Robert W. Milliken

White Fronts Along the Coast (White Fronted Geese, Ireland Landscape)

ca. 1960

Tshidiso Andrew Motjuoadi (1935-1968) Bottle Bag (A Penny for a Bottle). 1963. Ink on handmade paper laid down on plywood board, panel measures 20.5 x 28.75 inches. Signed and dated ...

Lovely Dog memorial drawing signed Sheridan "Scarab", 1998. Color pencil on sheet of yellow paper, 8.5 x 11 inches. Signed, titles and dated upper right. Unframed.

Surrealist proto-Afropunk drawing by African-American artist, Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Animal Capers, ca. 1970 . Ink on illustration board, image measures 20 inches. inches; illustration panel measures 21.5 inches. Unsigned. Minor staining evident in detail photos Artist and art educator, Roland Ayers was born on July 2, 1932, the only child of Alice and Lorenzo Ayers, and grew up in the Germantown district of Philadelphia. Ayers served in the US Army (stationed in Germany) before studying at the Philadelphia College of Art (currently University of the Arts). He graduated with a BFA in Art Education, 1954. He traveled Europe 1966-67, spending time in Amsterdam and Greece in particular. During this period, he drifted away from painting to focus on linear figurative drawings of a surreal nature. His return home inaugurated the artist’s most prolific and inspired period (1968-1975). Shorty before his second major trip abroad in 1971-72 to West Africa, Ayers began to focus on African themes, and African American figures populated his work almost exclusively. In spite of Ayers’ travel and exploration of the world, he gravitated back to his beloved Germantown, a place he endowed with mythological qualities in his work and literature. His auto-biographical writing focuses on the importance of place during his childhood. Ayers’ journals meticulously document the ethnic and cultural make-up of Germantown, and tell a compelling story of class marginalization that brought together poor families despite racial differences. The distinctive look and design of Germantown inform Ayers’ visual vocabulary. It is a setting with distinctive Gothic Revival architecture and haunting natural beauty. These characteristics are translated and recur in the artist’s imagery. During his childhood, one of the only books in the Ayers household was an illustrated Bible. The images within had a profound effect on the themes and subjects that would appear in his adult work. Figures in an Ayers’ drawing often seem trapped in a narrative of loss and redemption. Powerful women loom large in the drawings: they suggest the female role models his journals record in early life. The drawings can sometimes convey a strong sense of conflict, and at other times, harmony. Nature and architecture seem to have an antagonistic relationship that is, ironically, symbiotic. A critical turning point in the artist’s career came in 1971 when he was included in the extremely controversial Whitney Museum show, Contemporary Black Artists in America. The exhibition gave Ayers an international audience and served as a calling card for introductions he would soon make in Europe. Ayers is a particularly compelling figure in a period when black artists struggled with the idea of authenticity. A questioned often asked was “Is your work too black, or not black enough?” Abstractionists were considered by some peers to be sell-outs, frauds or worse. Figurative* work was accused of being either sentimental or politically radical depending on the critical source. Ayers made the choice early on to be a figurative artist, but considered his work devoid of political content. Organizations such as Chicago’ s Afri-Cobra in the late 1960‘s asserted that the only true black art of any relevance must depict the black man and woman...

Beautiful original drawing by American artist, Albert Sway (b.1913). Cincinnati Cityscape, ca. 1935. Ink on paper measures, sheet measures 11 x 17 inches. Signed lower right. No da...

Stanislaw Sobolewski (born in 1952) Studied philology at the Jagiellonian University (1971-1976) and painting under prof. Zbigniew Grzybowski at the Academy of Fine Arts (1974-1979)....

Signed lower right, 'Jack B. Bevier' for Jack Bernard Bevier (American, 1923-1996) and painted circa 1985. Born in Michigan, Bevier was primarily a watercolor painter who specialized in rural country landscapes, seascapes of the Monterey Peninsula, boat and harbor scenes. Jack Bevier was educated in Ann Arbor, Michigan before serving 3 years in the Army Air Corp during World War II. After the war he attended the Art Institute of Chicago where he graduated with honors. After six years of painting and working in the commercial art business in Chicago, Bevier moved to California. He settled in the Salinas area on the Monterey Peninsula in 1956 and operated a gallery in Carmel, California for many years. His works have been exhibited widely and with success including at the National Watercolor Society...

Signed lower left "John Faulkner, RHA" (Anglo-Irish, 1835-1894), titled, 'Return from the Meadows' and painted circa 1880. A substantial nineteenth century watercolor and gouache s...

Three Setters on Point Edmund Henry Osthaus (German, 1858-1928) Watercolor on Paper Signed Lower Right 18 x 27 inches 24.5 x 33.5 inches with frame Born in Hildesheim, Germany, Edmu...