1950s Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Harold Hitchcock 1914-2009 A breathtakingly beautiful watercolour painting by one of the 20th century’s most admired English artists . This is a rare early work by the artist dated 1...

This early work from 1955 by Dong Kingman N.A. is as surreal as it is a document of a place. The artist effectively captures a slice of American urban life but constructs the compo...

Eugenio Granell (1912-2001) - Surrealist figure. Watercolor Watercolor measures 29x22 cm. Frame measures 56x49 cm. Eugenio Granell was born in La Coruña in 1912. He lived most of his childhood in Santiago de Compostela, a city that marked a large part of his artistic work. From a young age, he showed a great predisposition to art, specifically to music, and in 1928 he moved to Madrid to study violin at the Escuela Superior de Música. There he met the composer and director Enrique Casal Chapí. It is at this time when he begins to attend political and literary gatherings in Madrid cafes. His circle of friends - such as Benjamín Péret or Wilfredo Lam - brought him closer to the orbit of the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), in which he began to serve in 1935. At the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, he joined the militias loyal to the republican government to defend the capital and combined this activity with the direction of El Combatiente Rojo, the POUM newspaper. After the war ended, he was doubly persecuted; on the one hand, the victorious fascist army, which tried to get rid of any signs of active resistance against the new regime. On the other hand, Granell would suffer the persecution of his own communist comrades, since, under Stalin's mandate, the POUM and its militancy -of a Trotskyist nature and opposed to the Stalinist line of the Soviet Union- were considered enemies of communism and, therefore, this, condemned to persecutions and murders. Thus, in 1939, he must move to France. There he finds a reality different from the one he was looking for and went through various concentration camps until, after several attempts, he managed to escape and reach Paris -where he will meet Péret and Lam- to find a way out of his situation, leaving for South America. On the train that takes him to the port of La Havre, he meets Amparo Segarra, a Valencian fleeing Franco's repression, who would become his partner. They embark to Chile but, given the impossibility of this country to receive more refugees, they divert to the Dominican Republic, where they will settle, now together with Amparo, in the capital, Ciudad Trujillo. There, the artist will become part of the Symphony Orchestra as first violin. In 1941 he met André Breton when interviewing him for the newspaper La Nación. From this meeting a friendship will arise that will last until his death in 1966. In 1944 he publishes the book of stories El hombre verde. In 1946, only six years after settling in, under the hardening of the Trujillo dictatorship, he refused to sign a letter of adherence to the regime, so they had to leave the country and moved to Guatemala. There he entered as a professor at the School of Plastic Arts, maintaining an intense cultural activity. At the beginning of the Guatemalan revolution, in 1950, he had to flee the country again, for fear of Stalinist persecution. This time the Granell-Segarra family arrives in Puerto Rico, where the artist will occupy the chair of Art History at the Faculty of Humanities. In these years he published Isla Cofre Mítico -which is tremendously close to the surrealist poetic style- and participated in various collective exhibitions at the Puerto Rican university. Although in Santo Domingo he had collaborated with him on poetry magazines...

Salvador Dali Divine Comedy : Dante and Beatrice, 1952 Original watercolor Signed in lower center Dated 1952 On vellum lined on thin board 42 x 30 cm (c. 17 x 12in) REFERENCES : Th...

Jean Cocteau (1889-1963). "Two Heads " . original , signed ,dated and certified drawing by : "Jean Cocteau" has been acclaimed as one of the world's most im...

Two Women by George Tooker is a psychologically engaging portrait of contrasts. An untidy, older, overweight woman is seen slumped in a chair, asleep and lost in a dream. Her head ti...

A black and white, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. McLean was born in Sligo, Ireland and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He was a professor...

A black and white, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. McLean was born in Sligo, Ireland and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He was a professor...

Leon Kelly (American, born France, 1901-1982) Surrealist Portrait Ink on paper, 11 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches; Framed: 21 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches Signed and dated at lower right: "Leon Kelly 19...

Myriam Bat-Yosef Surrealist abstract painting in colorful abstract shapes and shades in the style of Joan Miro Hand signed and dated Tel Aviv, 1957. frame measures 10 X 5.5 sheet measures 2.5 X 7 inches The envelope of the Peter Buch poster is just for provenance and is not included in this sale. Myriam Bat-Yosef, whose real name is Marion Hellerman, born on January 31 , 1931 in Berlin, Germany to a Jewish family from Lithuania, she is an Israeli-Icelandic artist who paints on papers, paintings, fabrics, objects and human beings for performances. Myriam Bat-Yosef currently lives and works in Paris. In 1933, her family fleeing the Nazi Holocaust, Myriam Bat-Yosef emigrates to Palestine and settles in Jaffa. In 1936, she suffers a family tragedy, her father, militant Zionist, is called to fight, still recovering from an operation of appendicitis. The incision will become infected, antibiotics did not exist yet, and her father will die in the hospital after 9 months of suffering. Myriam and her mother leave Palestine to live in Paris for three years. French is Myriam's first school language. In 1939, still fleeing Nazism, she returned to Palestine, leaving France by the last boat from Marseille. She moved to Tel Aviv with her mother, aunt and maternal grandmother. In 1940, she began attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv and took her name as an artist, Bat-Yosef, which means Joseph's daughter in Hebrew, as a tribute to her father. In 1946, Myriam graduated as a kindergarten teacher but wanted to be an artist. Her mother enrolled her in an evening school to prepare a diploma of art teacher. At 19, she performs two years of military service in Israel. In 1952, with a pension of $50 a month that her mother allocated, she went to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. To survive, she has several activities while studying. In 1955, she had her first solo exhibition, at the Israeli Club on Wagram Avenue in Paris. Many artists, such as Yaacov Agam, Yehuda Neiman Avigdor Arikha, Raffi Kaiser, Dani Karavan and sculptors Achiam and Shlomo Selinger attended the opening . In 1956, she enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Florence. This is where she meets the painter Errô. They share an icy studio in winter. Myriam moves to Milan with friends. She organizes a joint exhibition with Erro, one room each, at the Montenapoleone gallery. Her works are admired by the sculptor Marino Marini and the painters Renato Birolli and Enrico Prampolini. Myriam and Erro exhibit in Rome, Milan, Florence and meet many personalities: Alain Jouffroy and his wife, the painter Manina, Roberto Matta and his wife Malitte, textile artist who was one of the founders of the Pompidou Center. Back in Paris, Myriam and Erro get married, which allows Myriam to avoid being called into the Israeli army during the Suez Canal War. In 1957, Myriam and her husband went to Iceland. Myriam works in a chocolate factory. Having enough money, she starts producing art again. She exhibited in Reykjavik's first art gallery. She meets the artist Sigridur Bjornsdottir, married to the Swiss painter Dieter Roth . In 1958, Myriam and her husband leave for Israel. They exhibit in Germany, then in Israel. Back in Paris, the couple became friends with artists of the surrealist movement, such as Victor Brauner, Hans Bellmer, the sculptor Philippe Hiquily, Liliane Lijn, future wife of Takis and photographer Nathalie Waag. Erro and Myriam have a daughter on March 15, 1960, named Tura, after the painter Cosmè Tura, but also close to the Icelandic Thora or the Hebrew Torah. Bat-Yosef’s complex trajectory throughout the 20th century is linked as much to the transnational history of what was for a time called the School of Paris as it is to a certain legacy of Surrealism. Her work features the same idea of resolving antinomies that also defined the spirit of surrealism, and is enhanced with her readings of the Kabbalah and her spiritual grounding in Taoism. However, while there are reasons for her approach to be associated with the process of the ready-made, it is important to consider the immediate intrication of these works with her practice of performance, during which the body itself is also painted – a feminist response to Yves Klein’s Anthropometries (1960) and an echo of the happenings which Jean-Jacques Lebel organised at the time in Paris. In 1963, Erró told Myriam that if she wants to be a painter, she can not be his wife. Myriam chose to be a painter and the couple divorced in 1964. Since that time, Myriam Bat-Yosef has exhibited in many countries: Europe, United States, Japan, etc. Although long in the shadows, the work of Myriam Bat-Yosef has been greeted by many artists and personalities: Anaïs Nin, Nancy Huston, André Pieyre of Mandiargues, José Pierre, René de Solier , Jacques Lacarrière, Alain Bosquet, Pierre Restany, Sarane Alexandrian and Surrealist André Breton who, after a visit to her studio, confided to having been intrigued by its phantasmagorical dimension. She was included in the book Pop Art and Beyond: Gender, Race, and Class in the Global Sixties by Mona Hadler and Kalliopi Minioudaki. Extract "World Citizen, Artist of the Pop Era Sarah Wilson; Why do we know so little of Myriam Bat-Yosef, the most important female Israeli artist of the Pop era? Issues of identity and sexuality feature constantly in her work. She exhibited internationally from Reykjavik to Tokyo; she had two shows at Arturo Schwarz’s famous Dada/surrealist gallery in Milan; she participated in feminist art events in Los Angeles. Above all, in 1971, she conceived Total Art, a Pop Gesamtkunstwerk inside and outside the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Painter, performer, and installation artist, she was also a lover, wife, and mother. Of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, she was close to the family of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. An émigré in Paris she would repudiate a national passport, participating in Garry Davis’s short-lived “World Citizens” movement. She continues the lineage of women surrealist artists: Valentine Hugo, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Unica Zürn, Jane Graverol, Toyen, Alice Rahon...

Landscape is an original drawing in Gouache, realized by the artist Antoine Mayo (1905-1990) in the 1950s. Hand-Signed. In good condition. Antoine Mayo...

JEAN [HANS] ARP 1886 –1966 Strasbourg, France 1886–1966 Basel, Switzerland (German/French) Title: French Form Forme Francaise, 1959 Technique: Hand Signed Pencil Drawing on Wove P...

Seascape is an original drawing in watercolor on paper, realized by the artist Antoine Mayo (1905-1990) in the 1950s. Hand-Signed on the lower right marg...

Figure is a drawing in Pen realized by Mayo in 1950s. Good condition. Signature on the lower right corner. Antoine MAYO (1905-1990) is an artist born/buried in 1905 in Egypt. The ...

The Face is an original drawing in China ink on cardboard realized by Sergio Barletta in 1958. Applied on passepartout: 65 x 50 cm. Hand-signed and dated on the lower left. In ver...

Nude is an original drawing in china ink realized by Sergio Barletta in 1959. Applied on cardboard. Hand-signed on the lower right and dated. In very good ...

Abstract composition is an original artwork realized by Michel Cadoret. Penmarker on paper. The monogram of the artist is on the lower right corner. ...

Surrealist Drawing is an exceptional pencil drawing by the artist Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren, who signed on the lower right of the paper “Matta”. The artwork is in ver...

Artist: Wifredo Lam, Cuban (1902 - 1982) Title: Untitled - I Year: 1957 Medium: Crayon and Pastel on Paper, signed and dated l.r. Paper Size: 22 in. x 26.5 in. (55.88 cm x 67.31...

Signed in pencil at lower right.

Signed in pencil at lower right. Inscribed 'Que principio a abrir los ojos' ('Where to start when you open your eyes') in pencil at lower centre.

Jirayr Hamparzoom Zorthian was born April 14, 1911 in Kutahya, Turkey, of Armenian parents. At the age of three, he showed considerable talent in drawing and painting. Zorthian ...