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Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

MODERN STYLE

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

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Style: Modern
Nude - Drawing in Pencil by Jeanne Daour - 1939
Located in Roma, IT
Nude is an original drawing in pencil on paper realized by Jeanne Daour. The state of preservation good except for some foxings and stains. Hand-signed on the lower right. Sheet d...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

Epicuro - Original China Ink by Gabriele Galantara - Early Century
Located in Roma, IT
Epicuro is an original drawing in china ink realized as study for a book cover by Gabriele Galantara The state of preservation of the artwork is good. This artwork represents a cent...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink

Cup - Original China Ink and Watercolor - Late 19th Century
Located in Roma, IT
"Cup" is an original China ink and watercolor drawing on ivory-colorated paper by unknown French Artist of XIX Century. In excellent conditions: As good as new. Sheet dimension: 2...
Category

Late 19th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Watercolor

Figure - Original Watercolor on Paper by R. Cazanove - 1922
Located in Roma, IT
Figure is an original drawing in watercolor on paper, realized by Cazanove in 1922. Hand-signed on the lower right. In good conditions, with aged margins. Sheet dimension: 38 x 26...
Category

1920s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Male Portrait - Original Pencil and Charcoal Drawing by French Artist Late 1800
Located in Roma, IT
Portrait of Man is a beautiful drawing realized by a French anonymous artist active in the early 19th century. On the lower right, there are the initials “J.G.” that do not allow the...
Category

Early 19th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Charcoal, Pencil

Woman - Original Drawing in Watercolor and China Ink - 1996
Located in Roma, IT
Woman is an original drawing in watercolor and China ink, realized in 1996 by an Anonymous artist of the XX century, Hand-signed and dated on the lower right, the firm is not readabl...
Category

1990s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Christmas - Original Charcoal and Watercolor on Cardboard by M. Maccari - 1970's
Located in Roma, IT
Christmas greeting card is an original artwork realized by Mino Maccari in the 1970's. Colored watercolor and charcoal drawing on cardboard. Initials of the artist on the lower mar...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Charcoal

Group of Figures - Original Pencil Drawing - 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
"Group of Figures" is an original drawing on paper, realized by an Anonymous Artist of the XX Century . The state of preservation of the artwork is very good. Sheet dimension: 14.6...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

Figure in Interior - Original Pencil Drawing by Jeanne Daour - 1940
Located in Roma, IT
Figure in Interior is an original drawing in pencil on paper realized by Jeanne Daour in 1940, Hand-signed and dated on the left inside of drawing. The state of preservation is good...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

Nude - Original Pencil Drawing by Jeanne Daour - 1950s
Located in Roma, IT
Nude is an original drawing in pencil on paper realized by Jeanne Daour. with a drawing of a nude on the rear. The state of preservation is good with some small stain. Sheet dimens...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

Chaim Gross Judaica Jewish Watercolor Painting Rabbi Klezmer Music WPA Artist
Located in Surfside, FL
Chaim Gross (American, 1904-1991) Watercolor with pencil painting Rabbi Klezmer music concert, flute player. Hand signed framed: 15 X 28.5, paper: 9.5 X 23 Chaim Gross (March 17, 1904 – May 5, 1991) was an American modernist sculptor and educator. Gross was born to a Jewish family in Austrian Galicia, in the village of Wolowa (now known as Mezhgorye, Ukraine), in the Carpathian Mountains. In 1911, his family moved to Kolomyia (which was annexed into the Ukrainian USSR in 1939 and became part of newly independent Ukraine in 1991). When World War I ended, Gross and brother Avrom-Leib went to Budapest to join their older siblings Sarah and Pinkas. Gross applied to and was accepted by the art academy in Budapest and studied under the painter Béla Uitz, though within a year a new regime under Miklos Horthy took over and attempted to expel all Jews and foreigners from the country. After being deported from Hungary, Gross began art studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, Austria shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1921. Gross's studies continued in the United States at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied with Elie Nadelman and others, and at the Art Students League of New York, with Robert Laurent. He also attended the Educational Alliance Art School, studying under Abbo Ostrowsky, at the same time as Moses Soyer and Peter Blume. In 1926 Gross began teaching at The Educational Alliance, and continued teaching there for the next 50 years. Louise Nevelson was among his students at the Alliance (in 1934), during the time she was transitioning from painting to sculpture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he exhibited at the Salons of America exhibitions at the Anderson Galleries and, beginning in 1928, at the Whitney Studio Club. In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed optimistic, affirming themes, Judaica, balancing acrobats, cyclists, trapeze artists and mothers and children convey joyfulness, modernism, exuberance, love, and intimacy. This aspect of his work remained consistent with his Jewish Hasidic heritage, which teaches that only in his childlike happiness is man nearest to God. In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, Israeli President, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. He also did some important Hebrew medals. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work.In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School (which Gross ran briefly with Alexander Dobkin...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Untitled, Pen & Ink on Paper, Black color by Modern Indian Artist "In Stock"
By Ganesh Pyne
Located in Kolkata, West Bengal
Ganesh Pyne - Untitled - 8.25 x 11 inches (unframed size) Pen & Ink on Paper Inclusive of shipment in roll form. Style : Initially, Pyne painted watercolo...
Category

1990s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Pen

The Girlish - Drawing Hubert Yencesse - 1955
Located in Roma, IT
The Girlish is a drawing realized by Hubert Yencesse in 1955. Pencil on paper. Good condition.  Beautiful drawing with soft pencil strokes.
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

The Ship - Tempera on Paper by Paul Garin - 1950s
Located in Roma, IT
The Ship is an original tempera drawing on paper, realized by the French artist Paul Garin (Nice, 1898-1963) in the 1950s. Black ink stamp on the lower-right corner: "Catherine Cha...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Tempera

Sketch for a Sign - Original Pencil and China Ink Drawing Early 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Sketch for a Sign is a very graceful drawing representing the sign of a bar. This artwork made by an anonymous artist in the first half of the 20th century was applied on a slightly ...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil, Ink

Modernist Judaica Jewish Ink Drawing Painting "New Immigrant" Off the Boat WPA
Located in Surfside, FL
An ink drawing Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. It depicts a portrait of an old Jewish man. Coming over from Europe on a ship crossing. The work is signed "Ben-Zion". Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. In 1920 he settled in America, where he found little interest in his writing. He began teaching Hebrew to support himself and then in the early 1930s returned to painting. He used his art to comment on the rise of fascism in Europe, events he felt could not be adequately explored with words. Largely self-taught, Ben-Zion visited the museums of New York City to learn his new trade. His first painting on a large scale, Friday Evening (1933, Jewish Museum, New York), depicts a Sabbath dinner table as recalled from his family home. Ben-Zion supported himself by working odd jobs until the establishment of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Under the auspices of the wpa, Ben-Zion thrived and galleries began to show his work. In 1936, after his first one-man show at the Artists' Gallery in New York Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache

Rare Israeli Modernist Judaica Watercolor Painting Lion Lithograph Naftali Bezem
Located in Surfside, FL
Naftali Bezem (Hebrew: נפתלי בזם‎‎; born November 27, 1924) is an Israeli painter, muralist, and sculptor. Lion on nude figure of wo,man. Bezem was born in Essen, Germany, in 1924. H...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Lithograph

Yamato Takeru
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Unknown Artist, Japan, c. 1980-2000 Yamato Takeru Watercolor on Sumi paper c,. 1980-2000 Unsigned as is usual A traditional Kite design from Tsugaru Province Condition: Excellent Ver...
Category

1980s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pigment

"Showgirl"
Located in Southampton, NY
Very well executed watercolor on paper by Ruth Adele Mysel of a beautiful showgirl. Signed lower right. Circa 1940 to 1950. Ruth Adele Mysel was raised in Boston and attended the Ne...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Male Torso
Located in London, GB
Pencil, coloured pencil and chalk on paper, titled (lower left), signed (lower right), 31cm x 46cm, (51cm x 68cm framed). John Koch was an American painter and teacher, and an impo...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Chalk, Pencil, Color Pencil

Soviet Union pro-natalist communist Bulgarian propaganda poster design
Located in London, GB
To see more, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller." Bulgarian pro-natalist propaganda poster design (circa 1950s) Gouache on board 17 x 12 cm After a Communist takeover in 1945, Bulgaria was a Soviet ally during the Cold War, and maintained good relationships with Russia until the Revolutions of 1989. From 1945 to 1948, the country became entrenched within the Soviet sphere of influence under the control of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) which oversaw a program of Stalinization in the late 1940s and 1950s. Both countries are Slavic nations, and are bound together by a common Orthodox Christian...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Board

Ca. 1950 Standing Male Bather in Red & Orange Tones by Artist Andre Delfau
Located in Chicago, IL
Ca. 1950 watercolor of a standing male bather in red & orange tones by artist Andre Delfau. Born in Paris, France in 1914, Andre Delfau became an internationally acclaimed stage, se...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Paper

1940's Americana WPA Modernist Watercolor Painting Catskill Mountains Bungalow
Located in Surfside, FL
Bungalow (fauvist painting of New York scene) 1940's. image is 10X 11.5 inches. Hand signed lower right Country Scene Samuel Grunvald was a Hungarian born American WPA artist known for abstract, landscape and seascape paintings. Arrived in the USA from Hungary in 1921 and settled in New York City where he studied at the Art Students League. Grunvald worked for the Federal Art Project, taught at Colony House in NYC. Member: Art Guild, Watercolor Society, New York Watercolor Club. exhibited at Montross Gallery, NYC, World House Galleries, NYC, Leonard Hutton Gallery, NYC, Associated American Artists Gallery and the A.C.A. Gallery. Gunvald's work spanned many modern American movements from the WPA to Abstract Expressionist painting. He was a member of the American Watercolor Society and the Brooklyn Society of Artists. He exhibited with both of these organizations and at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He was involved the the WPA being a Federal Arts Project artist. A number of prominent Jewish artists participated in this New Deal program among them Ben Shahn, Joseph Solman, William Gropper, Philip Guston Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery, Ben Shahn, the Soyers (Isaac, Moses, and Raphael), and many others Grunwald exhibited alongside other popular artists such as Paul Klee, Jean Arp, Max Ernst and Charles Burchfield. He also taught and lectured on art and easel painting, Federal Art Project, NYC. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and The Jewish Museum, New York. Americana. The Catskills became a major resort destination for Jewish New Yorkers in the mid-20th century. Borscht Belt is an informal term for the summer resorts of the Catskill Mountains in Sullivan and Ulster counties in upstate New York which were frequented by Ashkenazi Jews. At its peak of popularity, about 500 resorts operated in the region. Later changes in vacationing patterns have led most of those travelers elsewhere, although there are still bungalow communities and summer camps in the towns of Liberty, Bethel, Monticello and Fallsburg catering to Orthodox Jewish populations. Borscht Belt, The term, which derives from the name of a beet soup popular with people of Eastern European origin, can also refer to the Catskill region itself. In August, 1969, the Catskills were the site of a music and art festival in the town of Bethel, which had originally been planned for Woodstock, New York. Thirty-three of the best-known musicians of the era appeared during a sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers. The event, featuring liberal drug use and nudity, exemplified the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Select Exhibitions A.C.A. Gallery Associated American Artists Gallery, 1936-1955 American Watercolor Society, 1932-1942 New York Watercolor Club, 1935-1937 Humanist Art...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Soviet Union pro-Lenin Marxist Bulgarian propaganda poster design
Located in London, GB
To see more, scroll down to "More from this Seller" and below it click on "See all from this Seller." Bulgarian pro-natalist propaganda poster design (circa 1950s) Gouache on board 20 x 11.5 cm After a Communist takeover in 1945, Bulgaria was a Soviet ally during the Cold War, and maintained good relationships with Russia until the Revolutions of 1989. From 1945 to 1948, the country became entrenched within the Soviet sphere of influence...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Board

Man at a Bar, Paris
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
Provenance The artist; Collection of Henry Dubin, Philadelphia until 2018 Exhibitions Avery Galleries, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, Living Color Modern Life: Hugh Henry Breckenridge and...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Charcoal, Pastel

"Radio City Rockette"
Located in Southampton, NY
Watercolor on paper of a Radio City Music Hall Rockette done in the late 1940's or early 1950's. Ruth Adele Mysel grew up in Boston and attended the New Eng...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

"New York Harbor Nocturne" Leon Dolice, Mid-Century New York Nocturnal Landscape
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Five Fashion Models Wearing Hoodies Vogue Patterns 1970s Fashion - Puerto Rican
Located in Miami, FL
Famed Puerto Rican Fashion Illustrator Antonio Lopez creates an oversized illustration for Vogue Patterns Magazine 1971. He uses a variety of media whic...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media, Watercolor

Para Celso, Nude drawing on paper
Located in Miami Beach, FL
Para Celso, 1984 by Enrique Grau Graphite on paper Image size: 23 in H x 18 in W Signed in the lower right corner. Great condition with flaws. Provenance...
Category

1980s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Graphite

"New York Harbor Nocturne" Leon Dolice, New York Harbor Scene Mid-Century
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Jonathan Winters, A Man in Drag, unique drawing in pen
Located in Chatsworth, CA
This piece is a unique drawing created by Jonathan Winters in 2001 using pen and ink. It is hand signed and dated, "Nov 18, 2001." Winters was an iconic American comedian, actor, aut...
Category

Early 2000s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper

Moonlight, oversize drawing of contemplative young woman, monochromatic
Located in Brooklyn, NY
This work was intentionally torn and mended along the curve through the center of the work. It predates the artist's full immersion, years later into torn and re-pasted collages, us...
Category

2010s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Mixed Media, Watercolor, Archival Paper, Graphite

Tantra & Underwater series, Ink & Water Color, Blue, Black, Brown "In Stock"
Located in Kolkata, West Bengal
Sunil Das - Untitled - 23 x 16.5 inches (unframed size) Ink & Watercolor on paper Inclusive of shipment in ready to hang form. In the mid sixties again he explored diverse cults of popular ritual for pictorial ingredients of an evocative mystic symbolism. An ink-and-wash of 1965 features a figurative image of ambiguous connotation. The motif looks like a cult image worshipped by people practising primitive religion. A squat but monumental figure, it has for each hand several reptilians snaking down from shoulder to the finger-tips, for legs a pair of beastly fore-paws and its dark oval totemic frame...
Category

1960s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Watercolor

Nu Debout
Located in Paris, FR
Marcel Gromaire, 1892-1971, French "Nu Debout", 1951 Ink on paper, Signed and dated lower right GROMAIRE Marcel: Born July 24, 1892 in Noyelles-sur-Sambre (North), died April 11,...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Laid Paper

Rare Israeli Modernist Judaica Watercolor Painting on Lithograph Naftali Bezem
Located in Surfside, FL
Naftali Bezem (Hebrew: נפתלי בזם‎‎; born November 27, 1924) is an Israeli painter, muralist, and sculptor. Bezem was born in Essen, Germany, in 1924. His early adolescence was spent ...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Lithograph

Lovely Country House Pastel, Signed
Located in New York, NY
Untitled, c. 20th Century Pastel on paper Sight: 21 1/2 x 31 in. Framed: 24 1/4 x 34 1/2 x 1 1/4 in. Signed lower left
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Black Panther Trials - Civil Rights Movement Police Violence African American
Located in Miami, FL
The Black Panther Trials - In this historically significant work, African American Artist Vicent D. Smith functions as an Art Journalist/ Court Reporter as much as a Artist. Here, he depicts, in complete unity, 21 Black Panther Protestors raising their fist of defiance at the White Judge. Smith's composition is about utter simplicity, where the Black Panther Protestors are symmetrically lined up in a confrontation with a Judge whose size is exaggerated in scale. Set against a stylized American Flag, the supercilious Judge gazes down as the protesters as their fists thrust up. Signed Vincent lower right. Titled Panter 21. Original metal frame. Tape on upper left edge of frame. 255 . Panther 21. Framed under plexi. _____________________________ From Wikipedia In 1969-1971 there was a series of criminal prosecutions in New Haven, Connecticut, against various members and associates of the Black Panther Party.[1] The charges ranged from criminal conspiracy to first-degree murder. All charges stemmed from the murder of 19-year-old Alex Rackley in the early hours of May 21, 1969. The trials became a rallying-point for the American Left, and marked a decline in public support, even among the black community, for the Black Panther Party On May 17, 1969, members of the Black Panther Party kidnapped fellow Panther Alex Rackley, who had fallen under suspicion of informing for the FBI. He was held captive at the New Haven Panther headquarters on Orchard Street, where he was tortured and interrogated until he confessed. His interrogation was tape recorded by the Panthers.[2] During that time, national party chairman Bobby Seale visited New Haven and spoke on the campus of Yale University for the Yale Black Ensemble Theater Company.[3] The prosecution alleged, but Seale denied, that after his speech, Seale briefly stopped by the headquarters where Rackley was being held captive and ordered that Rackley be executed. Early in the morning of May 21, three Panthers – Warren Kimbro, Lonnie McLucas, and George Sams, one of the Panthers who had come East from California to investigate the police infiltration of the New York Panther chapter, drove Rackley to the nearby town of Middlefield, Connecticut. Kimbro shot Rackley once in the head and McLucas shot him once in the chest. They dumped his corpse in a swamp, where it was discovered the next day. New Haven police immediately arrested eight New Haven area Black Panthers. Sams and two other Panthers from California were captured later. Sams and Kimbro confessed to the murder, and agreed to testify against McLucas in exchange for a reduction in sentence. Sams also implicated Seale in the killing, telling his interrogators that while visiting the Panther headquarters on the night of his speech, Seale had directly ordered him to murder Rackley. In all, nine defendants were indicted on charges related to the case. In the heated political rhetoric of the day, these defendants were referred to as the "New Haven Nine", a deliberate allusion to other cause-celebre defendants like the "Chicago Seven". The first trial was that of Lonnie McLucas, the only person who physically took part in the killing who refused to plead guilty. In fact, McLucas had confessed to shooting Rackley, but nonetheless chose to go to trial. Jury selection began in May 1970. The case and trial were already a national cause célèbre among critics of the Nixon administration, and especially among those hostile to the actions of the FBI. Under the Bureau's then-secret "Counter-Intelligence Program" (COINTELPRO), FBI director J. Edgar Hoover had ordered his agents to disrupt, discredit, or otherwise neutralize radical groups like the Panthers. Hostility between groups organizing political dissent and the Bureau was, by the time of the trials, at a fever pitch. Hostility from the left was also directed at the two Panthers cooperating with the prosecutors. Sams in particular was accused of being an informant, and lying to implicate Seale for personal benefit. In the days leading up to a rally on May Day 1970, thousands of supporters of the Panthers arrived in New Haven individually and in organized groups. They were housed and fed by community organizations and by sympathetic Yale students in their dormitory rooms. The Yale college dining halls provided basic meals for everyone. Protesters met daily en masse on the New Haven Green across the street from the Courthouse (and one hundred yards from Yale's main gate). On May Day there was a rally on the Green, featuring speakers including Jean Genet, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and John Froines (an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Oregon). Teach-ins and other events were also held in the colleges themselves. Towards midnight on May 1, two bombs exploded in Yale's Ingalls Rink, where a concert was being held in conjunction with the protests.[4] Although the rink was damaged, no one was injured, and no culprit was identified.[4] Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin stated, "All of us conspired to bring on this tragedy by law enforcement agencies by their illegal acts against the Panthers, and the rest of us by our immoral silence in front of these acts," while Yale President Kingman Brewster Jr. issued the statement, "I personally want to say that I'm appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass that I am skeptical of the ability of a Black revolutionary to receive a fair trial anywhere in the U.S." Brewster's generally sympathetic tone enraged many of the university's older, more conservative alumni, heightening tensions within the school community. As tensions mounted, Yale officials sought to avoid deeper unrest and to deflect the real possibility of riots or violent student demonstrations. Sam Chauncey has been credited with winning tactical management on behalf of the administration to quell anxiety among law enforcement and New Haven's citizens, while Kurt Schmoke, a future Rhodes Scholar, mayor of Baltimore, MD and Dean of Howard University School of Law, has received kudos as undergraduate spokesman to the faculty during some of the protest's tensest moments. Ralph Dawson, a classmate of Schmoke's, figured prominently as moderator of the Black Student Alliance at Yale (BSAY). In the end, compromises between the administration and the students - and, primarily, urgent calls for nonviolence from Bobby Seale and the Black Panthers themselves - quashed the possibility of violence. While Yale (and many other colleges) went "on strike" from May Day until the end of the term, like most schools it was not actually "shut down". Classes were made "voluntarily optional" for the time and students were graded "Pass/Fail" for the work done up to then. Trial of McLucas Black Panther trial sketch...
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1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Pen, Pencil, Paper

Old Yishuv, Israel, Watercolor Painting Israeli Modernist Kibbutz Artist 2 Sided
Located in Surfside, FL
12.5x9.25 size of piece without mat. This piece is two sided and has a drawing on the second side. Aharon Giladi, Israeli painter, born in Russian Empire, 1907-1993 Aharon Golodetz (later Giladi) was born in Belarus, Russia to a wealthy family. In 1923-1926, he studied at the Leningrad Academy of Art. In 1926, he was exiled to Siberia for Zionist activity. In 1929, he immigrated to the Land of Israel, then Palestine, and helped to found Kibbutz Afikim in the Jordan valley. In 1934, he married Dvora Sifelman and worked as a builder and plasterer. He began to draw sketches of kibbutz life and taught art locally. His dynamic lines link subject to subject and figure to figure, displaying the magical nexus between objects and figures while reserving the characteristic elements of each. Everything accords with the invisible spirit which hovers over all. In 1942, he published a book of sketches...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Russian Judaica Shtetl Klezmer Musicians
Located in Surfside, FL
Pastel or Tempera on paper. Judaica Shtetl scene of village. Anatoli Lwowitch Kaplan was a Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose works often reflect his Jewish origins. h...
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20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Tempera

Modernist Conte Crayon Drawing Beach Scene David Burliuk Russian Futurist
Located in Surfside, FL
David Burliuk (Ukrainian, 1882-1967) Three figure on the beach (Hamptons, Long Island New York) Conte crayon drawing on paper. Hand signed lower left. Unframed Provenance: Bloomsbury Auctions David Davidovich Burliuk (Дави́д Дави́дович Бурлю́к; 1882-1967) was a Russian poet, artist and publicist of Ukrainian origin associated with the Futurist and Neo-Primitivist movements. Burliuk has been described as "the father of Russian Futurism." David Burliuk was born on 21 July 1882 in the village of Riabushky (near Lebedyn, Ukraine) in the Kharkov Governorate of the Russian Empire. Burliuk's family was artistically inclined; two of his brothers were talented artists as well, Nikolai and Volodimir Burliuk. The Burliuk family partly descended from Ukrainian Cossacks on their father's side, who held premier positions in the Hetmanate. His mother, Ludmyla Mikhnevich, was of ethnic Belarusian descent. From 1898 to 1904, he studied at Kazan and Odesa art schools, as well as at the Royal Academy in Munich. His exuberant, extroverted character was recognized by Anton Azhbe, his professor at the Munich Academy, who called Burliuk a "wonderful wild steppe horse". During a time of significant industrialization and political change, movements such as the famed Der Blaue Reiter, a group Burliuk associated with in 1912, while he was in Munich, emphasized a shift away from the classical styles of the past, prioritizing the innovations of the future. In 1907, he made contact with the Russian art world; he met and befriended Mikhail Larionov, and they are both credited as being major forces in bringing together the contemporary art world. In 1908, an exhibition with the group Zveno ("The Link") in Kiev was organized by David Burliuk together with Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, Alexander Bogomazov, his brother Volodymyr (Wladimir) Burliuk and Aleksandra Exter. The exhibition was a flop, especially because they were all unknown painters. The Burliuks and Larionov left for the aforementioned brothers' home in Chernianka, also known as Hylea; it was during this stay that their work became more Avant-Garde. That autumn, while visiting Ekster, they organized an exhibition which took place in the street; it was a success, and enough money was raised to go to Moscow. In 1909, Burliuk painted a portrait of his future wife, Marussia, on a background of flowers and rocks...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Conté, Crayon

Train - Drawing by Mino Maccari - Mid-20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Train is a pastel drawing realized by Mino Maccari  (1924-1989) in the Mid-20th Century. Hand-signed. Good conditions with slight foxing. Mino Maccari (Siena, 1924-Rome, June 16, ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Oil Pastel

Statues - Drawing by Mino Maccari - Mid-20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Statues is a china ink drawing realized by Mino Maccari  (1924-1989) in the Mid-20th Century. Hand-signed. Good conditions with slight foxing. Mino Maccari (Siena, 1924-Rome, June...
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Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

Charcoal Drawing "Waiting" Pensive Woman Americana WPA Artist
Located in Surfside, FL
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...
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Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Charcoal

"New York Harbor Nocturne" Leon Dolice, Mid-Century New York Nocturnal Landscape
Located in New York, NY
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...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Sketch After Vincent Self Portrait No. 3
Located in Buffalo, NY
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...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Charcoal, Paper

French Gouache Painting of Indigenous Council Gathering in Colorado Nevada
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Title: French Gouache Painting of Indigenous Council Gathering in Colorado Nevada by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

Original Drawing Reuven Rubin Self Portrait with Lion Modern Israeli Art 1960s
Located in Surfside, FL
Original drawing on Lithograph cover sheet printed by Chez Daniel Jacomet, Paris, France 1960 on on Arches deckle edged paper. hand signed with inscription. Reuven Rubin 1893 -1974 was a Romanian-born Israeli painter and Israel's first ambassador to Romania. Rubin Zelicovici (later Reuven Rubin) was born in Gala?i to a poor Romanian Jewish Hasidic family. He was the eighth of 13 children. In 1912, he left for Ottoman-ruled Palestine to study art at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. Finding himself at odds with the artistic views of the Academy's teachers, he left for Paris, France, in 1913 to pursue his studies at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. At the outbreak of World War I, he was returned to Romania, where he spent the war years. In 1921, he traveled to the United States with his friend and fellow artist, Arthur Kolnik, with whom he had shared a studio in Cernovitzu. In New York City, the two met artist Alfred Stieglitz, who was instrumental in organizing their first American show at the Anderson Gallery.Following the exhibition, in 1922, they both returned to Europe. In 1923, Rubin emigrated to Mandate Palestine. Rubin met his wife, Esther, in 1928, aboard a passenger ship to Palestine on his return from a show in New York. She was a Bronx girl who had won a trip to Palestine in a Young Judea competition. He died in 1974 Artistic career Joseph Zaritsky...
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1960s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Lithograph, Offset

1951 Graphite on Paper Figure Study of a Standing Male by Artist Harold Haydon
Located in Chicago, IL
A 1951 black and white figure study of a nude male, by artist Harold Haydon. Matted to 24" x 20". Provenance: Estate of the Artist. Estate stamped on reverse. Harold Emerson Hay...
Category

1950s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Graphite

Original Painting. New Yorker Mag Cover Proposal WPA Mid Century American Scene
Located in New York, NY
Original Painting. New Yorker Mag Cover Proposal WPA Mid Century American Scene Antonio Petruccelli (1907 – 1994) Perplexed Gentleman New Yorker cover proposal, c. 1939 13 1/4 X 8 ...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache, Board

French Gouache Portrait Study of Navajo Hopi and Apache Figures
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Title: French Gouache Portrait Study of Navajo Hopi and Apache Figures by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed paper, Siz...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

"Let's Rodeo" Colorful Abstract Modern Cowboy Pastel Portrait Drawing
Located in Houston, TX
Colorful abstract modern pastel drawing of a cowboy by Texas artist Robert Sandman. The work features a man dressed in vibrant clothes holding a cowboy ...
Category

1980s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

Chapel and houses along a lake, New England Landscape - American School, 19th C
Located in Middletown, NY
Watercolor and pencil on buff wove watercolor paper, 10 x 8 inches (255 x 203 mm). In good condition with overall minor toning. Some watercolor paint splatters on the verso, contem...
Category

Early 1900s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Pencil

The Envy - Drawing - Early 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
The Envy is an original drawing in Ink, Watercolor, and pastel by an anonymous artist in the first half of the 20th Century. Good conditions. The artwork is depicted through strong...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel, Ink, Watercolor

JEAN MARC (1949-2019) 20th CENTURY FRENCH MODERNIST PAINTING Tropical Girl
Located in Cirencester, Gloucestershire
Girl in Tropical Landscape by Jean Marc (French 1949-2019) watercolour on artist paper painting: 15.75 x 11.75 inches condition: sound condition provenance: private collection, So...
Category

20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Black and White Abstract Figurative Drawing of Nude Female
Located in Houston, TX
Black and white figurative drawing by Texas artist William Anzalone. The drawing depicts nude women dressing up. Signed by the artist at the bottom right. Framed in a beautiful black modern frame. Dimensions Without Frame: H 16.63 in. x W 21.5 in. Artist Biography: William Anzalone was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1935. He was educated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
Category

Late 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Pen, Pencil

WPA 1940s Framed Figurative Village Landscape with Figures, Houses & Mountains
Located in Denver, CO
This evocative watercolor painting, titled The Way War First Comes (1940), was created by noted American artist Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968) during the Depression era. The pie...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Ink Drawing of a Seated Female Nude by Rudolph Pen
Located in Chicago, IL
A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Ink Drawing of a Seated Female Nude by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Completed in the 1960s, this compelling studio ink drawing is executed in ...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

The Cello - 1960s Modern British watercolour drawing by William S Taylor
By William S Taylor
Located in London, GB
WILLIAM S. TAYLOR (1920-2010) The Cello Signed and dated l.r.: W S Taylor ‘60 Watercolour and pen and ink over traces of pencil 29 by 32 cm., 11 ½ by 12 ½ in. (frame size 49.5 by ...
Category

1960s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Modern figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Modern figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add figurative drawings and watercolors created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of orange, blue, yellow, purple and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Mino Maccari, Flor David, Gabriele Galantara, and Alberto Ziveri. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Watercolor and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large Modern figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 0.25 inches across are also available. Prices for figurative drawings and watercolors made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $11 and tops out at $648,500, while the average work sells for $409.

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