Thomas Sully

Figural Studies

Eleanor Park Custis painted scenes as varied as the artist's travels: from her hometown of Washington, D.C., to the coastal towns of New England; from the prosperous fishing villages of Brittany, to Venice and the mountain villages and lakes of northern Italy. While Custis's subjects are diverse, her style is consistent and distinctive throughout this body of work. Her use of flat areas of color delineated by dark contours is reminiscent of the aesthetics of woodblock printing. Like many artists of the day, she was profoundly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints, and her adaptation of the aesthetic by 1924 led to her most productive artistic period. Eleanor Custis hailed from a socially prominent Washington, D.C., family. She was distantly related to Martha Custis Washington, America's first First Lady. Custis began three years of formal art training in the autumn of 1915 at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, and was guided and inspired by Impressionist artist Edmund C. Tarbell, one of the Ten American Painters, who became the Corcoran School's principal in 1918. Custis exhibited widely in many of the Washington art societies and clubs for much of her career. She was also a frequent exhibitor at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City; her last one-woman show there was in April 1945. Custis's mature style emerged in scenes of the streets, wharves, and drydocks of seacoast villages from Maine to Massachusetts, which she visited during the summers of 1924 and 1925. She was working in Gloucester, Massachusetts in August 1924, and painted several gouaches of the town's wharves and winding streets, including In Gloucester Harbor and At the Drydock, Gloucester. During her stay, Custis may have met Jane Peterson or at least must have seen her work, the best of which was executed in Gloucester during the preceding ten years. The similarity between their styles is unmistakable, but, while it may be tempting to suggest that Custis was influenced by Peterson during her summer in Gloucester, the connection between their work is probably more a case of shared aesthetics and common European influences. Custis expanded her subject repertoire with three trips to Europe between 1926 and 1929, and was inspired by the Old World charm of Holland, northern France, Switzerland, and Italy, leading to such works as New Kirk, Delft, Holland, Market Day in Quimper, At the Foot of the Matterhorn, and The Town Square, Varenna. A Mediterranean cruise in 1934 introduced her to the Near East, and the bustling, colorful streets and bazaars of Cairo, captured in works like A Street in Cairo, Egypt and A Moroccan Jug...

Pastel on paper 13 x 19 in. (33 x 48.2 cm.) Signed (at lower right): Kupka EX COLL.: private collection, St. Louis; to Howard Baer, 1972; [Gimpel-Weitzenhoffer Galleries, New York...

On October 8, 1871, one of the greatest fires of modern times broke out in Chicago. Engulfing the entire city within hours, it left over 90,000 people homeless and destroyed thousands of buildings, causing many people to flee into the water to escape the flames. Among the property destroyed were the proudest cultural and civic institutions of the city. While the financial center was rebuilt within a year and trade was greater in 1872 than it had been in 1870, it took over a decade for the city’s cultural resources to recover from the disaster. Many of the city’s best artists did not even return to Chicago for several years. Foreign aid poured in from around the world, with half coming from England alone. It is not surprising therefore, that in 1872 it was an English artist that should have designed the mural for City Hall commemorating the Great Fire...

Graphite and crayon on ledger paper.

Graphite and crayon on ledger paper.

Graphite and crayon on ledger paper.

NYC Subway Riders Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism WPA Modern 1930s Daniel Celentano (1902 - 1980) Subway Scene, 1930s 8 x 9 inches Ink and wash on paper Singed lower ...

"Good Health Week" American Scene Modern Social Realism Mid- 20th Century WPA Era Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) Good Health Week – b/w 10 ½ x 15 1/2 inches I...

TOBACCO ROAD Mid 20th Century Realism 1940 Drawing from the Novel WPA Literary 3 10 1/2 x 6 (sight), Signed David Fredenthal lower right. Framed by Lowy. Offered here is one of several original drawings by WPA artist David Fredenthal that were first published in the 1940 illustrated edition of the novel TOBACCO ROAD by Erskine Caldwell. Background on the Drawing Erskine Caldwell remarked, on seeing the work of David Fredenthal, 26-year-old painter: "That boy could draw my Tobacco Road people." A casual comment, it was enormously productive. The young painter was just finishing a two-year Guggenhcim Fellowship, preceded by a year's study in Paris, two one-man shows at New York's Downtown Gallery, and a fellowship at the Cranbrook Academy near Detroit. He was out in Colorado Springs when he heard what Caldwell had said about him. Fredenthal hadn't read Tobacco Road. He had not even seen the play - now breaking all records in its seventh year on Broadway. But he swapped a portrait for a second-hand Ford and headed East. In New York he learned that Dnell, Sloan & Pearce were bringing out a deluxe edition of Tobacco Road. But he had no entrée to the publishers, and Caldwell, to his disappointment, was out of town. So he drove on to Georgia to have a look at the Tobacco Road people. He found Dr. I. C. Caldwell, the author's father, in Wrens, Ga., going on his ministerial rounds among people like the Lesters. Fredenthal got a room from a couple who ran a 1-pump filling station...

Pen and black ink on watermarked Ingres laid paper, 9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches (234 x 310 mm), signed, dated and titled in brown ink, and initialed and titled in black ink in the lower right corner. Light to moderate age tone and mat tone, and with the signature and notations in brown ink having become quite attenuated, although legible. Presented in a basic black wood frame with a label from the Country Art...

Skillful late 19th century realist drawing of illustration Newspaper artists at work at the Republican National Convention by Adolph Methfessel (American, 1876-1912)., c.1898. This p...

This exquisite yet unfinished drawing by American cartoonist Al Capp, entitled 'Golf,' presents a humorous view of the beloved game. The composition depicts fo...