des Moines Register, the Buffalo Courier...

Artist: Beatrice Rubel (aka Betty Abbott) Title: Blue Symphony Year: circa 1948 Medium: Pastel on paper, signed verso Size: 12 in. x 18 in. (30.48 cm x 45.72 cm) Frame Size: 19.5 x 2...

Watercolor on paper, Framed 54 x 44 x 2 cm

Black and white pen and ink abstract figurative drawing depicting a fantasy animal skull-like shape. Framed and matted in a silver frame. Previously with DuBose Gallery, a leading na...

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 ...

Artist: Ian Hornak (1944-2002) Title: Untitled (Apocalyptic Tropical Landscape) Year: 1973 Medium: Ink on heavy archival paper Size: 22 x 30 inches ...

Landscape with refrigerator in bright vibrant colors. Iain Baxter& (the artist recently added the ampersand to his name) is recognized as Canada’s pioneering conceptual artist. For over forty years, Baxter& has continually produced works that question the role of art as commodity and as a medium for cultural commentary. Among his many innovations, Baxter& was the first artist to adopt a corporate persona: in 1966, he formed the N.E. Thing Company. NETCO output ranged from conceptual, satirical, vacuum-formed still lives to post-modern appropriations of famous artworks. His recent work includes neon signs, ‘animal preserves’, a grocery cart of ‘GMO’s’ (genetically modified organisms) and installations using obsolete technology.) He is a painter, photographer, sculptor, mixed media artist, installationist, film & video maker, interventionist & performance artist who has been a forerunner of conceptual art in Canada. BAXTER& has been considered the Marshall McLuhan of Visual Arts in Canada. Continuous themes in his work include information technology, landscape, art as commodity, & environmental & ecological concerns. These prominent themes throughout BAXTER&‘s work are often met with wit, parody, satire & word-play. Through his art, teaching, and mentorship, BAXTER& has widely influenced Canadian art, creating new movements such as the Vancouver School of Photo-conceptualism and blurring the lines between private and public through his N.E. Thing Co. among many other impactful projects. He has also directly influenced major Canadian artists, including Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Roy Arden, Ken Lum and Rodney Graham. BAXTER& has exhibited throughout Canada and internationally in the United States, China, Korea, Japan, and Europe including at the Guggenheim New York, The National Gallery of Canada & the Canadian Cultural Center in Paris, France, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York & the Tate Modern, London. In 2011, BAXTER&’s work was compiled into a major retrospective IAIN BAXTER&: 1958--‐2011, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario & The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His work can be found in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Vancouver Art Gallery, the F.R.A.C Art Museum in Bretagne, France, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, & the Tate Modern, London. He is a Member of the Royal Canadian Academy. His work was included in the seminal Made of Plastic show that included Abe Ajay...

The color harmony on paper. stamp singed lower right Pinajian. Archived numbered 1580

Framed 19 x 26. Image 14 X 21 Bernard Segal was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and attended Cincinnati University and the Cincinnati Art Academy. He was known for figure, abstract painting, collage, and cartoon illustration. In the 1920's and 30's, he lived in NYC and attended The Art Students League where he was creative with a number of artistic styles of the period. During WWII, he worked as a cartoonist for a government issued newspaper called 10-SHUN that was published in Greensboro, NC. Bernard worked under the pen name Seeg, and was the author of the comic strip "Hank and Honey," that appeared in the New York Herald Tribune from the 1940's through the 50's. This cartoon was syndicated and published in Quebec under the title "Louise et Louis." The strip was later retitled to Ellsworth. Segal also illustrated a number of Jewish books that were published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, and Bible stories. In the 1950's Segal moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and became a member of the New Hope Modernists. He worked with esteemed artists such as George Nakashima, Charles Evans, Louis Stone, Lloyd ney, josef Zenk, Clarence Carter and Charles Ramsey. Segal's most noted work was made during the 1960's, during which time he produced paintings and collages in the abstract expressionist style. He enjoyed painting bright abstract oil...

Gouache par Albert Chubac. Tampon de la vente de l'atelier Chubac. Encadré. Dimensions avec le cadre: 96 x76 cm. Last painter of the school of Nice. This is an important painter, the...

Landscape with framed house in bright vibrant colors. Iain Baxter& (the artist recently added the ampersand to his name) is recognized as Canada’s pioneering conceptual artist. For over forty years, Baxter& has continually produced works that question the role of art as commodity and as a medium for cultural commentary. Among his many innovations, Baxter& was the first artist to adopt a corporate persona: in 1966, he formed the N.E. Thing Company. NETCO output ranged from conceptual, satirical, vacuum-formed still lives to post-modern appropriations of famous artworks. His recent work includes neon signs, ‘animal preserves’, a grocery cart of ‘GMO’s’ (genetically modified organisms) and installations using obsolete technology.) He is a painter, photographer, sculptor, mixed media artist, installationist, film & video maker, interventionist & performance artist who has been a forerunner of conceptual art in Canada. BAXTER& has been considered the Marshall McLuhan of Visual Arts in Canada. Continuous themes in his work include information technology, landscape, art as commodity, & environmental & ecological concerns. These prominent themes throughout BAXTER&‘s work are often met with wit, parody, satire & word-play. Through his art, teaching, and mentorship, BAXTER& has widely influenced Canadian art, creating new movements such as the Vancouver School of Photo-conceptualism and blurring the lines between private and public through his N.E. Thing Co. among many other impactful projects. He has also directly influenced major Canadian artists, including Stan Douglas, Ian Wallace, Jeff Wall, Roy Arden, Ken Lum and Rodney Graham. BAXTER& has exhibited throughout Canada and internationally in the United States, China, Korea, Japan, and Europe including at the Guggenheim New York, The National Gallery of Canada & the Canadian Cultural Center in Paris, France, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, Museum of Modern Art, New York & the Tate Modern, London. In 2011, BAXTER&’s work was compiled into a major retrospective IAIN BAXTER&: 1958--‐2011, organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario & The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. His work can be found in collections including the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Vancouver Art Gallery, the F.R.A.C Art Museum in Bretagne, France, the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, & the Tate Modern, London. He is a Member of the Royal Canadian Academy. His work was included in the seminal Made of Plastic show that included Abe Ajay...

Surrealist drawing of an old fashion straw broom. The work is similar to the known artist Avigdor Arikna's etching after real-life objects. The work is not...

Jacques Villon, born Gaston Émile Duchamp on July 31, 1875, in Damville, France, was a pivotal figure in the development of modern art. As the elder brother of Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, and Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti, Villon was part of a family that profoundly influenced 20th-century art. He adopted the pseudonym Jacques Villon to distinguish himself from his siblings, and began his career as a cartoonist and illustrator. Villon's contributions to modern art were acknowledged internationally, with exhibitions at prestigious venues such as the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Indépendants, and the Armory Show in New York in 1913. His work influenced the trajectory of abstract art, and his legacy is celebrated in numerous museums and collections worldwide. While this drawing isnt common of his bolder cubist style, it shows his skill in sketching and shapes which add a dimension to the abstract nature of this automobile drawing...

Jack Youngerman Untitled, 1990 Pencil on paper 21 inches diameter (image) 25 x 25 inches (frame) Signed and dated recto

Genre: Expressionist Subject: Landscape Medium: Watercolor Surface: Paper Country: United States Dimensions: 16.75" x 23" Dimensions w/Frame: 18" x 24.5" Murray Hantman (1904–1999) ...

Lot of four ink drawings by the german surrealist painter Sven Hauptmann. all signed. framed

Chorus Line Oil pastel on paper, c. 1960's Signed (see photo) Provenance: Estate of the Artist Estate of the artist (Estate No. 745) Condition: Excellent Image/Sheet size: 5 3/4 x 4 inches Sam Spanier (1925-2008) Born in Brooklyn New York, Sam Spanier studied painting with Hans Hofmann (1949–50) and also at the Taos Valley Art School (1951). His formative years as a working artist were spent in Paris (1951–52), where he also became involved with the work of G. I. Gurdjieff, through his disciple, Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann. By 1953, Spanier’s work had already begun to meet with critical acclaim. That year, he had his first solo gallery show, and was selected by Milton Avery and Hans Hofmann to receive the prestigious Lorian Fund Award. His second solo exhibition, in 1955, was curated by renowned museum director, Gordon Washburn. Spanier’s early work was reviewed by Dore Ashton, Donald Judd, Fairfield Porter, Stuart Preston, and Irving Sandler, among other significant critics of the period. Spanier’s spiritual path increasingly became the central focus of both his life and his art. In 1960, he was introduced to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, which led to visits to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, in 1962 and 1964, during which he was inspired to leave New York City and found Matagiri (in 1968)—a spiritual center in Woodstock, New York—with his lifelong partner, Eric Hughes. The work he embarked upon there bifurcates his life as an artist, separating him from New York’s art world, and radically altering the trajectory of his career. From that point forward, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to consider his artistic endeavor apart from the life of dedication he had undertaken, and to which he remained committed. As early as 1954, Dore Ashton had recognized in Sam Spanier a “haptic visionary;” in 1960, Irving Sandler wrote that the people in Spanier’s paintings “seem to have witnessed some transfiguring event.” In his later paintings—usually worked in oil pastel on panel or paper—made during intermittent creative periods, from the mid-1970s to the final years of his life, the artist’s inner life remains always apparent in his subject matter; and from the portraits and abstract Buddha-like figures and heads, to the fantasy landscapes, the paintings are redolent with a rich intensity of color and light that can only be described as inspired. Sam Spanier’s works are in the collections of the Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. He received the Woodstock Artists Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. Selected Solo Exhibitions: Urban Gallery, New York (1954, 1955, 1956); Wittenborn Gallery, New York (1958); Gallery Mayer, New York (1958, 1959, 1960); Unison Gallery, New Paltz (1986, 1995, 2009); Limner Gallery, New York (1988); Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, New York (1999). Selected Group Exhibitions: Salon des Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France (1952); October Exhibition of Oil Paintings, New York City Center Gallery, New York (1954); Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Centre Culturel de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France (1954); Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1955); Les Plus Mauvais Tableaux, Galerie Prismes, Paris (1955); Première Exposition Internationale de l’Art Plastique Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (1956); Recent Paintings USA: The Figure, The Museum of Modern Art (1960); Winter’s Work, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1985); Juried Group Show, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1986); Woodstock Artists, Self-Portraits, Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, Woodstock, New York (1988); Portraits, Albert Shahinian Fine Art, Poughkeepsie, New York (2003); The World We Live In, Upstate Art, Phoenicia, New York (2003); Show of Heads, Limner Gallery, Phoenicia, New York (2004). Selected Writings on the Artist: Dore Ashton, “Sam Spanier,” Art Digest (May 1, 1954) and “Sam Spanier,” The New York Times (March 16, 1960); Cassia Berman, “Sam Spanier: A Divine Calling,” Woodstock Times (February 7, 2008); Lawrence Campbell, “Sam Spanier: Exhibition of Paintings at Urban Gallery,” Art News (April 1, 1954); Sam Feinstein, “Sam Spanier: Exhibition of Paintings at Urban Gallery,” Art Digest (March 1, 1955); Pat Horner, “Big Heart, Timeless Art —Sam Spanier Retrospective at Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock Times (July 1, 1999); Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Sam Spanier,” Arts Magazine (April 1960); Liam Nelson, “Human Force...

Here, Sylvia Spicuzza has taken the opportunity to create a geometric, crystalline composition of color while testing a set of Rembrandt artist's pastels. Her fractured planes of col...

Genre: Expressionist Subject: Landscape Medium: Watercolor Surface: Paper Country: United States Dimensions w/Frame: 16" x 28" Murray Hantman (1904–1999) was a painter, muralist, an...

Seymour Fogel Texas Artist From his New York Transcendental Period 1971 "Woodland Eros Drawing I" "Woodland Eros Drawing II" Conte Crayon on Illustration Board. Professionally c...

Drawing on paper, signed up left.

Hai (Abba) (Hebrew translation: Hey Father) Signed in ink lower left by the artist’s widow “AL” (Adele Lozowick) Original label from early exhibition verso at The Art Corner Graphit...

Gouache par Albert Chubac. Tampon de la vente de l'atelier Chubac. Encadré. Dimensions avec le cadre: 96 x76 cm. Last painter of the school of Nice. This is an important painter, the...

Anthony Caro (1924-2013) was an influential and innovative British sculptor. Caro played a pivotal role in the development of twentieth-century sculpture introducing abstraction thro...

M Finke, "Untitled: Clocks 1 (2nd Year in Black)", Modern/ Abstract Watercolor Painting signed and dated in Pencil, Early 20th Century, February 13, 1930 Colors: Black, Grey, White ...

This vintage 1938 ink drawing by Charles Bunnell (1897–1968) captures a stunning scene of a church nestled in the majestic Rocky Mountains of Georgetown, Colorado. Executed in bold black ink on creamy white paper, the piece is signed and dated by the artist in the lower right and titled in the lower left. The image size is 7 ¾ x 5 ¾ inches, and it is framed with archival materials, with outer dimensions measuring 16 ¼ x 14 ½ x 1 ¼ inches. Condition: The drawing is in good vintage condition, with no notable flaws. For a detailed condition report, please contact us directly. Provenance: This artwork comes from the estate of Charles Ragland Bunnell, ensuring its authenticity. About Charles Bunnell: Charles Bunnell was a prominent American artist whose career spanned multiple styles and influences. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, he moved to Colorado Springs around 1915, where he developed a love for art. After serving in World War I, Bunnell studied at the Broadmoor Art Academy (later renamed the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center), where he met his wife, Laura Palmer...

Mlle. Jeanne at the Window, No. II Charcoal on paper, 1933 Signed and dated lower right (see photo) Illustrated: Gustafson, Zimmerli Museum, 1988, "Benjamin Benno: A Retrospective Ex...

Evelyn Harper, "Untitled: Cadillac Automobile Show" , Mixed Media on Illustration Board, 15 x 10, Mid-20th Century, 1948 Colors: Black and White A 15 x 10 Black and White Illustrat...

Simon Samsonian (1912 - 2003) Colorful Geometric Abstraction, 1981 Oil on paper 16 x 22 inches Signed and dated lower right Provenance: Estate of the artist This survivor of the Armenian genocide wound up in a Cairo orphanage in 1927. He rose to fame as one of Egypt’s great modernists, but after moving to Long Island late in life he withdrew into anonymity. Now his compelling story is being told. Art historians are finally beginning to realize that the power of abstraction in its early years was a zeitgeist not limited to the major European centers of the avant-garde — Paris, Munich, and Moscow — but one that quickly rippled to major cities throughout the world. Within a few decades that original shock of a new vision had inspired thousands of artists from different cultures — particularly those the Middle East — whose translations were not slavish imitations of works by seminal figures like Picasso, Braque, Malevich, and Kandinsky but creative variants colored by their respective cultures. This essay focuses on an extraordinary Armenian artist, his harrowing survival of the genocide, his rise to fame in Cairo, and his creation of a unique style of abstraction. Art historians have typically formed a chorus that teaches the history of abstraction like this: Just before and during the World War I era, several avant-garde artists emerged to create shockingly different new forms by which artists could express themselves. In Paris, Picasso and Braque broke out with cubism, quickly followed by Mondrian. In Moscow, Malevich created Suprematism, the ultimate hard-edge geometric abstraction. And in Munich, Kandinsky emerged as the father of Abstract Expressionism. Within these few short years a zeitgeist was sensed throughout the art world. American pioneers, too — particularly Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell — felt this explosive freedom of expression. When Europe was recovering after World War I it became clear that Paris would retain its title as capitol of the art world, lasting through the Roaring Twenties and even through the Great Depression. But the end of World War II changed everything. A parallel war had been won by a group of irascible young Abstract Expressionists in New York — led by Pollock, Rothko, DeKooning, and Kline. No sooner had Paris been liberated from the Germans than Picasso, Matisse, Breton, and Duchamp surrendered to the Americans. From that point on New York would be the epicenter of the art world. But a lens that focuses myopically on the war between the avant-garde of Paris and New York misses the wider narrative of multiple aesthetic modernities that developed in the several decades following World War I. For Armenian artists the matter is even more complex owing to the genocide of 1915 where more than 1.5 million people — seventy-five percent of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — were massacred. Those not shot on the spot were sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert without food or water. Frequently, the marchers were stripped and forced to walk naked under the scorching sun until they dropped dead. As a child Samsonian witnessed the murder of his parents and most of the members of his family. Soon thereafter, his older sister, Anahid, quickly shepherded him into a line of children being rescued by Greek nuns. But they became separated and he lost her, too. He was sent to a Greek orphanage in Smyrna (now Izmir), on Turkey’s west coast. Because he only knew his first name, the orphanage gave him a last name based on the place where they found him — Samsun — a major port on Turkey’s north coast on the Black Sea. His birth date was unknown, too. According to Samsonian’s vague recollections he assumed he was about three or four years old at the onset of the genocide, which would place his birth year in 1911 or 1912. In 1922, when Samsonian was about 10, the Turks ended their war with the Greeks by putting Smyrna to the torch in what has been called the “Catastrophe of Smyrna.” Once again, the child was on the run, escaping the fire and slaughter. He found temporary refuge in Constantinople, but within a year that major port would fall to the Turks, too, and become renamed as Istanbul. This time, Samsonian was whisked away to an orphanage in Greece founded by the American charity, Near East Relief — which is credited with saving so many Armenian orphans that the American historian Howard M. Sachar said it “quite literally kept an entire nation alive. Any understanding of Samsonian’s approach to modernism requires careful consideration of the impact of his early years because his art is inseparable from the anguish he experienced. In 1927, when he was a teenager, he was transferred to Cairo, Egypt, then a cosmopolitan city hosting a sizable portion of the Armenian diaspora. There he lived with thirty-two other children on the top floor of the Kalousdian Armenian School. Upon graduating in 1932 he won a scholarship to attend the Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute — an Italian art school in Cairo — where he won first prize in final examinations among one hundred students. He found work with an Armenian lithographic printer and he returned to the Kalousdian Armenian School to teach drawing. In 1939 he married one of his students, Lucy Guendimian. The Cairo in which Samsonian matured as an artist was home to many prominent art collectors after World War I. In this receptive environment Samsonian exhibited widely and won many awards. Beginning in 1937 and for the next thirty years he exhibited annually at the prestigious Le Salon du Caire hosted by the Société les Amis de l’Art (founded in 1921). After World War II he hit his stride as a modernist in Cairo, counting among his peers other artists of the Armenian diaspora such as Onnig Avedissian, Achod Zorian, Gregoire Meguerdichian, Hagop Hagopian...

An original watercolor painting by Westley "Wes" Olmsted. This work is currently featured in the exhibition Man of Extremes at Benjaman Gallery in Buffalo, NY. Westley G. Olmsted (1934-2011) was a painter and sculptor. He was born in Buffalo, New York, and was a distant relative Frederick Law Olmsted...

Lithograph with hand-cut central slash incision by Fontana limited edition, numbered as 57/150. paper size: 47 x 35 cm framed size: 67 x 65 cm very good conditions, with deep strong ...

Artist: Ian Hornak (1944-2002) Title: Untitled (Scottish Rockscape) Year: 1973 Medium: Ink on heavy archival paper Size: 22 x 30 inches Condition: Good Provenance: Estate of Ian Horn...

Cobwebs and Rocks Watercolor, 1940 Signed, dated, and copyrighted lower right Exhibited: Zimmerli Art Museum, Benjamin Benno: Retrospective Exhibition, 1988 Illustrated: Gustafson, Zimmerli Museum: Benjamin Benno: Retrospective Exhibition, 1988 Color Plate 14 copy copy of the catalog accompanies the watercolor Condition: excellent Image size: 14 3/4 x 21 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist Ruth O...

Composition on paper from the 50s from Karl Peter Röhl.