Mary Johnsen

4 American Watercolors, c. 1950s, by Mary M. Johnsen

c. 1950s

Ranulph Bye (American, 1916-2003) Rocks and Trees (Doylestown, PA), 1958 Watercolor on paper 14 x 21 in. Framed: 23 1/8 x 30 1/4 in. Signed bottom: Ranulph...

Untitled (Coastal New York) Pastel on paper 17 1/2 x 23 1/2 in. Framed: 24 1/2 x 30 in. Signed lower right

Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) Untitled (Preparatory Drawing for Skyscape), Early 20th Century Pencil on paper 12 1/4 x 18 3/4 in. Inscribed: blue / white / blue / RV Born in Ashtab...

Francesco Spicuzza (American, 1883-1962) Untitled Landscape, 20th century Pastel on paper Sight size: 24 x 30 in. Framed: 26 1/4 x 32 3/8 in. Signed lower right: Spicuzza Italian-born Francesco Spicuzza was primarily a Wisconsin painter who did portraits, still-lives and local landscapes. He spent the first part of his life in near-poverty to become a painter. An eternal optimist, in 1917, the artist reported: "I am happy and my only ambition now is to paint better and better until I shall have reached the measure of the best of which I am capable." (Spicuzza, 1917, p. 22). His predilection for beach scenes germinated early: reportedly, the five-year-old boy first drew the outlines of his father's fishing boat in the sand on the seashore near their home in Sicily. After setting himself up as a fruit peddler in Milwaukee, Spicuzza's father sent for his family when Francesco was eight years old. For the following six years the boy was unable to attend school because of his job in his father's fruit and vegetable business. The poor lad suffered a caved-in shoulder from carrying a heavy wooden crate. The young Spicuzza was aided by moral and financial support from a sympathetic Milwaukee businessman named John Cramer, publisher and editor of the Evening Wisconsin, who raised Spicuzza's salary as a newspaper assembler so that he could attend school. In 1899 or 1900, Spicuzza began studying drawing and anatomy under Robert Schade (1861-1912), a painter of panoramas who had been trained in Munich under Carl Theodor von Piloty. Spicuzza was also taught by Alexander Mueller (1872-1935), a product of the Weimar and Munich academies. Mueller realized Spicuzza was a colorist and encouraged that orientation (Madle, 1961). Spicuzza found it beneficial to accept an apprenticeship in a lithographic studio for $8 a week, which demanded most of his time. During the St. Louis Universal Exposition in 1904, still a struggling student, Spicuzza attended the fair, thanks to Cramer. It was not long before Spicuzza received a twenty-five dollar portrait commission, and this inaugural success led to new commissions and allowed him to continue as a painter. The earliest influences in his work appear to be from Edward H. Potthast and Maurice Prendergast, though Spicuzza never mentioned either artist. Already in August 1910, Spicuzza was described in a newspaper as "one of the most talented of Milwaukee's rising workers." He undoubtedly received lasting inspiration from his one summer study period in 1911 with John F. Carlson at the Art Students League's Summer School in Woodstock, New York. Certainly Spicuzza would have picked up spontaneity in handling the brush from Carlson. Although he executed numerous still-lives and an occasional religious work, Spicuzza is best known for his Milwaukee beach scenes populated with frolicking bathers in multi-colored attire, not unlike the images of Potthast, who used a similar technique. Many of these are small, preparatory works on canvas board executed between 1910 and 1915. Frequently with even greater animation than Potthast, Spicuzza produced moving images of youthful energy and uninhibited child's play. These beach genre scenes reflect the attitude of American impressionists who depicted the more pleasant side of life. Spicuzza manipulated a successful balance of rich pigment applied in varying degrees of impasto texture with subtle nuances of hue. Working all'aperto, he sought "the soft enticing shades of yellow, blue, green, pink and lavender . . . to get the effects of bright glistening summer air." (L.E.S., n.d.). As a painter whose color not only derived from direct observation but also from a personal theory of color symbolism, Spicuzza traded the linear approach of lithography for dynamic patches of brilliant color. Like Prendergast, he would often tilt the angle of the picture plane to bring the viewer's position above the scene. Spicuzza was unable to enter the 1913 Armory Show or the Panama-Pacific International Exposition two years later but he did submit work to the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and those of the Art Institute of Chicago. His first important award was the bronze medal presented by the St. Paul Institute in 1913, which was followed by the silver medal two years later. Before long, Spicuzza had acquired a greater sense of security in his profession and was described by a writer in International Studio (April 1917) as "an independent artist with an assured future. His pastels and water-colours are poetic and joyous bits of nature with a genuine out-of-door feeling." In 1918, his Spirit of Youth, exhibited at the National Academy of Design, sold for $112.50. Four years later, the artist achieved his greatest local recognition by winning the gold medal from the Milwaukee Art Institute. Spicuzza spent a great deal of time painting en plein air and by 1925 he began summering at Big Cedar Lake, near West Bend, Wisconsin to gather his subject matter. Easter Morning (1926) owes something to the Symbolist movement, with its figure of Christ appearing over a seascape. During the difficult era of the Depression, patrons came to Spicuzza's aid and during the 40s, he taught housewives, businessmen and students at the Milwaukee Art Institute, the Milwaukee Art Center, and in his private studio. In the following decade, although his kind of art was no longer popular in the "make-it-or-break-it" New York gallery world, Spicuzza enjoyed regular patronage and sales. His beach scenes became more static and he would experiment with modernist techniques. Spicuzza died at the age of seventy-eight. Sources: L.E.S., "Do Colors Change a Person's disposition? Experiments of a Milwaukee Artist...

Untitled (Mountainside Trail), c. 1900 Watercolor on paper 6 1/8 x 7 3/4 in. Mat: 8 x 10 in.

Stein am Rhine, 1912 Watercolor on paper 7 x 5 in. Mat: 10 3/4 x 8 3/4 in. Inscribed lower right: Stein a/Rh, Juni 1912 At the point where Lake Constance again becomes the Rhine Riv...

Watercolor painting of Old City of Jerusalem MORDECHAI AVNIEL Minsk, Belarus, b. 1900, d. 1989 Mordecai Dickstein (later Avniel) was born in 1900 in Minsk, present-day Belarus. He studied fine arts in Yekaterinburg, Russia (1913–19) and at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem (1923). Avniel immigrated to Palestine in 1921 where he first worked as a pioneer in citrus plantations near Petah Tikva. In 1923, at the urging of Boris Schatz, he went to Jerusalem to further his art studies at Bezalel. He later taught painting and sculpture at the school, and served a term as director of the Small Sculpture Section of the Sculpture Department (1924–28). From 1935 on, Avniel lived in Haifa. Avniel was also a lawyer and a founding partner of the Haifa firm Avniel, Salomon & Company. Avniel regularly showed his work in group exhibitions of the Painters and Sculptors' Association of Israel. He was awarded the Herman Struck Prize (1952), Tenth Anniversary Prize for Watercolours, Ramat Gan (1958), Histadrut Prize (1961), and First Prize Haifa Municipality (1977). He represented Israel at the 1958 Venice Biennale and the 1962 International Art Seminar at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Avniel was a member of the Artists' Colony in Safed and maintained a studio on Mount Carmel. Mordechai Avniel is best known for his deft and singular landscape work. His works are held in numerous museums and collections both in Israel and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum, New York and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA. Avniel's manipulations of light and colour share much with those of compatriot artists Shimshon Holzman and Joseph Kossonogi. Education 1913-19 Art School of Katrinburg, Russia 1923 Bezalel School of Art, Jerusalem Selected exhibitions: 2004: Our Landscape: Notes on Landscape Painting in Israel, University of Haifa Art Gallery, Haifa (online catalogue) 1965: Mordechai Avniel Retrospective, Haifa Municipality Museum of Modern Art, Haifa 1964: Galerie Synthèse, Paris 1962: New York University, New York 1961: Rina Gallery of Modern Art, Jerusalem The Autumn Exhibition Rina Gallery, Jerusalem Artists: Dedi Ben Shaul, Lea Nikel, Yossef Zaritsky,Ephraim Fima Roytenberg, Zvi Meirovich, Aharon Kahana, Avigdor Stematsky, Mordechai Levanon, Yosl Bergner, Israel Paldi...

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