Barbara Jablin

Rowboat at the Edge of the Pond in Watercolor on Paper

2000s

"Steps", a highly realistic late 20th century watercolor landscape of a staircase in front of a wooden barn by Verne R. Horton (American, 1941-2020), 1986. Horton's background as a technical artist and draftsman is apparent in the fine details of this piece, such as the crisply rendered planks of wood that comprise the barn, the individual pieces of metal that form the railing, and each block of cement that make up the staircase. Horton's meticulous rendering of shadows enhances the sense of realism. Signed and dated "Verne R. Horton '86" lower right. Signed and titled "Steps" on verso. Displayed in a new off-white mat and rustic wood frame with plexiglass. Image size: 13.75"H x 9.75"W. Born February 1, 1941 in Los Angeles, CA, Verne R. Horton went to Los Angeles State College where he earned a degree in pre-architecture. As a young man Verne joined the US Navy, in 1960 and served as a draftsman until 1965. After leaving the Navy, he ended up as a technical artist for North American Aviation. His charge: illustrating publicity pictures for the Apollo space program. After working on the Apollo program for three and a half years, he was lured into the corporate world as a regional manager for New York Life Insurance. Horton said he did virtually no artwork in the 17 years he worked for the insurance company. He ended up earning another degree in insurance and finance from American College in Bryn Mawr, Penn., in 1978. He moved within the company 14 times in 17 years, living in Los Angeles, Hawaii, Arizona and San Francisco. "Then I had an awareness that I had always wanted to be an artist," he said. "It seemed that if I were going to do it, I needed to just do it." He quit his job and became a fine artist. Horton's paintings and sculptures are truly those of a professional. He specializes in 1800s to 1930s Western Americana, but his love is steam era railroad art. "You must have historical accuracy. The worst thing is to have somebody come by and say, 'That's not right," Horton said. "You can't get involved in the history of the railroad without getting to know a community." It was his insistence on historical accuracy and love of railroads that brought him to Carson City...

Vibrant figurative seascape of a beach in Mazatlan, Mexico with several figures and a catamaran reflecting beautifully in the shallow water by William A. Corbett (American. 1914-1960). Titled "Beach- Mazatlan" on verso. Signed "William Corbett" in lower left corner. Presented in a simple wood frame, with a double mat of off-white silk and royal blue with plexiglass. Image size: 22”H x 14.75”L William A. Corbett began drawing at an early age. He constructed signs and displays for theaters and nightclubs around Pittsburg. He studied art with Vincent Nesbert at the Pittsburg Art Institute and with Robert Gwathmoy, Roy Hilton, and Robert Laper at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He also studied painting and sculpture at the Louisville Art Center. Corbett was in the Army Engineers at Fort Knox, Kentucky where he studied, practiced, and had exhibits with army artists there from 1941-1943. He was very much interested in materials and technique, content and style in painting. His favorite Artists were El Greco, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Renoir, Burchfield, and Andrew Wyeth, Jr. He studied two years at Boston museum School with Karl Zerbe, Daivid Aronson and others. He later designed and did art work for General Outdoor Advertising Co. In 1943, he married Ruth Osborne of Louisville and they had one son, Michael. In 1951 he moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida with his family. Exhibitions: Army Art Show--- 1st Prize in Landscape, 1942 Kentucky & southern Indiana Exhibition-- Honorable mentions for Fisherman's Curse 1949, Don Q...

Seascape of tide pools and crashing waves by Joseph Yeager (early-mid 20th Century) on heavy bond watercolor paper with ragged edges. Signed "Joe Yeager" in the lower right corner. "...

Fishing Boats in the Harbor with Monterey Wharf Fish Market, Maritime Landscape Highly detailed watercolor of fishing boats in the harbor along a w...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA --RUSS HAVARD Artist Statement I'm drawn towards nature imagery that depicts isolated elements in their continual struggle to flourish ...

Original watercolor on archival paper of a location near Westport, Ireland, most likely Clew Bay by the very well known American artist, Adolf Arthur Dehn. Signed by the artist low...

Thomas Fransioli’s cityscapes are crisp and tidy. Buildings stand in bold outline, their forms squarely defined by stark light and long shadows. Saturated color permeates every corner of his canvases, from vibrant oranges and greens to smoky terra cottas and granites. Even the trees that line Fransioli’s streets, parks, and squares are sharp and angular, exactly like those in an architect’s elevation rendering. But Fransioli’s cities often lack one critical feature: people. His streets are largely deserted, save for parked cars and an occasional black cat scurrying across the pavement. People make rare appearances in Fransioli’s compositions, and never does the entropy of a crowd overwhelm their prevailing sense of order and precision. People are implied in a Fransioli painting, but their physical presence would detract from the scene’s bleak and surreal beauty. Magic Realism neatly characterizes Fransioli’s artistic viewpoint. The term was first broadly applied to contemporary American art in the 1943 Museum of Modern Art exhibition, American Realists and Magic Realists. As exhibition curator Dorothy Miller noted in her foreword to the catalogue, Magic Realism was a “widespread but not yet generally recognized trend in contemporary American art…. It is limited, in the main, to pictures of sharp focus and precise representation, whether the subject has been observed in the outer world—realism, or contrived by the imagination—magic realism.” In his introductory essay, Lincoln Kirstein took the concept a step further: “Magic realists try to convince us that extraordinary things are possible simply by painting them as if they existed.” This is Fransioli, in a nutshell. His cityscapes exist in time and space, but certainly not in the manner in which he portrays them. Fransioli—and other Magic Realists of his time—was also the heir to Precisionism, spawned from Cubism and Futurism after the Great War and popularized in the 1920s and early 1930s. While Fransioli may not have aspired to celebrate the Machine Age, heavy industry, and skyscrapers in the same manner as Charles Sheeler, his compositions tap into the same rigid gridwork of the urban landscape that was first codified by the Precisionists. During the 1950s, Fransioli was represented by the progressive Margaret Brown...

"Country Farmhouse" is a 9 x 10.5 inches, watercolor on paper painting by American illustrator, Henry James Soulen. The landscape is signed "H J Soulen" in the lower left, it is newl...