Crayon Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

A very large, astounding pastel of a beautiful woman in a veil, ex. the prestigious Arthur Roger gallery on Julia Street in New Orleans, which has shown Adrian Deckbar's work in the past (she now shows at Callan Contemporary...

Works on paper

Paul César Helleu is regarded among the most sought-after society portraitists of his era, and his Belle Époque works rival those of his contemporaries John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini. He is best remembered for capturing the era's most beautiful socialites, including Consuelo Vanderbilt, the Duchess of Marlborough, the Comtesse de Loriol Chandieu and the Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles, among others. This work, however, stands out in that it captures the charming likeness of one of his art world cohorts, Mathilde See, a Parisian-born decorator and painter of floral still lifes. She is the essence of the modern woman, captured in her fashionable dress as she strolls along the flower-lined streets of Paris. Commanding in size, Portrait de Mathilde See fully displays Helleu's mastery over the medium of pastel. The muted palette of greys and blues is typical of the artist, bringing a harmony and cohesiveness to the composition. Furthermore, Helleu cleverly alludes to See's own artistic output with a backdrop of vibrant floral blooms, enlivening the canvas and complementing the greens and blues of the peacock feather adorning her hat. The portrait is all the more significant thanks to its provenance. It was previously in the collection of A. Alfred Taubman, one of America's most successful entrepreneurs and one-time owner of Sotheby's. Considering Taubman encountered some of the most noteworthy and beautiful works of art ever made through his auction house, the fact that he chose this portrait by Helleu to grace his collection is a testament to its import. Born in Brittany in 1859, Helleu moved to Paris in 1876 in order to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. Like so many other artists of his generation, he was trained there under the Academic master Jean-Léon Gérôme. That same year, he also attended the Second Impressionist Exhibition...

A view over the loch by Natalie Bird [2022] original Pastel Image size: H:36 cm x W:28 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H:25 cm x W:20 cm x D:0.5cm Sold Unframed Please note that ...

Pastel, circa 20th century

"Art Deco Bird #688" is an original color crayon drawing by Sylvia Spicuzza. The artist stamped her signature in the lower left. This piece depicts an abstracted bird and biomorphic ...

Couple / Pair / Lovers / Love / Wedding / Romance / Flowers / Bouquet / Still life Angela A’Court’s narrative and still life drawings use a simple and direct vocabulary to show the ...

Soft pastel on archival toned paper signed and dated bottom right corner. Mounted on archival foam board for suitable framing. Part on an ongoing series of Mermaids by the artist.

Graphite with watercolor and black crayon on cream wove paper mounted to board, 12 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches (318 x 267 mm), full margins. Signed in pencil on the mount. In excellent condi...

Untitled Pastel on paper, 1922 Signed with the artist's initials in pencil Provenance: Estate of the artist Francis M. Nauman (label) Private collection, NY A very early abstract/cubist work by Kelly. Created while the artist was studying with Arthur Carles in Philadelphia. Leon Kelly (October 21, 1901 – June 28, 1982) was an American artist born in Philadelphia, PA. He is most well known for his contributions to American Surrealism, but his work also encompassed styles such as Cubism, Social Realism, and Abstraction. Reclusive by nature, a character trait that became more exaggerated in the 1940s and later, Kelly's work reflects his determination not to be limited by the trends of his time. His large output of paintings is complemented by a prolific number of drawings that span his career of 50 years. Some of the collections where his work is represented are: The Metropolitan Museum in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Boston Public Library. Biography Kelly was born in 1901 at home at 1533 Newkirk Street, Philadelphia, PA. He was the only child of Elizabeth (née Stevenson) and Pantaleon L. Kelly. The family resided in Philadelphia where Pantaleon and two of his cousins owned Kelly Brothers, a successful tailoring business. The prosperity of the firm enabled his father to purchase a 144-acre farm in Bucks County PA in 1902, which he named "Rural Retreat" It was here that Pantaleon took Leon to spend every weekend away from the pressures of business and from the disappointments in his failing marriage. Idyllic and peaceful memories of the farm stayed with Leon and embued his work with a love of nature that emerged later in the Lunar Series, in Return and Departure, and in the insect imagery of his Surrealist work. "If anything," he once said,"I am a Pantheist and see a spirit in everything, the grass, the rocks, everything." At thirteen, Leon left school and began private painting lessons with Albert Jean Adolphe, a teacher at the School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) in Philadelphia. He learned technique by copying the works of the old masters and visiting the Philadelphia Zoo, where he would draw animals. Drawings done in 1916 and 1917 of elephants, snakes and antelope, as well as copies of old master paintings by Holbein and Michelangelo, heralded an impressive emerging talent. In 1917, he studied sculpture with Alexander Portnoff but his studies came to an abrupt halt with the start of World War I. Being too young to enlist, he joined the Quartermaster Corp at the Army Depot in Philadelphia, where he served for more than a year loading ships with supplies and, along with other artists, working on drawings for camouflage. By 1920, the family's fortunes drastically changed. His father's business had failed due to the introduction of ready made clothing and his marriage, unhappy from the beginning, dissolved. Broken by circumstance Pantaleon left Philadelphia to begin a wandering existence looking for work leaving Leon to support his mother and grandmother. He found a job in 1920 at the Freihofer Baking Company where he worked nights for the next four years. Under these circumstances Leon continued to develop his skills in drawing and painting and learned of the revolutionary developments in art that were taking place in Paris. During the day he was granted permission to study anatomy at the Philadelphia School of Osteopathy where he dissected a cadaver and perfected his knowledge of the human figure. He also met and studied etching with Earl Horter, a well known illustrator, who had amassed a significant collection of modern art which included work by Brancusi, Matisse, and Cubist works by Picasso and Braque. Among the artists around Horter was Arthur Carles, a charismatic and controversial painter who taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Leon enrolled in the Academy in 1922, becoming what Carles described as, "his best student". In the next three years Leon work ranged from academic studies of plaster casts, to pointillism, to landscapes of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, as well as a series of pastels showing influences from Matisse to Picasso. Clearly influenced by Earl Horter's collection and Arthur Carles he mastered analytical cubism in works such as The Three Pears, 1923 and 1925 experimented with Purism in Moon Behind the Italian House. In 1925 Kelly was awarded a Cresson Scholarship and on June 14 he left for Europe. Paris The first trip to Europe lasted for approximately three and a half months and introduced Kelly to a culture and place where he felt he belonged. Though he returned to the Academy in the Fall, he left for Europe again a few months later to begin a four-year stay in Paris. He moved into an apartment at 19 rue Daguerre in Paris and began an existence intellectually rich but in creature comforts, very poor. "I kept a cinderblock over the drain in the kitchen sink to keep the rats out of the apartment" he once explained. He frequented the cafes making acquaintances with Henry Miller, James Joyce and the critic Félix Fénéon as well as others. His days were split between copying old master paintings in the Louvre and pursuing modernist ideas that were swirling through the work of all the artists around him. The Lake, 1926 and Interior of the Studio, 1927, now in the Newark Museum. Patrons during this time were the police official Leon Zamaran, a collector of Courbets, Lautrecs and others, who began collecting Kelly's work. Another was Alfred Barnes of the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. In 1929 Kelly married a young French woman, Henriette D'Erfurth. She appears frequently in paintings and drawings done between 1928 and the early 1930s. Philadelphia The stock market crash of 1929 made it impossible to continue living in Paris and Kelly and Henriette returned to Philadelphia in 1930. He rented a studio on Thompson Street and began working and participating in shows in the city's galleries. Work from 1930 to 1940 showed continuing influences and experimentation with the themes and techniques acquired in Paris as well as a brief foray into Social Realism. The Little Gallery of Contemporary Art purchased the Absinthe Drinker...

"Boats in Berlin Harbor" is an original pastel painting on cheesecloth. Small tugboats push across the Berlin harbor as a gauzy cityscape watches from behind. Image: 25" x 33" Frame...

All Things Round? This pastel drawing Golden Night – 08-02-21 is based on a previous graphite pencil drawing Roundism 10-08-20. What I do is to browse through my collection of dra...

Abstract modern figurative drawing by Native American artist R.C. Gorman. The work features a large group of faceless figures representing the Navajo people who were forcefully remov...

Best known as an impassioned supporter and avid collector of modern art, Earl Horter was also an artist himself. Largely self-taught, Horter was a highly skilled draftsman and engrav...

Untitled Pastel on paper, 1922 Initialed and dated lower right (see photo) Exhibited: Francis Nauman, Leon Kelly: Draftsman Extraordinaire, New York, April 4 - May 23, 2014. Provenance: Estate of the Artist The Orange Chicken...

"Art Deco Sailboat in Abstract Landscape #740" is an original colorful crayon drawing on paper by Sylvia Spicuzza, signed in pencil in the lower right corner. The sailboat of the title is in the center, set against a deep blue sky upon a dark green sea. It is framed by a abstract shapes of bright color that flow into one another in curving lines. The horizon line is maintained throughout the composition, and the effect is something like looking through a kaleidoscope. Art size: 8 1/2" x 7 1/4" Frame size: 16 1/4" x 14 1/2" 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 Elementary School in Shorewood, WI. During this time Sylvia produced a magnificent body of work that was undiscovered until her death. Sylvia's work is rich, diverse and fascinating collection of drawings...

A Striking, Colorful 1940s Modern Surrealist Abstraction by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Titled "Wings", the artwork is watercolor, mixed medi...

Aleksandra Belcova (1892-1981) Studied at the Art School in Penza (1912-1917), State Free Art Workshops in Petrograd with N. Altman (1918-1919). Together with her husband Romans S...

Early Twentieth Century Impressionist Pastel Drawing of a Landscape depicting a Canal, Landscape and Buildings at Leydon Holland. A wonderful Oil pastel drawing on textured paper,...

A charming and well conceived Canadian modernist drawing. Unsigned but from the period of such well known artists as David Milne. Housed in a period frame the presentation n the wa...

Model session @ Leidschendam – 14-05-18 A classic model study I did yesterday at Leidschendam, Netherlands. I used two strong LED lamps to light the model from both sides in ord...

Julia -28-08-18 Yesterday I had famous dancer and choreographer Julia Gómez Avilés over to pose for me. She dances and teaches in Guangzhou, China and is touring now through Eur...

Lakshmi – 16-02-21 Indian Goddess At last: I discovered my regular model is Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, fortune, love, beauty, joy and prosperity. In Indian art she is often depicted as a golden-coloured woman; elegantly dressed and prosperity-showering. She also is associated with lotus flowers, so I made an arcade of styled lotus petals. I turned them into representational abstractions like the ones I saw in indian drawings and paintings. Colors are strong on purpose such as in indian art. I harmonized colors a bit more though in style with western tradition. Klimt as Inspirational Source Some time ago with my model I discussed some new ways I wanted to explore. For no particular reason we both thought of Klimt and especially his oil of Judith and the head of Holofernes...

Roundism – 29-11-17 Based on a earlier roundism graphite pencil drawing I made this pastel adding the realm of colours. I wanted the woman appear in a kind of midsummernight’...

"Inner Vibration #1" is an original piece by Roche Cruchon made from pastel on paper. This piece measures 22”h x 18”w framed and is signed en recto. Tendrils is a recent exploration...

Henry Ottmann (1877-1927) "Orée du bois par brume", A forest in the mist signed lower right pastel on paper 24 x 32 cm In good condition In a vintage frame : 43.5 x 53 cm The gilding on the frame is missing in many places Henry Ottmann particularly excelled in the pastel technique, as can be seen here. This is due to the fact that this delicate material obviously lends itself very well to the artist's characteristic vaporous style and manner. We should also note the great modernity of this landscape and its fades, which go almost as far as abstraction. Henry Ottmann was born on 10 April 1877 in Ancenis. He made his debut at the Salon La Libre Esthétique in Brussels in 1904 and took part in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris from 1905, the Salon d'Automne, the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon des Tuileries. In 1911 and 1912, Ottmann exhibited at the Artistes de la Société Moderne at the Gallery Paul Durand-Ruel together with Armand Guillaumin, Henri Lebasque and others. In 1912, he exhibited at the gallery Eugène Druet. In 1920, Ottmann exhibited at the gallery Marcel...

Peter Potworowski 1898-1962 Woodland Scene, 1956, circa gouache and pastel 25.1 x 28.2 cm 9 7/8 x 11 1/8 in unsigned Tadeusz Piotr (Peter) Potworowski was a Polish abstract and figu...

Love at First Sight Last night I had a model session with Julia. Sometimes you come across a woman you immediately fall in love with. She is a great model and warm personality. Be...

Julia - 19-11-19 Saturday 16th Novembern2019 I had Julia Gómes Avilés over as a model again. I wanted to express her dancing skills by a dynamic pose in which she holds her foot...

Green oil pastel on paper realized by Mino Maccari in 1960s. Hand signed lower right. Very good condition.

Tribute to Francis Poggi is an original colored pencil and pastel drawing realized by Perrine Gretener in the 1970s. Good condition and bright colors. No signature. Perrine Greten...

Louis Fortuney (1878-1950), also known simply as “Fortuney”, was a French pastellist. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Toulouse and in Paris and developed a personal style n...

"A pleasant surprise" When something happens that you didn't expect. You are pleasantly surprised and very happy. This intuitive monochrome drawing is made with Chinese ink and past...

Domenick Capobianco (American, b. 1928) Abstract Composition, Pastel on Paper, pink and orange tones, apparently unsigned, stamped "Studio Domenick Capobianco" to verso, unframed. 45...

Romy Schneider (2013) A cubistic prestudy for an oil painting. Pastel drawing on Hahnemühle velours paper (50 x 70 x 0.1 cm) Artist: Corné Akkers :: Drawing :: Contemporar...

I poured vibrant energy into this piece, blending acrylic, oil pastel, and colored pencil to create bold, expressive tulips that burst with life. The fusion of expressionism, impress...

"Looking North 2" by Janet Richardson-Baughman is a pastel drawing on paper, signed in the lower right corner. The work is framed and matted with acid-free mat board. This landscape ...

John Sottocornola (1855 - 1917) Meadow Bloom Pastels on paper in gilded frame Size: 30x45 cm (53x68 cm including frame) Late 19th century Giovanni Sottocornola was born in Milan on...

Beautiful original pastel on archival paper of Mount Shasta in Northern California by the well known Hudson River artist, George Douglas. Signed and dated 1874 lower right. Condition is excellent. Recently professionally matted and framed in a antique silver style gallery frame. Overall framed measurements are 27 by 36 inches. Under glass. Provenance: A Pennsylvania collector. George Douglas Brewerton received lessons in art from Prof. Robert W. Weir at West Point where his father was Superintendent. In 1874, he was detailed to San Francisco as an officer in the Stevenson Regiment. In 1848, he underwent many adventures in Western deserts and mountains with Kit Carson, who crossed the country with news of the California Gold Rush. After serving as an aide to Gen. Rufus Saxton during the Civil War, Brewerton called himself “Colonel,” although he never received an army commission...

D. Tongen "Orange and Blue" 1980s 11.75"x9.75" Soft pastel and pencil on paper Initialed and dated in pencil lower right

A’Court begins each painting with a broad, color plane—red, blue, pink or yellow—which acts as a table for the artist’s still life vocabulary. This practice allows her to contain the...

Claude Bauret Allard (French, b. 1936), "New Mexico", Pastel on Paper, 1983, signed in pencil, titled, and dated to verso, unframed. 19" H x 26.25" W. Provenance: From a 35 East 75th...

Pastel on black paper. Ms. Morgan says: When I finally started riding the subway again during Covid isolation - going down to the ocean was a real treat. The collection of fisherma...

Sea swimming - 30-07-20 One of those days. Sold something around midnight, did my regular things like website maintenance, teaching, eating and returning to my work in progress. B...

Model Session - 16-10-20 Yesterday's Model Session After my sketch of Louise Brooks - 10-10-20 I wanted to do more in my hatched strokes style. Yesterday's model session offered ...

"Not Intended For Office Viewing Series, Section F" is an original oil pastel drawing on illustration board by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. This piece fe...

Quote 9 by Willem Claesz Heda, Breakfast with Lobster, 1648 The artist's signature as a monogram is located in the lower right corner, see photo. Janusz Kokot was born in Kalisz in...

Artist: Darrell Fusaro, American (1962 - ) Title: Outside with Parents from Grown Ups Year: circa 1990 Medium: Pastel on Paper, signed l.l. Size: 22 x 29.5 in. (55.88 x 74.93 cm) Fra...

Gustave Brisgand (1867-1944) began his artistic career by focusing on landscapes. However, he later specialized in portraits of notable personalities, women, and female nudes. One of...

Henri ROYER Nancy 1869 - 1938 Paris Study of dancers Sanguine pastel and charcoal on cream white paper Circa 1900-1910 Unsigned 47 x 62.5 cm sheet 67 x 83 cm cm frame Provenance: Es...

A New Session This reclining nude is completed two days after the last model session I held at my studio. Being the first drawing I completed after July’s session means last month’s drawing has not been completed yet. This one was relatively easy though. It comprises a fairly simple composition with no technical or compositionary challenges. I could focus on soft skin textures and folds in the sheets. First I made a rough estimation of the composition in charcoal. I worked it out with Conté pastel pencils (black and white) later. Relax Baby! After the completion of my colored pencil drawing ‘Leiden – Herengracht – 14-09-21’ I was in the mood for some simple stuff, nothing fancy. So I had her take a comfortable position, reading a book on paradoxes I bought a couple of weeks ago at the Groninger Museum. I like these talks with my model because it both makes us relax and somehow this relaxation speaks through the musculature in her back. I tried to capture that and I think I got away with it. Moreover, the bond between artist and model is important and when the right chemistry is there, magic can happen. Materials Completely coincidental the first thing I pulled out of the bag of drawing paper was a block of Strathmore Toned Gray. In my pencil and pastel case I found an old charcoal holder. Perfect for a session on the bed with me sketching on the bedside. When I come to think of it, the best model sessions are improvised, not fixated on too many poses. It can cramp both model and artist. The iPad Pro...

Flamenco Dancer. Romantic French pastel portrait of a Spanish beauty by Louis Fortuney. The work is signed bottom left, and presented in a very fine carved gilt rococo wood frame und...

"Second Theme" 1949 Abstract Mid 20th Century Geometric Non-Objective Hard Edge Burgoyne A. Diller (American, 1906-1965) "Second Theme" 1949. Pencil and crayon on paper. Signed and dated 'D. 49' (lower right). Image: 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York. Martha Jackson Gallery, New York. Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, New York. David K. Anderson Grandchildren's Trust. BURGOYNE DILLER (1906-1965) Recognized as the first American painter to embrace the tenets of Neo-Plasticism, Burgoyne Diller made an important contribution to the development of non-objective art in the United States. Working in a hard-edged geometric style, he produced paintings, drawings, and collages that paved the way for the development of American Minimalism during the 1960s and 70s. Born in New York City in 1906, Diller began painting and drawing as a teenager growing up in Battle Creek, Michigan. Later, while attending Michigan State University in East Lansing on an athletic scholarship, he made weekend visits to the Art Institute of Chicago, where he familiarized himself with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting. He was especially drawn to the landscapes and still lives of Paul Cézanne, who modeled color to create structure and volume. In 1929, Diller moved to Manhattan and enrolled at the Art Students League, where his teachers included such progressive-minded painters as Jan Matulka, Hans Hofmann, and George Grosz. Hofmann's concept of the "push-pull" effect of form and color exerted a strong influence on his early work, as did his growing familiarity with Analytical and Synthetic Cubism, German Expressionism, and other vanguard European styles. Diller had the opportunity to see some of this work firsthand, but he also kept abreast of developments abroad by reading journals such as Cahiers d'Art. Diller completed his studies at the League in 1933, the year he had his first solo exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Gallery in New York. It was around this time that his paintings began to show the influence of the reductive, pared-down geometric compositions of the Dutch Constructivist Piet Mondrian and the equally restrained compositions of Kasimir Malevich and El Lissitsky...

Model session – 14-02-19 Last session with my model I wanted to have her pose a little bit more risqué but counterbalance it by keeping the hatched strokes rather rough than to...

ARIATTA 6 (Abstract drawing) Pastel and acrylic on paper - Unframed. Margaret Neill works for a time on a group of pieces in a series, using classic almost primal materials such as...

Unsigned. Presented in a contemporary white frame. On paper.

These recently discovered 1983-84 oversize pastels on archival papers were created working quickly, in pastel. The series shows the last existing obs...

With elements of surrealism and fantasy, this is a soft pastel painting on toned archival paper. It is part of an ongoing series of work by the artist depicting humorous observations...

A bold and evocative pastel on paper by British artist John Alfred Begg (1903–1974), this striking Cubist nude study reflects the artist's Brutalist sensibility through angular forms...

Model session – 29-11-18 This evening I had a great session with my main model throughout the years. She is slender, knows what I want and shows dark skin tones, giving my the p...