Jean Jansem

Jean Jansem Figurative French Ink Wash

circa 1970

John Frederick Kensett (1816 - 1872) Portrait of an Italian Fencer, circa 1845-47 Watercolor on wove paper 13 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches Signed with initials and inscribed lower right "J.F.K. Rome" From October 1845 through the spring of 1847, Kensett lived in Rome. He attended classes where he sketched from live models, and he sketched in the countryside outside Rome and around Florence, Perugia, and Venice, places he visited with his artist friends. He fulfilled commissions for paintings from Americans in Italy, and by 1847 his career was well established. Son of an English immigrant engraver, John Kensett lacked enthusiasm for that medium and became one of the most accomplished painters of the second generation of Hudson River School painters. His reputation is for Luminism, careful depiction of light, weather, and atmosphere as they affect color and texture of natural forms. He was particularly influenced by the painting of Asher Durand in that he focused on realism and detail rather than the highly dramatic views associated with Thomas Cole. Going to the western United States in the mid 1850s and the 1860s, he was the first of the Hudson River School painters to explore and paint the West. Kensett was born and raised in Cheshire, Connecticut, and learned his engraving from his father, Thomas Kensett with whom he worked in New Haven, Connecticut until 1829. He continued working until 1840 as an engraver of labels, banknotes and maps and was employed part of that time by the American Bank Note Company in New York City. There he met Thomas Rossiter, John Casilear, and other artists who urged him to pursue painting. In 1840, he and Rossiter, Asher Durand, and Casilear went to Europe where Kensett stayed for seven years and supported himself by doing engraving but became accomplished in landscape painting. Having sent canvases of Italian landscapes back to New York, he had a reputation for skillful painting that preceded him. When he returned to New York City in 1847, he was an "instant success" and very sought after by collectors. Two of his Italian landscapes had already been purchased by the American Art Union. By 1849, he was a full member of the National Academy of Design and was generally popular among his peers. His studio was a gathering place with travelers stopping by to see his canvases and to identify "precise locations in the Catskills or Newport or New England in the oil sketches and drawings that covered his walls." (Zellman 170). For the women, he was a popular bachelor, "romantic looking with high forehead and sensitive expression." (Samuels 262) He was also sought after by many organizations. Among his activities were serving on the committee to oversee the decoration of the United States Capitol in Washington DC, and becoming one of the founders of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. An inveterate traveler, Kensett spent summers on painting excursions away from New York City. One of these trips was a special painting excursion with fifteen other artists sponsored by the B & O Railroad from Baltimore, Maryland to Wheeling, West Virginia. Unlike many of the Hudson River painters...

Amy Londoner Beach at Atlantic City, circa 1922 Signed lower right Pastel on paper Sight 23 x 18 inches Amy Londoner (April 12, 1875 – 1951) was an American painter who exhibited at...

Anne Diggory (b. 1951) Out of the Sun (Under the Racetrack Grandstand), 1978 Watercolor on paper 7 x 10 inches Signed and dated lower left Provenance: Ac...

Alphonse Mucha (Czech, 1860 - 1939) Medieval Thoughts, circa 1890 Wash, ink, and watercolor on paper 11 x 9 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Phillips New York, 19th and 20th ce...

Rockwell Kent Figure Study Estate stamped lower right Ink on paper 6 x 10 inches Rockwell Kent, though best known as an artist and illustrator, pursued many careers throughout his long life, including architect, carpenter, explorer, writer, dairy farmer, and political activist. Born in Tarrytown, New York, Kent was interested in art from a young age. These ambitions were encouraged by his aunt Jo Holgate, an accomplished ceramicist. Jo came to live with the family after Kent’s father passed away in 1887 and took him to Europe as a teenager. Kent attended the Horace Mann School in New York City, where he excelled at mechanical drawing. His family’s financial circumstances prevented him from pursuing career in the fine arts, however, and after graduating from Horace Mann in 1900, Kent decided to study architecture at Columbia University. Before matriculating at Columbia, Kent spent the first of three consecutive summers studying painting at William Merritt Chase’s art school in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island. There he found a community of mentors and fellow students who encouraged him to pursue his interest in art. At the end of Kent’s third summer at Shinnecock, Chase offered him a full scholarship to the New York School of Art, where he was a teacher. Kent began taking night classes at the art school in addition to his architecture studies, but soon left Columbia to study painting full time. In addition to Chase, Kent took classes with Robert Henri (American, 1865 - 1929) and Kenneth Hayes Miller (American, 1876 - 1952). His classmates included the artists George Bellows (American, 1882 - 1925) and Edward Hopper (American, 1882 - 1967). Kent spent the summer of 1903 assisting the painter Abbott Handerson Thayer (American, 1849 - 1921) at his studio in Dublin, New Hampshire—a position he secured through the recommendation of his Aunt Jo. Thayer gave the young artist time to pursue his own work, and that summer Kent painted several views of the New Hampshire landscape, including Mount Monadnock. In 1905 Kent moved from New York to Monhegan Island in Maine, home to a summer art colony, where he continued to find inspiration in the natural world. Kent soon found success exhibiting and selling his paintings in New York and in 1907 was given his first solo show at Claussen Galleries. The following year he married his first wife, Kathleen Whiting (Thayer’s niece), with whom he had five children. The couple divorced in 1924, and Kent married Frances Lee the following year. They in turn divorced after 15 years of marriage, and the artist then married Sally Johnstone. For the next several decades, Kent lived a peripatetic lifestyle, settling in several locations in Connecticut, Maine, and New York. During this time he took a number of extended voyages to remote, often ice-filled, corners of the globe, including Newfoundland, Alaska, Tierra del Fuego, and Greenland, to which he made three separate trips. For Kent, exploration and artistic production were twinned endeavors, and his travels to these rugged, rural locales provided inspiration for both his visual art and his writings. He developed a stark, realist landscape style in his paintings and drawings that revealed both nature’s harshness and its sublimity. Kent’s human figures, which appear sparingly in his work, often signify mythic themes, such as heroism, loneliness, and individualism. Important exhibitions of works from these travels include the Knoedler Gallery’s shows in 1919 and 1920, featuring Kent’s Alaska drawings...

Amy Londoner Musical Conductor, 1922 Signed and dated lower right Pastel on paper Sight 18 x 23 inches Amy Londoner (April 12, 1875 – 1951) was an American painter who exhibited at ...

Giuseppe Migneco (Messina 1903 - Milan 1997) - The fortune teller. 49.5 x 39.5 cm without frame, 52.5 x 40.5 cm with frame. Antique mixed technique drawing on paper, in wooden fram...

Watercolour, signed lower right (in pencil), 31cm x 43cm (49cm x 59cm framed). The picture is in good condition, with strong colours. It has been recently framed. Active within the Gay Liberation...

Pencil on paper, signed (upper right), 76cm x 56cm (88cm x 68cm framed). A graduate of the Kiev Art Academy in 1957. Drawings of the nude, called academic studies...

Michael Leonard, (British b.1933), Chimera I, 1975, Graphite pencil on paper, initialled (lower left), signed and dated (lower right), 15cm x 14cm, (35cm x 32cm framed) Michael Leon...

"Sarlat II" Watercolor on Paper 12" x 8" inch by Inji Efflatoun circa1950 Signed Inji Eflatoun pursued free studies in art. Since 1942, she has participated in the exhibitions of ...

1948 Nude Study of woman's back with sanquine and charcoal. Titled "Diana" by Carlo Taliabue (Italian/American). Signed and dated lower right corner. Titled upper right corner. Image...