American Realist Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Industrial Man Working Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Modern WPA Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Hammering Nails 39 x 50 ½ inches Gouache on paper c. 19...

Peter Rabbit happened to be looking out of the dear Old Briar-patch as the young Fox ran past. Ink on paper, 1955 Signed "H. Cady," and dated 11-15 lower left (see photo) Annotated w...

"Men in Barracks" WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Realism Gay Modernism WWII. 18 x 24 inches Watercolor on paper. c. 1940s. Signed lower right. BIO ...

Brodsky pairs gouache and watercolor to achieve the luster of her subject's plumage. Each carefully defined feather shimmers with a prism of color. Her attention to detail is enliven...

David Dewey (B. 1946) Reader's Digest Headquarters, 1996 Watercolor on paper Sight: 24 x 18 1/2 in. Framed: 36 x 29 3/4 x 1 in. Living on the Maine coast, David Dewey is a watercolo...

WPA Post Office Mural Study Native American Scene Regionalism Social Realism Louise Emerson Ronnebeck (1901 - 1980) Proposal Sketch for Worland Wyoming Post Office WPA Mural Project Image: 7 x 15 inches Board 14 x 22 inches Watercolor on paper, attached to black/gray cardboard/thick paper c. 1937 Signed lower right Written in Louise's hand on mounting paper in white chalk/pencil: "Sketch for Mural...

John Livzey Ridgeway (American, 1859-1947) Signed: J. L. Ridgway Imperial Woodpecker, aka Ivory Billed Woodpecker, c. 1898 Gifted to Doris Barroll Amos in 1938 Original Watercolo...

Standing Female Nude Colored chalks on tan Strathmore paper, c. 1975 Signed in chalk upper right (see photo) Condition: Excellent Housed in an 8 play acid free rag matting S...

This artwork titled "Woman in Purple" from the "Colcha" series, 1989, is a watercolor and ink on hand made paper by noted American artist Amado Maurilio Pena...

This artwork titled "Danzantes de Colores from the "Colcha" series, 1989, is a watercolor and ink on hand made paper by noted American artist Amado Maurilio Pena...

Pencil portrait of a brave signed by Joseph A. Imhof.

Yellow Poppies by Texas artist Julie England is an Ink and Watercolor, Oil on Yupo paper. The size of Yellow Poppies is Image 26” x 40” Framed 31 ¼” x 45 ¼” Yellow Poppies by J...

Portrait of a semi-attired young woman titled "Regarding Agnes" by Duncan Hannah. Conte pencil on paper. Signed front lower right. Offered framed. Frame size: 10.75 x 8.75 inches ...

Cool Afternoon by Texas artist Julie England is an Ink and Watercolor, Oil on Yupo paper. The size of Cool Afternoon is 11″ x 14″ Image 16″ x 21 3/4″...

Irises by Texas artist Julie England is an Ink and Watercolor, Oil on Yupo paper. THe size of Irises is Image 26” x 40” Framed 31 ¼” x 45 ¼” Art is...

David Morrison was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1956. He received his MFA in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. A visiting lecturer and guest artist at numerous universities, he is very involved in the world of printmaking, specifically stone lithography, and he is the Professor Emeritus at Indiana University’s Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. Morrison has exhibited widely, and his work is included in numerous public collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The New-York Historical Society, The National Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Figge Art Museum, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, the Portland Museum of Art, Collection of Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, to name a few. 'David Morrison’s drawings are in the Old Master tradition of still-life and natura morte, whose surface beauty with its signs of decay warn viewers about the transitory nature of all life. In many ways the artist’s refined drawings can be connected to the works of John James Audubon in the N-YHS collection, which, along with their birds, showcase fruit, leaves, and flowers whose signs of decay allude to the cycle of nature and the temporal nature of life. Audubon also tended to isolate his birds and settings against empty white backgrounds. Morrison’s portrayals of leaves also tie into the poetic celebration of nature and landscape found in the works of the Hudson River School. Most profoundly they relate to Asher B. Durand’s obsession with trees (see the 2010 Durand catalogue and the essay “‘A Magnificent Obsession’: Durand’s Trees as Spiritual Sentinels of Nature”). Nevertheless, in the case of the over-lifesize measurements and the leaf's and branch's isolation on the page, Morrison's watercolors are contemporary and modern in appearance, yet profoundly evocative of both past and future.' (Roberta Olson, Curator of Drawings The New-York Historical Society). Artist Statement My drawings of tree branches and trunks embrace nature. I love the springtime when there are eruptive explosions of buds with new leaves and berries. I am seduced by the sensual shape and color of the buds protruding from the branches. I love the firecracker explosion of the red and yellow berries of the crabapple. My drawings capture a moment of this existence. I am also fascinated with fallen tree branches with their scarification left by diseases, infestation, decomposition and storm damage. My drawings capture the degeneration cycle of plant materials and how they echo the living conditions of man and nature. I am interested in capturing the reality of their existence, with all the imperfections, echoing their fragile existence in nature, not an idealized beautification of nature like botanical illustrations. The drawings are hyper realistic: they capture minute details of the subjects that I portray, but they are only an illusion of the actual reality. I became obsessed with drawing branches...

David Morrison was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1956. He received his MFA in Printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1985. A visiting lecturer and guest artist at numerous universities, he is very involved in the world of printmaking, specifically stone lithography, and he is the Professor Emeritus at Indiana University’s Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. Morrison has exhibited widely, and his work is included in numerous public collections including The Whitney Museum of American Art, The New-York Historical Society, The National Gallery of Art, The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Figge Art Museum, the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, the Portland Museum of Art, Collection of Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, to name a few. 'David Morrison’s drawings are in the Old Master tradition of still-life and natura morte, whose surface beauty with its signs of decay warn viewers about the transitory nature of all life. In many ways the artist’s refined drawings can be connected to the works of John James Audubon in the N-YHS collection, which, along with their birds, showcase fruit, leaves, and flowers whose signs of decay allude to the cycle of nature and the temporal nature of life. Audubon also tended to isolate his birds and settings against empty white backgrounds. Morrison’s portrayals of leaves also tie into the poetic celebration of nature and landscape found in the works of the Hudson River School. Most profoundly they relate to Asher B. Durand’s obsession with trees (see the 2010 Durand catalogue and the essay “‘A Magnificent Obsession’: Durand’s Trees as Spiritual Sentinels of Nature”). Nevertheless, in the case of the over-lifesize measurements and the leaf's and branch's isolation on the page, Morrison's watercolors are contemporary and modern in appearance, yet profoundly evocative of both past and future.' (Roberta Olson, Curator of Drawings The New-York Historical Society). Artist Statement My drawings of tree branches and trunks embrace nature. I love the springtime when there are eruptive explosions of buds with new leaves and berries. I am seduced by the sensual shape and color of the buds protruding from the branches. I love the firecracker explosion of the red and yellow berries of the crabapple. My drawings capture a moment of this existence. I am also fascinated with fallen tree branches with their scarification left by diseases, infestation, decomposition and storm damage. My drawings capture the degeneration cycle of plant materials and how they echo the living conditions of man and nature. I am interested in capturing the reality of their existence, with all the imperfections, echoing their fragile existence in nature, not an idealized beautification of nature like botanical illustrations. The drawings are hyper realistic: they capture minute details of the subjects that I portray, but they are only an illusion of the actual reality. I became obsessed with drawing branches...

Eileen Lake Crayon on paper, early1930's Initialed in pencil lower right (see photo) Titled and annotated verso "Eileen Lake, early 1930s girlfriend" Note: Eileen Hall Lake was an American poet and Adolf Dehn's girlfriend in the early 1930s. Provenance: Estate of the artist By descent 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. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...

Industrial Landscape Contemporary American Watercolor Magic Realism 20th Century Henry Koerner (1915-1991) J&L Oxygen Plant 18 x 24 1/2 inches Watercolo...

RGRFineArts is pleased to offer this fine pencil drawing of young people enjoing the beach by Carl Pickhardt done in the 1930s. This picture illustrates the fine craftsmanship that P...

RGRFinearts is pleased to offer this WPA Era drawing by Carl Pickhardt of construction workers. It is matted and drawn on slightly pinkish paper. A wonderful addition to a WPA or lab...

Original watercolor on archival paper of a sailboat with a trailing dory heading out to sea. Attributed to the hand of Alexander Yaron. Signed lower right and dated 1980. Condition is excellent. Under glass. The artwork is matted and housed in a rounded front edge solid oak wood frame. Overall framed measurements are 27 by 34 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida gentleman. Alexander A. Yaron was born in Estonia in 1910, lived in China and the Philippines before moving to the United States in the 1950’s. He lived in New York as well as in Anaheim, California where he has a working studio. An autodidact and a versatile commercial artist, Alexander Yaron applied his talent in portraiture, photography, interior design, advertising, layout and illustration. His best known projects were illustrated art...

Bronx Post Office Mural Study WPA Horse Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Couriers of History Bronx Post Office Mural Study Horse in the Sun (with two ad...

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot," Joni Mitchell said. - - Created in 1969, at the dawn of the American environmental movement, artist Richard Erdoes draws a sequential narrative in the form of a coil. From inception to destruction, it illustrates a list of things that humans are doing to destroy the world we live in. The work was commissioned for school-age humans and executed in a whimsically comic way. Yet the underlying narrative is sophisticated and foreshadows a world that could be on the brink of ecological disaster. Graphically and conceptually, this work exhibits an endless amount of creativity and Erdoes cartoony style is one to fall in love with. Signed lower right. Unframed 12.4 inches Width: 12.85 inches Height is the live area. Board is 16x22 inches. Richard Erdoes (Hungarian Erdős, German Erdös; July 7, 1912 – July 16, 2008) was an American artist, photographer, illustrator and author. Early life Erdoes was born in Frankfurt,to Maria Josefa Schrom on July 7, 1912. His father, Richárd Erdős Sr., was a Jewish Hungarian opera singer who had died a few weeks earlier in Budapest on June 9, 1912.After his birth, his mother lived with her sister, the Viennese actress Leopoldine ("Poldi") Sangora,He described himself as "equal parts Austrian, Hungarian and German, as well as equal parts Catholic, Protestant and Jew..."[4] Career He was a student at the Berlin Academy of Art in 1933, when Adolf Hitler came to power. He was involved in a small underground paper where he published anti-Hitler political cartoons which attracted the attention of the Nazi regime. He fled Germany with a price on his head. Back in Vienna, he continued his training at the Kunstgewerbeschule, now the University of Applied Arts, Vienna.[5] He also wrote and illustrated children's books and worked as a caricaturist for Tag and Stunde, anti-Nazi newspapers. After the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 he fled again, first to Paris, where he studied at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and then London, England before journeying to the United States. He married his first wife, fellow artist Elsie Schulhof (d. xxxx) in London, shortly before their arrival in New York City. In New York City, Erdoes enjoyed a long career as a commercial artist, and was known for his highly detailed, whimsical drawings. He created illustrations for such magazines as Stage, Fortune, Pageant, Gourmet, Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, Time, National Geographic and Life Magazine, where he met his second wife, Jean Sternbergh (d. 1995) who was an art director there. The couple married in 1951 and had three children.[6] Erdoes also illustrated many children's books. An assignment for Life in 1967 took Erdoes to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the first time, and marked the beginning of the work for which he would be best known. Erdoes was fascinated by Native American culture, outraged at the conditions on the reservation and deeply moved by the Civil Rights Movement that was raging at the time. He wrote histories, collections of Native American stories...

A serene Hudson River scene by a student of Louis Comfort Tiffany. Anna May Walling was born in 1881, a native of Goshen, New York. She was a graduate of the Blair Academy, and Prat...

Nude Female Torso Charcoal on paper, c. 1920 Stamped and initialed in pencil "Asa Cheffetz/A.D.C" Estate signature by wife, A.D.C. Exhibited: Museum of F...

An award winning artist for her watercolors, Davis was a beloved Connecticut artist. A rare subject done in a contemporary and fresh way. She was a member of this club and enjoyed t...

Untitled (Joe Louis knocking out Max Schmeling in 1938 rematch) Pen and ink with wash on heavy wove sketchbook paper, 1938 Signed lower right: Fletcher Martin Directly related to Martin's famous painting of 1942 entitled "Lullaby", which was also used in the lithograph of the same name. (see photo) The drawing depicts the third and final knockdown of Max Schmeling in their rematch of 1938. Condition: Mat staining at the edges of the sketchbook page edges Toning to verso from previous framing. Does not affect framed presentation "It was here that Louis first used sport to bridge America's cavernous racial divide. With Hitler on the march in Europe and using Schmeling's victory over Louis as proof of “Aryan supremacy,” anti-Nazi sentiment ran high in the States. Louis had long grown accustomed to the pressures of representing his race but here the burdens were broader and deeper. Now he was shouldering the hopes of an entire nation. A few weeks before the match Louis visited the White House and U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose tenure lasted even longer than Louis' would, told him, “Joe, we need muscles like yours to beat Germany.” Those muscles certainly beat Schmeling on fight night...

WPA Mid 20th Century Modern Social Realism American Scene Men Working Industrial Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Bailing Hay 42 x 40 inches Oil on paper c. 1930s Signed lower right Unframed Our gallery is pleased to present the exhibition, "Jo Cain: Echoes of an Era," a tribute to the enduring legacy of Joseph Lambert Cain and a celebration of his art that transcends time and remains relevant today. The exhibition features mural studies, works on paper and paintings from the 1930s and 40s, all are available on 1stDibs. BIO JOSEPH LAMBERT CAIN (1904–2003) A painter, muralist, and art educator, Joseph Cain...

Executed in 1930, this abstract yet representational biomorphic charcoal work by African American Artist Charles Henry Alston prefigures his ...

RGRFineArts is pleased to offer this beautiful watercolor by renowned North Carolina artist William Mangum of skiers on a ski run, likely in Mangum's ho...

"Backyards" Early 20th Century Watercolor Fauvism Social Realism American Scene Note: We have three similar in style works from 1911 available now on 1stDibs. All are framed identic...

Answering the Door Early 20th Century w/c Fauvism Social Realism American Scene Note: We have three similar in style works from 1911 available now on 1stDibs. All are framed identi...

Two Men on a Street Early 20th Century w/c Fauvism Social Realism American Scene Note: We have three similar in style works from 1911 available now on 1stDibs. All are framed identi...

Note: Dehn was born in Minnesota. He attended the Minneapolis Institute of Art. This work is a view of the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis with the Pillsbury "A"-Mill in the backg...

Winold Reiss The Red Silo Signed lower left Watercolor on paper 20 x 29 inches Winold Reiss (1886-1953) was an artist and designer who emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1913. Probably best known as a portraitist, Reiss was a pioneer of modernism and well known for his brilliant work in graphic and interior design. A compassionate man who greatly respected all people as human beings, he believed that his art could help break down racial prejudices. Like his father Fritz Reiss (1857-1915), who was also an artist and who was his son's first teacher, Winold Reiss was artistically moved by diverse cultures. The elder Reiss focused on folk life in Germany while Winold drew substantial inspiration from a range of cultures, particularly Native American, Mexican, and African-American. As did many young aspiring artists, Winold Reiss studied with the esteemed painter and teacher Franz von Stuck at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, which was at that time a center of the decorative and fine-arts movement. It is not known whether Reiss met E. Martin Hennings...

This cartoon by Charles Addams is generations ahead of its time. To get the punch line, you need to know the meaning of a Satyr or Pan. Satyr: Part man and part beast. - A male nature spirit with ears and a tail resembling those of a horse, as well as a permanent, exaggerated permanent erection. Early artistic representations sometimes include horse-like legs; Satyrs were characterized by their vulgar, indecent ribaldry, and were rowdy lovers of wine, music, dancing, and women. They inhabited remote locales, such as woodlands, and they often attempted to seduce or rape nymphs and mortal women alike. It's prudish 1950s America, where TV programs show husband and wife sleeping in separate beds. The discussion and representation of sex was repressed. To make a bold statement about censorship and the uncompromising moral climate of the time, Addams uses a reference from the mythical world to make a statement about the real world. In doing so, he anticipates the sexual revolution of the late 1960s and 1970s. The satyr/pan symbolizes nonconformistism. He has his own earthy customs, attitudes, and ideas. Because of that is being handcuffed and formally taken away by the state whose goal is to repress natural erotic fun and frolic that is ubiquitous in todays society. A proper and perfectly pressed Park Ranger cleans out a lustful undesirable from pristine woodlands. With startled expressions, a vulnerable family of correct women witness the event as they are about to have a picnic. The Satyr grasps his Pipes of Pan just over his crotch. The background is populated by phallic symbols. This is one a the rare instances where Addams address the issue of sex. The Ranger is a dead ringer as a self portrait of Addams. Original illustration for a cartoon, showing a uniformed ranger leading away a manacled satyr, in front of a startled picnic party. Ink and grisaille wash on Whatman cold press illustration board, signed "Chas Addams...

This drawing reveals the artist's mastery of the medium and her connection to her subjects. In this one, we peek beach-strewn seashells from her travels to Sanibel Island boast bubbl...

This drawing reveals the artist's mastery of the medium and her connection to her subjects. In this one, we peek at a soft horizon line as we gaze though a patch of wildflowers near ...

Untitled (Seated Young Woman) Graphite on Veritable Papier d'Arches wove paper, 1970 Signed and dated lower right (see photo) Condition: Excellent Image/sheet size: 15 x 11 1/4 inch...

"Good Health Week" WPA American Scene Mid 20th Century Modern Social Realism Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) Good Health Week 10 ½ x 15 1/2 inches Oil on pape...

Industrial Working Man WPA Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern American Scene Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Man with a Tool 39 ¾ x 38 ¼ inches Gouache...

Man Working Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Industrial WPA Modern Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Telephone Pole Worker 38 1/4 x 18 1/2 inches Oil on pap...

Bernard Gussow 1881 -1957 Bernard Gussow was active/lived in New York, New Jersey / Russian Federation. Bernard Gussow is known for genre, landscape, figure, interior paintings. Ber...

Cowboys Horses Cattle WPA American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) Cowboy 33 3/4 x 36 inches Oil on paper, c. 1930s Signed...

Surveyors WPA American Scene Mid 20th Century Modern Social Realism Men Working Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Surveyors 30 ½ x 40 ¼ inches (sight) Gouache on paper c. 1930s Signed lower rig...

Working Man WPA Social Realism Industrial Modernism 20th Century American Scene Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Printing Press 40 ½ x 26 inches (sight) Oil o...

Railroad Worker Industrial WPA American Scene Mid Century Modern Social Realism Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Railroad worker 36 ¼ x 27 inches Oil on paper c. 1930s S...

"Painter" 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Working Man Modern WPA Era Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Painter 41 ½ x 36 3/4 inches (sight) Gouache on paper c. 1930s Signed lower rig...

Chemists American Scene Mid 20th Century Modern Social Realism WPA Science Mural Jo Cain (1904 - 2003) Chemists 40 ½ x 31 ¾ inches Oil on paper, c. 1930s Signed lower right 49 x 40 ...

"Good Health Week" American Scene Modern Social Realism Mid- 20th Century WPA Era Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) Good Health Week – b/w 10 ½ x 15 1/2 inches I...

Standing Female Nude Colored chalks on tan Strathmore paper, c. 1975 Signed in chalk upper right (see photo) Condition: Excellent Housed in an 8 play acid free rag matting S...

Greenwich Village NYC WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Ashcan Modern Realism Alfred Mira (1900-1981) Greenwich Village NYC 14 x 17 inches Oil on board,...

Likely a study for an illustration for Harper's Weekly, for which Wiser was a Civil War-era illustrator, focusing on shipwrecks and battles occurring along the mid-Atlantic coast. ...

Untitled (Two Workhorses), c. 20th Century Ink on paper Sight: 4 x 4 3/4 in. Framed: 7 5/8 x 8 3/8 x 1/2 in. Initialed lower left: W.H.H.S. This ink drawing masterfully captures to ...

Study of a sultry and seductive reclining platinum blond Pin Up with a wide-brimmed sun hat. Most likely done for Playboy. This work is very finely rendered and looks better the ...

Charles Kinghan: 1895-1984. Unlisted American artist with auction results over $2100. That’s fantastic watercolor of a beach in Corona Del Mar California was probably done mid 20th c...

Horses Leaving the Barn Watercolor on paper, 1940 Signed and dated lower left corner (see photo) Condition: Excellent Image: 14 1/2 x 21” Frame: 25” x 31” Provenance; Associated American Artists, New York (see photo of label) Mamdouha and Elmer Holmes Bobst Displayed in an original wormy chestnut frame with OP3 Acrylic. Most probably from the AAA Dehn watercolor exhibition of 1940. Vintage original framing chosen by the artist. Note: Elmer Holmes Bobst (1884–1978) was an American businessman and philanthropist who worked in the pharmaceutical industry. His wife, Mamdouha, was also well known philanthropist. Bobst was born in Lititz, Pennsylvania. He aspired to become a doctor, but instead, he taught himself pharmacology. After his wife Ethel composed his interview letter, he became manager and treasurer of the Hoffman-LaRoche Chemical Works by 1920. When Bobst retired from the company in 1944, he was one of the nation's highest paid corporate executives. In 1945 he took charge of the ailing William Warner Company (later Warner–Lambert) and he remained board chairman until his retirement. Bobst had close connections to President Dwight Eisenhower, but was also a close friend of President Richard Nixon. Note: In 1940, the year of this watercolor, Dehn and Elizabeth Timmerman visited Waterville, MN on their way to Colorado Sprint, Colorado where Dehn was to teach lithography and watercolor. This watercolor is obviously a view of the area around Waterville. 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. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...