Cleve Gray

Captain Cook

1971

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...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. 50.5 x 38.25 in. 51.5 x 39 in. (framed) Custom framed in maple. Theodore Franklin (“Ted”) Appleby, Jr. was born January 28, 1923 in Asbury Park, New Jersey to a very prominent family in Monmouth County. He attended the Pauling School in New York and studied at the atelier of John Corneal. On December 12, 1942, Appleby enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, subsequently seeing action in the Marshall Islands. Upon the conclusion of the war, he was stationed for a year in Yokohama, Japan, where he studied local engraving techniques. In 1947, after returning home, Appleby moved to Mexico for a year to study mural painting in San Miguel de Allende. Following his sojourn in Mexico, Appleby briefly returned home to the U.S. before ultimately relocating to Paris. There, he joined a lively community of expatriate American artists involved with what would come to be known as the “School of Paris.” Appleby befriended fellow Americans Sam Francis and Jackson Pollock, exhibiting extensively throughout France with the former. He also regularly visited the atelier of Fernand Léger, and was represented in the "Salon de Réalités Nouvelles" and the “Salon d’Automne” during the 1950s and 60s. From 1955 to 1961, Appleby participated in group exhibitions in Chicago, Leverkusen (Germany), Lisbon, London, and Paris. He also had three notable solo exhibitions during this period: Studio Facchetti, Paris (1956); Martha Jackson Gallery, New York (1957); and the American Cultural Center, Paris (1959). In 1957, Appleby’s work was presented at the 62nd American Exposition of Painters and Sculptors at the Chicago Art Institute, where he was awarded the Norman Wait Harris Bronze Medal and Prize. Answering the famed artist André Lhote’s call to help save the village of Alba-la-Romaine in the Ardèche, Appleby and his wife - the artist Hope Manchester - purchased a home in the village in 1950, ultimately settling there until their deaths. Source: Taylor Graham Gallery

Oil on linen. Unsigned. 58.25 x 46.75 in. 59.75 x 48 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid maple floater with a polyurethane clear coat finish. Provenance Estate of Gottfried Mair...

Waterline Fine Art, Austin, TX is pleased to present the following work: Oil on canvas. Signed and titled verso. 40.25 x 56.25 in. 40.75 x 56.75 in. (framed) Custom framed in a wh...

Cleve Gray 'End of October,' 1978 Acrylic on canvas 55 x 55 inches Signed verso This work was donated to the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (FCA) by the The Estate of Cleve Gray for FCA's 2021 benefit exhibition held at Greene Naftali.

Contemporary School, Abstract Composition, Mixed Media on Canvas, unsigned, cerused wood frame. Image: 41.25" H x 66" W; frame: 42.25" H x 67.5" W. Provenance: From a New York City C...

Stewart has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and is represented by the Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, Gail Severn Gallery in Sun Va...

Acrylic on acrylic panel - Unframed 2 panels are 9 inches square and the middle panel is 14 x 8 inches. They hang from a cleat system which makes them appear to “float” off the wal...