David Rakia

Jewish Mystical Kabbalah Oil Painting Jerusalem Cityscape Hebrew Letters Judaica

c.1960's

J. James Akston Surrealism, Village scene (Mexico) Acrylic on Board Frame: 15 X 18 Image: 9 X 12 Joseph James Akston was a Polish American sculptor, painter, known for surrealist abstract painting and Aubusson (for Les Ateliers Pinton Frères, tapisserie, Aubusson) tapestry artist. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1898 he died in Palm Beach Florida in 1983. During the 1960s and '70s the entrepreneur-artist James Joseph Akston adopted a unique Surreal Expressionist style in order to present his private primordial universe and lampoon its denizens, a ribald cast of animal creatures with human foibles. A successful industrialist, he began his career with General Motors foreign operations and then started his own business. Intermittently he studied painting, first with Jerry Farnsworth in North Truro (Mass.) and then with Jose Clemente Orozco in Mexico. In the early 1960s Akston became publisher-editor of a group of art publications which included The Magazine Arts. Initially an abstract expressionist, Akston had one-man exhibitions at the New York Convention Center and the Corcoran Museum in Washington. Since 2015 the record price for this artist at auction is $12,575 USD for Spheres Aux Triangles Aubusson Tapestry, sold at Bonhams New York in 2019. He was a Graduate of Georgetown University. He sat on the board of the Norton Museum. Exhibitions 1976 Hokin Gallery 1966 Gallery 63 NYC 1960 Gallery 63 Rome , Italy Select Public Collections National Museum, Wshington DC Boca Museum of Art Whitney Museum of Art, NYC Museum of Modern Art, NYC Museum of African Art Washington DC (Now part of Smithsonian Museum) Bibliography: 1962 Art...

Eleanor Nell Sinton Roots and Stems 1950, Oil on canvas, Signed lower right N. Sinton, Provenance: Braunstein Quay Gallery (bears label verso) Framed: 24.5 X 20.5 sight 21 X 17 inches. Nell (Eleanor) Sinton (1910-1997) was a painter, art collector and educator in San Francisco, California Nell Sinton began painting in the 1920s. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (then called the California School of Fine Arts). Nell Sinton, one of the early California woman abstract expressionist painters. A member of a family that moved to San Francisco in 1851, Nell Sinton began painting in the 1920s. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (then called the California School of Fine Arts) a decade before abstract expressionism emerged there, and, later, with Lucien Labaudt and Maurice Sterne, (1937-1938). She also worked as an apprentice to Sterne on the Federal Art Project (WPA) murals in San Francisco (1938-40) and was a member of the San Francisco Art Commission (1959-63). In 1959, Sinton was acknowledged as one of the Ten Most Distinguished Bay Area Women. A notable Bay Area Expressionist...

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. 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 (1903-2001), a Hungarian modernist painter. As a Denver, Colorado resident, Pavel Kontny exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, Germany and Japan. There, he was inspired by frequent trips to Native American pueblos in the Southwest, as well as by the study of the Plains Indians of Montana and Wyoming. Over the years Kontny had a number of students and generously helped young artist by hosting exhibitions at his Cherry Hills home. For many years he generously donated his paintings to support charitable causes in Denver. Influences during his European years included German pastelist C.O. Muller, German Informel painter Karl Dahmen and Swiss artist, Hans Erni. In the early 1950s his painting style showed the influence of the Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905 who had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the twentieth century in Germany. By the middle of the decade his style incorporated more referential abstraction and total abstraction, resulting in part from his study of Hans Hartung, a German artist based in Paris who exhibited his gestural abstract work in Germany. The American moon landing in 1969 inspired Paul Kontny...

RALPH DELLA-VOLPE (1923-2017) Fine Art Painter, American Contemporary The Valley Oil on canvas Hand signed lower left and again to stretcher and verso 16 x 20 inches. frame dimensions: 22 1/4 x 26 inches, wood frame Provenance: The Estate of the artist Ralph Della Volpe TRAINING: National Academy of Design The Art Students League, NYC Ralph Eugene Della-Volpe's semi-abstract paintings of often simplified, minimalist, beach scenes and anonymous portraits "convey profound awareness of mood and character", and his paintings are hardly as literal as they may first appear (Arts Magazine. "New York Exhibitions". 1965). His brightly-colored, light-infused, ornamental compositions bring together aspects of many modernist art movements including Fauvism, Impressionism, Symbolism, and abstraction. Della-Volpe first studied painting at the prestigious National Academy of Design before joining the Army during World War II. As a soldier, the artist saw action on Utah Beach, winning a Purple Heart, and his experiences undoubtedly affected his later artistic style. The Fauvist "coloristic exuberance" found in the works beginning in the mid 1960's, with their vibrant fuschias and yellows, seem to offset what could be an otherwise solemn tone to many of his works at the time. Upon his return from military service, Della-Volpe’s style evolved significantly. In the years following the second world war, his work was solemn, imbued with a quiet darkness. Over time, this darkness faded: by the 1950s, influenced by his time at the Art Students League, his oeuvre was overtaken by the tenants of Abstract Expressionism. Paintings from this period boast bold brushwork, energetic compositions, and strong color. Although the next decade saw Della-Volpe trade expressionist abstraction for figuration, his love of color continued to shine through his work.Della-Volpe took a teaching position as the first artist-in-residence at Bennett College in Millbrook, New York where he remained for 28 years, serving as chairman of the Art Department for most of that time. Obviously influenced by impressionism 's preoccupation with the treatment of light, Della-Volpe's own works have a "faultless tonal quality, with its sense of failing light—the areas of silvery gray deepening into rosy tans" (Arts Magazine. "In the Galleries". 1960). Della-Volpe has exhibited widely throughout his career and has lectured on art at colleges, universities, and galleries across the country. SOLO SHOWS: Hotchkiss Library, Sharon, Conn Millbrook Library, Millbrook,NY Gregory James Gallery...

Rob Katkowski’s original oil painting, Cemetery Paths, is a thought-provoking composition that blends quiet minimalism with a subtle, emotional narrative. Measuring 12 inches square ...

Surrealist Landscape the Appian Way - One of the earliest Roman Roads. Rich textual surface with impasto paint application. The artist depicts a wide angle and lower angle view and...

Rob Katkowski’s original oil painting, Pale Moon, is a captivating exploration of form, color, and abstraction that draws viewers into a serene, dreamlike landscape. Measuring 12 inc...

Rob Katkowski’s original oil painting, October Dusk, is an atmospheric and contemplative work that captures the essence of twilight, blending symbolic abstraction with the quiet beau...