Charcoal Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Starting with observational drawings from life, these works evolve through a series of variations, modifying tonality and forest elements.Even though recognizable as trees, the artis...

Unexpected materials, found and manufactured, perch precariously on torn edges and bifurcated sheets of large paper. Here, fluid calligraphic lines are posed against the veracity of ...

Landscape is a modern artwork realized in the 19th century Charcoal drawings. Good conditions 

Bridge on the River is a beautiful drawing in pencil and charcoal realized by the French painter Emile-Louis Minet in 1919. The state of preservation is very good, except for a small...

Landscape is a beautiful drawing realized by the French artist Michel Dumas in the mid-19th century. The state of preservation is very good, except for some light folds on the higher...

Vintage Mixed Media Cityscape Illustration c.1960s Late Fall or early Winter scene of an urban environment with figures, buildings, barren trees i...

Erle Loran (American, 1905-1999) Set of six landscapes Each mixed media on paper Two signed, lower right and left corners Sheet (largest, unframed): 8.25"h x 11.25"w. Loran was a very influential Bay Area artist whose works are held in public collections across the U.S., including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, de Young Museum, SF MoMA...

Artist: Ian Hornak (1944-2002) Title: (Abstract Still Life) Untitled Year: circa 1965 Medium: Charcoal on archival paper Size: 11 x 14 inches Condition: Good Provenance: Estate of Ia...

Signed to the lower left. Presented in a slim gilt frame. On laid.

Paper paint charcoal collage Paper charcoal collage These collages were created first in the presence of a live model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alon...

Buck Schiwetz (1898-1984) Houston Artist Size: 10 x 15.5 Frame: 16.5 x 22 Medium: Charcoal on Paper unsigned from the collection of a Schiwetz Family Member. 1961 "Dallas" Cityscape....

A striking perspective drawing of St Mark's Square by British artist Derek Bridgwater. Dominating the east end of the scene, St Mark's basilica sits with its grand domes and Romanesq...

Anonymous A bomber plane landing Charcoal sketch 34 x 43 cm This charcoal sketch depicts a four-engine bomber coming into land, featuring a further tw...

"PAK" is an original charcoal drawing on paper by Stephanie Buer measuring 16”h x 22”w when framed. This piece ships ready-to-hang in the pictured frame. Stephanie Buer, now based i...

Soft pastel on Grey toned archival paper signed and dated. This is a large pastel painting suitable for framing under glass. The artist is reminded of the great Italian painter after...

Sophie Harden Duel Sketch Charcoal on Paper Image Size: H 25cm x W 38cm x D 0.1cm Framed Size: H 41cm x W 55cm x D 3.5cm Sold Framed in a Black Frame Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look. Duel Sketch is an original drawing of elephants...

A spectacular charcoal depiction of the impressive interior of Bath abbey. The artist has captured the vaulted ceilings and darkened tombs with wonder...

Charcoal on paper drawing by Toronto-based artist Katherine Curci. Framed. Katherine Curci began this series of charcoal drawings, premiered in This L...

With an inscribed artist label on the reverse. Well presented in a double card mount and painted wood frame. Signed. On wove.

Paper paint charcoal collage Paper charcoal collage These collages were created first in the presence of a live model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alon...

"Feel the Beat" is a dynamic artwork features three figures caught in a moment of rhythmic movement, exuding an ethereal energy. Each figure is rendered in a monochromatic palette, e...

"Behind the Studio" is a realist charcoal on paper drawing. It depicts the treed filled forrest behind the aritst's studio in Sag Harbor, NY. Frame Dimensions 26 x 34in Framed und...

Charcoal on paper drawing by Toronto-based artist Katherine Curci. From her "Irrepressible" series. Comes framed. Honolulu Cityscape, Honolulu, HI Katherine Curci began this series...

Charcoal on paper drawing by Toronto-based artist Katherine Curci. From her "Irrepressible" series. Comes framed. Lake Pleasant, Phoenix, AZ Katherine Curci began this series of ch...

Un Chemin dans la Forêt by Paulémile Pissarro (1884-1972) Pastel and charcoal on paper 24 x 31 cm (9 ¹/₂ x 12 ¹/₄ inches) Stamped lower middle-right, Paulémile Pissarro Provenance E...

HAROLD CHEESMAN, RSA (1915-1982) Figures at Road Junction Signed, inscribed with title and dated 1960 on a label on the backboard Charcoal and black conte crayon Framed 36 by 53 ...

Barr, Wyatt. NEWRY. Drawing, Charcoal and ink wash on Arches 300lb. Hot Press Watercolor paper, 2014. The subject is a hillside next to Step Falls in Newry, Maine. Signed and dated. ...

Italian Landscape with Pylons, Watercolour and Charcoal Painting, 1950s Additional information: Medium: Watercolour and charcoal 23.4 x 32.3 cm 9 1/4 x 12 3/4 in Tadeusz Piotr (Pet...

Figures is a Pastel and Charcoal drawing realized by Jaques Hesvalle in the Mid-20th Century. Hand-signed. Good conditions with slight foxing.

Gustave Bourgogne (1888-1968) Landscape near Saint-Malo Charcoal and gouache on paper, 12 x 20 cm Signed and located Provenance Private collection, Paris, France Gustave Bourgogne...

"Fishing Boat" is an original ink and charcoal drawing on handmade amate paper by Miguel Castro Leñero. The artist signed the piece lower right. This piece features a lone boat on open water...

This watercolour is hand signed and dated in pencil by the artist "Heckel 22" [1922] in the lower left image. It is also hand titled in pencil “Grauer Tag” [Grey Day] in the lower l...

Paper paint charcoal collage Paper charcoal collage These collages were created first in the presence of a live model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alon...

Paper paint charcoal collage on colored paper These collages were created first in the presence of a live model, working quickly, in charcoal and pastel, and again, later, alone in ...

"Abstract" is an original charcoal drawing on paper American artist Willard Ayers Nash (1898-1942), created in the early 20th century. This striking piece features an abstracted landscape scene, showcasing Nash's mastery of form and dynamic expression. The drawing is presented in a custom black frame with outer dimensions of 22 x 20 x ¾ inches, and the image size is 14 ½ x 12 ¾ inches. This charcoal drawing is in excellent vintage condition. For a detailed condition report, please feel free to contact us. Expedited and international shipping available—please contact us for a shipping quote. About the Artist: Willard Ayers Nash (1898-1942), born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a talented American painter and key figure in the Santa Fe...

Aldo Conti (1890 - 1988) Porta Venezia Drawing in charcoal, pastel and white lead on cardboard, 29 x 38 cm Signed and Titled Lower Right The item is in good condition

Landscape is an original drawing in charcoal realized in the early 20th Century by Edmond Cuisinier (1857-1917). Monogrammed on the lower. Good conditions. The artwork is depicted...

Painting, 20th century, charcoal drawing "Venice - Gondolier" by Paul Kuhfuss Original drawing. Signed and dated. Title "Traghetto". Framed, behind glass. Drawing unfortunately torn. Dimensions with frame 65.5cm x 51cm. Age-related condition. For magazines from the publishers Scherl, Mosse, Ullstein, youth (Munich) he worked as an illustrator. In October 1935, he was denounced to the Gestapo by a member of the artist association "Berlin North" for "expressionist impact" and "resistance to Nazi cultural propaganda" and the defense of Jewish colleagues after an exhibition opening in the castle Niederschönhausen. After that, participation in art exhibitions in Berlin was no longer possible. From 1945 he was until January 1960 lecturer at the Volkshochschule Berlin. From 1949 to 1954 he was in charge of the class "Act, Set Design and Costume Design" at the Textile and Clothing School Berlin. From 1912 to 1960 he participated in 173 exhibitions, in particular the Great Berlin Art Exhibitions...

French Landscape is a drawing in Charcoal and watercolor in the early 20th Century by Jean Le Soudier. Good Conditions. The artwork is depicted through soft strokes in a well-balan...

The Village is an original drawing in charcoal realized by an anonymous artist in 20 century, and signed "O. Rosai" (probably a fake signature). Good condition. The artwork is depi...

Rivers of the Tiber is an original Contemporary artwork realized by Nazareno Gattamelata in the 1970s. Original oil Pastel and Charcoal Good conditions. Rivers of the Tiber is an original work depicting a typical urban Roman landscape realized by the Italian artist Nazareno Gattamelata. He frequented the Roman artistic environment that revolves around the "trident" between the poles of the Caffè Rosati and Canova in Piazza del Popolo and the Osterie of the "Bottaro" and the "King of friends" around Via Ripetta. He makes friends in particular with the poet Sandro Penna and the sculptors Francesco Coccia and Pietro de Laurentiis.

Oscar Bluemner was a German and an American, a trained architect who read voraciously in art theory, color theory, and philosophy, a writer of art criticism both in German and English, and, above all, a practicing artist. Bluemner was an intense man, who sought to express and share, through drawing and painting, universal emotional experience. Undergirded by theory, Bluemner chose color and line for his vehicles; but color especially became the focus of his passion. He was neither abstract artist nor realist, but employed the “expressional use of real phenomena” to pursue his ends. (Oscar Bluemner, from unpublished typescript on “Modern Art” for Camera Work, in Bluemner papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, as cited and quoted in Jeffrey R. Hayes, Oscar Bluemner [1991], p. 60. The Bluemner papers in the Archives [hereafter abbreviated as AAA] are the primary source for Bluemner scholars. Jeffrey Hayes read them thoroughly and translated key passages for his doctoral dissertation, Oscar Bluemner: Life, Art, and Theory [University of Maryland, 1982; UMI reprint, 1982], which remains the most comprehensive source on Bluemner. In 1991, Hayes published a monographic study of Bluemner digested from his dissertation and, in 2005, contributed a brief essay to the gallery show at Barbara Mathes, op. cit.. The most recent, accessible, and comprehensive view of Bluemner is the richly illustrated, Barbara Haskell, Oscar Bluemner: A Passion for Color, exhib. cat. [New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 2005.]) Bluemner was born in the industrial city of Prenzlau, Prussia, the son and grandson of builders and artisans. He followed the family predilection and studied architecture, receiving a traditional and thorough German training. He was a prize-winning student and appeared to be on his way to a successful career when he decided, in 1892, to emigrate to America, drawn perhaps by the prospect of immediate architectural opportunities at the Chicago World’s Fair, but, more importantly, seeking a freedom of expression and an expansiveness that he believed he would find in the New World. The course of Bluemner’s American career proved uneven. He did indeed work as an architect in Chicago, but left there distressed at the formulaic quality of what he was paid to do. Plagued by periods of unemployment, he lived variously in Chicago, New York, and Boston. At one especially low point, he pawned his coat and drafting tools and lived in a Bowery flophouse, selling calendars on the streets of New York and begging for stale bread. In Boston, he almost decided to return home to Germany, but was deterred partly because he could not afford the fare for passage. He changed plans and direction again, heading for Chicago, where he married Lina Schumm, a second-generation German-American from Wisconsin. Their first child, Paul Robert, was born in 1897. In 1899, Bluemner became an American citizen. They moved to New York City where, until 1912, Bluemner worked as an architect and draftsman to support his family, which also included a daughter, Ella Vera, born in 1903. All the while, Oscar Bluemner was attracted to the freer possibilities of art. He spent weekends roaming Manhattan’s rural margins, visiting the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, and New Jersey, sketching landscapes in hundreds of small conté crayon drawings. Unlike so many city-based artists, Bluemner did not venture out in search of pristine countryside or unspoiled nature. As he wrote in 1932, in an unsuccessful application for a Guggenheim Fellowship, “I prefer the intimate landscape of our common surroundings, where town and country mingle. For we are in the habit to carry into them our feelings of pain and pleasure, our moods” (as quoted by Joyce E. Brodsky in “Oscar Bluemner in Black and White,” p. 4, in Bulletin 1977, I, no. 5, The William Benton Museum of Art, Storrs, Connecticut). By 1911, Bluemner had found a powerful muse in a series of old industrial towns, mostly in New Jersey, strung along the route of the Morris Canal. While he educated himself at museums and art galleries, Bluemner entered numerous architectural competitions. In 1903, in partnership with Michael Garven, he designed a new courthouse for Bronx County. Garven, who had ties to Tammany Hall, attempted to exclude Bluemner from financial or artistic credit, but Bluemner promptly sued, and, finally, in 1911, after numerous appeals, won a $7,000 judgment. Barbara Haskell’s recent catalogue reveals more details of Bluemner’s architectural career than have previously been known. Bluemner the architect was also married with a wife and two children. He took what work he could get and had little pride in what he produced, a galling situation for a passionate idealist, and the undoubted explanation for why he later destroyed the bulk of his records for these years. Beginning in 1907, Bluemner maintained a diary, his “Own Principles of Painting,” where he refined his ideas and incorporated insights from his extensive reading in philosophy and criticism both in English and German to create a theoretical basis for his art. Sometime between 1908 and 1910, Bluemner’s life as an artist was transformed by his encounter with the German-educated Alfred Stieglitz, proprietor of the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession at 291 Fifth Avenue. The two men were kindred Teutonic souls. Bluemner met Stieglitz at about the time that Stieglitz was shifting his serious attention away from photography and toward contemporary art in a modernist idiom. Stieglitz encouraged and presided over Bluemner’s transition from architect to painter. During the same period elements of Bluemner’s study of art began to coalesce into a personal vision. A Van Gogh show in 1908 convinced Bluemner that color could be liberated from the constraints of naturalism. In 1911, Bluemner visited a Cézanne watercolor show at Stieglitz’s gallery and saw, in Cézanne’s formal experiments, a path for uniting Van Gogh’s expressionist use of color with a reality-based but non-objective language of form. A definitive change of course in Bluemner’s professional life came in 1912. Ironically, it was the proceeds from his successful suit to gain credit for his architectural work that enabled Bluemner to commit to painting as a profession. Dividing the judgment money to provide for the adequate support of his wife and two children, he took what remained and financed a trip to Europe. Bluemner traveled across the Continent and England, seeing as much art as possible along the way, and always working at a feverish pace. He took some of his already-completed work with him on his European trip, and arranged his first-ever solo exhibitions in Berlin, Leipzig, and Elberfeld, Germany. After Bluemner returned from his study trip, he was a painter, and would henceforth return to drafting only as a last-ditch expedient to support his family when his art failed to generate sufficient income. Bluemner became part of the circle of Stieglitz artists at “291,” a group which included Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and Arthur Dove. He returned to New York in time to show five paintings at the 1913 Armory Show and began, as well, to publish critical and theoretical essays in Stieglitz’s journal, Camera Work. In its pages he cogently defended the Armory Show against the onslaught of conservative attacks. In 1915, under Stieglitz’s auspices, Bluemner had his first American one-man show at “291.” Bluemner’s work offers an interesting contrast with that of another Stieglitz architect-turned-artist, John Marin, who also had New Jersey connections. The years after 1914 were increasingly uncomfortable. Bluemner remained, all of his life, proud of his German cultural legacy, contributing regularly to German language journals and newspapers in this country. The anti-German sentiment, indeed mania, before and during World War I, made life difficult for the artist and his family. It is impossible to escape the political agenda in Charles Caffin’s critique of Bluemner’s 1915 show. Caffin found in Bluemner’s precise and earnest explorations of form, “drilled, regimented, coerced . . . formations . . . utterly alien to the American idea of democracy” (New York American, reprinted in Camera Work, no. 48 [Oct. 1916], as quoted in Hayes, 1991, p. 71). In 1916, seeking a change of scene, more freedom to paint, and lower expenses, Bluemner moved his family to New Jersey, familiar terrain from his earlier sketching and painting. During the ten years they lived in New Jersey, the Bluemner family moved around the state, usually, but not always, one step ahead of the rent collector. In 1917, Stieglitz closed “291” and did not reestablish a Manhattan gallery until 1925. In the interim, Bluemner developed relationships with other dealers and with patrons. Throughout his career he drew support and encouragement from art cognoscenti who recognized his talent and the high quality of his work. Unfortunately, that did not pay the bills. Chronic shortfalls were aggravated by Bluemner’s inability to sustain supportive relationships. He was a difficult man, eternally bitter at the gap between the ideal and the real. Hard on himself and hard on those around him, he ultimately always found a reason to bite the hand that fed him. Bluemner never achieved financial stability. He left New Jersey in 1926, after the death of his beloved wife, and settled in South Braintree, Massachusetts, outside of Boston, where he continued to paint until his own death in 1938. As late as 1934 and again in 1936, he worked for New Deal art programs designed to support struggling artists. Bluemner held popular taste and mass culture in contempt, and there was certainly no room in his quasi-religious approach to art for accommodation to any perceived commercial advantage. His German background was also problematic, not only for its political disadvantages, but because, in a world where art is understood in terms of national styles, Bluemner was sui generis, and, to this day, lacks a comfortable context. In 1933, Bluemner adopted Florianus (definitively revising his birth names, Friedrich Julius Oskar) as his middle name and incorporated it into his signature, to present “a Latin version of his own surname that he believed reinforced his career-long effort to translate ordinary perceptions into the more timeless and universal languages of art” (Hayes 1982, p. 189 n. 1). In 1939, critic Paul Rosenfeld, a friend and member of the Stieglitz circle, responding to the difficulty in categorizing Bluemner, perceptively located him among “the ranks of the pre-Nazi German moderns” (Hayes 1991, p. 41). Bluemner was powerfully influenced in his career by the intellectual heritage of two towering figures of nineteenth-century German culture, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. A keen student of color theory, Bluemner gave pride of place to the formulations of Goethe, who equated specific colors with emotional properties. In a November 19, 1915, interview in the German-language newspaper, New Yorker Staats-Zeitung (Abendblatt), he stated: I comprehend the visible world . . . abstract the primary-artistic . . . and after these elements of realty are extracted and analyzed, I reconstruct a new free creation that still resembles the original, but also . . . becomes an objectification of the abstract idea of beauty. The first—and most conspicuous mark of this creation is . . . colors which accord with the character of things, the locality . . . [and which] like the colors of Cranach, van der Weyden, or Durer, are of absolute purity, breadth, and luminosity. . . . I proceed from the psychological use of color by the Old Masters . . . [in which] we immediately recognize colors as carriers of “sorrow and joy” in Goethe’s sense, or as signs of human relationship. . . . Upon this color symbolism rests the beauty as well as the expressiveness, of earlier sacred paintings. Above all, I recognize myself as a contributor to the new German theory of light and color, which expands Goethe’s law of color through modern scientific means (as quoted in Hayes 1991, p. 71). Hayes has traced the global extent of Bluemner’s intellectual indebtedness to Hegel (1991, pp. 36–37). More specifically, Bluemner made visual, in his art, the Hegelian world view, in the thesis and antithesis of the straight line and the curve, the red and the green, the vertical and the horizontal, the agitation and the calm. Bluemner respected all of these elements equally, painting and drawing the tension and dynamic of the dialectic and seeking ultimate reconciliation in a final visual synthesis. Bluemner was a keen student of art, past and present, looking, dissecting, and digesting all that he saw. He found precedents for his non-naturalist use of brilliant-hued color not only in the work Van Gogh and Cezanne, but also in Gauguin, the Nabis, and the Symbolists, as well as among his contemporaries, the young Germans of Der Blaue Reiter. Bluemner was accustomed to working to the absolute standard of precision required of the architectural draftsman, who adjusts a design many times until its reality incorporates both practical imperatives and aesthetic intentions. Hayes describes Bluemner’s working method, explaining how the artist produced multiple images playing on the same theme—in sketch form, in charcoal, and in watercolor, leading to the oil works that express the ultimate completion of his process (Hayes, 1982, pp. 156–61, including relevant footnotes). Because of Bluemner’s working method, driven not only by visual considerations but also by theoretical constructs, his watercolor and charcoal studies have a unique integrity. They are not, as is sometimes the case with other artists, rough preparatory sketches. They stand on their own, unfinished only in the sense of not finally achieving Bluemner’s carefully considered purpose. The present charcoal drawing is one of a series of images that take as their starting point the Morris Canal as it passed through Rockaway, New Jersey. The Morris Canal industrial towns that Bluemner chose as the points of departure for his early artistic explorations in oil included Paterson with its silk mills (which recalled the mills in the artist’s childhood home in Elberfeld), the port city of Hoboken, Newark, and, more curiously, a series of iron ore mining and refining towns, in the north central part of the state that pre-dated the Canal, harkening back to the era of the Revolutionary War. The Rockaway theme was among the original group of oil paintings that Bluemner painted in six productive months from July through December 1911 and took with him to Europe in 1912. In his painting journal, Bluemner called this work Morris Canal at Rockaway N.J. (AAA, reel 339, frames 150 and 667, Hayes, 1982, pp. 116–17), and exhibited it at the Galerie Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin in 1912 as Rockaway N. J. Alter Kanal. After his return, Bluemner scraped down and reworked these canvases. The Rockaway picture survives today, revised between 1914 and 1922, as Old Canal, Red and Blue (Rockaway River) in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D. C. (color illus. in Haskell, fig. 48, p. 65). For Bluemner, the charcoal expression of his artistic vision was a critical step in composition. It represented his own adaptation of Arthur Wesley’s Dow’s (1857–1922) description of a Japanese...

Landscape is a beautiful original drawing on paper realized by Robert Santerne between the 1930s and 1940s. Stamped on the rear "Atelier R.Santerne" Aged conditions with repaired r...

In this drawing, Sylvia Spicuzza presents the viewer with a dark, subtle view of two milkweed pods, bursting forth with cotton. Examples like this show the ability of Spicuzza to draw in a naturalistic style, where most of her work is usually in a highly stylized, graphic mode. The richness and depth of the black charcoal makes for a moody image. 8 x 5 inches, artwork 18 x 14.5 inches, frame Born in 1908, Sylvia Spicuzza was the daughter of noted painter Francesco Spicuzza. Sylvia devoted herself to teaching art to the students of Lake Bluff...

Landscape is an original drawing artwork in mixed media, charcoal and oil pastel, on cardboard, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970s. The state of preservati...

Landscape is an original drawing artwork in mixed media on cardboard, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970s. The state of preservation is very good. Sheet di...

Composition is a drawing in mixed media on cardboard, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970s. The state of preservation is very good. Sheet dimension: 54.5 x ...

Landscape is an original drawing artwork in mixed media on cardboard, charcoal and oil pastel, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970. The state of preservation...

Landscape is a drawing in mixed media, charcoal and oil pastel on cardboard, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970s. The state of preservation is very good. S...

Composition is a drawing artwork in mixed media on cardboard, realized by Sun Jingyuan in 1970s. The state of preservation is very good. Sheet dimension:...

City is an original drawing in pencil realized by Simon Goldberg (1913-1985). Hand-signed on the lower right. The state of preservation is good. Sheet dimension: 27 x 21 cm. The a...

The village is a charcoal drawing realized by Jean Chapin in the early XX century. Signature stamp of the artist on the lower right margin. The drawing is detached from a notebook....

London Harbor is an original drawing on paper realized in the 1930s by Robert Louis Antral. This is an original black and white drawing representing a v...

In this drawing, Sylvia Spicuzza presents the viewer with a dark, subtle view of two apples, still clinging to their leaves. Examples like this show the ability of Spicuzza to draw i...

Graphite and charcoal on paper signed by the artist. 7.38" x 8.63" 16.75" x 15.5" frame Framed to conservation standards. Float mounted on 100% cotton matboard and glazed in UF5 Plexiglass that filters 99% of UV Rays to ensure the preservation of the piece. All housed in a bold miter jointed bevel frame in distressed silver finish with reflective accents. Francesco J. Spicuzza, born in Sicily on July 23, 1883, came to America at the age of 8. He supported himself as a fruit peddler until a newspaperman gave him $4 a week to go to school. He attended classes at the Milwaukee Art Students League, where he studied under Alexander Mueller. There he learned to paint in the then-fashionable "Munich School" technique, with detailed realism in heavy browns and grayed-out hues. Spicuzza completed eight grades in four years, and then in 1911, three businessmen advanced him enough money to allow him to study in New York under artist and teacher John Carlson. It was during this time that Spicuzza changed his style of painting, developing an impressionistic use of color, form and atmospheric renditions. After a period of grinding poverty, one of Spicuzza's pictures won a major New York competition. It was the first of 60 wins, both in the U.S. and Paris. He became a fashionable painter, and many of the leading collections have his work. Spicuzza's typical works were beach scenes, still life, landscapes and portraits done in pastels, oils, ink, charcoal and watercolors. Much of his work traced the history of Milwaukee in the early 1900s. He was probably best known for his scenes of women and children splashing in the waves...

"Mountain Mystery" is an original signed charcoal drawing by David Barnett. The surrealistic landscape depicts mountainous natural forms with swirling lines and an element of uncerta...

"Monkey Island at Washington Park Zoo" is an original graphite and charcoal drawing on paper by Francesco Spicuzza. It depicts a number of figures gazing out at a monkey enclosure at a zoo. The artist signed the piece in the lower left. 8 1/2" x 11 3/4" art 17 1/4" x 21 1/8" frame Francesco J. Spicuzza, born in Sicily on July 23, 1883, came to America at the age of 8. He supported himself as a fruit peddler until a newspaperman gave him $4 a week to go to school. He attended classes at the Milwaukee Art Students League, where he studied under Alexander Mueller. There he learned to paint in the then-fashionable "Munich School" technique, with detailed realism in heavy browns and grayed-out hues. Spicuzza completed eight grades in four years, and then in 1911, three businessmen advanced him enough money to allow him to study in New York under artist and teacher John Carlson. It was during this time that Spicuzza changed his style of painting, developing an impressionistic use of color, form and atmospheric renditions. After a period of grinding poverty, one of Spicuzza's pictures won a major New York competition. It was the first of 60 wins, both in the U.S. and Paris. He became a fashionable painter, and many of the leading collections have his work. Spicuzza's typical works were beach scenes, still life, landscapes and portraits done in pastels, oils, ink, charcoal and watercolors. Much of his work traced the history of Milwaukee in the early 1900s. He was probably best known for his scenes of women and children splashing in...

Chicago-based fine art painter Bruno A. Surdo is classically trained in drawing and oil painting in the tradition of Renaissance masters. With strong command of the human form, Surdo...