20th Century Animal Drawings and Watercolors

Shirley Smithers (British, 20th Century) March Hares Watercolour Signed ‘Shirley Smithers’ (lower right) 6.7/8 x 8.7/8 in. (17.4 x 22.5 cm.)

Victor PROUVÉ (1858-1943) Study of a cat Charcoal on paper 15 × 14 cm frame 30 x 30 cm Provenance : artist’s family A major figure of the Nancy School, Victor Prouvé is the father o...

Title: Original French Anatomical Study of a Horse's Stride Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Pen on paper Size: 20 (Height) x 13.75 (Width) Signed: No Condition: Good...

Title: Original French Textured Equine Study of a Horse Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Acrylic and Textured Paste on Paper Size: 14 (Height) x 14 (Width) Signed: No...

Title: Original French Study of Children Watching Horses Cross a Bridge Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Ink on card Size: 6.5 (Height) x 14.75 (Width) Signed: No Co...

Early modern black and white sketch by iconic Houston based artist David Adickes. Pulled from a collection of previously undiscovered sketchbooks, this work serves as a peak behind t...

Work on cardboard Otto Vautier is a renowned Swiss painter, born in 1863 in Düsseldorf. He was influenced by a family of artists and developed his style ...

Title: Original French Abstract Artwork of a Horse in a Forest Setting Artist: Robert Ladou (French 1929-2014) Medium: Acrylic on paper drawing: 11.5 x 9.5 inches condition: Good pro...

Devant le Chateau une Carrosse Passait is a modern artwork realized by Salvador Dalì in 1945. China Ink drawing on paper. Signed and dated on the lower right recto. Outstanding dr...

Title: Original French Abstract Study or a Rearing Horse and Figure Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Pen on paper Size: 6.25 (Height) x 4.5 (Width) Signed: No Condit...

This drawing by Nils Kreuger, a Swedish artist born on October 11, 1858, in Kalmar and who passed away on May 11, 1930, in Stockholm, showcases a quintess...

A set of four watercolours of butterflies on silk, applied to handmade paper, with hand cut edges, by French artist La Roche Laffitte. Two are signed by the artist to the bottom righ...

Lovely Dog memorial drawing signed Sheridan "Scarab", 1998. Color pencil on sheet of yellow paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Signed, titles and dated upper right. Unframed.

A sculptor of animals, Sirio Tofanari (Florence 1886 – Milan 1969) is not inclined to the school discipline, he decides to learn and train as self-taught by travelling around Europe ...

Title: Original French Minimalist Horse Study Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Pencil on paper Size: 11.75 (Height) x 14.75 (Width) ...

Martin. 1936. Paper, pastel. 27.5x11.5 cm

Title: Original French Pencil Study of Riders and Horses in Misty Landscape Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Pencil on paper Size: 11.75 (Height) x 16.5 (Width) Sign...

Title: Original French Anatomical Frontal View Study of a Horse's Head Artist: Robert Ladou (French, 1929-2014) Medium: Oil pastel on paper Size: 11.75 (Height) x 8.25 (Width) Sign...

Cat is an Drawing in watercolor realized in the Mid-20th Century by Giselle Halff (1899-1971). Good conditions. Hand-Signed. Giselle Halff (1899-1971) born in Hanoi, student of R....

Mountain Trail John Wade Hampton, American (1918–1999) Date: 1969 Ink and Watercolor on board, signed lower left Size: 9 x 13.75 in. (22.86 x 34.93 cm)

This unique work is a watercolor by American artist Chris Ritter. The painting depicts a duck strung up upside down, held aloft by one leg. This piece is ...

Original Painting Undersea Whale Life Mag Published 1953 Illustration Ocean Sea Antonio Petruccelli (1907 – 1994) Underwater Whale Life Illustration published, c. November 7, 1953 1...

The Anatomy of a Horse by Robert Ladou (French 1929-2014) original drawing stuck on card in black folder/ thick paper, unframed drawing: 12 x 17.75 ...

Indian miniature showing Krishna, cows and the gopis (girls) Watercolour on paper, c mid 20th century Size Mounted: 33 x 22 cm Image Size: 24.2 x 13.4 cm Signed bottom right with a...

With watercolour. Bears signature, date and title. Presented in a card mount and in a bird's eye maple veneer frame. On wove.

Sir Peter Markham Scott CH CBE DSC FRS FZS Hart Laubs Duck Watercolour on paper 4.3/8 x 6.1/2 in. (11.2 x 16.5 cm.) Provenance: Painted by Scott as a visual record for a bird spotte...

Early 20th century crayon and watercolour on paper views by American artist Edgar Alwin Payne, both signed A.E.Payne bottom right, one dated '18. Und...

Cat is a charcoal drawing realized by Giselle Halff (1899-1971). Good conditions. Giselle Halff (1899-1971) born in Hanoi, student of R.X. Prinet, R. Ménard, L. Simon, B. Boutet de...

Aquatint etching with collage, 1975 Limited edition Signature and numbering in pencil by the artist , Numbered as: 48/100 Paper size: 54.5 x 41 cm Framed size: 57.5 x 45.5 cm Edited ...

Bronx Post Office Mural Study WPA Horse Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Couriers of History Bronx Post Office Mural Study Horse in the Sun (with two ad...

Jane Peterson (American, 1876-1965) Parrot Watercolor on paper Signed lower left 25 x 19 inches 31.25 x 25.25 inches, framed Born in 1876 in Illinois, Jane Peterson would grow into ...

Bird is a drawing in pastel on paper realized by Benn (Bencjon Rabinowicz) in 1970. Hand signed on the lower, dated. Good conditions. Benn (Bencj...

Dame Elisabeth Frink. English ( b.1930 - d.1993 ). Hawk, 1969. Watercolor. Signed & Dated Lower Right. Image size 25.4 inches x 19.5 inches ( 64.5cm x 49.5cm ). Frame size 34.4 inches x 28.1 inches ( 87.5cm x 71.5cm ). Available for sale; this original painting is by Dame Elisabeth Frink and is dated 1969. The painting is presented and supplied in a glazed frame and mount dating from June 1997. This vintage watercolor is in very good condition, commensurate with its age. The watercolor is signed and dated lower right. Previously with Beaux Arts, London and Bath in 1999. Dame Elisabeth Frink was one of Britain’s most important post-war sculptors, an accomplished draughtsman, illustrator and teacher. She was part of the post-war school of expressionist British sculptors dubbed the Geometry of Fear, and enjoyed a highly acclaimed career that was commercially successful, broke boundaries and contributed greatly to bringing wonderful sculpture to public places. She was born on 14 November 1930 in Thurlow, the daughter of a cavalry officer, and brought up in rural Suffolk near to an active airbase. She was brought up a Catholic and educated at the Convent of the Holy Family, Exmouth. She then studied at the Guildford School of Art from 1947-1949 under Willi Soukop and Henry Moore’s assistant, Bernard Meadows, and then at the Chelsea School in London 1949-1953. She taught at Chelsea School of Art 1951-61, St. Martin’s School of Art 1954-62 and was a visiting instructor at the Royal College of Art 1965-1967, after which she lived in France until 1973. Frink first came to the attention of the public in 1951 at an exhibition at the Beaux Arts Gallery, London. In 1952 she represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, being described by Herbert Read as “the most vital, the most brilliant and the most promising of the whole Biennale”. The same year the Tate bought its first work by her, and she began to enjoy commercial success. Thereafter she exhibited regularly and was for 27 years associated with Waddington’s, London. The subjects which Frink was most concerned with were man, dog and horses, with and without riders. Interestingly she seldom sculpted the female form, drawing on archetypes of masculine strength, struggle and aggression. Her work has the recurring themes of the vulnerable and the predatory, in the spirit of an authentic post-war artist. It has been said that she was more concerned with representing mankind that portraits of individuals. The appeal of her work lies in its directness, provoking a frank statement of feeling. The anatomy is often exaggerated or incorrect; the impact growing more out of her interest in the spirit of the subject. Her animals and birds may be drawn from nature but verge on the abstract, conveying raw emotion and character rather than a realistic depiction. Her unique style is characterised by a rough treatment of the surface which embeds each piece with vitality and her personal impression. In her later work even the distinction between human and bird figures becomes blurred. Commentators have noted that the often rugged, brutal and contorted surfaces of her work reflect the destruction and terror of the six-year world-wide conflict that she witnessed as a child. Frink was an active supporter of Amnesty International. In the 1960s and early 1970s Frink produced a notable series of falling figures and winged men. Later, living in France during the Algerian war, she began making heads, blinded by goggles which had a threatening facelessness. Frink produced many notable public commissions, including Wild Boar for Harlow New Town, Blind Beggar and Dog for Bethnal Green, Noble Horse and Rider for Piccadilly, London, a lectern for Coventry Cathedral, Shepherd for Paternoster Square beside St. Paul’s Cathedral and a Walking Madonna for Salisbury Cathedral. In the early 1980s she produced a set of three larger than life figures The Dorset Martyrs which stand on the edge of the old walled town of Dorchester on the site of the old gallows, as a memorial to those who had been executed there ‘for conscience sake’. Frink’s Canterbury Tales was a collection of 19 etchings drawn directly on to copper plates and etched by her. The ‘book’ was issued in three limited editions. Her illustrations have been praised as “amongst the most successful illustrations of the century, encompassing the mood of the text in concise delineations and disarmingly ribald humour”. She illustrated other books with colored lithographs or drawings. Frink was on the Board of Trustees, British Museum from 1976, and was a member of the Royal Fine Art Commission 1976-81. CBR (1969), DBE ((1982), Associate of the Royal Academy (1971), Royal Academy (1977). She was made a Companion of Honour in 1992. She died on 18 April 1993, but not before completing her last commission, a monumental but unusual figure of Christ for the front of the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, unveiled a week before her death. For several decades Frink exhibited widely in the UK and abroad. In her later years she lived and worked in Dorset where her home and garden became an arena for her work. In 1985 she had a retrospective at the Royal Academy. She died on 18 April 1993, but not before completing her last commission, a monumental but unusual figure of Christ for the front of the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool, unveiled a week before her death. There was a memorial show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bretton Hall in 1994. Today Frink is venerated as one of the great twentieth century British sculptors. Her unique work is represented in the Tate Gallery and major public and private collections world-wide. © Big Sky Fine Art This original watercolor on paper painting of a hawk by Dame Elizabeth Frink...

French artist Etienne Poirier (1919-2002) designed this stunning modernist drawing. This artwork is a proud rooster drawn in charcoal on paper. Because...

Frog is a drawing in pencil realized in the early 1930s by Emmanuel Gondouin, (Versailles, 1883 - Parigi, 1934) The artwork is depicted through strong strokes. Emmanuel Gondouin is a French Cubist...

Blanche Grambs, whose career started with the WPA, was an extremely skilled draftsperson. Her birds are masterful. Although we use the word 'pencil' fo...

Horses is an original drawing realized by Domenico Purificato in 1952. Black and white pen drawing. Hand-signed and dated on the lower right. Th...

John Rattenbury Skeaping. English ( b.1901 - d.1980 ). Guardian, Cowboy And Horseman Of The Camargue, 1970. Pastel On Paper. Signed & Dated Lower Right. Paper size 15.2 inches x 2...

Signed upper right, 'Anne Jenkins' (American, 1923-2023) and dated 1958. An elegant and psychologically penetrating study of a young boy, shown seated and holding a white cat. Born...

Original China ink drawing on ivory colored cardboard, representing grapes harvest, resembling a dramatic and satiric scene. Hand-signed on the lower right corner, in black ink, by "...

Surrealist proto-Afropunk drawing by African-American artist, Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Animal Capers, ca. 1970 . Ink on illustration board, image measures 20 inches. inches; illustration panel measures 21.5 inches. Unsigned. Minor staining evident in detail photos Artist and art educator, Roland Ayers was born on July 2, 1932, the only child of Alice and Lorenzo Ayers, and grew up in the Germantown district of Philadelphia. Ayers served in the US Army (stationed in Germany) before studying at the Philadelphia College of Art (currently University of the Arts). He graduated with a BFA in Art Education, 1954. He traveled Europe 1966-67, spending time in Amsterdam and Greece in particular. During this period, he drifted away from painting to focus on linear figurative drawings of a surreal nature. His return home inaugurated the artist’s most prolific and inspired period (1968-1975). Shorty before his second major trip abroad in 1971-72 to West Africa, Ayers began to focus on African themes, and African American figures populated his work almost exclusively. In spite of Ayers’ travel and exploration of the world, he gravitated back to his beloved Germantown, a place he endowed with mythological qualities in his work and literature. His auto-biographical writing focuses on the importance of place during his childhood. Ayers’ journals meticulously document the ethnic and cultural make-up of Germantown, and tell a compelling story of class marginalization that brought together poor families despite racial differences. The distinctive look and design of Germantown inform Ayers’ visual vocabulary. It is a setting with distinctive Gothic Revival architecture and haunting natural beauty. These characteristics are translated and recur in the artist’s imagery. During his childhood, one of the only books in the Ayers household was an illustrated Bible. The images within had a profound effect on the themes and subjects that would appear in his adult work. Figures in an Ayers’ drawing often seem trapped in a narrative of loss and redemption. Powerful women loom large in the drawings: they suggest the female role models his journals record in early life. The drawings can sometimes convey a strong sense of conflict, and at other times, harmony. Nature and architecture seem to have an antagonistic relationship that is, ironically, symbiotic. A critical turning point in the artist’s career came in 1971 when he was included in the extremely controversial Whitney Museum show, Contemporary Black Artists in America. The exhibition gave Ayers an international audience and served as a calling card for introductions he would soon make in Europe. Ayers is a particularly compelling figure in a period when black artists struggled with the idea of authenticity. A questioned often asked was “Is your work too black, or not black enough?” Abstractionists were considered by some peers to be sell-outs, frauds or worse. Figurative* work was accused of being either sentimental or politically radical depending on the critical source. Ayers made the choice early on to be a figurative artist, but considered his work devoid of political content. Organizations such as Chicago’ s Afri-Cobra in the late 1960‘s asserted that the only true black art of any relevance must depict the black man and woman...

Important Russian-French Impressionist Gouache & Watercolor painting by Pyotr Alexandrovich Nilus (Пётр Александрович Нилус in French Pierre Nilouss (1869– 1943), signed & dated 1926...

Bull engaging the muleta (Bull Fight) Signed with the Estate stamp lower left (See photo) Provenance: Estate of the Artist Marbella Gallery Inc., NYC Refer...

We're pleased to showcase Mexican Master Rufino Tamayo's work on paper. Flying Bird portrays a bird flying over the mountains. Rufino Tamayo created this modernist and minimalist dra...

A stylized cat named Babette is depicted licking her paw. It is rendered in black and white, which bears the influence of Asian art in its simplicity of line, use of wash, and bleedi...

Simkhovitch was a celebrated artist in New York City from the 1920's through the 1940's. Life Magazine did a story on him and he was having great success in the New York Galleries. ...

Original Mid-Century Red Farmhouse Watercolor Landscape Painting Beautiful mid-century 1940's watercolor of a bucolic farmhouse scene - sunset, undul...

Grey tonal painting of a Falcon perched on a branch. The work is framed in a silver frame with a white matte. The artist signed the work in the bottom right corner. Artist Biograph...

'Landscape with Man and Goats', gouache on paper, by Raymond Guerrier (circa 1960s). After the artist moved from Paris to the South of France, he started painting landscapes illumina...

PETER BEARD (1938–2020, USA) Elui with World Record Cow Elephant Tusk, 47 lbs., Marsabit Forest, Kenya, 1962/2006 Color print with gelatin silver print collage, watercolor, tempera paint, ink Sheet 141 x 108,6 cm (55 1/2 x 42 3/4 in.) Unique Signed recto and verso in ink Peter Beard (1938–2020) was an American artist who lived and worked in New York and Kenya. In Africa Peter Beard found the central theme of his life, the destruction of the natural animal world by man and civilization. His photographs of Africa, African animals and the journals that often integrate his photographs have been widely shown and published since the 1960s. Inspired by earlier trips to Africa in both 1955 and 1960, Beard traveled to Kenya upon graduation. Working at Tsavo National Park, he photographed and documented the demise of 35,000 elephants and other wildlife, later to become the subject of his iconic book, “The End of the Game...

Cat is a Watercolor Drawing realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980). Good condition on a little sheet of a notebook. Signature by pencil. Reynold Arnould was bo...

Jean Lurcat,New York, France, 1892-1966 Depicts a highly stylized, expressionist owl bird figure hidden in leaves surrounded by bright, vibrant, vivid blue, yellow, and orange colors...

A stunning ensemble of fiour original mid century illustrations for Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" . Whilst sharing the modernist, stylis...

One from a set of four watercolours of butterflies on silk, applied to handmade paper, with hand cut edges, by French artist La Roche Laffitte. (The other 3 items are available separately) A beautifully observed and detailed study of a butterfly painted...

Ricard Opisso - Dogs - Mixed media Drawing measurements 23x28 cm. Frame measurements 35x40 cm. Son of Alfredo Opisso y Viñas, journalist, historian and critic, and of Antonia Sala y Gil, his sister Regina Opisso, was also a writer. He comes from an enlightened family full of artists. His paternal grandfather was Josep Opisso y Roig, journalist and director of the Diari de Tarragona, father of the also writers Antonia Opisso y Viña and Antoni Opisso y Viña. His maternal great-grandfather was the painter Pere Pau Montaña, his maternal grandfather the fabulist Felipe Jacinto Sala and his maternal uncle, the painter Emilio Sala y Francés. His nephew was Arturo Llorens y Opisso, a writer better known under his pseudonym Arturo Llopis. Although he was born in Tarragona, his family moved to Barcelona when Opisso was only two years old. In modernist Barcelona at the end of the 19th century, Opisso worked as an assistant to Antonio Gaudí in the works of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona since 1892. He was linked to the group Els Quatre Gats, along with Ramón Casas, Manuel Hugué, Isidre Nonell...

John Teyral (American, 1912-1999) Marrakech, 1937 Watercolor on paper Signed, dated and titled upper right 12 x 14 inches 19 x 21.5 inches, framed John Teyral was one of Cleveland'...

Algesa O'Sickey (American, 1917-2006) Horses and Trees Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 22 x 29.75 inches 25.25 x 33.25 inches, framed Born Algesa D’Agostino on June 4, 1917, ...

Signed lower center, 'by Buk' for Eduard Buk Ulreich (American, 1889-1966), dedicated lower center, 'for Ruth' and painted circa 1945. Additionally signed and titled verso 'Navajo Fa...