Gershon Benjamin"The Swimming Pool"1968
1968
About the Item
- Creator:Gershon Benjamin (1899, American)
- Creation Year:1968
- Dimensions:Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 21 in (53.34 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Lambertville, NJ
- Reference Number:
Gershon Benjamin
In a body of work that spans seven decades, obscure American modernist artist Gershon Benjamin explored a varied range of tone, style and subject matter in watercolor, oil and charcoal. Not one to resign himself to a single trademark theme, Benjamin focused on an eclectic array of subjects. His paintings included landscapes, portraits, still lifes and urban scenes.
Benjamin was born in Romania just before the turn of the 20th century. His family moved to Montreal in 1901 to escape ethnic persecution. At 10, Benjamin began studying art at the Canadian Council of Arts and Manufacturers, in Quebec. When he was 12, the Royal Canadian Academy admitted Benjamin.
In 1923, Benjamin moved to New York City, where he secured a night job in the art department of The Sun newspaper. He also enrolled in the Art Students League, where he learned engraving from the notable lithographer Joseph Pennell and drawing from illustrator John Sloan.
Benjamin found inspiration in the work of Pablo Picasso and Paul Cézanne. He depicted urban life in meditative Expressionist paintings that later drew comparisons to the Ashcan School — Benjamin painted scenes of New York City’s blocky skyline, elevated subway trains, empty streets at dawn and the Brooklyn Bridge as he saw them on his way home from his night shift at the newspaper.
In New York, Benjamin forged friendships with creative people who were as in love with art as he was and painted with them in Gloucester, Massachusetts, during the city’s hot summers. A number of his acquaintances found a fair amount of fame — including artists Mark Rothko, Raphael Soyer and Milton Avery — whereas Benjamin sought none. And when artists of the era in Manhattan and elsewhere began to work in the style that would become known as Abstract Expressionism, Benjamin continued to create representational art. He remained largely obscure throughout his career, declining to promote or market his still lifes, landscapes and portraiture.
Benjamin's works are held in a number of private and public collections including the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Ulrich Museum of Art.
Find original Gershon Benjamin paintings on 1stDibs.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Lambertville, NJ
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- "Trees"By Gershon BenjaminLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...Category
1970s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel
- "Central Park"By Gershon BenjaminLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Ben...Category
1960s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel
- "Ocean Grove Beach"By Gershon BenjaminLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...Category
1950s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPastel, Board
- "Summer"By Gershon BenjaminLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...Category
1920s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPastel, Board
- "Grazing"By Gershon BenjaminLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...Category
1940s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Watercolor, Board
- "Grain Elevators, Buffalo"By Ralston CrawfordLocated in Lambertville, NJJim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Tobias Musicant (1921 – 2004) A new discovery in the art world is something always searched for and rarely found. Surely th...Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsWatercolor, Paper, Ink
- Modernist Watercolour On Paper, Trees At Buckfast AbbeyLocated in Cotignac, FREarly 1960s work on paper of a group of trees at Buckfast Abbey in Devon, England, by Alban Atkins. Signed bottom left, titled and dated to the reverse. There is also a collection or accession number to the backboard. Atkins has captured the sculptural nature of the tree trunks as they have grown in the landscape giving the work a feeling of living, writhing things as well as an abstract feel in the composition. Atkins was one of the group of important artists chosen and commissioned by Sir Kenneth Clark...Category
1960s Modern Landscape Paintings
MaterialsWatercolor, Paper, Pastel, Ink
- Canadian Modernist Pastel Painting Drawing Trees Purple Green Framed 1915Located in Buffalo, NYA charming and well conceived Canadian modernist drawing. Unsigned but from the period of such well known artists as David Milne. Housed in a period frame the presentation n the wa...Category
1910s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel
- 1964 Original Pastel Watercolor Drawing Construction Workers SF Red Green BlackBy Gloria DudfieldLocated in Arp, TXGloria Dudfield Construction Workers and Red Truck 6-16-64 Pastel and Watercolor 41 1/2" x 36" unframed Signed and dated in pastel lower right Gloria (Fischer) Dudfield July 12, 192...Category
Late 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Watercolor, Pastel
- "Tokyo Diptych, " Yvonne Jacquette, Japanese Urban Cityscape Nocturnal AerialBy Yvonne JacquetteLocated in New York, NYYvonne Jacquette (American, b. 1935) Tokyo Diptych, 1985 Pastel on paper Overall 17 1/4 x 28 1/2 inches Signed lower center Provenance: Carey Ellis Company, Houston, Texas Brooke Alexander, New York Collection of an American Corporation Exhibited: New York, Brooke Alexander, Yvonne Jacquette: Tokyo Nightviews, April 5 - May 3, 1986, n.p., illustrated; this exhibition later traveled to Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Yvonne Jacquette: Tokyo Nightviews, June 27 - August 24, 1986. Yvonne Jacquette has a preference for high places, a circling plane, a penthouse window, an aerie from which to watch the world. Her work has often depicted the city and man-made landscape from the vantage of angels. It is a privileged perspective, long loved by photographers, who were perhaps the first to recognize the geometric grandeur of the city below. That grandeur structures Jacquette's images but is not its full content. Her work attempts to resolve the visual and emotional pardoxes of the modern metropolis. Only from the tower is there the possibility of order and context. And unlaced beauty. Jacquette first visited Japan in 1982. Nighttime Tokyo, its cars and crowds and canyons of loud Vegas neon, made a vivid and bewildering impression on her. The neon signs, pulsing, scaling the walls of high rises, fascinated the artist, "like Times Square spread over miles." Her fascination was equal parts marvel, confusion, and curiosity—the sparks of art. She returned to Tokyo in May of 1985, choosing hotel rooms with expansive vistas. From these views Jacquette excerpted images for a series of pastel night scenes. The basic forms and colors of each drawing were blocked in during night sessions by the window. She worked in the dark, selecting colors by flashlight. In daylight, she sharpened the geometry and corrected ambiguous passages. She refined the drawings further in the studio until the images read clearly. Photographic correctness was not important. The finished drawings are complete statements, not simply preparatory sketches for paintings. They have the authority of expert witness. In clear, discreet jots of pastel they record the performance of seeing, each touch of color attesting to a moment's close scrutiny. Yvonne Jacquette was born on December 15, 1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence from 1952 to 1955, when she moved to New York City. Her late husband was photographer Rudy Burckhardt, and the couple were part of a circle of artist friends that included Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz, Red Grooms, and Mimi Gross. She continues to live and work in New York City, as well as in Searsmont, Maine. A flight to San Diego in 1969 sparked Jacquette’s interest in aerial views, after which she began flying in commercial airliners to study cloud formations and weather patterns. She soon started sketching and painting the landscape as seen from above, beginning a process that has developed into a defining element of her art. Her first nocturnal painting...Category
1980s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel
- "New York City Harbor (Brooklyn Bridge), " Leon Dolice, East River, Mid-CenturyBy Leon DoliceLocated in New York, NYLeon Dolice (1892 - 1960) New York Harbor (Brooklyn Bridge), circa 1930-40 Pastel on paper 12 x 19 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Spanierman Gallery, New York The romantic b...Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel
- Lovely Impressionist Coastal Scene of New York in PastelLocated in Larchmont, NYUntitled (Coastal New York) Pastel on paper 17 1/2 x 23 1/2 in. Framed: 24 1/2 x 30 in. Signed lower rightCategory
20th Century American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
MaterialsPaper, Pastel