Modern Art Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Melike Kılıç (b. 1982) is a Turkish artist who tells stories through drawings and delicate paper cutouts. She grew up in a small village in Sebinkarahisar, and currently works in Ist...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Artist Enrique Alférez was born in Zacatecas, Mexico and lived nearly the entire 20th century. After service in the Mexican Revolution as a youth, he emigrated to Texas, studied in C...

Oil on board, signed verso Image size: 40 1/4 x 29 inches (102.25 x 73.5 cm) Hand made contemporary style frame Here we see a smartly dressed woman sat on a park bench, feeding a group of pigeons that surround her. Lena Gurr had a prolific career in which she painted landscape scenes and still lifes but her most noted works are ones such as these, showing everyday city scenes that were laced with social commentary. Indeed, Gurr noted that her artwork always aimed to show "the joys and sorrows of everyday life." During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained emotional content as they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Discussing this trend, she once told an interviewer that as her work tended toward increasing abstraction she believed it nonetheless "must have some kind of human depth to it." Lena Gurr  Lena Gurr, born in Brooklyn in 1897, studied at the Brooklyn Training School for Teachers, the Educational Alliance Art School, the Arts Students League with John Sloan, and with Maurice Sterne in Paris as well as in Mentone and Nice, France. Gurr was a member of the Artists League of America, the National Association of Women Artists, the New York Society of Women Artists, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, Audubon Artists and the American Artists Congress. She exhibited in numerous exhibitions held by these organizations as well as the Whitney Studio Club, National Academy of Design, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum, and the 1939 World's Fair. Her work is included in the collections of the Biro-Bidjan Museum, Russia and the Library of Congress, where she has been selected as a "Curator's Choice" in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. In addition to her career as a painter, lithographer and serigrapher, she also taught art in the New York City public school system. She had three solo exhibitions at the ACA Gallery in 1935, 1939 and 1945, and a retrospective in 1963. Notable among Gurr's colleagues - many of them WPA artists - were Mary Cecil Allen...

Daniel Johnston was a prolific visual artist and musician. He gained a cult following in the 1990s when Kurt Cobain wore a T-shirt with the artist’s frog illustration from his Hi, Ho...

Kristalova is best known for her figurative ceramic sculptures that incorporate aspects of the human body and elements of nature. Across her oeuvre, she explores transition as a stag...

This cubist work on paper in bold monochrome pastel is almost a piece of optical art thanks to the series of geometric shapes that build out the bodies of the two figures. In the for...

An original crayon on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 30 x 17 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the internat...

This Watercolor on papyrus painting is one in a series of five watercolor works painted on papyrus. Here, Bhatt uses the recurring symbol of the fetu...

This Watercolor on papyrus painting is one in a series of five watercolor works painted on papyrus. Here, Bhatt uses the recurring symbol of the fetu...

This Watercolor on papyrus painting is one in a series of five watercolor works painted on papyrus. Here, Bhatt uses the recurring symbol of the fetu...

This graphite and acrylic painting on canvas is from a series called "Lovers and Assassins." Here you can see Bhatt playing with the idea of seduction, self-sacrifice, persecution, b...

Henry Moore Reclining Figures 1940 Chalk, pen and watercolour on paper 25.4 x 43.2 cms (10 x 17 ins) HM15852 Provenance: Willard Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York, ac...

"See Looking at See" is an acrylic painting on paper. The primary subject of this work is an abstract organic form with an eye which appears to be looking in the direction of its own physique. As the title intimates, this is perhaps commenting on the capacity of intelligent life to consider the distinction between self and other. Bert L. Long Jr., was self-taught artist, was born in 1940 in Texas, grew up the Houston’s historic Fifth Ward and received his formal education from UCLA. Following a career as a successful master chef, Long decided to devote himself entirely to art in the late 1970’s. He began to explore folk art and assemblage to create a unique body of work, attracting the attention of Jim Harithas, then Director of the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, and artists John Alexander, Salvatore Scarpitta and James Surls. His life spanned an era of radical change in the American social climate, the influence of which can be seen clearly in his work. Long’s paintings and sculptures incorporate a high level of skill and sophisticated knowledge of art history, along with complex philosophical and social issues.  Long describes the philosophy behind his work as "a quest to help people diagnose their inner self," believing his art to be "the vehicle to help facilitate the process." “As artists we have the obligation to provide the world with art which communicates as truth. I believe that art has the power to heal our souls of their afflictions. I try to create art which helps to diagnose the prevalent conditions within our societies, hopefully providing an insightfulness which will help us all become brothers and sisters united in equality and compassion”                                       - Bert L. Long, Jr. The late Peter Marzio, former Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, said of Bert Long during the major retrospective of Long’s work at the museum: “Bert Long does not avert his gaze from that which is painful, but as [his artworks] testify, he also brings a spirit of joy and redemption to his art. We can all learn from this great artist.” Over Long’s 33-year career as a painter, sculptor, and photographer, he had several solo exhibitions at respected museums and was awarded many significant awards including the National Endowment for the Arts Grant in 1987 and the prestigious international Prix de Rome fellowship in 1990. Other notable awards of Long’s include the Texas Accountants and Lawyers for the Arts Artist of the Year Award in 2009, the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Assistance Grant in 1997, the Houston Art League Texas Artist of the Year in 1990, the NEA Visual Artists Fellowship Grant, 1987 and the Bemis Foundation Residency in 1998. His work can be seen in over 100 private and public collections worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, the El Paso Museum of Art, and the Instituto de Bachillerato in Spain. With a recent solo exhibition at the Houston Museum of African American Culture and an exhibition overseas which is pending featuring his work, plus interest from several national museums, Bert L. Long Jr. continues to be recognized as an important African American artist throughout Texas, nationally and internationally. Bert L. Long, Jr. "See Looking at See" 2006 Acrylic and Charcoal on Dutch Stonehenge Paper...

Faces are a recurring motif throughout Long’s extensive body of work - especially regarding eyes and mouths. This work features a misma of matter that coagulates into an image recogn...

This work bears striking achromatic depiction of a face, contrasted by a vibrant and colorful section of watermelon. The simplicity and levity of the watermelon helps offset the emot...

This work, marked by thin washes of acrylic, depicts a floating figure with Long’s likeness hovering over what appear to be earthly materials below - perhaps an allusion to notions o...

The imagery in this work appears to be a rope pulling a colorless curtain away to reveal a gnarled tree trunk before a crimson background. Bert L. Long Jr., was self-taught artist,...

This work resembles a colorful abstraction of a terrarium inhabited by geometric and organic forms alike. Bert L. Long Jr., was self-taught artist, was born in 1940 in Texas, grew ...

Pinchas Burstein (1927–1977), later known as Maryan S. Maryan, was a Polish-born Jewish post-expressionist painter who survived the Auschewitz conse...

"McDonald's Hamburgers Invading Japan" is a delightfully inventive comic self-portrait by the creative genius Masami Teraoka. He has presented himself dressed in the traditional kimono robe and the artwork is in the famous Ukiyo-e style. Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese art which flourished from the 17th through 19th centuries. Its artists produced woodblock prints and paintings of such subjects as female beauties; kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers; scenes from history and folk tales; travel scenes and landscapes; flora and fauna; and erotica and sometimes humorous characters. The term ukiyo-e (浮世絵) translates as "picture[s] of the floating world". This delightful watercolor self-portrait, comments on the problematic relationship between the United States and Japan and the Americanization of his country in the work, utilizing subtle pun humor that is the hallmark of Japanese culture. As Teraoka explains, "the character 'maku; means spread, 'donald; means screaming, 'do' and 'han' mean often, and 'Han' also means obnoxious or annoying. 'Burger' sounds like 'Baka' which means stupidity." This work was originally purchased by filmmaker Eric Saarinen...

Signed in pencil at lower right.

Signed in pencil at lower right. Inscribed 'Que principio a abrir los ojos' ('Where to start when you open your eyes') in pencil at lower centre.

Natasha Wright's art probes the politics of representation of the female form. Gender, sexuality, vulnerability and power, seduction and aggression - th...

We are premiering the paintings of a just discovered French artist Jade Bocquillon. A gifted artist living in Provence in the South of France, The work of Jade Bocquillon evokes dee...

Dong Kingman "Chinese Theater, Los Angeles" 1965 Watercolor on Paper Sheet Size: 15 x 22 inches Framed Size: approx 19 x 26 inches Dong Kingman, the world-renowned artist and teacher, died in his sleep on May 12, 2000 at age 89 in his home in Manhattan. The cause was pancreatic cancer. Long acknowledged as an American watercolor master, he has received an extraordinary number of awards and honors throughout his 70-year career in the arts. Included are two Guggenheim fellowships in 1942 and 1943; the San Francisco Art Association First Purchase Prize, 1936; Audubon Artist Medal of Honor, 1946; Philadelphia Watercolor Club Joseph Pennel Memorial Medal, 1950; Metropolitan Museum of Art Award, and the National Academy Design 150th Anniversary Gold Medal Award, 1975. In 1987, the American Watercolor Society awarded Dong Kingman its highest honor, the Dolphin Medal, "for having made outstanding contributions to art especially to that of watercolor." His work is represented in the permanent collections of 50 museums and universities, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Des Moines Art Center, Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, Brooklyn Museum and Hirshhorn Museum. Born in Oakland, California in 1911 of Chinese descent, Kingman moved to Hong Kong at age five. He studied art and calligraphy in his formative years at the Lingnan School. The painting master Szeto Wai had recently studied art in Paris and took a keen interest in young Dongs precocious talents. He taught him both Chinese classical and French Impressionist styles of painting. Kingman returned home to Oakland when he was 18 at the height of the Depression. He worked as a newsboy and dishwasher to make ends meet. When he was employed as a houseboy for the Drew family in San Francisco, he painted every spare moment. In a year, he created enough pictures to have a one-man show at the Art Center. It attracted the attention of San Francisco art critics who raved about Kingmans unique style. Wrote Junius Cravens of the San Francisco News: "That young Chinese artist is showing 20 of the freshest and most satisfying watercolors that have been seen hereabouts in many a day Kingman already has developed that universal quality which may place a sincere artist work above the limitations of either racial characteristics or schools. Kingmans art belongs to the world at large today." Dong Kingman became an overnight success. From 1936 to 1941, he was a project artist for WPA and became a pioneer for a new school of painting, the "California Style." His two Guggenheim fellowships enabled him to travel the country painting American scenes. His first one-man show in New York at Midtown Galleries in 1942 was well received in the media, including Time, Newsweek, the New Yorker and American Artist. M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco held a major exhibit of his watercolors in 1945. In 1951, Midtown presented a 10-year retrospective of his work. Time Magazine wrote, "At age 40, Kingman is one of the worlds best watercolorists." Other retrospectives, including Corcoran in Washington,D.C. an d Witte Memorial Museum in San Antonio, were held for the artist. Kingman moved to Wildenstein (1958-1969) where he had successful exhibits in New York, London and Paris. Hammer Galleries exhibited his paintings in the 70s, and then the artist expanded his venues to the West Coast and Far East. During World War II, he served with the OSS in Washington, D.C. where he was a cartographer. After his honorable discharge, Kingman moved to Brooklyn Heights from San Francisco when he became a guest lecturer and then art instructor at Columbia University (1946-1958). Hunter College also appointed him instructor in watercolors and Chinese Art (1948-1953). His teaching career continued with the Famous Artists School, Westport, CT in 1953, joining such distinguished artists on the faculty as Will Barnet, Stuart Davis, Norman Rockwell and Ben Shahn. He also became a teaching member for 40 years for the Hewitt Painting Workshops, which conducts worldwide painting tours. He taught at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, was a member of its board, and received an honorary doctorate from the Academy. In 1954, the U.S. Department of State invited Kingman to go on a cultural exchange program tour around the world to give exhibitions and lectures and to meet local artists. When he came home, he presented the State Department with a 40-foot long report on a scroll, which later appeared in LIFE Magazine. One of Kingman's most treasured experiences was his invitation by the Ministry of Culture of the Peoples Republic of China to exhibit in that country in 1981. He was the first American artist to be accorded a one-man show since diplomatic relations resumed. More than 100,000 visitors attended his exhibitions in Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou and the retrospective received critical acclaim from the Chinese press. Noted the China Daily Mail, "Just as the master painters of the Song Dynasty roamed about mountain and stream to capture the rhythm of nature, Dong Kingman traveled the world capturing the dynamism of modern lifefamiliar scenes have been transformed into a vibrant new vision of life through color schemes with rhythms that play over the entire surface of the picture. The wind swept skies which enliven his watercolors remind us of the pleinairism of the French Impressionists." Kingman, who has been fascinated with movies since seeing his first film "The Thief of Baghdad...

A wonderful example of Czobel’s most expressive drawing. Signed, lower right

Watercolor on paper Signed, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Bill Rice was considered by such luminaries as Rene Ricard to be one of the most important painters of urban life from his generation. Rice’s depictions of inner city gay men...

Ink and watercolor on paper 13.5 x 7.5 inches This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Bill Rice was considered by such luminaries as Rene Ricard to be one of the most important painters of urban life from his generation. Rice’s depictions of inner city gay men...

Gisella Loeffler "Going for a Stroll" c. 1919 Gouache on Paper Initialed Framed Size: approx 17 x 13 inches In a village filled with colorful characters, few Taos artists were as colorful as Gisella Loeffler [1900-1977]. From her handmade Austrian clothing and hand-painted furniture to whimsical paintings and letters written in multicolored crayon, joyful color defined the artist, who early on chose to use simply Gisella as her professional name and was known as such to everyone in Taos. 

In spite of her fame there—the Taos News once labeled her a Taos legend—Gisella is rarely included in scholarly discussions of the Taos Art Colony. This oversight is likely due to the naive quality of her work, in which children or childlike adults inhabit a simple, brightly colored world filled with happiness. The macabre, the sad, the tortured, the offensive—all have no place in Gisella’s paintings. Her naive style of work looks very different from that of the better-known early Taos artists. Yet both Gisella’s artwork and her interesting life command attention. Born in Austria, Gisella came to the United States with her family in 1908, settling in St. Louis, MO. After studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, she became a prominent member of the local art community, joining the St. Louis Art Guild as well as the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition to creating posters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gisella won prizes from the Artists Guild of the Author’s League of America in 1919 and 1920 and from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923. She also began working in textiles, including batik, to which she would return later in her career.  In the early 1920s Gisella married writer and music critic Edgar Lacher. A difficult character, Lacher may have chafed under Gisella’s success, for the couple divorced in the 1930s. Having seen a local exhibition of paintings by Taos artists Oscar Berninghaus (who was from St. Louis) and Ernest Blumenschein, Gisella felt drawn to Taos, which reminded her of the villages of her native Austria. In 1933 the single mother with two daughters, Undine and Aithra, moved to Taos, where she lived off and on for the rest of her life. She traveled frequently, spending extended periods in Mexico, South America, and California, but always returned to New Mexico. Gisella initially applied an Austro-Hungarian folk-art style to the Indian and Hispanic subjects that she found in New Mexico. In her early work she covered her surfaces with decorative floral and faunal motifs, and her images were flat with no attempt at rendering traditional one-point perspective. Eventually, though, Gisella developed her own style, often using children or childlike figures as subjects. Still, the influence of her native country’s folk art remained evident in her New Mexican, Mexican, and South American images. In 1938 Gisella moved briefly to Los Griegos, north of Albuquerque, to be closer to medical facilities for her eldest daughter, who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Two years later, she moved to California to participate in the war effort, painting camouflage and decals on airplanes for Lockheed. In California, Gisella broadened her range of artistic pursuits. She taught art privately, created illustrations for Scripts Magazine, and did interior design for private homes. She also designed greeting cards, a practice she continued after her return to New Mexico, where she created a series of Christmas cards.  Gisella began illustrating children’s books in 1941 when she collaborated on Franzi and Gizi with author Margery Bianco. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own book, El Ekeko, in 1964. She also designed ceramics—her Happy Time Dinnerware, marketed by Poppy Trail...

Artist: Kiki Kogelnik, Austrian (1935 - 1997) Title: For the Bergers Year: 1966 Medium: Watercolor, signed, titled and dated verso Size: 29 in. x 23 in. (73.66 cm x 58.42 cm) Frame S...

Kostia Terechkovich, known as Constantin Terechkovich, was born on May 1, 1902 in the suburbs of Moscow, and died on June 12, 1978 In Monaco. He was a French painter and engraver of ...

ANDRE LHOTE "LA PLAGE" PASTEL, SIGNED FRANCE, C.1927 17.75 X 24 INCHES André Lhote 1885-1962 Lhote was born in Bordeaux, France in 1885. H...

Presenting an exceptional rare original oil pastel by American artist Ron Blumberg, from the artists "Psychological Series", 1948-1952. American...

American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member of the Art Students League. "The Happy Couple...

Presenting an original scratch board drawing by American artist Darren LeGallo. "Recherché de l'amour", is executed on scratch board, which is a whit...

Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian was born April 14, 1911 in Kutahya, Turkey, of Armenian parents. At the age of three, he showed considerable talent in drawing and painting. Zorthian ...

An original watercolor by Hungarian artist Gertrude Klaris. Klaris worked in oils but pramrily in mixed media works on paper, much of her style is akin to her love of stained glass. ...

An exceptional original watercolor by American artist Byron Randall. "The Accordionist", is an original watercolor on heavy paper, signed, c.1945, ...

We are proud to present a just arrived series of original pen and ink and ink wash drawings by Austrian/American artist Gustav Rehberger. These works were acquired directly from the ...

American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member ...

American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member ...

American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member ...

Presenting an exceptional mixed media watercolor by Austrian/American artist Franz Bergmann. Bergmann studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, before settling in Northern California in the mid 1930s where he worked and taught until his death in 1970. The Fortune Teller...