Walt Kuhn

"Reclining Figure" Walt Kuhn, Figurative Nude Line Drawing, American Modernism

1935

Joseph Delaney Nude with Hand on Hip Leaning Against Chair, circa 1935 Signed lower right Watercolor on paper Sight 12 x 8 inches Provenance: Sacks Fine Art, New York Private Collection, New York African-American artist Joseph Delaney was a folk-expressionist painter who loved New York City, both as a subject for painting and the spectacle and experience of ever-changing life and vitality. Of the city, he said: "The curtain goes up on the stage of life every time we walk into the street. In spite of New York's being the most congested city I have been in, and know about, by and large, it's just people on the move. I have enjoyed more than I can say seeing people and hearing them speak about things they love and enjoy." Delaney, the son of a Methodist minister, was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1904, the ninth of ten children. It was in church that Delaney and his older brother, Beauford, began to express their art talent by drawing on Sunday School cards. He attended school there, leaving the Knoxville Colored High School at the end of the ninth grade. The next few years were spent doing odd jobs around town (caddy at the Cherokee Country Club, bell hop at the Farragut Hotel) until leaving for Chicago around 1924, where he served three years with the National Guard. He returned to Knoxville in 1929, selling insurance and helping found the city's first black Boy Scout unit. In 1930, Delaney went to New York City, studying at the Art Students League with Thomas Hart Benton, George Bridgman and Alexander Brooke. Other students there at the time included Jackson Pollock, Henry Stair, and Bruce Mitchell. In 1932, he exhibited in the first Washington Square Outdoor Art Show. He would continue to do so for the next forty years, working as a sketch artist there, drawing such celebrities as Eartha Kitt, Arlene Francis, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Tallulah Bankhead. Delaney would spend fifty-six years living and painting in the area of lower Manhattan, SoHo and Union Square. From 1934-1940, Delaney worked for the WPA (Works' Progress Administration) on projects in New York City including the Index of Design for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Pier 72 mural, and the Story of the Recorded Word mural at the Public Library. He also taught at Harlem and Brooklyn settlement houses and the Art Students League while exhibiting his paintings in his studio, art galleries and other exhibitions. In 1942, Delaney received a Julius Rosenwald grant of $1200.00 to travel, sketch and later paint the Eastern seaboard. In 1964, he was a sketch artist for the New Orleans exhibit and later the Ghana exhibit at the New York City World's Fair. From 1978-1980, he worked for CETA, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, as an artist in residence at the Henry Street Settlement. In 1979, Delaney's brother, Beauford, died in Paris at St. Anne's Hospital, an insane asylum. Delaney paid over $6,000 to the French government for taxes, storage, and shipping, to have Beauford's art and personal effects shipped to the U.S. The University of Tennessee would figure strongly in Delaney's life. In 1970, the artist had an exhibition there, and his painting, "V-J Day, Times Square", was added to their collection. In 1986, the Ewing Gallery exhibited, "Joseph Delaney: A Retrospective," as part of the Homecoming '86 Festival. In that year, author Alex Haley...

Eugene Higgins In Foreign Parts, circa 1913 Signed lower right Watercolor on paper Sight 17 x 13 inches Born William Victor Higgins in 1884 to a Shelbyville, Indiana farm family where the only art Victor was aware of as a child was his father's love of flowers. "He loved their forms and their colors, and he tended his garden as a painter might work a canvas." At the age of nine, Victor met a young artist who traveled the Indiana countryside painting advertisements on the sides of barns. He purchased paints and brushes so the young Higgins could practice his own artwork on the inside of his father's barn. He also taught Victor about art museums and especially about the new Chicago Art Institute. This information never left the young artist, and he saved his allowance until his father allowed him at the age of fifteen to attend Chicago Art Institute. He worked a variety of jobs to finance his studies both there and at the Academy of Fine Arts. Victor Higgins traveled to New York in 1908, where he met Robert Henri, who became a significant influence by depicting every-day scenes and stressing the importance of the spirit and sense of place as important factors in painting. Higgins was also greatly affected by the New York Armory Modernism Show of Marsden Hartley in 1913. While Victor Higgins was in Chicago he met former mayor and avid collector Carter H. Harrison who was to prove instrumental in the growth of Higgins career for several years. Harrison agreed to support Higgins for four years to go to Paris and Munich and paint and study in the great museums in Europe. While at the Academie de la Grande Chaumier in Paris (1910-1914) he met Walter Ufer, who was another Chicago artist being sponsored by Carter Harrison. This meeting was not only a life-long friendship, but the beginning of a great change in the way Higgins looked at "American" art. He decided that America needed it's own authentic style rather than the 19th Century classic style he was taught in Europe. Very soon after returning to Chicago in 1914, Harrison sent him and Walter Ufer on a painting trip to Taos, New Mexico for a year in exchange for paintings. Higgins made other similar agreements and was able to support himself with his painting. This trip was a life-changing experience and introduced Higgins to the authentic America he had been looking for. In 1914 Taos was an isolated village about twelve hours from Santa Fe on an impossible dirt road. But the colorful life of the pueblo people and the natural beauty drew a collection of artists who became the Taos art colony, from which the Taos Society of Artists was founded in 1915. Victor Higgins became a permanent resident within a year of his arrival and a member of the society in 1917, exhibiting with Jane Peterson in 1925 and with Wayman Adams and Janet Scudder in 1927. The members would travel around the country introducing the Southwest scenes with great success. He remained a member until the Society's dissolution in 1927. Higgins was the youngest member of the group of seven. Other members were Joseph Henry Sharp, Bert Phillips...

Bob Thompson Untitled, 1964 Felt tip pen on printed paper 11 x 20 1/2 inches Provenance: The artist Kathy Komaroff Goodman (gift from the artist) Hollis Taggart, New York Exhibited...

Milton Clark Avery (1885 - 1965) March Avery in a Beret, 1951 Black crayon and graphite on cream wove paper 11 x 8 3/8 inches Signed and dated lower left; ...

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...

Nude is an original drawing in pen on ivory paper realized by Fausto Ghia. Hand-signed on the lower left with dedication. The state of preservation is very good. Included a Passep...

Prakash Karmakar - Untitled - 23 x 20 inches Marker on Paper , 2002 Delivery of shipment in roll form. Style : Legendary master artist Lt. Prokash Karmakar from Bengal was solely re...

Prakash Karmakar - Untitled - 23 x 20 inches Marker on Paper , 1999 Delivery of shipment in roll form. Style : Legendary master artist Lt. Prokash Karmakar from Bengal was solely re...

Prakash Karmakar - Untitled - 23 x 20 inches (unframed size) Marker on paper Delivery of shipment in roll form. Style : Legendary master artist Lt. Prokash Karmakar from Bengal was ...

Prakash Karmakar - Untitled - 23 x 20 inches Marker on Paper , 1999 Delivery of shipment in roll form. Style : Legendary master artist Lt. Prokash Karmakar from Bengal was solely re...

Prakash Karmakar - Untitled - 23 x 20 inches (unframed size) Marker on paper Delivery of shipment in roll form. Style : Legendary master artist Lt. Prokash Karmakar from Bengal was ...