American Modern Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Dorothy Rivo Gloucester Harbor, c. 1950s Watercolor and ink on paper Framed dimensions: 34 in. H × 30 in. W Contemporary black frame with white archival mat In Gloucester Harbor, Dorothy Rivo captures the gritty beauty of a working port with expressive brushwork and tonal depth. The scene unfolds in loose washes of ochre, rust, and charcoal, where weathered boats float before a jagged row of fishing sheds and coastal structures rendered in gestural lines. Rather than striving for topographic precision, Rivo offers a painterly impression of the harbor—moody, atmospheric, and undeniably alive. The smudged foreground, dripping masts, and clouded sky convey both movement and memory, as if the harbor were emerging from a dream or dissolving into one. Executed in watercolor and ink, this piece shows Rivo's command of mixed media and her deft ability to balance structure with spontaneity. It is a standout example of mid-century American waterfront painting...

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. ...

"Times Square" Mid 20th Century 1937 Modernism Broadway Drawing NYC Cityscape Philip Goodwin (20th Century) "Times Square," 23 ½ x 17 ¼ inches. Gouache...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Sleeping Cat, 1929 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated upper right 15 x 19 inches 21.25 x 25.25 inches, framed Clarence Holbrook Car...

Of course it's possible that these baseball players aren't from a Philadelphia team, but I doubt it. There was so much drama and intrigue with both the Philadelphia Phillies...

Title: French Gouache Painting of Acoma Pueblo Corn Dance in New Mexico by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed paper, Si...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Anatomical Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model (Legs) by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well ex...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Seated Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed early 1930s c...

Leon Bibel, 'Untitled (War Machine)', brush and ink, c. 1936. Estate stamped, verso. A fine expressionist rendering, on cream wove drawing board, with marg...

A Charming, 1940s American Scene study of a Man Seated at a Table by Notable Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A delightful sketch ("Dinner at the Windermere Hot...

A Fine, Modern 1930s Academic Anatomical Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Young Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well exe...

A charming, vibrant, early Mexican city street scene by famed Chicago Modern artist Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). Titled "Tourists in Taxco", the watercolor was exhibited at the M...

A Fine, Modern 1930s Academic Anatomical Figure Study of Male Feet by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A well executed, early 1930s charcoal study (a composite...

A Stylized, 1930s Art Deco Pastel Landscape Drawing of Two Young Men Planting a Tree by Notable Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Artwork size: 9 x 12 inches, u...

White Poppies - Botanical Watercolor on Paper Detailed floral watercolor by Harry Federico (American, 1922-2022). Several white poppies ...

Charles Demuth was one of the most complex, talented, and deeply sensitive artists of the American modern period. Whether he was painting floral still lifes, industrial landscapes, or Turkish bathhouses, art was, for Demuth, fraught with personal meaning. A fixture of the vanguard art scene in New York, Demuth navigated the currents of Modernism, producing some of the most exquisite watercolors and original oil paintings in twentieth-century American art. Demuth was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the only child of a well-to-do family. He had an awkward and introverted childhood shaped by a childhood illness, Perthes, a disease of the hip that not only left him permanently lame, but, as part of the “cure,” bedridden for two years in the care of his mother. This long period of incapacitation had a deep impact on Demuth, who came to see himself as an invalid, an outsider who was different from everyone else. It was perhaps during this period of indoor confinement that his keen interest in art developed. Several relatives on his father’s side had been amateur artists, and, following his convalescence, his mother encouraged his artistic pursuits by sending him to a local painter for instruction. The majority of his early pictures are of flowers, a subject for which Demuth maintained a lifelong passion. Following high school, Demuth enrolled at the Drexel Institute of Art in Philadelphia, a school renowned for its commercial arts program. He advanced through the program rapidly, and, in 1905, at the encouragement of his instructors, he began taking courses at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The two leading teachers then at the Academy were William Merritt Chase and Thomas Anshutz. Anshutz, himself a former student of Thomas Eakins, was well liked by his students, and is best known as the teacher of Robert Henri, John Sloan, and several of the other artists of the Ashcan School. Demuth, too, adopted a similar idiom, working in a controlled, realistic manner while at the Academy, where he remained until 1910. In 1907, Demuth made his first trip to Europe, staying in Paris. He spent time on the periphery of the art scene composed of the numerous American artists there, including John Marin and Edward Steichen. He returned to Philadelphia five months later, and immediately resumed courses at the Academy. Despite his introduction to advanced modern styles in Europe, Demuth’s work of this period retains the academic style he practiced before the trip. It wasn’t until he had summered at New Hope, Pennsylvania, in 1908 and 1911, that his style began to evolve. New Hope was a prominent American Impressionist art colony whose members were largely affiliated with the Pennsylvania Academy. Demuth dropped the conservative tone of his style and adopted a freer and more colorful palette. Although he remained based in Philadelphia, Demuth frequently went to New York during this period. Many of the same American artists of the Parisian art scene Demuth had encountered on his earlier European trip now formed the nucleus of New York’s avant-garde, which centered around Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 gallery. It wasn’t long before Demuth began to apply modernist-inspired strategies to his work. He was particularly influenced by the watercolor work of John Marin, also a former student of Anshutz, whose bold use of color in the medium Demuth freely adapted into looser washes of color. In 1912, Demuth again left for Paris, this time studying in the Académie Moderne, Académie Colorossi, and Académie Julian. In Paris Demuth met the American modernist Marsden Hartley. Hartley, a principal figure in the expatriate art circle, acted as a mentor to Demuth, and introduced him to the wide array of modern styles currently practiced in Europe. Hartley also introduced Demuth to many of the members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Gertrude Stein. Demuth was an aspiring writer, and he spent many hours in conversation with Stein. He wrote extensively during this period, and published two works shortly after his return to America. He also developed an interest in illustrating scenes from literary texts. From 1914 to 1919, Demuth produced a series of watercolors of scenes from books such as Emile Zola’s Nana and Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw. Upon his return to America, Demuth settled in New York. In 1914, Demuth had his first one-man show at Charles Daniel’s gallery, which promoted emerging modern American artists, including Man Ray, Rockwell Kent, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Stuart Davis, and Max Weber. Demuth drew closer to the artistic vanguard in New York, becoming friends with many in the Stieglitz and Daniel circles, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Marcel Duchamp, Carl Van Vechten, and Edward Fiske. New York’s cosmopolitan atmosphere and active nightlife appealed greatly to Demuth. In a sketchy style well suited to watercolor, he painted many vaudeville and circus themes, as well as nightclub, café, and bathhouse scenes. Often with Duchamp, Demuth took part in an urban subculture replete with nightclubs, bars, drugs, and sexual permissiveness, which, for a homosexual artist like himself, allowed room for previously unattainable personal expression. Demuth’s pictures of sailors, bathhouses, and circus performers embody a sensual and sexual undercurrent, expressing the artist’s sense of comfort and belonging in the bohemian subculture of New York. Simultaneously, Demuth deepened his interest in floral pictures, painting these almost exclusively in watercolor. His style evolved from the broad color washes of his earlier pictures to more spare, flattened, and sinuous compositions, inspired by the drawings of Aubrey Beardsley and other artists of the Aesthetic Movement. Demuth’s flower watercolors are moody and atmospheric, sensuous and elegant, introspective and yet full of expressive power. Moreover they are beautiful, and are unequivocally among the finest still lifes in American art. Despite numerous subsequent artistic undertakings that led him in a variety of directions, Demuth never stopped painting flower pictures, ultimately adding fruits and other still-life objects to his repertoire. In 1916, Demuth began to develop a style later known as Precisionism, a form of landscape painting infused with Cubism, in which space is divided into precisely drawn geometric regions of color. Demuth first began to paint the landscape in an appropriated Cubist mode while on a trip with Hartley to Bermuda. In these early landscapes, in which the curvilinear forms of trees intersect the geometrically articulated architectural forms, Demuth explored ideas that shaped the future development of modernism in America. The full realization of Demuth’s explorations came after his return to America in 1917, when he turned his attention to industrial subjects. These works derive from a “machine aesthetic,” espoused by New York artists such as Francis Picabia, Joseph Stella, Albert Gleizes, and Duchamp, by which artists viewed machines as embodying mystical, almost religious significance as symbols of the modern world. Rather than painting the skyscrapers and bridges of New York as did most of his like-minded contemporaries, Demuth returned to his home town of Lancaster, where he painted factories and warehouses in a Precisionist idiom. The titles for these pictures are often contain literary references, which serve as clues for the viewer to aid in the decoding of the artist’s meaning. In 1923, Demuth planned a series of abstract “poster portraits” of his friends and contemporaries in the New York art and literary scene. In these “portraits,” Demuth combined text and symbolic elements to evoke the essential nature of his sitters’ distinguishing characteristics. In this fashion, he painted portraits of such artists as Georgia O’Keeffe, John Marin, and Arthur Dove. His most famous poster portrait, I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Confederate Soldiers' Cemetery, Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, 1929 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lowe...

Mary M. Johnsen Four Paintings, c. 1950s Watercolor Dimensions: 1. Mat: 18 x 21 1/4 in., page: 8 x 12 1/4 in. 2. Page: 14 7/8 x 22 in. 3. Mat: 15 x 19 in., page: 10 1/2 x 14 1/2 in....

Oil on canvas

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed, early 1930...

A Fabulous Mid-Century Female Nude Studio Figure Study By Noted Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Depicting a Seated Nude, the drawing is ink and watercolor on paper an...

A Charming 1930s Charcoal Study of Three Young Men in a Lake House Window by Noted Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Most likely completed during the summer mont...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Anatomical Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model (Study of Legs) by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionall...

Robert Philipp, 'Self-Portrait with Black Hat', ink and color pastel, c. 1945. Signed in ink, lower right. A fine, spontaneous drawing, on heavy, buff wove paper; the artist's tack holes in the top and bottom left sheet corners, minor rippling in the bottom sheet edge; otherwise in good condition. Image size 16 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches; sheet size 19 1/4 x 12 3/4 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Provenance: Art Students League, from the artist’s personal portfolio. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Philipp (1895–1981) was a celebrated American Post-Impressionist painter known for his nudes, still lifes, and portraits. Noted art critic Henry McBride named Philipp one of America's top six painters of his generation. Philipp was an instructor of painting at the Art Students League, New York, for 33 years. Philipp was Secretary of the National Academy of Design, a National Academician, and a Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. His composition and painting style has been compared to the art of Edgar Degas and Pierre Auguste Renoir. In 1940, Philipp was invited to Los Angeles by Hollywood producer Louis B. Mayer to paint portraits of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie stars. The same year, Walter Wanger, producer of ‘The Long Voyage Home’, directed by John Ford and based on plays by Eugene O'Neill, contracted with Reeves Lewenthal, head of the Associated American Artists gallery in Manhattan, to bring nine well-known artists to the set and paint scenes from the movie and portraits of the actors in character. The artists included Robert Philipp, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Ernest Fiene, George Schreiber, Luis...

Steinberg's Holiday Magazine Cover, " The North of Jersey " is similar to his famous New Yorker Cover "View of the World from 9th Avenue”. ...

A Fine 1930s, Art Deco Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Seated Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed earl...

A 1940s Noire Inspired City Street Scene, Lower Wacker Drive, Chicago, Urban Realism by Noted Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994).. A boldly executed charcoal study...

An Introspective, Exquitie Modern Pastel of a Seated Female Nude by Noted Chicago Artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). Dating ca. 1930s. Artwork size: 16 1/2” x 12 1/4”; unfram...

nterior (Untitled), 1958, watercolor and ink on paper mounted on cardboard, signed and dated lower right, 11 ½ x 16 ½ inches (sight); 12 x 18 inches (sheet); inscribed lower left “To...

A Delightful, 1930s Portrait Sketch of a Young Boy in a Baseball Cap by Noted Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Full of Character! A charming little gem of a po...

You are viewing a modernist American watercolor painting by Robert Noel Blair. Robert Noel Blair (American, 1912-2003) was an American artist, painter, sculptor, printmaker and te...

A Fine 1930s, Art Deco Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed ea...

A 1940s American Scene watercolor depicting a snowy Chicago Street Scene by artist Grace Spongberg. Image size: 12 1/2" x 17". Framed size: 18 1/2" x 22 1/2". This painting come...

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

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Seated Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed early 1930s c...

Carl Ashby, Pensive Lady, 1942, ink and watercolor, retains fresh, clear color. A native of New Mexico, Carl Ashby (1914-2004) moved to New York City in 1938 following a stint with ...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Frosty Dawn, Upstate New York, c. 1916 Watercolor and gouache on board Signed lower right 21 x 30 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". In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art...

Apparently Bendiner never went a day without drawing. He was amazing! From Bendiner's Philadelphia the New Jersey beaches were an easy drive. Avalon is st...

A Charming, 1930s Modernist Portrait Study of a Seated Young Male Bather by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Most likely completed at a summer lake house in Al...

"500 Calories al mode" The Perfect Meal - Menu - Dessert - Collograph Watercolor The artwork "500 Calories al mode" by Betty Swift, created one of a group show at San Francisco Stat...

An Intimate, 1930s Modern Charcoal Study of a Seated Young Male Figure by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Most likely completed circa 1932 at a summer lake ho...

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...

Painted circa 1955 by Robert George Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) and stamped, verso, with certification of authenticity. Born in Oakland, Robert George Gilberg first studied at th...

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...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed, early 1930...

A Stunning Mid-Century Modern Cubist Watercolor, Harbor Scene & Rooftops by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. A vivid European harbor scene, depicting the whitewashed buildings ...

A Fine, Modern 1930s Academic Anatomical Figure Study of a Standing Male Model (Legs & Feet) by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A well executed, early 1930s c...

A Fine 1930s, Modern Academic Figure Study Drawing of a Standing Male Nude Model by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). An exceptionally well executed, early 1930...

A Fine, Modern 1930s Academic Anatomical Figure Study of a Seated Female Model (Leg, Knee and Foot) by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A well executed, early ...

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

A Fabulous 1950s Mid-Century Modern Standing Female Nude Figure Study by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). Artwork Size: 18 x 12, unframed, mounted / floated t...

William Thon, 'Alongside', watercolor, c. 1990. Signed, lower right; titled verso. A fine, expressionist work, on off-white watercolor paper; the image extending to the sheet edges, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Riders Near Camel Rock Monument, Santa Fe, New Mexico, c. 1937 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right, titled verso 14.5 x 20 inches 18....

Joseph Stella was a visionary artist who painted what he saw, an idiosyncratic and individual experience of his time and place. Stella arrived in New York in 1896, part of a wave of ...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887–1964) Sun Drenched Pueblo, c. 1950 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right 15 x 20 inches 18.5 x 24 inches framed "All these things are, of co...

Abstract watercolor composition bearing the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee. Pawel August Kontny, (Polish-German-American artist) He was born in Laurahuette, Poland, in 1923, the son of a wealthy pastry shop owner. In 1939 he began studying architecture in Breslau where he was introduced to the European masters and to the work of some of the German Expressionists, soon afterward banned as "degenerate artists" and removed from museums throughout Germany by the Nazi regime. His studies were interrupted by World War II. Drafted into the German army, traveling in many countries as a soldier, he sketched various landscapes but in 1945, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Italy. After the war, he studied at the Union of Nuremberg Architects to help design buildings to replace ones destroyed in the war. He recorded his impressions of the local population and the landscapes through his watercolors and drawings. Pawel Kontny thereafter moved to Nuremberg, Germany, becoming a member of the Union of Nuremberg Architects and helping to rebuild the city's historic center. He soon decided to concentrate on his professional art career. He married Irmgard Laurer, a dancer with the Nuremberg Opera. Pavel Kontny 's career as an artist was launched with his participation in an all German exhibition, held at the Dusseldorf Museum in 1952. He held one-man shows in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. During his trip to the United States in 1960, Kontny became instantly enamored with Colorado, and decided to relocate to Cherry Hills with his wife and two children. He quickly established himself in the local art community, being affiliated for a time with Denver Art Galleries and Saks Galleries. His subject matter became the Southwest. During this time he received the Prestigious Gold Medal of the Art Academy of Rome. His extensive travel provided material for the paintings he did using his hallmark marble dust technique. he also worked equally in pastel, watercolor, charcoal and pencil-and-ink. in a style which merged abstraction and realist styles, influenced by Abstract Expressionist painting and South Western American landscapes. This one bears the influence of Sam Francis. In the early 1960s he was one of only a few European-born professional artists in the state, a select group that included Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), a member of the prewar Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, and Roland Detre...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Circus Lot at Toledo, c. 1920 Watercolor on Whatman board Signed lower right 22 x 30 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 was a respected librarian. In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer, and Frederick Gottwald. He also attended Keller's Berlin Heights summer school from 1909. After graduating in 1910, Wilcox traveled and studied in Europe, sometimes dropping by Académie Colarossi in the evening to sketch the model or the other students at their easels, where he was influenced by French impressionism. Wilcox was influenced by Keller's innovative watercolor techniques, and from 1910 to 1916 they experimented together with impressionism and post-impressionism. Wilcox soon developed his own signature style in the American Scene or Regionalist tradition of the early 20th century. He joined the Cleveland School of Art faculty in 1913. Among his students were Lawrence Edwin Blazey, Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, and Charles E. Burchfield. Around this time Wilcox became associated with Cowan Pottery. In 1916 Wilcox married fellow artist Florence Bard, and they spent most of their honeymoon painting in Berlin Heights with Keller. They had one daughter, Mary. In 1918 he joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, a conservative counter to the Bohemian Kokoon Arts Club, and would later serve as its president. He also began teaching night school at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute at this time, and taught briefly at Baldwin-Wallace College. Wilcox wrote and illustrated Ohio Indian Trails in 1933, which was favorably reviewed by the New York Times in 1934. This book was edited and reprinted in 1970 by William A. McGill. McGill also edited and reprinted Wilcox' Canals of the Old Northwest in 1969. Wilcox also wrote, illustrated, and published Weather Wisdom in 1949, a limited edition (50 copies) of twenty-four serigraphs (silk screen prints) accompanied by commentary "based upon familiar weather observations commonly made by people living in the country." Wilcox displayed over 250 works at Cleveland's annual May Show. He received numerous awards, including the Penton Medal for as The Omnibus, Paris (1920), Fish Tug on Lake Erie (1921), Blacksmith Shop (1922), and The Gravel Pit (1922). Other paintings include The Trailing Fog (1929), Under the Big Top (1930), and Ohio Landscape...

Cityscape Reflections - Misty Morning. 1980. Lithograph with pastel coloring. Czestochowski 42. Edition 40. 14 x 10 3/16 (sheet 18 x 14). Tape stains in the margins, not affecting th...