20th Century Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

In ‘Untitled’ 1932, Walkowitz crafts a memorable image. Tessellating lines are centred on the page and form geometric shapes. Faint pencil marking reveal the artists forward planning...

"Space Sense" is an original oil pastel drawing on illustration board. The artist signed the piece lower right. It features three distinct scenes--a green rainy scene with two figure...

"The Murder" is an original oil pastel drawing on paper by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece on the back. There appears to be an abstracted figure on the left hand side of...

The gallery certificate is available, stamp signed lower right Pinajian.

Original mixed media drawing on paper. Hand signed on front by Purvis Young. Artwork size 10.375 x 7.875 inches. Frame size approx 16 x 14 inches. Artwork is in excellent conditi...

Canvas Sz: 21 5/8"H x 27 3/4"W Chrome Frame Sz: 22 1/4"H x 28 1/4"W Artist Info Celia D. Rumsey American, 1944 - 2012 Originally from the East Coast, Celia Rumsey moved to Santa Fe...

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...

Mixed media, gouache and paper, signed . James Coignard est un peintre, graveur et sculpteur français, né le 15 septembre 1925 à Tours et mort le 7 mars 2008 à M...

Untitled Pastel on paper, 1922 Initialed and dated lower right (see photo) Exhibited: Francis Nauman, Leon Kelly: Draftsman Extraordinaire, New York, April 4 - May 23, 2014. Provenance: Estate of the Artist The Orange Chicken...

Fusain on paper, signed lower right

Collage on paper and mixed media, signed lower right.

Abstract expressionist tribal painting of a nude female done in bold, vibrant colors by artist Gustave Alhadeff in 1962 with acrylic paint. Signed in upper right corner. Artist Biography: Born in the Belgian Congo in 1940, Gustave Alhadeff won his first award at the annual art show in Elisabethville, at age 13. His formal art education began with Mr. Marcel Pire (Prix de Rome). He continued his studies at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, with Mr. Van Nesche in Cape Town, South Africa from 1956 to 1957. He was awarded a scholarship from the Art Academy to continue his studies with Mr.Creytens at the "Institute National Superieur des Beaux Arts" in Anvers, Belgium. The following year he entered the class of Mr. Leon Devos...

Untitled is a contemporary artwork realized by Shu Takahashi in 1974 Mixed media Hand signed and dated on the lower margin Includes frame

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

Abstract surrealist watercolor painting by Korean artist Dae-Duck Cha. The work features realistic water droplets set against a blended blue and red gr...

Seated women with wings drawn on a circular sheet of paper. Signed. Matted on a silver reflective matting. Artist Biography: Charles Pebworth is known for his metal artmaking. He a...

Large brush on paper painting. signed and dated. Rome, Italy 1962. Peter Chinni is an internationally celebrated artist, painter, printmaker and sculptor of Italian descent. At 19 Chinni enrolled in the Art Students League in New York City where he studied under Kenneth Hayes Miller, Julian Levi...

Composition is a drawing realized by in the Mid-20th Century. Watercolor on paper. Good conditions with slight foxing. The artwork is realized through deft expressive strokes.

Domenick Capobianco (American, b. 1928), Abstract Heart, Mixed Media on Paper, stamped "Studio / Domenick Capobianco" to verso, unframed. 37.25" H x 39.5" W. Provenance: From the col...

Partal Number 7, Alhambra, Charcoal Abstract Painting by John Hubbard, 1987 Additional information: Medium: Charcoal 56.2 x 71.1 cm 22 1/8 x 28 in John Hubbard was an American-born...

Abstract composition is a drawing in watercolor realized by Rewe Prunken in the Mid-20th Century. Good conditions with slight foxing. The artwork is represented in well-balance com...

Contemporary pink, red, yellow and black gestural mixed media abstract by Houston, TX artist David Aylsworth. The work incorporates an envelope celebrating World Aids Day from 1993 a...

"Constellations" is an original watercolor painting on textured paper by David Barnett, signed in the lower right corner. It is an abstract piece characterized by minimally-applied l...

unique piece mixed media signed

This original watercolor painting by acclaimed American artist Samuel Bolton Colburn captures a quiet farmstead nestled in a mountain valley. Rendered with Colburn’s signature contro...

Framed 33 X 45.5 image is 29 X 41.5 Hand signed lower left Signed and titled verso Sylvia Carewe (1906-1981) was an American woman artist, painter, writer and poet. Born in New York City to Russian immigrant parents, Louis and Esther Kerewsky, she changed her surname to "Carewe" in 1930. Carewe attended Columbia University and studied further with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at Atelier 17 in New York, with Hans Hoffman in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and at the New School for Social Research. During World War II Carewe worked as an advertising copywriter and artist for agencies in New York. She became a prolific abstract artist in a range of media, including tapestry designs for the Aubusson tapestry carpet company in France, felt banners, collage reliefs, and what she termed "blown paintings," which were assemblages (predominantly of children's toy components) overlaid with spray paint. One of the most common subjects in her semi abstract paintings was New York City at night. She also worked in traditional artistic media, including watercolors, oils, lithographs and pastels. In October 1944, she married Marvin Small (formerly Smalheiser, executive for Carter's Little Liver Pills). They had one child, John Marvin, in June 1947. Carewe had her first one-woman show in Poughkeepsie in 1947, after which she opened in New York City at the ACA Gallery in 1948. She had some twenty other American solo shows and her works hung in many exhibits across the United States as well as in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, Musée de l'Arte Moderne, Paris, Brandeis University, the Butler Art Institute, Howard University, the Tel Aviv Museum and the National Museum in Djakarta, Indonesia. Her work has been described by French critics as "violent, colorful art, in hard contrasts, not exempt from cold lyricism." ["Les Girls...

Watercolor on paper, Framed 54 x 44 x 2 cm

"Spacial Balance" is a series of four works by David Barnett in watercolor and pencil, all signed "David Barnett '68." Each is a different experiment in line, color, and balance. Sp...

Modern abstract watercolor painting with blue and grey tones. The artist sketched out crosses within the blue abstract landscape. The piece is signed by the artist. It is framed in a silver metal frame with a white matte. Dimensions without Frame: H 25 in x W 33 in. Artist Biography: Peter Keefer...

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...

Orange tonal surrealist portrait drawing. The work is signed by the artist in the bottom corner and is not currently framed. Artist Biography: Eyes are a recurring motif in the work of American artist Stanley Clark...

Composition with women. 1968. Paper, pencil, 35x24.5 cm Vladimir Borisovich Glushenkov (May 21, 1948, Riga - December 26, 2009, Riga.) - painter, graphic artist, poet, translator. Born in Riga in a Russian-Polish-German family. Vladimir Glushenkov...

"Abstract Composition XI" Abstract Painting 10" x 14" in by Shaker El Maadawy signed & dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in painting in 1967 in his na...

Still life pastel drawing by unknown artist. Realistic pastel drawing depicting watermelon, lemons, and other fruits in the background. Signed by artist at bottom left. Double matted...

Group of two drawings. "Femme assise sur une Chaise," circa 1910. Brush and ink on wove paper, 8 1/2x8 inches. With the artist's initials ink stamp, lower right recto. "Femme avec ...

Pastel blue and green toned watercolor painting of a sweeping seaside landscape. In the distance a small town can be seen nestled amongst the mountains at the water's edge. Signed "F...

Anna Schuster Title: Draft Design Medium: Gouache Year: 1992 Signed by hand, dated and inscribed Edition: Unique Size: 22.6 × 23.4 on 23.8 × 33.5 inches COA provided

Abstract 1, Oil Pastel and Pencil on Paper Painting by Henry Cliffe Additional information: Medium: Oil pastel and pencil on paper 23 1/8 x 20 in 58.5 x 51 cm

Goodbye Picasso. Cardboard, mixed media, 31x20 cm Vladimir Borisovich Glushenkov (May 21, 1948, Riga - December 26, 2009, Riga.) - painter, graphic ar...

Magnificent abstract work on paper by Swiss artist Albert Chubac measuring 81 x 61.5 x 3 cm

Pastel, gouache and coffee on paper. Artwork size: 58 x 56 cm. Frame size: 78 x 76 cm. Free shipment worldwide. Acquired directly from the artist. Archive number (P90/37) “The heart is an eye,” writes Nobel laureate Octavio Paz in an essay on Matta’s paintings. Matta creates a world coloured both by a sunny faith in the future and by visions of impending doom. Roberto Sebastian Echaurren Antonio Matta, who died aged 91 on 23 November 2002, was born in Santiago, Chile, on 11 November 1911 into a family with Spanish, French and Basque roots, and raised in an atmosphere of religiosity. By the age of 21 he had graduated and begun work as an architect, but his leisure time he devoted to sketching and painting. In 1933 he travelled to Europe for the first time, visiting Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy and other countries, and subsequently taking the initiative to collaborate with the architect, Le Corbusier. As time passed, however, Matta’s enthusiasm for a career in architecture waned, and he began to devote himself full-time to art, making early acquaintances with surrealists such as Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, André Breton and others. Between 1939 and 1948 Matta, like many of his artistic contemporaries, lived in self-imposed exile in the USA, but, after almost 10 years’ absence from Europe, he returned to make first Rome and then, a few years later, Paris his home. Throughout most of the rest of his life Matta commuted between his studio in Paris and his creative refuge in the monastery outside Rome. And it is here, in Italy, that he produced his greatest paintings. Matta’s first retrospective in Sweden was organised in 1956 when his works were exhibited in what was then Galerie Colibri – run by, among others, the artist C O Hultén at number 36 Södra Förstadsgatan in Malmö, Sweden. This was also the time when Matta began to collaborate with poets and other artists in Sweden. He produced the illustrations for Lasse Söderberg’s first anthology of poems, Akrobaterna (“The Acrobats”), published in 1955, and was also responsible for the cover of the Swedish art and literary magazine Salamander. In 1959 the first museum exhibition of Matta’s work in Europe was arranged at the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm. Held under the aegis of Pontus Hultén, it was entitled “Fifteen Forms of Doubt” and included 15 or so gigantic paintings...

The present watercolor is an excellent example of Joseph Rosman's early style, presenting contemporary American life though a child-like, abstracted lens. In the image, a man, woman ...

Untitled Watercolor on paper, c. 1971 Unsigned Provenance: From the collection of Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007) Laddie John Dill, a Los Angeles artist, had his first solo exhibition i...

A gritty New York City street scene with period Roaring Twenties Cars and stuffed metal garbage cans is depicted by female artist Ruth Light Braun. ...

Examples like this of Sylvia Spicuzza's work offer a chance to see a musical composition, with repeating curvilinear lines and patters dancing across the image like Jazz music though...

Jacques GERMAIN (1915-2001) Untitled Circa 1970 Dimensions: 25 x 18 cm Pencil on Paper Signed J.G Born in Paris in 1915, worked with Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant at the Acad...

In the 1960s, Sylvia Spicuzza made several watercolor abstractions with biomorphic qualities like the one presented here. While being a playful abstraction, the watercolor also seeps...

Conflict (1941) Gouache on paper 20" x 12" 27 ½" x 19 ¼" x 1 ½" framed Signed "V. Wicht" lower right. An important work from the artist's "Force" series, which were executed in hom...

Love goes up in smoke is a drawing, realized by Mino Maccari, 1960s.  27 x 21 cm ; Sheet 14 x 9 cm.  Pen on cardboard. Good conditions!

Abstract lithograph of flowers with red, blue and pink tones. Work is signed by the artist and given an edition number. Artist Biography: Tokio Miyashita...

This dynamic abstract watercolor by acclaimed New Mexico artist William Lumpkins (1909–2000) exemplifies his signature fusion of vibrant color, spir...

Magnificent abstract work on paper by Swiss artist Albert Chubac measuring 63.5 x 79 x 3.5 cm

Grace Knowlton Untitled (Colored Pencils), 1978 Mixed media watercolor and charcoal painting on paper. (Framed with labels from the legendary Allan Stone Collection...

Frost Flowers is an original circa 1965 mixed media drawing by celebrated Denver-based artist Edward Marecak. Executed in pastel and ink on paper, thi...

"Stay Go Stay Go" is an original oil pastel drawing mounted to cardboard by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece on the back. It depicts two wide-eyed faces blending into a j...

Astract composition is an artwork realized by Paolo Pasotto in 1986.  50 x 35 cm. Hand signed bottom right.  Mixed techinique on paper. Good conditions!

Abstract composition is an artwork realized by Paolo Pasotto in 1996.  50 x 35 cm. Hand signed on both short sides. Mixed techinique on paper. Good conditions. 

Abstract Composition is a drawing realized by Jean Criton in 1957. Watercolor, ink on paper.  Hand-signed and dated. Good conditions. The artwork is realized poetically through b...

Signed and dated "1962" by the artist lower right. Mixed media on heavy paper. Done for a show to fund a trip to Italy.

Watercolor on Arches paper