Ray Skelton

Lou's Landing - Original Watercolor On Paper

Brightly colored Fauvist coastal landscape of a vivid purple cypress tree at the edge of the water, under a bright yellow sky and orange sun by Karen Druker (American, 1945). Signed ...

Lovely pastoral landscape of beautiful spring blossoms lining a quiet country lane by Jay Simm (American, 20th Century), c. 1960s. The delicate light pink flowers of the orchard in b...

Through The Trees - Original Watercolor on Paper Original watercolor painting depicting a grove of vibrant green trees by Bertram Spencer (American, 1918-1992). Presented in a lig...

Mid Century Island in the San Francisco Bay Landscape by Alexander Nepote Lovely late 1930's Impressionist watercolor of a Bay Area island by listed California artist Alexander Nepo...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) New York City Skyline View from the East River Watercolor on paper 13 x 19 inches Signed lower left In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Oscar Bluemner Sheepshead, Long Island, 1907 Signed with the artist's conjoined initials "OB" and dated "4-30 - 5 - 30" / "Aug 3, 07" Watercolor on paper 6 x 10 inches Provenance: J...

A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Cubist Watercolor, Harbor Scene & Rooftops by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. A vivid European harbor scene, depicting the whitewashed buildings ...

A Striking 1940s Landscape Watercolor with Classical Architectural by Noted Chicago Modern Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Most likely completed during the artist's trip to Mexico in 1944 a...