1920s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

In this poetic lakeside scene, Hilding Werner transports the viewer to a tranquil Scandinavian summer night at the turn of the century. Four couples dance gaily upon a wooden raft or...

Watercolor by Louis Berthommé Saint-André, France, circa 1925 This exquisite watercolor by Louis Berthommé Saint-André, dating from around 1925, exemplifies the artist's mastery in ...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Headland & Rocks, White Island, Maine, c. 1923 Watercolor on paper Signed lower left 15 x 19.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox...

Paul-Emile Lecomte (1877-1950) La Route de Naudy (The Road to Naudy) Signed lower left (titled on the verso of the sheet, but now hidden by the back of the frame) watercolor on paper...

Brookdale, New Jersey Graphite on paper, 1922 Signed with the artist's initials l.l., and dated 1922 (see photo) Annotated "Brookdale" front and back of sheet Condition: Excellent Ar...

Robert Duflos was an exceptionally precocious painter whose work primarily consisted of highly accomplished pastels and nudes. His artistic production is concentrated within a single...

Watercolor and gouache on archival paper by French artist, Henri Grenier. Signed lower right. Circa 1925. Condition is excellent. The artwork is housed in its original ornate carv...

A fresh and breezy view of the much-loved Pinnacle Point in Monterey painted with the artist's characteristic freshness and vigor and dating to the 1920's. Initialed lower right, 'G....

A sculptor of animals, Sirio Tofanari (Florence 1886 – Milan 1969) is not inclined to the school discipline, he decides to learn and train as self-taught by travelling around Europe ...

This enchanting watercolor, measuring a mere 4.5 x 8 cm, offers a glimpse into the beauty of a serene autumn landscape overlooking Lake Möckeln, nestled between the municipalities of Degerfors and Karlskoga in the province of Värmland, Sweden. In this picturesque scene, the horizon reveals the serene outline of the distant shoreline, adorned with several small islands. The tranquil waters mirror the reflection of the trees on the land, creating a harmonious and captivating play of colors. In the foreground, a solitary birch tree stands tall, adding depth and perspective to this miniature watercolor. The level of precision achieved within this tiny format is truly remarkable, showcasing Fanny Hjelm...

Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola (1871-1950) A Man writing at his desk, 18th century interior scene Pastel on paper Signed upper right 20.5 x 15.8 cm Framed under glass : 37 x 31.5 cm It is known that Guirand de Scevola was very interested in the Palace of Versailles and its Old Regime atmosphere, that he often painted it and that he participated in the Versailles Revival movement at the beginning of the century. This probably led him to paint scenes in the 18th century style, for which he was particularly well known and which are still sought after. What is striking is the modernity of the execution of our pastel, which obviously contrasts with its subject in the style of the 18th century. Guirand de Scevoal is a great colourist and he proves it here with eclat, by building up his composition with white pastel highlights, contrasting with brown and black. There is something of the northern painters in this treatment of light. All this, as always with him, is very subtle. The light radiating from the window is almost an abstract notation, but it gives meaning to this interior scene. Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola ( 1871 – 1950) was a French painter. He was student of Fernand Cormon and Pierre Dupuis...

Preliminary drawing for Remy de Gourmont, Couleurs, published in Le Mercure de France (Colors, new tales follow old things), 1908 Graphite and colored pencil, 1926 Signed in pencil l...

Original gouache and watercolor on brown archival paper of a standing crow in profile. Signed and dated lower right. Condition is good to very good. Colors of the bird are strong a...

Created at the height of the Munka (“Work”) circle’s activity, Seated Woman marks a critical moment in Ernő Schubert’s artistic trajectory—from the immediacy of expressionism to the ...

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...

Anonymous King's College Cambridge with the River Cam and Bridge to foreground 51x63.5cm Watercolour c. 1920s A fine, and large, view of King's College. The...

Lithograph on vélin pur fil des Papeteries du Marais, realized by Cocteau in 1929. Belongs to the suite "25 Dessins d'Un Dormeur", published by H. L. Mermod, Lausanne. Edition of 2...

"Workers" Russian Constructivist 1920s Modern Social Realism Cubism Figurative VLADIMIR VASIL’EVICH LEBEDEV (1891-1967) "Workers" Gouache on paper Monog...

Artist: Beatrice Stella Pedder (English, 1875-1965) Title: "The Round Pond, Market at Concarneau, Brittany, France" *Signed by Pedder lower right Circa: 192...

Lithograph on vélin pur fil des Papeteries du Marais, realized by Cocteau in 1929. Belongs to the suite "25 Dessins d'Un Dormeur", published by H. L. Mermod, Lausanne. Edition of 2...

Paul Colin (French, 1892-1985) Josephine Baker, 1925 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lower right 14 x 10 inches 27.25 x 23 inches, framed Paul Colin (27 June 1892 – 18 June 198...

Ink and watercolor drawing by Carl Palme, dated 1921 and signed "CP," captures the narrow alleys of Positano. According to a note on the reverse, it is a study for an oil painting measuring 70x60 cm. Works from the early 20th century by Carl Palme are rare, making this piece particularly significant. Drawing 20x24cm. With frame 34x36cm Carl Adolf Palme (1879 – 1960) was a Swedish painter, draftsman, printmaker, and author. Born in Stockholm to bank director Henrik Palme and Anna Lavonius, he grew up on the Svalnäs estate, which is now a guest home and senior residence. Palme's artistic education began in London at the Slade School of Fine Art (1900–1901). He then studied at Wassily Kandinsky's art school in Munich from 1902 to 1904. In 1907, he moved to Paris and became the first Swedish student of Henri Matisse. Palme was instrumental in founding the Académie Matisse, a collective of young Swedish and Norwegian artists who rented a large studio in Paris. Matisse visited weekly to critique their work. This group included notable artists such as Isaac Grünewald, Sigrid Hjertén, and Einar Jolin...

Hand signed. Sketch realized in 1924 for the invitation to "Ballets Russes de Serge Diaghilev". Published in the same invitation in June 26th, 1924. Ref. Mimì, Anna Laetitia Pecci...

Finely detailed historical figurative fashion illustration painted in watercolor in 1921, of a lady in 17th century dress; complete with a full blac...

Bold and well executed charcoal on archival paper attributed to the American artist, Richard Emil Miller. Signed lower left “Miller”. Consistent with other known signatures of the a...

Pen, ink, watercolor and wash on paper by André Dunoyer de Segonzac, France, 1922-1924. Boating on the Morin River. Measurements : with frame: 52.5x65x2 cm - 20.7x25.6x0.8 inches / w...

An interesting and highly decorative chalk drawing by Edvard Andersson, 1929. Drawn on a quite large scale. Signed and dated EA, 1929. A tergo written "Hermes". The drawing is exec...

"6th Avenue El" American Scene Social Realism Mid-20th Century Cityscape Modern Max Arthur Cohn (1903-1998) 6th Avenue Elevated 19 1/4 x 13 3/4 inches Watercolor on paper Signed an...

Mabel E. Johnston Untitled, c. 1930s Watercolor and pencil on paper Sight: 12 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. Framed: 21 1/8 x 17 1/4 x 1/2 in. Signed lower right: Mabel E. Johnston The first tidb...

Paul-Emile Lecomte (1877-1950) Landscape by he river Signed lower right watercolor on paper 11.5 x 13.5 cm Framed : 23 x 29 cm Paul Emile Lecomte particularly excelled in small-...

Farm Horse Drunking Charcoal and pastel on artist's board, c. 1920 Signed lower right in pencil (see photo) Titled in ink lower center, as are all the illustration for At the Farm (s...

A 1926 watercolor of ships at a dock by artist Harold Haydon. Image size: 9" x 12". Framed size: 14" x 18". Provenance: Estate of the artist. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in...

Portrait of a Woman Pencil signed and dated Feb 20. 20 unframed 14x11 George Kenneth Hartwell painter and illustrator was born in Fitchburg 1891-1949, Massachus...

Tempera on paper. Image dimensions: 17.5 x 22.5 cm Certificate of authenticity provided by the Galleria Russo. Provenance: Galleria F. Russo, Rome. Mario Sironi was an Italian paint...

Watercolor painting depicting a nocturnal scene of Venice, featuring a gondola gliding slowly through the water under a full moon, by Karl Bergquist. Signed and dated "K Bergquist Ve...

A sensitively drawn and highly-detailed study for a three-panel set of stained glass windows showing the ascension of Jesus by angels and mortals. Initialed, lower right, 'EB-J', an...

Stamped with the signature 'chAgAll' (lower left), inscribed '8 90-44 Passy.' (center left) and inscribed 'Carnot 35.40' (lower right) Pen and India ink on paper Executed circa 192...

Hand signed lower left: “Depero”. Certificate of authenticity by the Archive of Fortunato Depero. In 1929, Fortunato Depero realized some proposals for internal illustrations of t...

An interesting and highly decorative chalk drawing by Edvard Andersson, 1929. Drawn on a quite large scale. Signed and dated EA, 1929. A tergo written "Kinesisk dikt" (Chinese Poem) ...

Unidentified artist, 'Commedia dell’arte' – four character studies (Arlecchino, Pantalone, Pantalone giovane, Tartaglia), watercolor and pencil, c. 192...

Allegory of Water is an original modern artwork realized by Ferdinand Bac (1859 - 1952) in 1922. Signed and dated on plate on the lower central margin (...

'Portrait of Reclining Nude', pencil on paper, by French artist, Guillaume Dulac (circa 1920s). An artist known for his exquisite drawings - many are sketches for his larger oil pain...

Jean-Gabriel Domergue (1889–1962) was a renowned French painter and engraver, celebrated especially for his portraits of elegant women or, more precisely, a feminine figure in a styl...

An American School watercolor showing an old Ford Model T flatbed truck backed up to a barn in a rural landscape. A well-composed work paint...

Signed lower right, 'Olga' for Her Imperial Highness, Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia and painted circa 1925. Provenance: Formerly in the ...

We are proud to present an exquisite drawing by the renowned artist Christian Berg (1893-1976), executed around the 1920s. This captivating artwork port...

Spring Landscape with house and figure A preliminary watercolor for a color aquatint, illustrated on line, title unknown Signed lower left in block letters (see photo) Watercolor and...

This gouache is a museal and historical piece. Gouache and charcoal on paper stuck on panel by Henri Rapin, France, 1924-1928. "Fructidor". With frame: 80x114x3 cm - 31.5x44.9x1.2, w...

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...

Signed lower left, 'J. W. Nicoll' for John W. Nicoll (American, 1865-1943), titled lower left, 'Santa Barbara' and painted circa 1925. Sheet dimensions: 9 x 12.75 inches. A luminous, early twentieth-century landscape showing a picturesque view of a Spanish style cottage set in a lush garden with a view beyond towards the Santa Ynez Mountains rising towards clouded, blue skies. An unusual and elegant view of old-time Santa Barbara that retains much of its crispness and freshness of color. Born in New York, John Nicoll first studied with his uncle, the landscape painter, James Nicoll. He subsequently moved to Paris where he furthered his education for three years under Bouguereau and Ferrier at the Académie Julian. He then continued on to Seville where he studied for three years at the Academia Real, spending his winters traveling and painting in North Africa. By 1899, Nicoll had settled in Pasadena where he painted, exhibited and taught drawing at the College of Fine Arts from 1906-1935. Upon his retirement, he moved to San Diego where he continued to paint and exhibit until his death in 1943. Over the course of a long career, James Nicoll exhibited widely and with success including at the Stickley Building, Pasadena, 1899; Blanchard Hall, Los Angeles, 1899; the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St Louis, 1904; the Ruskin Art Club, Los Angeles, 1904; Lewis & Clark Expo Portland, 1905 (Bronze Medal); the Painters Club, Los Angeles, 1906-09; the Nicholson Gallery...

"Der Hafen von Plit" is a drawing by Paul Klee. The drawing is signed lower left, "Klee". The framed piece measures 25 1/4 x 30 1/2 x 1 3/8 in. Paul Klee was one of the most import...

Brooklyn Bridge NYC American Scene Ashcan 20th Century Social Realism Modern John Marin (1870-1953) Brooklyn Bridge 7 1/2 x 9 7/8 inches Graphite on paper Signed lower right, c. 1...

View Towards Christmas Cove, Maine, c. 1923 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 14 x 19.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1...

Original on Gouache on paper. Hand signed on front; signed, titled, dated with dedication on verso. Stamped "Composition originale". Frame size 30.5 x 26.5 inches. Artwork is in e...

Attributed to Marc Chagall – “L’Homme à la Lampe” Ink Drawing on paper/ card Documented History - Christie’s South Kensington Ltd Auction Estimate: £4,000 in April 2001 L’Homme à...

Simkhovitch was a celebrated artist in New York City from the 1920's through the 1940's. Life Magazine did a story on him and he was having great success in the New York Galleries. ...

Preliminary drawing for Remy de Gourmont, Couleurs, published in Le Mercure de France (Colors, new tales follow old things), 1908 Graphite and colored...

Louise H. "Louie" Burrell (née Luker 1873 – 1971) was an English-born artist who also lived in Canada and the United States. The daughter of William and Ada Luker, both artists, Bur...

A 1920s caricature of author Lennox Robinson, by artist Isa M. Macnie. Inscription on drawing reads: "Author of “The White-Headed Boy” etc." Image size: 8 7/8" x 6 7/8". Archiva...

The work is signed on the lower right by Gromaire. One of Gromaire's favorite subjects were men "of the people,” whether they worked in the fields or at sea, were construction worke...