Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

A modern illustration by American artist Ray Quigley depicting two men inside of a church.

Provenance: Unidentified collector’s mark “D.G.R,” lower right (Lugt 757b) Wilhelm Suida (1877–1959), New York; by descent to: Robert L. and Bertina Suida Manning, New York, until 1996 Private Collection, USA This impressive drawing of the Assumption of the Virgin is the work of the Genoese artist Giovanni Battista Paggi. The son of a nobleman, Paggi received a humanist education and was a self-taught artist. According to Paggi’s first biographer, Raffaele Soprani, it was only after encountering Luca...

If there ever were a perfect work in the canon of art history, this masterpiece study by Dean Cornwell would be it. Every line has meaning and not a line out of place, as Cornwell d...

"The Dance" by Ludovico Lipparini is a beautifully rendered work on paper in the classical tradition using graphite and gouache and created in the f...

Gouache, pastel & oil on paper Ilia Balavadze is a Georgian artist born in 1968 who lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. From 1987 to 1993, he studied the painting at the Tbilisi St...

Man with Camel and Donkey by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961) Pastel and pencil on paper 18.4 x 27.3 cm (7 ¹/₄ x 10 ³/₄ inches) Signed with Estate s...

Charming early 19th century Graphite Portrait of a Young Boy with Birds A young child sits with a bird on his finger and a nest of birds on his lap A wonderful antique drawing - Po...

This pen and ink from 1920 depicts a Greek mythological scene with a Satyr companioning Pan, who plays the flute to an interested woodland deer. It is rendered in minute detail with...

Two in the supermarket 2023, paper, acrylic, 25x25 cm Ansis Butnors (1977) Education: J. Rozentals Art School in Riga – 1989. – 1996. Latvian Academy of Art, Painting Department ...

Richard Taylor is one of the great Cartoonists. He is celebrated for his dry sense of humor and skill in depicting people in subtle narratives. His instantly recognizable style is ...

Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) 1892-1990 Russian-French Conte Hindou en noir Signed “Erté”(middle right) Inscribed "Inscribed 1922" (en verso) Gouache on paper Designed for a 1922 show at the Folies Bergère, Erté draws inspiration from the splendors of India in Conte Hindou (Hindu Story). The central bare-chested figure, adorned with a resplendent jewel-encrusted headpiece and draped in cascading pearl...

Leon Dolice New York Harbor Nocturne Signed lower right Pastel on paper 12 x 19 inches The romantic backdrop of Vienna at the turn of the century had a life-long influence upon the...

This is a panel painted with gouache on paper that was painted by Paul de Cayeux. He was a french painter and decorator. This suite comes from an old restaurant and ball room in Nice...

This artwork "Texas Cpast Line with Shack" 1964 is a watercolor on paper by noted Texas artist Jim Jones, 1922-1999. It is signed and dated at the lower right corner by the artist. T...

Mixed media watercolor on Paper - signed lower right. COA provided. Sheet Size 12"H x 12"W

Rosanna Gaddoni (Italian artist) Story of a sheep 65 x 50 cm ( framed in wood frame with museum glass) Measurement with included frame: 76 x 60 x 3 cm Charcoal on Paper The Italian ...

René Gruau ( 1909 - 2004 ) " Elégante aux perles " . 1950 . Dessin Original et unique graphite et fusain sur papier . Signé. format feuille : 83 x 50 cm feuille globale : 92 x 6...

Acrylic ink on paper. Paper size: 11.25" x 17" Frame size: 19.25" x 25" Charles Buckley lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His current work, entitled “Striation Series,” demonstrates ...

This artwork is part of the series that Anna Pennati has dedicated to Homer's Odyssey, a subject very dear to her and one that she has tackled several times in the past. is the daug...

The present work by pioneering female artist Helen Dryden was most likely a cover assignment for Vogue Magazine. It is deftly rendered in a tight linear art nouveau style with flat c...

Railroad Worker Industrial WPA American Scene Mid Century Modern Social Realism Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Railroad worker 36 ¼ x 27 inches Oil on paper c. 1930s S...

John Whorf (1903-1959) watercolor, boats in Barbados. Measures: 16 1/4" H x 23" W. In excellent condition, framed. Signed lower left. The Island men setting out for the day's catch. ...

ROCKET LAUNCH is an original oil pastel drawing on brown paper grocery bag by the self taught African American artist Reginald K. Gee, born April 28, 1964, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. G...

Jogen Chowdhury : Untitled Pastel on Envelop ; 7 x 5 inches ; 2016 Signed by the Artist. Style : He has immense contribution in inspiring young artists of India. Jogen Chowdhury ha...

Eileen Lake Crayon on paper, early1930's Initialed in pencil lower right (see photo) Titled and annotated verso "Eileen Lake, early 1930s girlfriend" Note: Eileen Hall Lake was an American poet and Adolf Dehn's girlfriend in the early 1930s. Provenance: Estate of the artist By descent Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...

The Gallery Signed By Tony Herbert (1927-2024) Medium: Watercolor on artists paper on board, framed - glass covered Framed: 16 x 17 inches Watercolour: 8 x 10 inches Condition: Good...

Robin Cole's (US based) "When They Bloom" is an original, handmade ink and charcoal drawing that depicts two grey monochrome artichokes beginning to b...

Leon Dolice New York Harbor Nocturne Signed lower right Pastel on paper 12 x 19 inches The romantic backdrop of Vienna at the turn of the century had a life-long influence upon the...

Portrait of Lydia Clifton, aged 5 years, 6 months and dated January 31st 1841 watercolour on artist paper with wood panel backing, framed framed: 16 x 12 inches painting : 13.5 x 9.5...

A Fine, Mid-Century Modern 1950s Academic Anatomical Figure Study of Female Feet by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A well executed ink composite figure study...

"Phytanthoza Iconographia", c1737-1745. A wonderful selection of yellow and blue flowers: hand-coloured mezzotint engravings from: ""Phytanthoza Iconographia"", presented in hand-m...

Puissance is a beautiful and unique charcoal drawing on paper of a dynamic horse. The Fabriano paper is a high quality watercolor grade set in a custom white wood frame, all archival...

Graphite with white heightening on greenish beige wove paper, 17 1/4 x 12 1/2 (437 x 317 mm). Scattered edge wear, tears and losses around the perimeter of the drawing. Margins are wide and the image area is clean and intact. Scattered light soiling and toning, all consistent with age. A dramatic image by a highly skilled draftsman, this works is likely a life study of the Hellenistic sculptural masterpiece of the same title, which is housed in the Uffizi's collection of ancient statues...

A Fine, Modern 1930s Academic Anatomical Figure Study Drawing of a Seated Young Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well execu...

Pencils on paper mounted on panel Tomo Sakurai is a Japanese artist born in 1987 who lives & works in Tokyo, Japan. She had an awakening of her talent in pencil drawing as a teenage...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Seated Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed, early 1930s ...

Art Sz: 15 1/2"H x 18 3/4"W Frame Sz: 21 1/2"H x 24 3/4"W Charming (framed) watercolour by Alfred Birdsey (1912-1996) signed (LR) depicting a quaint Bermuda harbour scene Alfred B...

Posing Figure is a drawing realized in 1978 by an unknown artist. Penc on paper. Monogrammed and dated on the lower. The state of preservation is good. The artwork is represented...

Frame measures 13.5 X 11.5 Paper measures 6.5 X 4 inches Hand signed lower right Watercolor painting of prophet or Rabbi, Judaica artwork Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated h...

This large scale charcoal on paper is from the artist's series "These fragile truths". This body of work explores the limitations and aesthetics of human memory through portraitu...

George Grosz NYC City Scene Modernism Watercolor German Expressionism Weimar George Grosz (Germany, 1893-1959) "City Scene," 17 x 12 inches, signed and dated “33” lower left, watercolor on paper. This drawing, created while Grosz was living in NYC. Period frame, It has been authenticated by Ralph Jentsch, the globally recognized Grosz expert. Provenance: Hirschl & Adler and 511 Gallery...

Limerick: Henry O'Shea, c1800. Dual process photogravure on cardstock, 4 x 2 1/2 inches (102 x 64 mm), the full sheet. Framed handsomely in the original handmade wood frame with a ...

14x11.5 image size , 22.5x17.5 backing size The New-York born artist William Gropper was a painter and cartoonist who, with caricature style, focused on social concerns, and was ac...

EVE SHELDON-WILLIAMS (1916-2001) Fashion Illustration White wash on black paper Framed 30.5 by 15.5 cm., 12 by 6 in. (frame size 50 by 34.5 cm., 19 ¾ by 13 ½ in.) Provenance: The artist’s family. Eve Sheldon-Williams was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, the younger daughter of artist Inglis and Ina Sheldon-Williams. She was governess educated until the age of ten, before settling with her parents on the Italian Riviera from 1926 to 1930. After finished her education in England she studied painting, illustration and design at the Central School of Arts and Crafts 1937-1941, under William Roberts, John Skeaping, Bernard Meninsky and John Farleigh...

Original mixed media work on paper by Adam Baranello. Mixed media, acrylic, spray paint on canvas. Size 17 x 14 in. Offered unframed. Ships rolled Multidisciplinary artist Adam Ba...

"The Defiant Ones" Tony Curtis Sidney Poitier Oscar Winning 1958 film Caricature. Two escaped convicts chained together, one white and one black, must l...

A Fine 1930s Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing, Seated Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed early 1930s charco...

This is a panel painted with gouache on paper that was painted by Paul de Cayeux. He was a french painter and decorator. This suite comes from an old restaurant and ball room in Nice...

Double-sided work in good condition, dispersal of the Knaublich succession, Loiseau-Shmitz, 23/03/2002. Tampon "Atelier Derain" at bottom right. Exhibitions:Talismans VI, galerie Her...

Ernst Albert Fischer-Cörlin (1853 Körlin - 1932 Persante). Feeding the Kittens, 1893. Pencil on painting cardboard, 38 x 29 cm. Signed and dated by the artist at lower left "E[rnst] A[lbert] Fischer=Cörlin 1893". - Lightly stained, somewhat dusty and minimally foxed. - Little cat mother - About the artwork Daughter, mother and grandmother gather in the sunlight to feed a litter of kittens. The mother and grandmother hold the lively, playful animals in their arms, while the young girl feeds two of the four kittens with cookies. There is also a small bucket of milk and a bowl of milk. The women and the girl watch as the cute, still blind animals eat. It is a scene taken from everyday life, but it also has an allegorical dimension, bringing maternal care into the representation. Three generations are represented, with the grandmother and the mother already mothers. They not only offer the kittens to the youngest, but also proudly observe the maternal care that the youngest gives to the kittens. Like the kittens, she will grow up and become a mother herself, so the image is also an allegory of life's ever-new beginnings. In keeping with this, the morning sun shines into the picture from the right. Fischer-Cörlin has masterfully worked out the quality of the light, with its light and dark areas, with the pencil used...

A Very Finely Drawn 1930s Modern Portrait Figure Study of a Handsome Young Male Model by Notable Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An early charcoal drawing by ...

This magnificent drawing from the Venetian Renaissance intrigues us in many ways. It depicts an allegorical composition whose meaning partly escapes us: a veiled figure seated on a stone bench (which we have identified as Chastity), seems to be turning away from a woman's bust beside her, below which are two rabbits, a traditional allegory of fertility, but also sometimes of lust. This drawing, executed on blue paper, undoubtedly belongs to the Venetian Renaissance. The inscriptions on the back of the old mounting board indicate the various attributions considered by its last owner, the British painter and art historian Sir Lawrence Gowing. We have retained the attribution to Giuseppe Porta proposed by art historian John Arthur Gere as the most relevant. We were incredibly fortunate to find a hexagonal frame of a very similar format for this drawing, the upper corners of which were formerly cut (irregularly). This 17th-century Dutch frame comes from an aristocratic collection in Lombardy, and creates a kind of fascinating chase around this Venetian drawing...

Joan Carl Strauss was a Los Angeles-based artist, educator, and civic voice whose prolific work spans sculpture, painting, and public commissions. A graduate of the Art Institute of ...

Bernard Boutet de Monvel was a French painter, sculptor, engraver, fashion illustrator and interior decorator. Although first known for his etchings, he earned notability for his pai...

François-Xavier Lalanne (1927-2008), original ink drawing, 2004 This unique work signed by François Xavier Lalanne is an original ink drawing depicting a bee on a beautiful flower. ...

DAVID SCOTT, RSA (British 1806-1849) Charon’s Ferry Signed with initials and indistinctly inscribed l.l. Watercolour Unframed, in mount only 29 by 40.5 cm., 11 ½ by 16 in. (mount size 40.5 by 55.5 cm., 16 by 22 in.) Provenance: William Bell Scott, London; Mrs Balton; Private collection. David Scott was born in Edinburgh. He studied art under his father, the engraver, Robert Scott. He exhibited his first picture oil painting, Hopes of Early Genius Dispelled by Death in 1828, becoming a regular exhibitor at the Royal Scottish Academy. In 1832 he visited Italy. He specialised in large canvases of historical or symbolist subjects, being much influence by William Blake. From the mid 1830s he became absorbed in a series of designs and illustration for Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner, Bunyan’s Pilgrim...

This widely referenced pair of paintings is one of Francesco Conti’s most successful productions. Francesco Conti is one of the finest painters of 18th-century Florence. In the shimmering colors typical of his best work, he represents two opposite characters from the Bible: the virtuous Judith, whose courage saves her people by cutting off the head of the invader Holofernes, and the depraved Salome, who under the influence of her mother becomes responsible for the beheading of the prophet John the Baptist. The artist's talent lies in his ability to treat these two macabre subjects with a light touch, presenting us with two attractive women who seem to twirl with glee amidst the severed heads... 1. Francesco Conti, the “Florentine Tiepolo” Francesco Conti is a major painter of the Florentine school of the 18th century; he can even probably be considered, along with Giovanni Domenico Ferretti (1692-1768), as one of the two main painters of the second quarter of the Florentine 18th century. Born in Florence in 1682, Francesco Conti began his apprenticeship in the workshop of Simone Pignoni (1611 - 1698), a disciple of Francesco Furini; he was also influenced by the Venetian Sebastiano Ricci. A protégé of Marquis Riccardi, he accompanied him to Rome between 1699 and 1705, where he frequented Carlo Maratta's studio. He settled permanently in Florence in 1705. Painted exclusively on canvas, the majority of his work consists of religious subjects, altarpieces or private devotional works. It is likely that Conti himself was a devout churchgoer, as evidenced by his affiliation, in the third decade of the eighteenth century, to the Society of the Disciples of Saint-John-the-Baptist, and his entry, at the end of his life, into the fraternity of the Venerable Society of the Holy Trinity. In Florence, Conti worked for the Grand Duchy's major patrons, including the last Medici - in particular Giangastone and Annamaria Luisa, Electress Palatine - and confirmed his role as a reference painter under the Lorraine Regency, as master of the Public Drawing School, which was closely linked to the institute responsible for the manufacture of semi-precious stone mosaics, then located in the Uffizi complex. Matteo Marangoni, an art critic of the early 20th century, praised his "brushwork full of elegance and true spirit of the 18th century", pointing out that Conti was "probably one of the best colorists" of the Florentine school of his time. These two characteristics led the art historian Paolo dal Poggetto to nickname him the "Florentine Tiepolo". 2. Judith and Salome, two biblical characters opposing each other These two paintings form a pair presenting two biblical episodes, which have in common the depiction of a "heroine" carrying the severed head of a man. While the Salome episode might at first appear to be an echo of the Old Testament story of Judith, each character is the exact opposite of the other. Judith, whose story is told in the Book of Judith, is a beautiful young widow from Bethulia who, accompanied by her maid, went into the camp of the invading Assyrians and won the confidence of Holofernes, the general commanding the enemy army. Invited to a great feast on the fourth evening, she took advantage of Holofernes' drunkenness to cut off his head. “She went up to the bedpost near Holofernes’ head, and took down his sword that hung there. She came close to his bed, took hold of the hair of his head, and said, “Give me strength today, O Lord God of Israel!” Then she struck his neck twice with all her might, and cut off his head. Next she rolled his body off the bed and pulled down the canopy from the posts. Soon afterward she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid, who placed it in her food bag...

Original Painting. Vanity Fair Illustration Proposal. Art Deco Modern 1930s Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Vanity Fair Illustration proposal, c 1930’s 18 X 13 3/4 inches (sight) ...

Fighter Boxing Woodstock American Scene WPA Era Mid 20th Century Social John Ruggles (1907-1991) Sight: 17 1/2 x 13 1/3 inches. Framed: 22 x 18 inches...

"Region Nine Walkers" is an original oil pastel drawing on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right and dated it on the back. It features two blue fi...