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Period: 1910s
Original Pencil Sketch "Un Decide"
Located in Bristol, CT
Art Sz: 8 1/2"H x 12"W 1917
Category

1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

Original Pencil Sketch "Un Decide" 1917
Located in Bristol, CT
Art Sz: 8 1/2"H x 12"W 1917
Category

1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

Risque Pedicure by Angel, Les Ongles, Boudoir style, Female Illustration
By Suzanne Meunier
Located in Miami, FL
This Illustration Boudoir style Illustration by Female Illustrator Suzanne Meunier was done on an assignment for a French Postcard. It's a very early ...
Category

Art Nouveau 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Man and his Father, 1916
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Charcoal on Board, Framed Under Glass Signature: Signed and Dated on the Back Sight Size 30.50" x 20.50," Framed 35.50" x 26.50" Great condition, bad glare from glass in thi...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Board

Kellogg's Corn Flakes Advertisement
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Kellogs advertisement with ad sheet included. Advertisement of a little girl with a bowl of Kellogg's Toasted Corn Flakes cereal. Benjamin Sayre Cory Kilv...
Category

Other Art Style 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Board, Gouache, Watercolor

"Beagling" 1914 Watercolour
Located in Bristol, CT
Watercolour depicting a hunter green coat'd beagler running with his pack across the countryside. Signed: Wil Mots 1914 Art Sz: 11 3/8"H x 8 5/8"W Frame Sz: 16"H x 13"W
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

"Spraggon" Polo Player c1913 Watercolour by Wil Mots
Located in Bristol, CT
Polo Player Charging Art Sz:11"H x 8"W Frame Sz: 14 3/4"H x 11 3/4"W
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

Cityscape
Located in London, GB
LASZLO BARO MEDNYANSZKY 1852-1919 Beckó, Slovakia 1852-1919 Vienna (Hungarian) Title: Cityscape, 1912 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Dated Pencil Drawing on Paper s...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper

Woman in the Garden
By Stuart Travis
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1907-1910 Medium: Pastel on Board Dimensions: 22.00" x 28.00" Signature: Signed Lower Right Stuart Travis did many early Vogue magazine covers. Signed with an address on ...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pastel, Board

Water Babies- Sitting on a Leaf
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper Signature: Signed Lower Right Contact for exact dimensions. LITERATURE: Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies, New York, 1916, illustrated Edwar...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Watercolor

Penrod and Sam with Rake and Horse in the Barn
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Charcoal on Board Signature: Signed Upper Left by the Artist Contact for exact dimensions. Published for the serialized Penrod and Sam stories in Cosmopolitan Magazine betw...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Board

Water Babies Illustration- Tadpoles
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Ink and Watercolor on Paper Signature: Signed Lower Right Contact for exact dimensions. Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies, New York, 1916, illustrated Edward D. Nudelman,...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Ink, Watercolor

Sketchbook I
Located in London, GB
ARTUR MARKOWICZ 1872-1934 Podgórze (Poland) 1872-1934 Cracow (Polish) Title: Sketchbook I, 1915 Technique: A Sketchbooks with 154 Pencil and Colour Pencil Drawings on Paper with Stamp Size: 16.5 x 20.5 cm. / 6.5 x 8.1 in. Additional Information: This is an original sketchbook...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Color Pencil

"I Should Worry, " Cover for Judge Magazine, Feb. 28, 1914
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Watercolor and Gouache with Graphite on Paper Mounted Signature: Signed Lower Right "I Should Worry." Cover illustration for Judge magazine, pu...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache, Graphite

Woman with Monkey
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Pastel on Paper Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Left
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pastel

Soldier, Life Magazine Cover
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Watercolor on Paper Signature: Signed Lower Left Cover illustration for Life magazine's January 10, 1918 issue, with the caption, "Souvenirs for...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Sketchbook II
Located in London, GB
ARTUR MARKOWICZ 1872-1934 Podgórze (Poland) 1872-1934 Cracow (Polish) Title: Sketchbook II, 1915 Technique: A Sketchbook with 149 Pencil and Colour Pencil Drawings on Paper with Stamp Size: 16.5 x 20.5 cm. / 6.5 x 8.1 in. Additional Information: This is an original sketchbook...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Color Pencil

Penrod, Sam and Roddy Bits fighting for the “Horn of Fame”
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Published for the serialized Penrod and Sam stories in Cosmopolitan Magazine between 1910 and 1918 Signed Upper Left by the Artist
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Board

Rooftops
Located in London, GB
LASZLO BARO MEDNYANSZKY 1852-1919 Beckó, Slovakia 1852-1919 Vienna (Hungarian) Title: Rooftops, circa 1912 Technique: Original Hand Signed Pencil Drawing on Paper size: ...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Fisherman and Family on Boat
Located in Miami, FL
Walt Lauderback like Dean Cornwell represents the pinnacle of the Golden Age of American Illustration. Based on the signature, this watercolor of a family with dog on boat appears ...
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Post-Impressionist 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Watercolor

"Writing for Print" Story Illustration for the Saturday Evening Post
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Initialed Lower Center "Writing for Print" by E. W. Howe and illustrated by Guernsey Moore for the Saturday Evening Post, December 6th, 1919.
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paint

Soldiers in World War I
Located in London, GB
ABEL PANN 1883-1963 Latvia 1883-1963 Jerusalem (Russian/Lithuanian /Israeli) Title: Soldiers in World War I, 1913 Technique: Original Signed Pastel Draw...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pastel

"Birth and Death of Industry" Story Illustration, Saturday Evening Post, 1919
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Initialed Center "Birth and Death of Industry," by Albert W. Atwood and illustrated by Guernsey Moore for the Saturday Evening Post, September 15, 1919.
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paint

"The Model"
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899-1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benj...
Category

Modern 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Graphite

What is the Home Anyway
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Pen and Ink on Paper Signature: Unsigned Titled in pencil and inscribed "Blue print-Rush-/March" beneath the composition, identified in a printed label affixed to the frame ...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Ink, Pen

A Dangerous Landing, 1919
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Watercolor on Paper Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Left
Category

1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

The Industrious Chevalier
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Charcoal on Board Signature: Signed Lower Right
Category

1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Charcoal, Board

Decorative Illustration for Saturday Evening Post, April 17th, 1920
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Initialed Lower Right Originally published in Saturday Evening Post December 20th, 1919 issue. Repeated in April 17th, 1920 issue of Saturday Evening Post as an insert de...
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paint

"How Shall Europe Be Set On Her Feet" Story Illustration for Saturday Evening P.
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signature: Initialed Lower Center "How Shall Europe Be Set On Her Feet," by Frederick S. Bigelow and illustrated by Guernsey Moore for the Saturday Evening Post, August 9th, 1919.
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1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paint

Portrait of Berthe Lipchitz - Modern Portrait Pencil Drawing - Amedeo Modigliani
By Amedeo Modigliani
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed pencil on paper portrait drawing by Italian artist Amedeo Clemente Modigliani. The portrait is of Berthe Lipchitz who was the wife of Modigliani's friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. This work is a study for "Portrait of Jacques & Berthe Lipchitz" which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. Signature: Signed lower right Dimensions: Framed: 26.75"x18.25" Unframed: 18.75"x12.25" Provenance: The collection of Leopold Survage The collection of Dimitri Snegaroff The collection of Leopold Zborowski Galerie Charpentier - Paris 1958 Private french collection Galerie Pierre Levy - Paris Private collection - United Kingdom Exhibited: Galerie Charpentier - Cent Tableaux de Modigliani - Paris, 1958 Les Peintres de Zborowski - ~Foundation L'Hermitage, Lausanne 1994 Amedeo Modigliani Exhibition - Museo d'Arte Moderna, Lugano 1999 Amedeo Modigliani was born into a middle-class Jewish family and was the brother of Eugenio Modigliani, who later became the leader of the Italian socialist workers’ party prior to the rise of fascism. Modigliani suffered from poor health as a child and contracted pleurisy in 1895, followed in 1898 by typhus with pulmonary complications, which culminated in tuberculosis in 1901. He moved to Livorno to study under Guglielmo Micheli, who had himself been a pupil of Giovanni Fattori, one of the Macchiaioli group of painters who worked in strong colour patches (macchie) to achieve vivid light and colour effects; their approach came as a reaction against academic art in Italy and, in much the same way as the French Impressionists, they advocated painting from nature rather than aspiring to communicate any particular message or ideology. In 1902, Modigliani enrolled at the academy of fine arts in Florence. He travelled to Rome and Venice in 1903, where he devoted the bulk of his day to visiting museums. At around this time he started to read Dante, dreaming no doubt of the Vita Nuova; he also devoured the works of Leopardi, Carducci, d’Annunzio, Spinoza and Nietzsche. In 1906, Modigliani moved to Paris, lodging at the Rue Caulaincourt. At that juncture, nothing about him appeared to presage the brilliant career that was to follow. His arrival in the artists’ quarter, then known colloquially as the maquis - the labyrinthine tangle of narrow streets around today’s Avenue Junot in Montmartre - went virtually unnoticed by the artists already living and working there, including Picasso, Braque and Derain. Modigliani’s painting made next to no immediate impact and he was recognised primarily on account of his frail constitution, flashing eyes, innate elegance and intellectual prowess. He was accepted in the community that was Montmartre but never belonged to any particular ‘set’ or circle, and there is no record of his ever having been invited to Pablo Picasso’s studio, the famous ‘wash house’. The literate and highly articulate Modigliani opted instead for the companionship of Maurice Utrillo, an instinctual painter of whom it could charitably have been said that his conversation was, at best, limited. Nonetheless, Modigliani and ‘Litrillo’ (as Utrillo was commonly known to the street urchins - the ‘p’tits poulbots’) began to frequent the cabarets and dance halls of the Butte de Montmartre, and the nefarious hashish dens - post-Baudelaire ‘institutions’, frequented in the main by out-of-work writers and talentless artists. Modigliani developed an addiction, which, compounded by his alcoholism, took its toll. It also transformed him from an artist of limited ability into one devoid of bourgeois scruples. In his monograph, Modigliani: Sa Vie et Son Oeuvre, written in 1926 shortly after Modigliani’s death, André Salmon hinted at a ‘pact with the devil’. While somewhat overstating the case, this rather unpromising painter from Livorno metamorphosed virtually overnight into an artist of rare ability and sensitivity. The turning-point came in 1907, when Modigliani met Paul Alexandre, a doctor who befriended him, took him under his wing and purchased some of his work. The banal paintings he had turned out in Montmartre were suddenly superseded by exceptional works, produced first in Montmartre ( Cellist, 1909), and then in Montparnasse. In Montparnasse, Modigliani started to move in artistic circles, meeting Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin and others, all of whom lived and worked in the building in the Rue Vaugirard known as ‘La Ruche’ (‘the beehive’). Then, in the Cité Falguière, he met the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who encouraged him to take up sculpture, which he did, between 1909 and 1913. In 1914, several dealers, including the erstwhile poet Léopold Zborowski and the collector Paul Guillaume, tried with little success to market Modigliani’s paintings. From 1914 to 1916, Modigliani was caught up in a tempestuous affair with the English poet and journalist Beatrice Hastings. In 1917, however, he met Jeanne Hébuterne at the Colarossi Academy, who became his constant companion and model, and who gave birth to their daughter Jeanne in 1918. In 1918 and 1919, Modigliani and Jeanne spent time in Nice on the Côte d’Azur but by 1920 he was suffering from tubercular meningitis. His friends, Kisling and the Chilean Ortiz de Zarate, brought him and a pregnant Jeanne back to Paris, where he died on January 20 1920 in the Hôpital de la Charité. His last words were reputed to be: ‘Cara Italia’. Modigliani’s brother, by this time a socialist member of parliament, telegrammed instructions to ‘bury him as befits a prince’. Jeanne Hébuterne, a budding twenty-year-old painter, killed herself and her unborn child on the day of Modigliani’s funeral by jumping to her death from a fifth-floor window. Modigliani’s first paintings were undistinguished portraits in the Impressionist manner. After moving to Paris in 1907, his early work was influenced by the Swiss-born lithographer Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso, the latter then in his ‘blue’ period. From the onset, Modigliani’s principal preoccupation was the human figure. After the artistic (and literal) limbo of Montmartre, when his output was confined to a few Expressionist-like paintings of street life, the theatre and the circus, Modigliani suddenly erupted on the scene in 1909 with Cellist, a robust, well-constructed and vividly coloured canvas that utterly exceeded all prior expectations. He had not taken part in the protracted debates that took place nightly in Picasso’s studio, but he had superficially assimilated the Cubist ideas developed by Picasso and Georges Braque. Above all, Modigliani had been influenced by African art, which was a key feature of the Cubist movement. He succeeded in treading a fine line between the coolly analytical Cubist approach and the all-too-common European perception of African art as a succession of exaggerated facial grimaces. It would appear that Modigliani had always been attracted to sculpture as a discipline. The friendly encouragement he received as of 1909 from Brancusi no doubt intensified his interest and reinforced his attempts to achieve a sustained simplicity of line and form. In 1910, he befriended the Russian artists Alexander Archipenko and Jacques Lipchitz, both of whom recorded Modigliani’s distaste for modelling in clay (which he referred to as ‘mud’), on the grounds that it degraded the art of sculpture. Like Brancusi, Modigliani believed in working directly, carving from wood in the case of two extant pieces, and from (sand)stone in others, with the exception of a few bronzes which were, presumably, modelled in clay before being cast into bronze. His sculpture was influenced by archaic and non-western cultures - early Graeco-Roman, African and Khmer - as well as heads carved on columns adorning the façades of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals (Modigliani rarely sculpted a rear view of his figures). Up to approximately 1912, his sculptures take the form of tall cylinders, usually with elongated heads and shallow relief indentations or projections to indicate the hairline, facial features and neck. He departed from this style only infrequently, most notably in a small number of pieces believed to have been sculpted in 1913, which are characterised by a compressed, cubistic format and shallower and less distinct features. Modigliani eventually abandoned sculpture, presumably because of his general health and circumstances, and possibly due to the fact that his sculptures sold for even less than his paintings. During the years that he devoted to sculpture, Modigliani is recorded as producing only thirty canvases, although after 1913 his sculpture became reflected in his painting. Following his Montmartre days, Modigliani’s work developed in both quantitative and qualitative terms, presumably helped by the relative stability of his relationship with Jeanne Hébuterne. The first paintings after his short-lived sculptural phase saw him revert briefly to Neo-Impressionist pointillism, followed by a episode marked by Cubism, which was mainly evident in portraits of friends and fellow artists living and working in Montparnasse: Henri Laurens; Juan Gris (1915); Jacques Lipchitz and his Wife; Chaim Soutine; Léopold Sauvage; Paul Guillaume; Max Jacob; Béatrice Hastings con Capello (all 1916); Mlle Modigliani (1917); Léon Bakst; Léopold Zborowski; Concierge’s Son; Adolescent (1918); Mademoiselle Lunia Czechowska; Madame Zborowska; Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1919). A large number of other portraits exist among his drawings, most of which were executed impromptu in the street or cafés. These quickly drawn portraits often exhibit an urgency and surprising lucidity. Examples include Portrait of the Gypsy Painter Fabiano de Castro; André Salmon (1918); Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1919); and Lada, Author; Mario, Composer (1920). Whatever his shortcomings, Amedeo Modigliani ranks as one of the 20th-century’s greatest painters of the female form. The bulk of his painted nudes were produced in 1915-1916 (prior to that date they were predominantly drawings), and are taken from every walk of life, such as a regular at a Montparnasse café, or a waitress at the soup kitchen where he ate his meagre meals. In each instance, he invested his models with an almost aristocratic hauteur. This is exemplified in a number of paintings (usually based on numerous prior drawings): Flower Girl; Blonde Lady; Sleeping Nude (1917); Blonde Nude; Young Woman; Maria (1918); Pink Nude; Reclining Nude; Nude on a Divan; Woman with a Fan (1919); and Young Woman in a Chemise; Reclining Nude (1920). Modigliani painted his subjects in elongated, elliptic ovals: the swell of a breast, the pronounced curve of the pelvis, the fullness of the thigh, the symmetrically oval face and the graceful arabesque of the body. Facial features are reduced to a bare minimum, with the eyes typically empty, like those of a statue. He employed colour as a constructive material in much the same way as stone in sculpture, juxtaposing muted pinks, ochres and pale browns against discreet background tones supplied by décor and garments. The overall effect is to yield a flat image devoid of chiaroscuro but which captures the essence of a subject. It has often been remarked that his women, with their elongated heads and long, graceful necks, generally tilted to one side, possess a melancholy beauty akin to that of the Siena Madonnas (reproductions of which Modigliani kept pinned on his studio wall), which accounts for Modigliani’s soubriquet as the ‘painter of sorrows’. From 1917, the majority of his nudes, characterised by a more pronounced elongation of the female body and lighter palette, were modelled by Jeanne Hébuterne and Luna Czechowska. Very few artists have been the subject of so many monographs and biographies as Modigliani; the selection appended to this entry indicates only some of the more important of these. Too much, perhaps, has been made of his life as an artiste maudit, of his ‘accursed’ yet colourful life rather than the quality of his work. Some critics have detected in him an artist of great and persistent intellectual curiosity; others emphasise that he was a ‘gentleman to the end’ and stress his physical frailty, ignoring the fact that this was an integral component of his creativity. More seriously, his posthumous fame amongst the public at large acts both for and against him, as if his subsequent popularity has become a yardstick of his artistic ability. The mannerism of his style ensures that a ‘Modigliani’ is instantly recognisable, but his success in adapting Cubism and African art to a language and palette that are entirely his own places him squarely at the heart of the modern movement. Amedeo Modigliani’s work has featured in numerous group exhibitions, including: Paris in 1908, when he showed his Jewess and three other canvases; the Salon des Indépendants in 1910; and the Salon d’Automne in 1912, where he exhibited examples of his sculpture. His posthumous inclusion in the 1922 Venice Biennale was regarded in Italy as a complete fiasco, prompting the critic Giovanni Scheiwiller to paraphrase Charles Baudelaire’s remark to the effect that, ‘we know that precious few will understand us, but that shall be sufficient’. In 1917-1918, the Berthe Weill Gallery organised a one-man show at the instigation of Zborowski but, on the order of the then chief of police, some of Modigliani’s sensual nudes were withdrawn on account of alleged indecency. On 20 December 1918, the Paul Guillaume Gallery exhibited several paintings by Modigliani alongside others by Matisse, Picasso and Derain. All other exhibitions of Modigliani’s work have been held since his death. They include those at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris (1922); Galerie Bing (Paris, 1925 and 1927); Marcel Benhelm Gallery (Paris, 1931); Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, 1933); Kunsthalle Basel (1934); American-British Art Center (New York, 1944); Galerie de France (Paris, 1945 and 1949); Gimpels Fils Gallery (London, 1947); Cleveland Museum of Art (1951); Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1951); Cantini Museum (Marseilles, 1958); Palazzo Reale (Milan, 1958); Galerie Charpentier (Paris, 1958); Chicago Arts Club (1959); Cincinnati Art Museum (1959); Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome, 1959); Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1961); Perls Galleries (New York, 1963 and 1966); Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art (1968); Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, 1970); Musée St-Georges (Liège, 1980); Tokyo Arts Centre (1980); Musée de l’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1970; a comprehensive exhibition of Modigliani’s sculptures...
Category

Modern 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Lesser Ury - Auf dem kanal, impressionist, pastel, german, waterscape, canal
Located in London, GB
Lesser Ury (1861-1931) Auf dem Kanal 1912 pastel on board 49.2 x 34.9 cm signed and dated 'L.Ury.1912.' (lower left) Price: $25,000 USD Provenance: Sale: Christie's London, 30 June 2000, lot 42 Collection of Simone and Jean Tiroche (acquired at the above sale) Thence by descent Sale: Christie's London, 19 June 2013, lot 199 Private collection, UK (acquired from the above sale) Notes: Dr Sibylle Gross has confirmed the authenticity of this work. Lesser Ury, a German-Jewish Impressionist...
Category

Impressionist 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pastel, Board

Pease-Porridge Hot, Pease-Porridge Cold
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Medium: Mixed Media on Paperboard Signature: Signed Lower Right This mixed media art by Jesssie Willcox Smith, entitled “Pease-Porridge Hot, Pease-Porridge Cold,” was executed in 19...
Category

1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media, Board

Picasso, Homme dans un interiéur jouant de la guitare
Located in Miami, FL
Drawn in 1912 by Picasso, this fine piece of work is a recognizable mark of his unique style. "Homme dans un interiéur jouant de la guitare", 1912 is on cream laid paper, with abstra...
Category

Abstract 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Paper, Pencil

The Necklace and the Pot
Located in Missouri, MO
Gisella Loeffler "The Necklace and the Pot" c. 1919 Gouache on Paper Initialed Lower Left Framed Size: approx 15 x 15 inches In a village filled with colorful characters, few Taos artists were as colorful as Gisella Loeffler [1900-1977]. From her handmade Austrian clothing and hand-painted furniture to whimsical paintings and letters written in multicolored crayon, joyful color defined the artist, who early on chose to use simply Gisella as her professional name and was known as such to everyone in Taos. 

In spite of her fame there—the Taos News once labeled her a Taos legend—Gisella is rarely included in scholarly discussions of the Taos Art Colony. This oversight is likely due to the naive quality of her work, in which children or childlike adults inhabit a simple, brightly colored world filled with happiness. The macabre, the sad, the tortured, the offensive—all have no place in Gisella’s paintings. Her naive style of work looks very different from that of the better-known early Taos artists. Yet both Gisella’s artwork and her interesting life command attention. Born in Austria, Gisella came to the United States with her family in 1908, settling in St. Louis, MO. After studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, she became a prominent member of the local art community, joining the St. Louis Art Guild as well as the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition to creating posters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gisella won prizes from the Artists Guild of the Author’s League of America in 1919 and 1920 and from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923. She also began working in textiles, including batik, to which she would return later in her career.  In the early 1920s Gisella married writer and music critic Edgar Lacher. A difficult character, Lacher may have chafed under Gisella’s success, for the couple divorced in the 1930s. Having seen a local exhibition of paintings by Taos artists Oscar Berninghaus (who was from St. Louis) and Ernest Blumenschein, Gisella felt drawn to Taos, which reminded her of the villages of her native Austria. In 1933 the single mother with two daughters, Undine and Aithra, moved to Taos, where she lived off and on for the rest of her life. She traveled frequently, spending extended periods in Mexico, South America, and California, but always returned to New Mexico. Gisella initially applied an Austro-Hungarian folk-art style to the Indian and Hispanic subjects that she found in New Mexico. In her early work she covered her surfaces with decorative floral and faunal motifs, and her images were flat with no attempt at rendering traditional one-point perspective. Eventually, though, Gisella developed her own style, often using children or childlike figures as subjects. Still, the influence of her native country’s folk art remained evident in her New Mexican, Mexican, and South American images. In 1938 Gisella moved briefly to Los Griegos, north of Albuquerque, to be closer to medical facilities for her eldest daughter, who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Two years later, she moved to California to participate in the war effort, painting camouflage and decals on airplanes for Lockheed. In California, Gisella broadened her range of artistic pursuits. She taught art privately, created illustrations for Scripts Magazine, and did interior design for private homes. She also designed greeting cards, a practice she continued after her return to New Mexico, where she created a series of Christmas cards.  Gisella began illustrating children’s books in 1941 when she collaborated on Franzi and Gizi with author Margery Bianco. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own book, El Ekeko, in 1964. She also designed ceramics—her Happy Time Dinnerware, marketed by Poppy Trail...
Category

Modern 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Gouache

Going for a Stroll
Located in Missouri, MO
Gisella Loeffler "Going for a Stroll" c. 1919 Gouache on Paper Initialed Framed Size: approx 17 x 13 inches In a village filled with colorful characters, few Taos artists were as colorful as Gisella Loeffler [1900-1977]. From her handmade Austrian clothing and hand-painted furniture to whimsical paintings and letters written in multicolored crayon, joyful color defined the artist, who early on chose to use simply Gisella as her professional name and was known as such to everyone in Taos. 

In spite of her fame there—the Taos News once labeled her a Taos legend—Gisella is rarely included in scholarly discussions of the Taos Art Colony. This oversight is likely due to the naive quality of her work, in which children or childlike adults inhabit a simple, brightly colored world filled with happiness. The macabre, the sad, the tortured, the offensive—all have no place in Gisella’s paintings. Her naive style of work looks very different from that of the better-known early Taos artists. Yet both Gisella’s artwork and her interesting life command attention. Born in Austria, Gisella came to the United States with her family in 1908, settling in St. Louis, MO. After studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, she became a prominent member of the local art community, joining the St. Louis Art Guild as well as the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition to creating posters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gisella won prizes from the Artists Guild of the Author’s League of America in 1919 and 1920 and from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923. She also began working in textiles, including batik, to which she would return later in her career.  In the early 1920s Gisella married writer and music critic Edgar Lacher. A difficult character, Lacher may have chafed under Gisella’s success, for the couple divorced in the 1930s. Having seen a local exhibition of paintings by Taos artists Oscar Berninghaus (who was from St. Louis) and Ernest Blumenschein, Gisella felt drawn to Taos, which reminded her of the villages of her native Austria. In 1933 the single mother with two daughters, Undine and Aithra, moved to Taos, where she lived off and on for the rest of her life. She traveled frequently, spending extended periods in Mexico, South America, and California, but always returned to New Mexico. Gisella initially applied an Austro-Hungarian folk-art style to the Indian and Hispanic subjects that she found in New Mexico. In her early work she covered her surfaces with decorative floral and faunal motifs, and her images were flat with no attempt at rendering traditional one-point perspective. Eventually, though, Gisella developed her own style, often using children or childlike figures as subjects. Still, the influence of her native country’s folk art remained evident in her New Mexican, Mexican, and South American images. In 1938 Gisella moved briefly to Los Griegos, north of Albuquerque, to be closer to medical facilities for her eldest daughter, who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Two years later, she moved to California to participate in the war effort, painting camouflage and decals on airplanes for Lockheed. In California, Gisella broadened her range of artistic pursuits. She taught art privately, created illustrations for Scripts Magazine, and did interior design for private homes. She also designed greeting cards, a practice she continued after her return to New Mexico, where she created a series of Christmas cards.  Gisella began illustrating children’s books in 1941 when she collaborated on Franzi and Gizi with author Margery Bianco. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own book, El Ekeko, in 1964. She also designed ceramics—her Happy Time Dinnerware, marketed by Poppy Trail...
Category

Modern 1910s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Gouache

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