American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

NYC Watercolor Drawing American Modern 20th Century Modernism Mid-Century WPA. David Fredenthal (1914-1958) "View of New York from New Jersey,"7 x 10 inches. Watercolor on Paper, c. 1948. Signed lower right. David Fredenthal (1914 - 1958) was one ot America's most respected watercolor artists. He was famous for his bold, intensely vigorous and complex paintings and drawings that expressed his deep feeling for excitement with life and living. He was a draftsman with seemingly a special gift for catching anything, physically and emotionally on the spot, and he never went anywhere without three or four loaded pens and a sketchbook in his pocket. As part of the WPA project he executed a number of murals including the Sports Pavilion on the Heinz Building of the New York World's Fair 1939. Some of his fresco and mural techniques were inspired by his friendship with Diego Rivera who had admired and encouraged him in the early 1930's. After he won a traveling scholarship to Europe from The Museum of Modern Art at age 19, he was the recipient of two Guggenheim grants in Painting. He had his first solo exhibition at the Downtown Gallery in New York in 1937 at age 23, and many others after that including the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1947. Because of Fredenthal's prodigious drawing gifts, he was chosen by Erskine Caldwell to illustrate his novel "Tobacco Road...

Untitled (Taos Pueblo) Ink on paper, 1985-1990 Signed by the artist in ink lower right (see photo) An early New Mexico period work, created shortly after the artist moved from New York. Provenance: estate of the artist Dehn Heirs Condition: Excellent Image/sheet size: 13 1/8 x 18 1/2 inches Virginia Dehn From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Virginia Dehn Virginia Dehn in her studio in Santa Fe Virginia Dehn (née Engleman) (October 26, 1922 – July 28, 2005) was an American painter and printmaker. Her work was known for its interpretation of natural themes in almost abstract forms. She exhibited in shows and galleries throughout the U.S. Her paintings are included in many public collections. Life Dehn was born in Nevada, Missouri on October 26, 1922.] Raised in Hamden, Connecticut, she studied at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri before moving to New York City. She met the artist Adolf Dehn while working at the Art Students League. They married in November 1947. The two artists worked side by side for many years, part of a group of artists who influenced the history of 20th century American art. Their Chelsea brownstone was a place where artists, writers, and intellectuals often gathered. Early career Virginia Dehn studied art at Stephens College in Missouri before continuing her art education at the Traphagen School of Design, and, later, the Art Students League, both located in New York City. In the mid-1940s while working at the Associated American Artists gallery, she met lithographer and watercolorist Adolf Dehn. Adolf was older than Virginia, and he already enjoyed a successful career as an artist. The two were married in 1947 in a private ceremony at Virginia's parents house in Wallingford, Connecticut. Virginia and Adolf Dehn The Dehns lived in a Chelsea brownstone on West 21st Street where they worked side by side. They often hosted gatherings of other influential artists and intellectuals of the 20th century. Among their closest friends were sculptor Federico Castellón and his wife Hilda; writer Sidney Alexander and his wife Frances; artists Sally and Milton Avery; Ferol and Bill Smith, also an artist; and Lily and Georges Schreiber, an artist and writer. Bob Steed and his wife Gittel, an anthropologist, were also good friends of the Dehns. According to friend Gretchen Marple Pracht, "Virginia was a glamorous and sophisticated hostess who welcomed visitors to their home and always invited a diverse crowd of guests..." Despite their active social life, the two were disciplined artists, working at their easels nearly daily and taking Saturdays to visit galleries and view new work. The Dehns made annual trips to France to work on lithographs at the Atelier Desjobert in Paris. Virginia used a bamboo pen to draw directly on the stone for her lithographs, which often depicted trees or still lifes. The Dehns' other travels included visits to Key West, Colorado, Mexico, and countries such as Greece, Haiti, Afghanistan, and India. Dehn's style of art differend greatly from that of her husband, though the two sometimes exhibited together. A friend of the couple remarked, "Adolf paints landscapes; Virginia paints inscapes." Virginia Dehn generally painted an interior vision based on her feelings for a subject, rather than a literal rendition of it.] Many of her paintings consist of several layers, with earlier layers showing through. She found inspiration in the Abstract Expressionism movement that dominated the New York and Paris art scenes in the 1950s. Some of her favorite artists included Adolf Gottileb, Rothko, William Baziotes, Pomodoro, and Antonio Tapies. Dehn most often worked with bold, vibrant colors in large formats. Her subjects were not literal, but intuitive. She learned new techniques of lithography from her husband Adolf, and did her own prints. Texture was very important to her in her work. Her art was influenced by a variety of sources. In the late 1960s she came across a book that included photographs of organic patterns of life as revealed under a microscope. These images inspired her to change the direction of some of her paintings. Other influences on Dehn's art came from ancient and traditional arts of various cultures throughout the world, including Persian miniatures, illuminated manuscripts, Dutch still life painting, Asian art, ancient Egyptian artifacts...

Gouache on paper signed en verso Throughout his sixty-year artistic career, David Hayes created sculptural forms abstracted from organic forms encountered in daily life. He first st...

Leon 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...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Cliffs at Paramé, France, c. 1926 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 14 x 17.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17...

Signed and dated "Houtin 20" (lower left) Indian ink wash on paper mounted on canvas This utopian gardenscape was composed by the celebrated French artist François Houtin. Executed ...

Georgetown, Colorado, vintage 1938 WPA era ink drawing/painting on paper of a church set in a rocky mountain landscape by Charles Bunnell (1897-1968). Black on a creamy white paper, signed and dated lower right, titled lower left. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 16 ¼ x 14 ½ x 1¼ inches. Image size is 7 ¾ x 5 ¾ inches. Drawing is clean and in good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Charles Ragland Bunnell Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Charles Bunnell developed a love for art as a child in Kansas City, Missouri. Around 1915, Bunnell moved with his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado. He served in World War I and later used his GI Training to study at the Broadmoor Art Academy (later renamed the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) during 1922 and 1923. In 1922, he married fellow student, Laura Palmer...

Latvia-born William Sanderson became a contributor to the New Yorker and New Masses magazines during the 1930s. He was drafted into the Army during World Wa...

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...

Vintage view of storefronts in Estes Park, Colorado, near Rocky Mountain National Park by James Russell Sherman (1906-1989). Watercolor and ink on paper, signed by the artist in the ...

Modernist painting of trees, interior forest scene by Colorado artist, Richard Sorby (1911-2001). Painted in dark colors of green, blue and black with brown, orange and white. Water...

Reginald Marsh "Manhattan Bridge" NYC American Scene Modernism Watercolor WPA Urban Realism, 20 x 14 inches. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 1938. Signed...

Sally Barclay (1911-2000) was a New Jersey Artist known for her painting and activities as an art teacher. Signed front and back.

Untitled Mexican Landscape (Man Walking on Street) Ink and watercolor on paper. Signed with the estate stamp lower right (see photo) From the Estate of the Artist with the artist's estate stamp lower right. C. 1960's Condition: excellent Image/Sheet size: 9 7/8 x 7 5/8 inches William C. Grauer (1895-1985) William C. Grauer (1895-1985) was born in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. After attending the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, Grauer received a four year scholarship from the City of Philadelphia to pursue post graduate work. It was during this time that Grauer began working as a designer at the Decorative Stained Glass Co. in Philadelphia. Following his World War I service in France, Grauer moved to Akron, Ohio where he opened a studio in 1919 with his future brother-in-law, the architect George Evans Mitchell. Soon, the Rorimer-Brooks design company, the developer Van Swerngen brothers, as well as the Sterling Welch and Halle Bros. department stores realized the extent of Grauer's talent and eagerly employed him. Grauer’s work during this time included architectural renderings for Shaker Square, Moreland Courts, and other many other projects commissioned by Cleveland architects. Grauer also remained true to his roots as a master designer of stained glass windows. With his work in such high demand, Grauer received a commission in 1921 to paint murals for the French Grill...

Gouache on paper signed en verso Throughout his sixty-year artistic career, David Hayes created sculptural forms abstracted from organic forms encountered in daily life. He first st...

Gouache on paper signed en verso Throughout his sixty-year artistic career, David Hayes created sculptural forms abstracted from organic forms encountered in daily life. He first st...

VIEW OF THE BRONX Watercolor American Modern Modernism NYC 20th Century Drawing. Jan Matulka (1890 – 1972) "View of the Bronx," 15 x 20 inches. Watercolor on paper, c. 1920s. Signed lower Right. In 1907, he came to the Bronx, New York where he had a poverty-ridden childhood with a mother who tried to raise a family by herself. From 1908 to 1917, he studied at the National Academy of Design, and in 1917, received the first Pulitzer Traveling Scholarship with which he traveled and painted in the Southwest and Florida. His work from this period showed a turning towards a more abstract style, replacing his earlier realism. In 1919, he first went to Paris and then returned in 1927 on a scholarship from the National Academy. In Paris, he was exposed to Cubism, and his painting after that seemed always to carry that influence. He had his first one-man exhibit in New York City in 1925, and by 1930, he and Davis were experimenting with their version of Cubism. Concurrently for New Masses, a communist magazine, he did satiric illustrations expressing his sympathy for the working classes, and from 1929 to 1931, he taught at the Art Students League where he inspired emerging modernists such as David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, and I Rice...

Signed lower right, "Robert Landry" (American, 1921-1999) and painted circa 1965. Watercolor seascape showing a view of a rocky inlet with sailboats on the ocean. Robert Landry attended high school on the East Coast then went into the service during World War II. After the war, he studied art in Washington, D.C. and Minneapolis on the G.I. Bill. This led to work as a commercial illustrator for the United States Air Force Graphic Arts Division at the Pentagon, and as an art director for the Federal Aviation Agency and Convair Astronautics. After the late 1940s, he began a serious painting career and started exhibiting fine art watercolors...

Brightly colored abstract forest by unknown artist Dersham (20th Century). The trees in this piece are light in color, standing out from the saturated background. Multiple layers of ...

Artist: Unknown Title: Central Park in Fall Medium: Watercolor on paper, signed lower right Image Size: 17.5 x 25 inches Frame Size: 28 x 35 inches Watercolor of The Mall in Centra...

Landscape with buildings and trees Watercolor on paper, c. 1930's Signed in pencil lower right (see photo) Provenance: Estate of the artist Condition: Excellent Sheet size: 9 3/8 x 1...

Colorful abstract watercolor of imaginative shapes in a tropical setting with botanical landscape elements by Claire Wolf Krantz (American, b. 1938). Signed "Claire Wolf Krantz" lower right. Titled "Spires" lower center. Dated "11/18/77" and numbered "II" in a series lower left. Peach colored mat and bronze tone metal frame. Image, 14"H x 14"L. Kranz is an artist and art critic living in Chicago, she uses fictional and real elements in her works. She is known for mixed media works layering photograph...

A classic Richard Haas (born 1936) New York City view. Signed in pencil lower right. The fact that it is signed within the image, the drawn-upon area, leads me to think the artist wa...

Artist: Joseph Barber, American (1915 - 1998) Title: Dining Room Interior Year: circa 1945 Medium: Watercolor and Pastel on Paper, signed l.l. Size: 15 x 21 inches (38 x 53.5 cm) Fra...

Apparently Bendiner never went a day without drawing. He was amazing! In this scene of a young 'cowgirl' is working a lasso while an 'old cowhand' looks on -- clutching a cigaret of...

Apparently Bendiner never went a day without drawing. He was amazing! From Bendiner's Philadelphia the New Jersey beaches were an easy drive. Avalon is st...

Signed in pencil. Blanche Grambs, whose career started with the WPA, later developed a career in illustration. Her botanical illustrations are especiall...

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...

Signed in pencil. Blanche Grambs, whose career started with the WPA, later developed a career in illustration. This drawing, watercolor and ink on trac...

Color Aid paper, Paint, Contemporary collage Hand cut color-aid paper Worked with Robert Indiana Philomena Marano has spent decades “penetrat[ing] th...

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...

Mixed Media work of a Texas national park called Big Bend. The work consists of a landscape photograph with color pencil drawing around the photograph that continues the landscape. T...

"Winter Wonderland (Snowman, Pine Tree, Rabbit)" is a gouache and collage on paper bag signed by Sylvia Spicuzza. A winter scene showing a happy snowman that was created with arms up in the air and a top hat upon his head. In the foreground sits a bunny looking at the snow man...

Signed lower right, 'Gilberg' for Robert George Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) and painted circa 1965. Born in Oakland, Robert George Gilberg first studied at the Oakland Art Center during the 1930s. Following service during WWII, he settled in Nevada City, California where he lived and painted until shortly before his death in San Francisco. Gilberg exhibited widely and with success and was the recipient of numerous medals, prizes and juried awards, including at the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts...

William Thon, 'Upper Tuscany', a two-sided watercolor, c. 1955. Signed, lower right; titled verso. A fine, expressionist work, with fresh colors, on cream watercolor paper; the image...

Reginald Marsh "Brooklyn Bridge" NYC Modernism WPA Mid-Century Watercolor Modern Reginald Marsh (American, 1898-1954) Brooklyn Bridge, 1940, Signed and dated Reginald Marsh May 1940 (lr), Watercolor over traces of pencil on paper , 15 x 22 inches sight. Reginald Marsh was born in Paris, France in 1898, the child of artist parents. He was born over a small cafe on Paris' Left Bank. He was brought to the United States in 1900 and was drawing before he was three. He studied art at Yale University and the Art Students League, during which time he worked primarily as an illustrator for New York newspapers and magazines. After studying in Paris in 1925 and 1926, he turned seriously to painting. In 1929 he was introduced to the egg-tempera medium, which he used extensively the rest of his life. Marsh's gusto for painting the bottom crust of society contrasted curiously with his background. His parents, both well-known artists, were steeped in academic traditions. He attended Lawrenceville Academy and Yale; perhaps this elite background made it possible to paint the earthy people he did with a journalist's objectivity. An admirer of Rubens and Delacroix, he disliked modernist art; indeed, his lifelong preoccupation was with people - enjoying themselves at beaches, at amusement parks, or on crowded city streets. Marsh was a second-generation Ash Can School painter and printmaker, best known as an urban regionalist. He spent his days sketching in small notebooks...

Signed lower right, 'Richard Soderman N.W.S', (American, 20th century), titled 'China Cove' and dated 1972. Richard Soderman began drawing at the age...

Titled lower center: "Garden of Estombar, Algarve, Portugal"; signed and dated lower right: "Jason Berger 1988". From the estate of the artist.

Collier's Magazine Illustration From the Estate of Charles Martignette. Work is framed in a period wood frame Watercolor on board

Cityscape Reflections - Misty Morning. 1980. Lithograph with pastel coloring. Czestochowski 42. Edition 40. 14 x 10 3/16 (sheet 18 x 14). Tape stains in the margins, not affecting th...

Jim’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...

"Green Landscape" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed and matted landscape painting. The 17.5" x 23.5" watercolor and ink on paper is signed...

"Rail Yard" Urban Industrial WPA American Scene Drawing NYC Mid-Century. Initialed "JS" upper right Solman was a pivotal figure in the development of 20th century American art. He ...

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...

Steinberg's Holiday Magazine Cover, " The North of Jersey " is similar to his famous New Yorker Cover "View of the World from 9th Avenue”. ...

"Urban Scene" by noted Chicago painter William Jacobs (1897 - 1973) is a pastel on paper created in 1970. The artwork is signed in pencil by the artist and...

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...

"A Stroll in the Park" by noted Chicago painter William Jacobs (1897 - 1973) is a pastel on paper created in 1970. The artwork is signed and dated i...

This artwork titled "Riverwash" 1985 is an original watercolor on Arches watermarked paper by noted American artist Anne Popperwell, born 1948. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artist. The artwork size is 22 x 30 inches, framed is 28.25 x 36.25 inches. It is custom framed in a metal bronze color frame. It is in very good condition. About the artist. Anne Popperwell was born in Oakland, California, in 1948 and studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1968-1970 with a major in painting and a minor in photography. She has been painting and exhibiting her work in both private and public galleries, primarily in Canada, since 1981. She paints in watercolour on paper and acrylic on canvas, though not exclusively, using nature-based imagery. Shortly after her arrival in Canada in 1976, Anne moved to an island off the West Coast to paint a particular landscape, the eroded sandstone shoreline. In the course of this eight-year series of paintings, she experimented with point of view, scale and colour, developing a method of working that creates the effect of light coming from within the subject itself. Her paintings are included in private, corporate and public collections in Canada and in private collections in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Solo Exhibitions: 2016 "Shades of Saturna", Artlink Canada, Jaydon Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 2009 “Beauty” Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 2008 “Tropical Flowers” Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 996- "Why Don't You Just Leave?" paintings and video installation 1998 tour to 11 British Columbia regional galleries, originating at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Victoria, British Columbia 1993 Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1991 Fran Willis North Park Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1990 Fran Willis North Park Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1986 Robert Vanderleelie Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia Thomas Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba 1984 Grace Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia Winchester Galleries, Victoria, British Columbia 1982 Kyle's Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1981 Kyle's Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbi1980 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia Selected Group Exhibitions: 2014 Insight Art Gallery, Galiano, B.C 2012 The Field Gallery, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 2002 “European Media Arts Festival”, Osnabruck, Germany 1997 “Open House”, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France 1994 "Spring Run", Baux-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 1994-1996 Government House, Victoria, B.C. 1992 "Hanging Gardens", Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1990 "Bumbershoot Festival 1990", Seattle, Washington 1986 "Images B.C." The British Columbia Pavilion, Expo 86 Vancouver, British Columbia 1985 "Hot Water Colour", Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario "B.C. Women Artists" Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia 1983 "National Watercolour Exhibition" Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 1981 “Painter’s Day”, Kyle’s Gallery, Victoria, B.C. Public Collections British Columbia Art Collection, Victoria, British Columbia Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia Maltwood Art Museum, Victoria, British Columbia City of Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia Esso Resources Canada, Ltd., Calgary, Alberta Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario Grants and Awards 1995 British Columbia Cultural Services Branch grant 1973 City of Vancouver Purchase Grant Exhibition Reviews, Catalogues and Articles "A Sense of Place", Aqua magazine, Salt Spring Island, B.C. (Summer 2014) illus. “Why Don’t You Just Leave?”, Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (April, 1996) illus. Cover, Preview Magazine, Vancouver, B.C., (May/June 1990) Waterman, Jennifer A. “Planetary Visions, Sacred Images of the Earth” Herizons, Winnipeg, Manitoba (Volume 4 #8, December, 1986) p. 44, illus. “B.C. Women Artists”,Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (October, 1985) illus. Orford, Emily Jane, “Anne Popperwell’s Intimate Earth”, Victoria Times-Colonist, Victoria, B.C. (October 7, 1984) p. 8 Hartog, Diana, “Body Landscapes...

This artwork titled "San Flow" 1986 is an original watercolor on Arches watermarked paper by noted American artist Anne Popperwell, born 1948. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artist. The artwork size is 22 x 30 inches, framed is 30.25 x 36.25 inches. It is custom framed in a metal bronze color frame. It is in very good condition. About the artist. Anne Popperwell was born in Oakland, California, in 1948 and studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute from 1968-1970 with a major in painting and a minor in photography. She has been painting and exhibiting her work in both private and public galleries, primarily in Canada, since 1981. She paints in watercolour on paper and acrylic on canvas, though not exclusively, using nature-based imagery. Shortly after her arrival in Canada in 1976, Anne moved to an island off the West Coast to paint a particular landscape, the eroded sandstone shoreline. In the course of this eight-year series of paintings, she experimented with point of view, scale and colour, developing a method of working that creates the effect of light coming from within the subject itself. Her paintings are included in private, corporate and public collections in Canada and in private collections in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Solo Exhibitions: 2016 "Shades of Saturna", Artlink Canada, Jaydon Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 2009 “Beauty” Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 2008 “Tropical Flowers” Casa Dahlia Galeria, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 996- "Why Don't You Just Leave?" paintings and video installation 1998 tour to 11 British Columbia regional galleries, originating at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria Victoria, British Columbia 1993 Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1991 Fran Willis North Park Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1990 Fran Willis North Park Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1986 Robert Vanderleelie Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia Thomas Gallery, Winnipeg, Manitoba 1984 Grace Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia Winchester Galleries, Victoria, British Columbia 1982 Kyle's Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1981 Kyle's Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia Burnaby Art Gallery, Burnaby, British Columbi1980 Kamloops Public Art Gallery, Kamloops, British Columbia Selected Group Exhibitions: 2014 Insight Art Gallery, Galiano, B.C 2012 The Field Gallery, San Jose del Cabo, Mexico 2002 “European Media Arts Festival”, Osnabruck, Germany 1997 “Open House”, Canadian Cultural Centre, Paris, France 1994 "Spring Run", Baux-Xi Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 1994-1996 Government House, Victoria, B.C. 1992 "Hanging Gardens", Fran Willis Gallery, Victoria, British Columbia 1990 "Bumbershoot Festival 1990", Seattle, Washington 1986 "Images B.C." The British Columbia Pavilion, Expo 86 Vancouver, British Columbia 1985 "Hot Water Colour", Harbourfront, Toronto, Ontario "B.C. Women Artists" Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia 1983 "National Watercolour Exhibition" Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver, British Columbia 1981 “Painter’s Day”, Kyle’s Gallery, Victoria, B.C. Public Collections British Columbia Art Collection, Victoria, British Columbia Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia Maltwood Art Museum, Victoria, British Columbia City of Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia Esso Resources Canada, Ltd., Calgary, Alberta Canada Council Art Bank, Ottawa, Ontario Grants and Awards 1995 British Columbia Cultural Services Branch grant 1973 City of Vancouver Purchase Grant Exhibition Reviews, Catalogues and Articles "A Sense of Place", Aqua magazine, Salt Spring Island, B.C. (Summer 2014) illus. “Why Don’t You Just Leave?”, Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (April, 1996) illus. Cover, Preview Magazine, Vancouver, B.C., (May/June 1990) Waterman, Jennifer A. “Planetary Visions, Sacred Images of the Earth” Herizons, Winnipeg, Manitoba (Volume 4 #8, December, 1986) p. 44, illus. “B.C. Women Artists”,Exhibition Catalogue, Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Victoria, B.C. (October, 1985) illus. Orford, Emily Jane, “Anne Popperwell’s Intimate Earth”, Victoria Times-Colonist, Victoria, B.C. (October 7, 1984) p. 8 Hartog, Diana, “Body Landscapes...

A vibrant expressionist watercolor showing a view of San Francisco and the bay contrasted against a semi-abstracted colorist background. Signed lower right, 'Provenzano' for Sam Pr...

"Boats Amongst the Mangroves" is an original watercolor and gouache painting on paper by Doris Lee. The artist signed the piece lower right. It depicts boats and other objects on a f...

Signed by the artist in pencil, lower right Provenance: Estate of the Artist With the artist's original presentation (Frame and matting) Two similar titles were exhibited in The ...

Signed lower right, "Johnston" and dated 1981. Bearing exhibition label from 17th Pacific Grove Annual Watercolor Competition. A vibrant Modernist watercolor brimming with color and compressed energy. Born in California on May 26, 1907, Lucille Johnston settled in Glendale in the 1930's. She exhibited widely including at the California Watercolor...

Artist: Unknown Title: University Floral Design Medium: Watercolor on paper, signed lower right Image Size: 17.5 x 25 inches Frame Size: 28 x 35 inches ...

Here for your consideration is a very well executed pastel on paper by John Fabian Carlson. Signed lower right and mostly likely done in the 1930's...

Soft watercolor accents add to the beauty of this cyanotype and watercolor titled "Elkhorn Slough" by Cheryl Trotter (American, 20th century), c.1980's....

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...