Charles F. Ramsey

"Pinpoint Abstraction"

c. 1940

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Rex Ashlock (1918 - 1999) Born in Spokane, WA on Aug. 23, 1918. Ashlock moved to San Francisco in 1937 and was a copy boy...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) He was born to Czechoslovakian parents in 1892 in New York City. Living in Chicago as a youth, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, returning to New York when he was 20. From 1913 to 1916, he enjoyed a scholarship from the Art Students League, and worked with John C. Johansen (a portraitist whose expressive style resembled that of John Singer Sargent), and Anders Zorn. He accepted a teaching position at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1916, remaining there until 1921. This enabled him to travel to Europe to study Cézanne’s paintings and works of the Old Masters. He traveled to Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich seeking the works of Titian, Cranach, Rembrandt, Veronese, and Holbein, which gave him new perspective. Vytlacil studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, settling there in 1921. Fellow students were Ernest Thurn and Worth Ryder, who introduced him to famous abstractionist Hans Hofmann. He worked with Hofmann from about 1922 to 1926, as a student and teaching assistant. During the summer of 1928, after returning to the United States, Vytlacil gave lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on modern European art. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the Art Students League faculty. After one year, he returned to Europe and successfully persuaded Hofmann to teach at the League as well. He spent about six years in Europe, studying the works of Matisse, Picasso, and Dufy. In 1935, he returned to New York and became a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936. He later had teaching posts at Queens College in New York; the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California; Black Mountain College in North Carolina; and the Art Students League. His paintings exhibit a clear inclination toward modernism. His still lives and interiors from the 1920s indicate an understanding of the art of Cézanne. In the 1930s, his works displayed two very different kinds of art at the same time. His cityscapes and landscapes combine Cubist-inspired spatial concerns with an expressionistic approach to line and color. Vytlacil also used old wood, metal, cork, and string in constructions, influenced by his friend and former student, Rupert Turnbull. He eventually ceased creating constructions as he considered them too limiting. The spatial challenges of painting were still his preference. During the 1940s and 1950s, his works indicated a sense of spontaneity not felt in his earlier work. He married Elizabeth Foster in Florence, Italy, in 1927 and they lived and worked in Positano, Italy for extended periods of time. Later on, they divided their time between homes in Sparkill, New York and Chilmark, Massachusetts, where Vyt, as he was affectionately called, taught at the Martha's Vineyard Art...

Jim's of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by Solomon Ethe (1924 – 2019) Solomon Ethe was born on June 22, 1924. A native New Yorker, he rece...

Jim's of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by Solomon Ethe (1924 – 2019) Solomon Ethe was born on June 22, 1924. A native New Yorker, he receiv...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Estate stamped and numbered verso; initialed “SF22” verso. 48.25 x 34.25 in. 49.25 x 35 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid maple floater. Provenance Estate of Samuel Feinstein McCormick Gallery, Chicago Samuel Lawrence...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right. 41.75 x 61 in. 44 x 63 in. (framed) Custom framed in a hardwo...

Anthony Hunter "Waiting On The Lightning Painting" (Horizontal or Vertical) Gloss on Canvas (Unstretched) 44 x 44 in. Anthony Hunter was born in Lancashire, England 1987. He graduated from Leeds Metropolitan University in 2009 from the ‘Contemporary Art Course’ where he worked collaboratively with his twin brother focusing on painting and a little bit of performance. After graduating, Anthony and his brother landed a job sitting for Damien Hirst at the exhibition 'POP LIFE' at Tate Modern, London, which involved them sitting underneath a pair of Hirst’s spot paintings...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Signed lower right, signed and dated verso. 62.25 x 56.25 in. 64 x 58 in. (framed) Custom framed in a natural cherry wood floater. Provenance Washburn Gallery, New York Behnke Doherty Gallery, Washington Depot, CT Born in 1908 in Chicago, John Opper moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916. In high school, he began studying art and attending classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. After graduation, he enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art (now Cleveland Institute of Art), only to withdraw after a year and move to Chicago, where he took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He eventually returned to Cleveland, enrolling at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve), receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1931. The Depression has taken hold during this period, so Opper found work by teaching metalworking and sketching classes at the Karamu Settlement House, the oldest African American theater in the United States. In 1933, Opper traveled to Gloucester, Massachusetts, eventually connecting with the artist Hans Hofmann, who was teaching at the school run by Ernest Thurn. Hofmann encouraged Opper to work “in a more modern vein and start finding what it’s all about.” Heeding this advice, Opper relocated to New York, co-founding a mail-order club of American and British prints for dissemination to schools and museums. By the mid-1930s, he joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Easel Division, and also began attending the 57th Street school that Hans Hofmann had established after leaving the Art Students League. Looking back at his time at the school, Opper felt that beyond Hofmann’s teaching, most advantageous was his contact with fellow artists, including Byron Browne, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, and George McNeil. At the time, he also met Giorgio Cavallon and the sculptor Wilfrid Zogbaum. In 1936, Opper became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, along with Balcomb and Gertrude Greene. The organization was formed to provide an opportunity for artists to show abstract works at a time when such opportunities were scarce. This led to his first solo show in 1937 at the Artists’ Gallery in New York. During his summer in Gloucester in 1933, Opper came to know Milton Avery. Painting in Avery’s informal studio in New York City the following winter, he became acquainted with Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko. Opper participated in a couple of shows during the 1930s of the American Artists Congress Against War and Fascism, whose president was Stuart Davis. About the same period, Opper joined the Artists’ Union and served as the business manager of its publication, Art Front. During World War II, Opper worked for a ship design company creating drawings for piping systems used in PT boats...