Vance Kirkland

Colorado Landscape (View from Red Rocks looking south toward Soda Lakes)

1943

This captivating Modernist watercolor painting of a serene forest scene by Richard Sorby (1911-2001) beautifully captures the essence of nature through a minimalist and expressive lens. Painted in the 1940s, the piece features stylized trees in bold, dark hues of green, blue, and black, complemented by earthy tones of brown, orange, and white. The watercolor on paper is signed by the artist in the lower right corner and beautifully framed with archival materials. The outer dimensions of the piece measure 26 ½ x 18 ½ x 1 inches, with the image size itself being 22 ¾ x 14 ¾ inches. About the Artist: Richard Sorby, a Colorado-based artist, was renowned for his distinctive modernist style, blending abstraction with representational themes. Sorby earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Colorado State College of Education (now the University of Northern Colorado) in 1937 and went on to study under influential mentors, including Vance Kirkland and William Joseph Eastman...

"Mill Near Plainfield, New Hampshire" is an exquisite original watercolor painting by Charles Partridge Adams (1858-1942), created circa 1900. Signed by the artist in the lower left corner, this beautiful landscape depicts a mill nestled by a river, surrounded by trees and dramatic clouds. The painting is rendered in subtle tones of brown, green, gray, and blue, showcasing Adams’ skillful use of watercolor techniques. This artwork is presented in a custom frame, with outer dimensions measuring 13 ¾ x 12 ¼ x 1 ¼ inches and an image size of 7 x 5 inches. About the Artist: Charles Partridge Adams was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, and moved to Denver, Colorado, in 1876 in search of a better climate for his tuberculosis-stricken sisters. It was in Denver that Adams found his artistic calling, working at the Chain and Hardy Bookstore, where he received his only formal art training from Helen Chain, a former pupil of the renowned George Inness. Through her guidance, Adams was introduced to other prominent artists, including sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor...

This original watercolor painting by Alfred Wands (1904-1998) captures the breathtaking beauty of the Sangre de Cristo Mountain range in Sou...

This stunning, original signed landscape painting by Charles Partridge Adams (1858-1942) captures the breathtaking beauty of a Colorado sunset along the Front Range, near Denver. The...

Original Painting Fortune Cover Published 1937 American Modern - Met Museum NEWS: A printed copy of this magazine is included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent exhibition, “Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s” Antonio Petruccelli...

American Scene Industrial Modern Lamp Magazine Illustration Mid-Century Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Oil Terminal Lamp Magazine, published, c. 1930s. 15 3/4 X 12 inches (image) 18 X 14 inches board Gouache on board Signed lower right unframed BIOGRAPHY: Antonio Petruccelli (1907-1994) began his career as a textile designer. He became a freelance illustrator in 1932 after winning several House Beautiful cover illustration contests. In addition to 24 Fortune magazine covers, four New Yorker covers, several for House Beautiful, Collier’s, and other magazines he did numerous illustrations for Life magazine from the 1930s – 60s. ‘Tony was Mr. Versatility for Fortune. He could do anything, from charts and diagrams to maps, illustrations, covers, and caricatures,’ said Francis Brennan, the former art director for Fortune. Over the course of his career, Antonio won several important design awards, designing a U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Steel Industry and designing the Bicentennial Medal...

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...