American Modern Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Blizzard in Woods Graphite on paper, c. 1945-1963 Unsigned Provenance: Sid Deutsch Gallery, New York Annotated with notes for completing the drawing. Deutsch Gallery has handled Bur...

Untitled (Wizard Fantasy) Pen and ink on paperboard, 1948 Signed and dated by the artist lower right Extremely rare "Middle Period" drawing. One of two drawings that were given by the artist to Jeanette Kear, Chevy Chase, MD which were signed and dated by the artist. All others in the exhibition are from sketchbooks and have the estate stamp and numbering. Exhibited at National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Dec. 6 1979-Feb. 3, 1980 and Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, Feb. 22-April6, 1980 Illustrated twice in the resulting catalog, The Drawings of Morris Louis, by Diane Upright Headly, Harvard Univeristy and author of the catalog essay and entries. (See photos) Condition: Mounted to paper board by owner, Jeanette Kear for framing Glazed with glass Image size: 13 7/8 x 16 5/8 inches Frame size: 20 x 23 x 3/4 inches Provenance: Jeanette F. Kear, Chevy Chase, MD Illustrated: National Collection of Fine Art, 1979: "The Drawings of Morris Louis," Catalog No. 1, illustrated D1, reproduced p. 73 Morris Louis Bernstein (November 28, 1912 – September 7, 1962), known professionally as Morris Louis, was an American painter. During the 1950s he became one of the earliest exponents of Color Field painting. While living in Washington, D.C., Louis, along with Kenneth Noland and other Washington painters, formed an art movement that is known today as the Washington Color Schoo Early life and education From 1929 to 1933, he studied at the Maryland Institute of Fine and Applied Arts (now Maryland Institute College of Art) on a scholarship, but left shortly before completing the program. Louis worked at various odd jobs to support himself while painting, and in 1935 was president of the Baltimore Artists' Association. From 1936 to 1940, he lived in New York City and worked in the easel division of the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. During this period, he knew Arshile Gorky, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Jack Tworkov. He also dropped his last name. Work Color field painting He returned to his native Baltimore in 1940 and taught privately. In 1948, he pioneered the use of Magna paint—a newly developed oil-based acrylic paint made for him by his friends, New York paintmakers Leonard Bocour and Sam Golden. In 1952, Louis moved to Washington, D.C. Living in Washington, D.C., he was somewhat apart from the New York scene and he was working almost in isolation. During the 1950s he and a group of artists that included Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring, Anne Truitt and Hilda Thorpe...

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...

Leon Dolice Empire State Building Signed lower right Watercolor on paper 19 x 12 inches The romantic backdrop of Vienna at the turn of the century had a life-long influence upon th...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Snow in the Forest, 1945 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lower right 19 x 23.75 inches 24 x 29 inches, framed Clarence Holbrook C...

Frederick Pomeroy "Napa Valley Landscape" c. 1960s Watercolor on paper 17"x14" brown wood frame float mount over linen mat Signed in paint lower ...

A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Ink Drawing of a Seated Female Nude by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Completed in the 1960s, this compelling studio ink drawing is executed in ...

Samuel Norkin (January 10, 1917 – July 30, 2011) was a Brooklyn, New York-born cartoonist who specialized in theater caricatures for more than even decades. His drawings of theater, opera, ballet and film celebrities appeared in Variety, Backstage, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe and many other publications. Norkin learned composition and anatomy from the muralist Mordi Gassner. He received a scholarship to the Metropolitan Art School after his high school graduation, and he later attended Cooper Union, the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the School of Fine and Industrial Art. During the 1940s, newspaper editors wanted to devote more space to new theatrical productions, but photo opportunities usually did not happen until a show opened. Norkin took advantage of the situation and gained access to rehearsals, performers, costume sketches, fittings and scenic designs, providing editors with illustrations prior to an opening. From 1940 to 1956, his theatrical illustrations were a regular feature in the New York Herald Tribune. Then for the next 26 years, he covered the performing arts for the Daily News. Since 1940, Norkin has had more than 4000 drawings published. When he began doing theatrical caricature, he supplied his own captions, which eventually prompted him to write articles and reviews. He was an art critic for the Carnegie Hall house program and a cultural reporter for the Daily News. Norkin's theater reminiscences and 266 drawings came together in the book Sam Norkin, Drawings, Stories (Heinemann, 1994), which was reviewed by David Barbour: A Norkin caricature cartoon is often densely packed with detail and may feature a great deal of solid black space. He also is more daring in his drafting; many of his pieces, in particular one from the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera, feature steeply raked lines which plunge vertiginously from top to bottom, to highly dramatic effect. On the other hand, many of Norkin's effects border on the surreal. His version of Michael Jeter and Jane Krakowski in Grand Hotel depicts the pair as a series of interrlated curves; Jeter, in particular, looks like a machine that you crank up and let loose on stage. His version of Constance Cummings as a stroke victim in Wings, uses cruelly sharp angles to create a Cubist deconstruction of the actress's face and limbs, which mirrors the disintegration of the character's mental functions. Norkin offers a wide-ranging collection of his works... He also showscases actors at different points in their careers (as in a trio of portraits of John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson) and different takes on different productions (he gives us a number of Salomes from the Metropolitan and New York City Operas). Exhibitions Artwork by Norkin has been exhibited in the Lincoln Center Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, the Museum of the City of New York, the Metropolitan Opera House, the Hudson River Museum in (Yonkers, New York) and various galleries. Awards In 1942, Sam Norkin drew Joan Roberts, who was then starring on Broadway in Oklahoma!. Various awards received over the years by Norkin include an award for "Outstanding Theater Art" from the League of American Theatres and Producers. (1980) and an award for “Lifetime Body of Work” (1995) from the Drama Desk, the association of drama critics, drama editors and drama reporters. Along with David Levine, Al Hirschfeld and Kin Platt he is one of the great artists of the American press. He received two awards from the National Cartoonists Society, the Special Features Award (1980) and the Silver T-Square Award (1984). Sleuth is a 1970 play written by Anthony Shaffer. The Broadway production received the Tony Award for Best Play, and Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance. The play was adapted for feature films in 1972, 2007 and 2014. The play is set in the Wiltshire manor house of Andrew Wyke, an immensely successful mystery writer. Wyke's home reflects his obsession with the inventions and deceptions of fiction and his fascination with games and game-playing. He lures his wife's lover Milo Tindle to the house and convinces him to stage a robbery of her jewelry, a proposal that sets off a chain of events that leaves the audience trying to decipher where Wyke's imagination ends and reality begins. Shaffer said the play was partially inspired by one of his friends, composer Stephen Sondheim, whose intense interest in game-playing is mirrored by the character of Wyke, and by John Dickson Carr. Paul Rogers and Keith Baxter in the Broadway production of Sleuth (1971) Directed by Clifford Williams, Sleuth opened on 12 January 1970 at the Royal Theatre in Brighton, England. The play eventually transferred to the United States and opened on Broadway on November 12, 1970, at the Music Box Theatre, where it ran for 1,222 performances. Anthony Quayle and Keith Baxter starred as Andrew Wyke and Milo Tindle, with other parts listed as played by Stanley Wright, Sydney Maycock and Liam McNulty. When Quayle left the production in 1972, he was succeeded by Paul Rogers, George Rose...

"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...

6th Avenue El at 8th St NYC Cityscape American Scene Social Realism Mid-Century Max Arthur Cohn (1903-1998) 6th Avenue El at 8th Street 13 x 18 inches Watercolor on paper, c. 1930 ...

Clinton Hill (1922-2003), created quintessential mid-century images. This abstraction references Florence, Italy, where he studied in the early 1950s. He lived in SoHo, New York, a...

An early 1940s fashion study featuring women's hats in pink tobes. Provenance: Cornelia Steckl-Jurin, Founder of the Fashion Department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago...

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...

Clinton Hill (1922-2003), created quintessential mid-century images. He lived in SoHo, New York, and was a frequent Gallery visitor. Born in Idaho and raised on a working ranch, ...

A Vibrant, Colorful Modern Watercolor, "Garden in a City Park" by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Painted in the 1960s, most likely depicting a city garden in Europe, Mexico o...

Executed in an American Modern style reminiscent of Lyonel Feininger, this Robert Andrew Parker watercolor painting depicts a warship at sea. The work is signed and dated lower left....

Reginald Marsh "Brooklyn Bridge" NYC Modernism WPA Mid-Century Watercolor Modern Reginald Marsh (American, 1898-1954) Brooklyn Bridge, 1940, Signed and dated Reginald Marsh May 1940 (lr), Watercolor over traces of pencil on paper , 15 x 22 inches sight. Reginald Marsh was born in Paris, France in 1898, the child of artist parents. He was born over a small cafe on Paris' Left Bank. He was brought to the United States in 1900 and was drawing before he was three. He studied art at Yale University and the Art Students League, during which time he worked primarily as an illustrator for New York newspapers and magazines. After studying in Paris in 1925 and 1926, he turned seriously to painting. In 1929 he was introduced to the egg-tempera medium, which he used extensively the rest of his life. Marsh's gusto for painting the bottom crust of society contrasted curiously with his background. His parents, both well-known artists, were steeped in academic traditions. He attended Lawrenceville Academy and Yale; perhaps this elite background made it possible to paint the earthy people he did with a journalist's objectivity. An admirer of Rubens and Delacroix, he disliked modernist art; indeed, his lifelong preoccupation was with people - enjoying themselves at beaches, at amusement parks, or on crowded city streets. Marsh was a second-generation Ash Can School painter and printmaker, best known as an urban regionalist. He spent his days sketching in small notebooks...

Watercolor on paper Most probably related to the artist's creation of images surrounding Haggadah (Passover) which he started in 1930 and finished with the publication of his book in...

(Note: This work is part of our exhibition Connected by Creativity: WPA Era Works from the Collection of Leata and Edward Beatty Rowan) Watercolor on paper, 14 x 21 inches unframed sheet, 24 x 30 inches framed, signed and dated lower right About the Artist: Born in 1909, Tom E. Lewis studied architecture at the University of Southern California. Beyond that training, Lewis was largely self-taught as an artist. He began watercolor painting during the late 1920s and focused on scenes of California. Lewis was an active organizer of the arts and exhibitor and aided the formation of the Progressive Painters of Southern California. Prior to World War II, the Treasury Section of Fine Arts awarded two commissions to Lewis, the first completed in 1938 for the Hayward California Post Office and the second completed in 1941 for the El Dorado County California District Attorney’s Office...

Abraham Walkowitz, Untitled (Figurative Abstraction of Isadora Duncan #7), pencil, 1918. Signed and dated in pencil, bottom center. A fine, spon...

Here for your consideration is an original mixed media fashion illustration by the world renowned fashion artist, Kenneth Paul Block. Signed with initials bottom right. Circa 1965. ...

Getting Ready for the Revolution - Learning How to Ride in the Subway Litho crayons on illustrator’s board, c. 1932 Signed: Adolf Dehn (VED) lower right corner (signed by Virginia Dehn, the artist’s widow) Tilted along the upper edge of the recto in pencil by the artist Verso inscriptions: “VF 3168.D” in a circle, also annotated in red pencil “32” in a circle and “699 Provenance: Mary Ryan Gallery, exhibition entitled Adolf Dehn Lithographs, 1927-1940, Nov. 16 to Dec. 12, 1982. The original exhibition notice us affixed to the backing board of the frame Note: A drawing intended or used in the publication Vanity Fair, for whom Dehn worked in the mid 1920’s to the 1930’s. Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs...

Blanche Grambs, whose career started with the WPA, was an extremely skilled draftsperson. Her birds are masterful. Although we use the word 'pencil' fo...

For your hockey enthusiast! A ca. 1950s, pastel & charcoal on paper drawing of a hockey game by artist Francis Chapin. Artwork size: 9" x 12". Matted to: 14" x 18". Provenance: Estate of the artist. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of the city’s most popular and celebrated painters in his day. Born at the dawn of the 20th Century in Bristolville, Ohio, Chapin graduated from Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. He would set down deep roots at the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibiting there over 31 times between 1926 and 1951. In 1927 Chapin won the prestigious Bryan Lathrop Fellowship from the Art Institute – a prize that funded the artist’s yearlong study trip to Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Chapin decided to remain in Chicago, noting the freedom Chicago artists have in developing independently of the pressure to conform to pre-existing molds (as was experienced by artists in New York, for example). Chapin became a popular instructor at the Art Institute, teaching there from 1929 to 1947 and at the Art Institute’s summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan (now called Oxbow) between 1934 – 1938 (he was the director of the school from 1941-1945). Chapin’s contemporaries among Chicago’s artists included such luminaries as Ivan Le Lorraine Albright...

An exquisite blue-toned, Mid-Century watercolor, titled "Rome", ca. 1960 by Chicago artist George Yelich. The watercolor depicts the Foro Traiano; Trajan Column, and Churches of San...

Mid century inspired aerial landscape pastel drawing by contemporary artist R. Michael Wommack. The work features a birds eye view of a planned neighborhood at night with glowing swi...

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) is arguably the most important American artist of the 20th century. He not only defined Pop Art but had an unrivaled influence on artists and image-making. ...

Louis Wolchonok, 'Rockport Harbor', gouache, c. 1950. Signed in ink, lower right. A fine, modernist work, with fresh colors, on cream wove drawing pape...

The Modernist painter Oscar Bluemner was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1867. As a young man, he followed in the architectural careers of his father and grandfather. In the early 1880s...

Colorful abstract watercolor of imaginative shapes in a tropical setting with botanical landscape elements by Claire Wolf Krantz (American, b. 1938). Signed "Claire Wolf Krantz" lower right. Titled "Spires" lower center. Dated "11/18/77" and numbered "II" in a series lower left. Peach colored mat and bronze tone metal frame. Image, 14"H x 14"L. Kranz is an artist and art critic living in Chicago, she uses fictional and real elements in her works. She is known for mixed media works layering photograph...

Oscar Bluemner Sheepshead, Long Island, 1907 Signed with the artist's conjoined initials "OB" and dated "4-30 - 5 - 30" / "Aug 3, 07" Watercolor on paper 6 x 10 inches Provenance: J...

"Mission Impossible" Original TV Guide Drawing Illustration Caricature Mid Century NYC with Greg Morris, Barbara Bain, and Steve Hill. This original drawing...

Apparently Bendiner never went a day without drawing. He was amazing! In this scene of a young 'cowgirl' is working a lasso while an 'old cowhand' looks on -- clutching a cigaret of...

A brightly colored, Mid-Century, watercolor and charcoal on paper image of a boy by notable artist Margo Hoff, titled "Sun Child". Image size: 31" x 22". Framed size: 34" x 25". ...

Perfect for you hockey enthusiast! A 1950s pastel & charcoal on paper drawing of a hockey game by artist Francis Chapin. Artwork size: 9" x 12". Matted size: 14" x 18". Provenance: Estate of the Artist. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of the city’s most popular and celebrated painters in his day. Born at the dawn of the 20th Century in Bristolville, Ohio, Chapin graduated from Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. He would set down deep roots at the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibiting there over 31 times between 1926 and 1951. In 1927 Chapin won the prestigious Bryan Lathrop Fellowship from the Art Institute – a prize that funded the artist’s yearlong study trip to Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Chapin decided to remain in Chicago, noting the freedom Chicago artists have in developing independently of the pressure to conform to pre-existing molds (as was experienced by artists in New York, for example). Chapin became a popular instructor at the Art Institute, teaching there from 1929 to 1947 and at the Art Institute’s summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan (now called Oxbow) between 1934 – 1938 (he was the director of the school from 1941-1945). Chapin’s contemporaries among Chicago’s artists included such luminaries as Ivan Le Lorraine Albright...

Capitola Beach, California - Original Watercolor on Paper Beautiful watercolor painting of Capitola Beach by Ken L. Stephens (American, 20th Century). A couple sits by the water, wi...

Stone and Press Gallery is excited to offer several works in celebration of the LGBTQ community. This is a drawing from the artist's sketchbooks. This pencil drawing shows a nude male in repose, The drawing is dated November 30 '36 (1936). Clearly the works are authentic and this sketch is signed "Jackson Lee Nesbitt...

Silverpoint and crayon on paper 4 11/16 x 3 inches 11.9 x 7.6 cm Framed dimensions 8 1/8 x 9 7/8 inches Provenance The artist; By bequest to his nephew, Sergio Stella, 1946; By desc...

JUNE WAYNE (1918 - 2011) A WINTER - SEEMING SUMMER'S NIGHT, 1957 From the John Donne Series. (Conway 122, Basket 106: Gilmour 50) Lithograph signed, title...

A 1930s Watercolor titled "Chicago Rail Yard" by important Chicago/Michigan artist Tunis Ponsen. Image size: 10 1/2" x 15 1/2". Framed size: 18" x 23 1/2". This watercolor comes...

The Model Watercolor on paper, c. 1930 signed lower right (see photo) Condition: Excellent A few bits of adhesive residue verso Colors fresh and unfaded Housed in a Marin style meta...

At the Pool - Mid Century Illustration in Watercolor and India Ink on Paper Lovely watercolor of a sunny day at a public pool by an unknown artist (20th Century). People are swimmin...

West Virginia native Grace Martin Taylor, artist for the brightly colored pastel (TownView), attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Art S...

This drawing is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Crayon on paper, 11 ½ x 9 inches (image), 14 x 11 inches (sheet), Signed...

Untitled (Kneeling Male Nude) Graphite on paper, c. 1930 Unsigned Annotated in pencil verso: "This drawing was made by David Smith in the Matulka class at A. S. L. 1931 Signed Doroth...

Reginald Marsh "Manhattan Bridge" NYC American Scene Modernism Watercolor WPA Urban Realism, 20 x 14 inches. Watercolor and pencil on paper, 1938. Signed...

Boogie Woogie II, 1993 Peter Ambrose (American, b. 1953) Charcoal on Paper Signed and Dated Lower Right Titled Lower Left 41 x 29 inches 46.25 x 34.25 inches with frame BORN 1953 New York, NY EDUCATION 1977 MFA, The School of Art Institute of Chicago 1975 BFA, Carnegie Mellon University 1974 Yale University, Summer School of Art and Music TEACHING EXPERIENCE 1983 Visiting Artist, 2-D, 3-D Design and Graduate Advisor, Carnegie Mellon University 1995-96 Independent Study in Exhibition installation, art handling, restoration, Saint Louis University 1998 Adjunct faculty, Sculpture, Saint Louis University SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 1999 Elliott Smith...

"Loser's Rack" - Original Charcoal and Graphite Drawing on Paper This drawing by California artist, Angela Stone (American, b. 1983), provides brilliant 1-point perspective in a val...

Yiddish Theatre Cubist Costume Design 1924 Deco Color Field Modernism Broadway. Boris Aronson (1898 – 1980) "Day and Night," 17 ½ x 13 inches. Gouache ...

African Mama - Vintage Illustration in Ink and Watercolor A charming illustration, by Irene Pattinson (American, 1909-1999), shows a woman with a...

Charles Schorre 1925-1996 Texas Image Size: 22 x 30 Frame Size: 27 x 35.5 Medium: Watercolor on Paper "Red Wing" Biography Charles Schorre 1925-1996 Charles Schorre (1925 - 1996) was...

This drawing is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Crayon on paper, 10 ½ x 9 inches (image), 14 x 11 inches (sheet), Signed...

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...

This drawing is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Crayon on paper, 11 5/8 x 9 inches (image), 14 x 11 inches (sheet), Signed lower right, Matted, but no...

WPA Mural Study Mid-Century Modern American Scene Social Realism Workers Anton Refregier (1905-1979) Mural Study, Untitled 7 ¾ x 22 inches (sight) Gouache, pencil, and charcoal on board, c. 1940s Unsigned Provenance: Estate of Seymour Fogel, noted verso Thomas McCormick Gallery...

A 1951 graphite on paper, black and white figure study of a nude male, from 1951, by artist Harold Haydon. Artwork size: 19" x 12 1/2". Archivally matted to 24" x 20". Provenance...

Reclining Female Nude Charcoal and colored chalks with white highlights on tan laid paper, c. 1948 Signed and monogrammed by the artist lower right (see photo) A masterpiece dr...

Cadets Football New Yorker Mag Cover Proposal American Scene Modern Illustration Antonio Petruccelli (1907 – 1994) Cadets Football Game New Yorker cover proposal, c. 1939 14 1/4 X 1...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Volcano and Arch, Taormina, 1961 Watercolor on scintilla paper Signed and dated upper right 11 x 11 inches "My last year in art schoo...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) People, 1964 Ink and crayon on paper Signed and dated upper right 36.5 x 24 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of nation...

Francis Chapin was one of the most celebrated painters in Chicago during his lifetime. When he was a young art student, Valley House founder, Donald Vogel, painted with "Chape" on th...

Framed Size: approx 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches Fred Conway (1900-1973) "Golf Bags, Caddy with Golf Bag on His Back" Pen/Ink/Watercolor on Paper Site Size: approx. 10 x 13 inches Framed Size: approx. 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches A member of the faculty of the Washington University Art School from 1929 to 1970, Frederick Conway...

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...

Chaim Gross (American, 1904-1991) Watercolor with pencil painting Rabbi Klezmer music concert, flute player. Hand signed framed: 15 X 28.5, paper: 9.5 X 23 Chaim Gross (March 17, 1904 – May 5, 1991) was an American modernist sculptor and educator. Gross was born to a Jewish family in Austrian Galicia, in the village of Wolowa (now known as Mezhgorye, Ukraine), in the Carpathian Mountains. In 1911, his family moved to Kolomyia (which was annexed into the Ukrainian USSR in 1939 and became part of newly independent Ukraine in 1991). When World War I ended, Gross and brother Avrom-Leib went to Budapest to join their older siblings Sarah and Pinkas. Gross applied to and was accepted by the art academy in Budapest and studied under the painter Béla Uitz, though within a year a new regime under Miklos Horthy took over and attempted to expel all Jews and foreigners from the country. After being deported from Hungary, Gross began art studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, Austria shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1921. Gross's studies continued in the United States at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied with Elie Nadelman and others, and at the Art Students League of New York, with Robert Laurent. He also attended the Educational Alliance Art School, studying under Abbo Ostrowsky, at the same time as Moses Soyer and Peter Blume. In 1926 Gross began teaching at The Educational Alliance, and continued teaching there for the next 50 years. Louise Nevelson was among his students at the Alliance (in 1934), during the time she was transitioning from painting to sculpture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he exhibited at the Salons of America exhibitions at the Anderson Galleries and, beginning in 1928, at the Whitney Studio Club. In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed optimistic, affirming themes, Judaica, balancing acrobats, cyclists, trapeze artists and mothers and children convey joyfulness, modernism, exuberance, love, and intimacy. This aspect of his work remained consistent with his Jewish Hasidic heritage, which teaches that only in his childlike happiness is man nearest to God. In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, Israeli President, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. He also did some important Hebrew medals. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work.In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School (which Gross ran briefly with Alexander Dobkin...

In the 1950s and 60s Grambs worked on many commissions. The symmetrical nature of the drawing suggests it was for a book or magazine project with facing pages -- possibly a cookboo...

John Brock Lear, Jr., an American Modernist artist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His works are in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Woodmere Art Museum, the D...

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...

Blanche Grambs, whose career started with the WPA, was an extremely skilled draftsperson. Her birds are masterful. This charming piece places the yooun...

A Vivid, Expansive Watercolor of Mexico, "Summer Landscape with Country Villa" by Noted Chicago Modern Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Most likely depicts a picturesque country estate near ...

Robert Gilberg (1911-1970) "Reclining Nude 2" c.1950s Ink on Japanese rice paper with writing 21.75"x9.75 unframed Signed in pencil lower right

Francesco Spicuzza (American, 1883-1962) Untitled Landscape, 20th century Pastel on paper Sight size: 24 x 30 in. Framed: 26 1/4 x 32 3/8 in. Signed lower right: Spicuzza Italian-born Francesco Spicuzza was primarily a Wisconsin painter who did portraits, still-lives and local landscapes. He spent the first part of his life in near-poverty to become a painter. An eternal optimist, in 1917, the artist reported: "I am happy and my only ambition now is to paint better and better until I shall have reached the measure of the best of which I am capable." (Spicuzza, 1917, p. 22). His predilection for beach scenes germinated early: reportedly, the five-year-old boy first drew the outlines of his father's fishing boat in the sand on the seashore near their home in Sicily. After setting himself up as a fruit peddler in Milwaukee, Spicuzza's father sent for his family when Francesco was eight years old. For the following six years the boy was unable to attend school because of his job in his father's fruit and vegetable business. The poor lad suffered a caved-in shoulder from carrying a heavy wooden crate. The young Spicuzza was aided by moral and financial support from a sympathetic Milwaukee businessman named John Cramer, publisher and editor of the Evening Wisconsin, who raised Spicuzza's salary as a newspaper assembler so that he could attend school. In 1899 or 1900, Spicuzza began studying drawing and anatomy under Robert Schade (1861-1912), a painter of panoramas who had been trained in Munich under Carl Theodor von Piloty. Spicuzza was also taught by Alexander Mueller (1872-1935), a product of the Weimar and Munich academies. Mueller realized Spicuzza was a colorist and encouraged that orientation (Madle, 1961). Spicuzza found it beneficial to accept an apprenticeship in a lithographic studio for $8 a week, which demanded most of his time. During the St. Louis Universal Exposition in 1904, still a struggling student, Spicuzza attended the fair, thanks to Cramer. It was not long before Spicuzza received a twenty-five dollar portrait commission, and this inaugural success led to new commissions and allowed him to continue as a painter. The earliest influences in his work appear to be from Edward H. Potthast and Maurice Prendergast, though Spicuzza never mentioned either artist. Already in August 1910, Spicuzza was described in a newspaper as "one of the most talented of Milwaukee's rising workers." He undoubtedly received lasting inspiration from his one summer study period in 1911 with John F. Carlson at the Art Students League's Summer School in Woodstock, New York. Certainly Spicuzza would have picked up spontaneity in handling the brush from Carlson. Although he executed numerous still-lives and an occasional religious work, Spicuzza is best known for his Milwaukee beach scenes populated with frolicking bathers in multi-colored attire, not unlike the images of Potthast, who used a similar technique. Many of these are small, preparatory works on canvas board executed between 1910 and 1915. Frequently with even greater animation than Potthast, Spicuzza produced moving images of youthful energy and uninhibited child's play. These beach genre scenes reflect the attitude of American impressionists who depicted the more pleasant side of life. Spicuzza manipulated a successful balance of rich pigment applied in varying degrees of impasto texture with subtle nuances of hue. Working all'aperto, he sought "the soft enticing shades of yellow, blue, green, pink and lavender . . . to get the effects of bright glistening summer air." (L.E.S., n.d.). As a painter whose color not only derived from direct observation but also from a personal theory of color symbolism, Spicuzza traded the linear approach of lithography for dynamic patches of brilliant color. Like Prendergast, he would often tilt the angle of the picture plane to bring the viewer's position above the scene. Spicuzza was unable to enter the 1913 Armory Show or the Panama-Pacific International Exposition two years later but he did submit work to the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and those of the Art Institute of Chicago. His first important award was the bronze medal presented by the St. Paul Institute in 1913, which was followed by the silver medal two years later. Before long, Spicuzza had acquired a greater sense of security in his profession and was described by a writer in International Studio (April 1917) as "an independent artist with an assured future. His pastels and water-colours are poetic and joyous bits of nature with a genuine out-of-door feeling." In 1918, his Spirit of Youth, exhibited at the National Academy of Design, sold for $112.50. Four years later, the artist achieved his greatest local recognition by winning the gold medal from the Milwaukee Art Institute. Spicuzza spent a great deal of time painting en plein air and by 1925 he began summering at Big Cedar Lake, near West Bend, Wisconsin to gather his subject matter. Easter Morning (1926) owes something to the Symbolist movement, with its figure of Christ appearing over a seascape. During the difficult era of the Depression, patrons came to Spicuzza's aid and during the 40s, he taught housewives, businessmen and students at the Milwaukee Art Institute, the Milwaukee Art Center, and in his private studio. In the following decade, although his kind of art was no longer popular in the "make-it-or-break-it" New York gallery world, Spicuzza enjoyed regular patronage and sales. His beach scenes became more static and he would experiment with modernist techniques. Spicuzza died at the age of seventy-eight. Sources: L.E.S., "Do Colors Change a Person's disposition? Experiments of a Milwaukee Artist...

In the 1950s and 60s Grambs worked on many commissions. This ink drawing with a lobster, crab, and a shrimp, was probably for a cookbook; the sheet is cut in a free-form, modernist...

Interior Scene with Figures Ink and watercolor on paper, c. 1930's Signed with the Estate stamp lower center Condition: Loss upper right corner; two small tears lower margin ...