Modern Art Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Botanical gouache on paper circa 1920 by French fauvist painter Raoul Dufy. The work flowers in red and blues with green foliage against a yellow and white stripped background. Dimensions: Framed: 25"x20" Unframed: 18"x13" 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...

Colorful flowers fill the foreground in this large-scale watercolor still-life of a spring bouquet bursting with blossoms by California artist Royce Thyberg Gordon...

This original vintage watercolor painting, titled "Datura Stramonii," is a stunning work by renowned American abstractionist Werner Drewes. The composition captures the delicate beau...

SECRET GARDEN 2 is a new watercolor on Fabriano paper by Fleur Thesmar. The artwork measures 22x30". It is custom framed with anti-UV and anti-glare glas...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Bouquet of Flowers (P4.7), Year: circa 1960, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, Size: 19 x 13 in. (48.26 x 33.02 cm), Description: Set agai...

Stamped, verso, with estate stamp for Victor Di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and created circa 1955. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attended the Los Angeles Art...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Poppies and Roses (P2.42), Year: 1960, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, signed l.r., Image Size: 19 x 13.5 inches, Size: 22.5 x 16 in. (57...

Works on paper

Derrick Latimer Sayer (British, 1917 – 1992) A vase of summer blooms Watercolour on board 24.3/4 x 16.3/4 in. (60.3 x 42.5 cm.) Sayer studied at the Chelsea School Art under Henry Mo...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Red and Yellow Flowers, Year: circa 1960, Medium: Watercolor, Size: 20 in. x 14 in. (50.8 cm x 35.56 cm), Description: Flowing out of t...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Flowers (P6.34), Year: 1960, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, Size: 18 x 13.5 in. (45.72 x 34.29 cm), Description: Vibrant and festive, E...

Eve Nethercott, American (1925 - 2015) - Still Life with Carrots (P6.3), Year: 1949, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, Size: 18 x 20.5 in. (45.72 x 52.07 cm), Description: Set on ...

Composition is a drawing realized by Henry Wormser in the Mid-20th Century. Watercolor. Good conditions with slight foxing. The artwork is realized through deft expressive strokes.

Signed. Presented in a white-painted wooden frame. Title inscribed on label verso. On paper.

"Grey Pitcher" is a pastel still life by American artist Warren Brandt created in 1986. Warren Brandt is known for his still-life paintings being especial...

Two-sided watercolor with teapot-and-flower still life on one side and Carmel coast on the other by Les (Leslie Luverne) Anderson (American, 1928-2009). From the estate of Les Anders...

'Spring Composition no. 1' watercolor on paper. Gary Bukovnik, who fuses sensual vitality with fluid yet powerful colorations to create floral images of great depth, intensity, and s...

Signed to the lower right. On paper.