Tempera Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Botanical watercolour and gouache on paper circa 1920 by French fauvist painter Raoul Dufy. The work depicts flowers in red, blue and green. This work was executed by Dufy as a fabric design. Dimensions: Framed: 19.5"x19.5" Unframed: 12"x12" Provenance: Private collection of works by Raoul Dufy for Bianchini Ferier Bianchini Ferrier Collection - Christie's London - July 2001 SF Fall Show Raoul Dufy was one of a family of nine children, including five sisters and a younger brother, Jean Dufy, also destined to become a painter. Their father was an accountant in the employ of a major company in Le Havre. The Dufy family was musically gifted: his father was an organist, as was his brother Léon, and his youngest brother Gaston was an accomplished flautist who later worked as a music critic in Paris. Raoul Dufy's studies were interrupted at the age of 14, when he had to contribute to the family income. He took a job with an importer of Brazilian coffee, but still found time from 1892 to attend evening courses in drawing and composition at the local college of fine arts under Charles Marie Lhullier, former teacher of Othon Friesz and Georges Braque. He spent his free time in museums, admiring the paintings of Eugène Boudin in Le Havre and The Justice of Trajan in Rouen. A municipal scholarship enabled him to leave for Paris in 1900, where he lodged initially with Othon Friesz. He was accepted by the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Léon Bonnat, whose innate conservatism prompted Dufy to remark later that it was 'good to be at the Beaux-Arts providing one knew one could leave'. And leave he did, four years later, embarking with friends and fellow students on the rounds of the major Paris galleries - Ambroise Vollard, Durand-Ruel, Eugène Blot and Berheim-Jeune. For Dufy and his contemporaries, Impressionism represented a rejection of sterile academism in favour of the open-air canvases of Manet, the light and bright colours of the Impressionists, and, beyond them, the daringly innovative work of Gauguin and Van Gogh, Seurat, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec and others. Dufy was an out-and-out individualist, however, and was not tempted to imitate any of these artists. He produced, between 1935 and 1937, Fée Electricité (Spirit of Electricity), the emblem for the French utilities company Electricité de France (EDF). Dufy visited the USA for the first time in 1937, as a member of the Carnegie Prize jury. In 1940, the outbreak of war (and his increasingly rheumatic condition) persuaded him to settle in Nice. When he eventually returned to Paris 10 years later, his rheumatism had become so debilitating that he immediately left for Boston to follow a course of pioneering anti-cortisone treatment. He continued working, however, spending time first in Harvard and then in New York City before moving to the drier climate of Tucson, Arizona. The cortisone treatment was by and large unsuccessful, although he did recover the use of his fingers. He returned to Paris in 1951 and decided to settle in Forcalquier, where the climate was more clement. Within a short time, however, he was wheelchair-bound. He died in Forcalquier in March 1953 and was buried in Cimiez. Between 1895 and 1898, Raoul Dufy painted watercolours of landscapes near his native Le Havre and around Honfleur and Falaise. By the turn of the century, however, he was already painting certain subjects that were to become hallmarks of his work - flag-decked Parisian cityscapes, Normandy beaches teeming with visitors, regattas and the like, including one of his better-known early works, Landing Stage at Ste-Adresse. By 1905-1906 Friesz, Braque, Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck, Van Dongen and Rouault were described collectively as Fauves (the wild beasts). What they had in common was a desire to innovate, but they felt constrained nonetheless to meet formally to set out the guiding principles of what promised to be a new 'movement'. Dufy quickly established that those principles were acceptable; moreover, he was most impressed by one particular painting by Henri Matisse ( Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness) which, to Dufy, embodied both novelty and a sense of artistic freedom. Dufy promptly aligned himself with the Fauves. Together with Albert Marquet in particular, he spent his time travelling the Normandy coast and painting views similar...

French artist Natalya Mougenot presents a new series of small oil paintings inspired by the quiet beauty of everyday life. "Just Oranges" is one of the pieces from this collection—a ...

Paul Lecomte (1842-1920) A Flowerbed signed lower left Watercolor on paper, 15.5 x 23.5 cm Framed : 25.5 x 33 cm This is a particularly original work by Paul Lecomte. It shows his ...

An original mixed media drawing by American artist A.J. Fries.

Movies, TV and magazines are constant source of inspiration. Fame, as fleckring and shallow it can be sometimes, is very intriguing to him. The worlds of fashion, society and pop cu...

This modern colorful expressive artwork "Happiness vase with pink flowers" belongs to my “Floral” series which is full of expressionism and vivid colors where I could fully experienc...

Finely detailed figurative illustration of a young woman leaning against a fence. The woman is wearing a plaid dress and bonnet with a black ribbon. Some of the landscape has been il...

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

'Tall Tulips' original watercolor painted in 2021 in subtle shades of pink with hints of yellow in a clear blue vase from Cleveland-born and educated Gary Bukovnik who has lived in California for over 40 years. Bukovnik’s art conveys a monumental quality. Primarily using the mediums of watercolor, monotype, and lithograph, Bukovnik fuses sensual vitality with fluid yet powerful colorations, creating floral images of great depth and intensity. The paper is 40 x 20 inches. Ships flat and unframed. Although professional framing is available upon request. This is a stunning and wonderful work of art from Gary Bukovnik. In 2003 and 2005, the American Academy in Rome invited Bukovnik to attend the academy as a Visiting Artist and provided him with a room and studio for six weeks. In 2001, he was selected to create a poster for the prestigious List Collection, which creates posters to commemorate programs at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. Lincoln Center past contributors have included Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Murray, and Donald Sultan. Solo exhibitions include Caldwell Snyder Gallery in San Francisco and in St. Helena, CA; Trajan Gallery in Carmel, CA; Campton Gallery in New York City; Concept Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA; Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery and A.C.T. Gallery in San Francisco, the Bonfoey Gallery in Cleveland and the Erickson Fine Art Gallery in Healdsburg. Other recent exhibitions have been organized by the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Paula Brown Gallery, Toledo, Neuhoff Gallery, New York; Lisa Kurts Gallery, Memphis; Irving Galleries, Palm Beach; Galerie Kutter, Luxembourg; the Southern Alleghenies. Museum of Art, Johnstown, Pennsylvania; Chin Show Cultural Center, Taipei; Takashimaya, Tokyo; the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh; and Brevard Museum of Art, Melbourne, Florida. Among the artwork displayed at the Brevard Museum of Art was a tapestry based on a Bukovnik watercolor and hand-woven in Aubusson, France by Atelier Raymond Picaud, weavers since the eventeenth century. Atelier Raymond Picaud has been at the forefront of progressive tapestry firms since the 1930s, focusing on images of modern artists such as Alexander Calder, Georges Braque, and Helen Frankenthaler. Bukovnik’s watercolors and monotypes are the subject of Flowers: Gary Bukovnik Watercolors & Monotypes, published by Harry N. Abrams, New York. This book includes a foreword by James J. White, curator at the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation; an interview with the artist by Robert Flynn Johnson, curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; and an essay about Bukovnik and the depiction of flowers in art...

Estate stamp, verso, for Victor di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and painted circa 1955. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attended the Los Angeles Art Center and t...

Chiura Obata Nasturtiums, circa 1940 Signed and stamped lower left Watercolor on paper 15 x 9 5/8 inches Born in the Okayama prefecture of Japan, Chiura Obata was adopted by his uncle, an artist. As a child he was trained in ink painting, and at 14 he was apprenticed to the painter Murata Tanryo in Tokyo. He also studied with Kogyo Terasaki and Goho Hasimoto. In 1903, Obata moved to San Francisco and began working as an illustrator for The New World and The Japanese American, two of the city's Japanese newspapers. He also did work as a commercial designer. Obata helped establish the East West Art Society in San Francisco in 1921, which sought to promote cross-cultural understanding through art. This goal was reflected in his embrace of the Nihonga style, which fused traditional Japanese sumi-e ink painting with the conventions of western naturalism. He spent much of the 1920s painting landscapes throughout California, and among his favorite subjects were mountain landscapes. In 1927, he visited Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada, creating over a hundred paintings and sketches of the high country. Obata stayed in the USA until the death of his father in 1928. Between 1928 and 1932, he worked in Tokyo as a painter and transformed his California landscape watercolors...

"Sweet Gum" painted by Joy Taylor in 2022 28 x 22 inches, 37 x 29 inches framed acrylic on paper Custom Frame with White Wood Molding, Window Mat and Tru Vu AR Glass Joy Taylor’s paintings transform botany into a personal vision. Her recent series on canvas, playfully titled the “Boo-K” paintings, defy traditional still life depictions that often seek to tame and order the objects of the world. On the contrary, Taylor’s subjects are never still. Her floral forms have the crisp, clean qualities of cut paper; sharp, decisive lines slice through blocks of pure pigment to create defined edges of leaves, vines and blossoms. The colors are constructed as well as the form. Her exuberant palette of oranges, blues, magenta and green echo the complimentary colors favored by the Fauvists. Color is an element in and of itself in her work. This balance of sparkling color and form is irrepressible, at times disconcerting and even dangerous in its boldness. In a series of original paintings on paper, Joy pairs down the form by focusing on a single bloom or leaf. As a specimen under a microscope, Taylor dives into the crevices and details of each leaflet on this bright green Sweet...