Honora Berg

Mid Century Bay Area Figurative Original Oil Painting -- Motherhood

Circa 1950

A beautiful mid century modernist take on Madonna and child by Dorothy Steck Beech of Carmel, California (American, 1915-2002). Signed "D.S. Beech" lower right. Displayed in a rusti...

Expressive Mid-Century figural painting of two women and child in pastel hues by Harold Kitner (American, 1921 - 2004). Image, 33"H x 48"W Walnut frame, 34"H x 49"W x 2"D Harold Kitner was born on May 18, 1921 in Cleveland, Ohio and was the son of Isaac and Frieda Kitner. He obtained his MA from Case Western Reserve University in 1947. Kitner was a postgraduate from Cleveland Institute, Ohio University, Cleveland College, Washington and Lee University. He obtained his Doctorate from Kent State University. Exhibition: Harold Kitner - Active / Figure / Exaltation at Kent State School of Art Gallery in Kent, Ohio in 2014. Harold Kitner taught for over 30 years at the Kent State University School of Art. Harold Kitner began teaching art and art history at Kent State University in 1947. During his career, he served as Director and Chairman of the Fine Arts Division. Kitner played a significant role in creating the Art School’s core program, organizing the Kent State Arts Festival, and the Blossom Festival School. He also served as President of the Kent chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and was an art critic for the Akron Beacon Journal. In 1967, Kitner became Kent State University’s first Faculty Ombudsman, officially titled Dean for Faculty Counsel. He held this position until 1974. At the time of the Kent State shootings, Kitner’s position as Ombudsman meant that he was involved in many of the decisions regarding University administration in the weeks and months following the Kent State shootings. Kitner began a partial retirement in 1980, and left Kent to become the director of the Institute of the South Florida Art...

Bay Area Abstract Expressionist Composition in Oil on Cardboard San Francisco Bay area abstract expressionist composition by Honora Be...

Evocative modern figurative painting of a mother and family in a calming but somber palette by Rodrigo Ramirez Pimentel (Mexican, b. 1945), 1973. Imprimatura and impasto reveals artist's first take had mother looking out at world (can be seen when viewed at side angle) with artist ultimately deciding to have mother looking down at what she's carrying with family behind her and one figure looking like angel of death. Signed and dated "R. P. -73" lower right corner. Unframed. Image size: 36"H x 24"W. Born in Zináparo, Michoacán in 1945, Rodrigo Pimentel is one of the most talented Michoacan artists whose career is well known to many specialists in Mexican art. His work is part of the Permanent Collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City and other important collections in Mexico and the world. Rodrigo Pimentel studied at the ENAP, and became a pupil of several teachers who were still struggling for classical academic education: Santos Balmori, Francisco Moreno Capdevila...

Edna Hibel: 1917-2015. Well listed important American artist. Mostly associated with Florida and Massachusetts. There is a Hibel Museum in Florida. Some called her the latter 20th ce...

A Delightful Mid-Century Modern Painting of Mother and Child by Noted Chicago Artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). Artwork size: 5 3/4” x 4” (Framed size: 9 3/4” x 8 1/2”) Estat...

A magnificent oil on canvas by Russian American WPA artist Nahum Tschacbasov (1899-1984), dating from 1943. Depicting a Maternity scene - or possibly a m...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...