Canvas Abstract Paintings

This monumental abstract oil painting by late Houston artist Dick Wray exhibits a striking kinetic energy. Thick layers of paint foster a remarkable tactility commonly found in Dick ...

This piece is a beautiful example of an abstract painting. The simplicity of the subject of the painting contrasted with the texture and color create intricacies in the piece. The go...

This abstract oil painting by late Houston artist Dick Wray expresses a striking kinetic energy. Thick layers of paint foster a remarkable tactility commonly found in Dick Wray’s art...

Gloria Petyarre, sometimes referred to as Gloria Pitjara, was one of Australia s most successful and significant female artists. Her depiction of the Kurrajong bush medicine leaves-with her layered, free-flowing, swirling brushstrokes that scatter across the canvas-became her iconic motif. Her career took off when she won the coveted 'Wynne Prize for Landscape' at the New South Wales Gallery in 1999. It was a triumph for Aboriginal art. Gloria became the first Indigenous Australian artist ever to win a major art prize at the Gallery of New South Wales. The painting was an extraordinary new artistic statement, quite unlike any other Aboriginal artwork at that time. A huge, gold and green abstract work, it was made up of swirling leaf shaped brush strokes positioned close together on a black background. It brilliantly captured the energy and flow of leaves being scattered by a fitful wind, seaweed swirling in a change of tide, or grass billowing in the wind. So much did this artwork fascinate the essentially nature-loving people of this country, that it was to become one of the most popular styles in Aboriginal art, bringing many a devotee to the genre because of its resonance with the viewer. Gloria continued to paint this style for the next 20 years until her retirement in 2019 due to health issues. During that time and subsequently, the style has been adopted and adapted by several generations of her family members. However, Gloria was and is credited with being the creator of this popular style and its most collectable proponent. Gloria's origins are in a region called Utopia, covering an area approximately 230 - 300km from Alice Springs, itself a remote town to many people. Many of Australia's foremost Indigenous artists spring from this area, including Gloria's renowned aunt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, deceased since 1996, and the most famous and accomplished female Indigenous Artist Australia has produced. Gloria, her family members and her skin family, first became interested in art making by participating in the Utopia Women's Silk Batik Group introduced in 1977 and initiated by CAAMA (the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association). Both Gloria and Emily were founding members of the group. With up to 80 members at a time, the Batik and Tie-die project became the seeding inspiration for the artists, and its tremendous success both in Australia and overseas led to another successful project introduced in 1988, again by CAAMA. This time, the artists were to paint on primed, stretched canvas, and many of the women took to the new medium with ease and enthusiasm, finding it more exciting to work with than the silk and batik techniques they had hitherto used. The resulting works were exhibited at the S.H.Erwin Gallery in Sydney and several other notable galleries across Australia. It was the beginning of the Utopian Art Movement, and it was impressive enough to gain international attention. Gloria was one of the artists at the very centre of it. As demand for Utopian art grew, so did Gloria's career. She travelled with her art to many countries and exhibited in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, the USA and Japan, and of course in regional and commercial galleries throughout Australia. It would be easy to think that Gloria's works were limited to bush medicine leaves works, so popular were they. In fact she had quite a number of Dreamings in her portfolio. She painted the 'Thorny Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming', a pattern of swirling coloured lines which imitate the tracks made in the sand by the lizard's tail. Yam Dreaming, popularly executed by her aunt Emily, was also one of her commonly painted stories. She also painted Grass Seed, Pencil Yam, Emu, Bean, Small Brown Grass and Body Paint Dreamings. This breadth of subject matter and style has made her an extremely versatile artist. Later in her career, Gloria began to paint massive 'Big Leaf' paintings, expressionistically rendered with giant brush...

This very large and colorful Aboriginal painting is a diptych (2 canvases) and can be displayed horizontally or vertically. This painting depicts the creation of the Lander River system. It includes elements and stories from the artist's family kinship system. The canvases represent the journey from the artist's home country, Willowra, to two soakages at Purtulu (Mount Theo) in his mother' s country. Purtulu in the Warlpiri language means “backbone.” Two Dreaming Goannas are shown at either end of the canvases. The "U" shapes of the goanna echo the traditional "U" shapes used in Aboriginal design to represent seated Ancestors. The country in between represents the plains where the goanna hunts, using spinifex grass as protection. To get easy access to goannas and to revitalize the land, the country must be burned off seasonally. It is the responsibility of the kirda (owner) to ensure that the land is burned off regularly by the kurdungulu (caretaker). The left canvas depicts the Owl Dreaming. The stylized face of the Owl can be discerned in the design. The right canvas portrays Warna, Snake Dreaming. The snake, with its sinuous shape, is symbolic of the river and the waterways. A more realistic representation of the Lander River system, with its forks and pools, is illustrated by the blue line which runs through the center of the canvases. Provenance: Aboriginal Art Galleries of Australia, Melbourne; acquired in 1998; The Kelton Foundation, Santa Monica; Exhibited: ‘Belonging to Mother Earth - Indigenous Wisdom and Healing Conference', Virginia Beach...

Phenomenon East of the River by Paul Jenkins (1923 - 2012) Acrylic on canvas 97.2 x 130.2 cm (38 ¹/₄ x 51 ¹/₄ inches) Signed lower right, Paul Jenkins Signed, titled and dated 1993 on the reverse Provenance Private collection, New York, acquired directly from the artist Artist's Biography Born at Kansas City in Missouri (USA), the multi-media artist, poet and playwright Paul Jenkins studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Students League in New York City. After his discharge from military service at the end of February 1946, he briefly studied playwriting with dramatist George McCalmon at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. Thereafter, Jenkins spent four years studying with Japanese American artist Yasuo Kuniyoshi in New York City. His first solo exhibitions were held at Studio Paul Facchetti in Paris in 1954 and the Martha Graham Gallery in New York City in 1956. Over the past thirty years, numerous retrospectives have been curated across the globe and Jenkins’ work can found in national collections from Europe and the United States to Israel, Australia and Japan. The diversity of his work springs from Jenkins’ wealth of eclectic influences. Some of his earliest works included what he called "interior landscapes" influenced by ancient natural forms like the caves he visited in the Ozark Mountains in his native-Missouri. Frequent student visits to the Frick Collection in New York fostered a love of the great masters: Bellini, Holbein, Vermeer, Rembrandt, de la Tour, Turner and Goya. In compliment, lingering student visits to the renowned Eastern collection of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City evoked powerful sympathy for a monumental Chinese fresco...

This monumental abstract oil painting by late Houston artist Dick Wray exhibits a striking kinetic energy. Thick layers of paint foster a remarkable tactility commonly found in Dick ...

Oil paint on canvas Unique work Hand-signed lower right by the artist

Quim Bove abstract painting, "Fire", 1997

Gregg Robinson, American (born 1948) Canvas mounted on wood board work of art depicts geometric shapes and forms with a lacquered high gloss finish. Hand signed lower left and dated 1995. Dimensions: 24 X 24 X 1.75 in. GREGG ROBINSON The universe of visual art encompasses a huge spectrum of motivation and means of expression. Examples range from the most syrupy sentimentality to extremes of moral and intellectual confrontation. For me, the creative process is, on the simplest level, an aesthetic puzzle. Elements of the puzzle include contrast, color, visual texture, graphic pattern, and in some recent work, a simple cryptic symbolism. I have never been particularly interested in lyric or pictorial content, and though some of my work does contain undeniable spatial illusion, even that tends to be a by-product rather than a goal of the primary pursuit: the balance of light and dark, pure color and organic neutrals, energy and calm, strong pattern and subtle field. Having grown up in an environment of contemporary architecture, I have always valued the classic modern synthesis of form and function exemplified by the Bauhaus movement of the early 20th century. Hence, the simplest solutions are often the most satisfying. Obviously, the modernist ideal of efficiency in form and function requires that method of execution be as well adapted to the aesthetic goal as the visual language itself. The media before you is the result of many years of experimentation that came to its current form in early 1992. I work with dry pigment over a plaster surface. My tools are broad knives, sponges, rags and masking. The finish is a high gloss alkyd resin. His prints have been published by GalleryOnline, publishers of Per Arnoldi, Ricardo benaim, Pierre Marie Brisson, Simon Bull, Fanch Ledan, Claude Gaveau and Laurent Schkolnyk and more. SELECT CORPORATE COLLECTIONS: Allstate Insurance NBC Productions Alaska Airlines...

Includes a Certificate of Authenticity

José González Veites (Mexican, born Mexico City 1957) Works in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of New York City. Born in Mexico City, w...

Jabulani Sam Nhlengethwa was born on 9 January 1955 in the Payneville township of Springs, Gauteng, (formerly Transvaal) South Africa. Forced removals in the area made his family rel...

Unique piece, acrylic on canvas. Created approximately between 1989-1992. Signed and titled on back of frame in pencil. Piece is in excellent shape. Back of frame has water damage.

Original abstract oil painting signed by Wilma Fiori (1929-2019) painted in 1994. Signed and dated by the artist on verso. Large format horizontal abstract...

Gloria Petyarre, sometimes referred to as Gloria Pitjara, was one of Australia s most successful and significant female artists. Her depiction of the Kurrajong bush medicine leaves-with her layered, free-flowing, swirling brushstrokes that scatter across the canvas-became her iconic motif. Her career took off when she won the coveted 'Wynne Prize for Landscape' at the New South Wales Gallery in 1999. It was a triumph for Aboriginal art. Gloria became the first Indigenous Australian artist ever to win a major art prize at the Gallery of New South Wales. The painting was an extraordinary new artistic statement, quite unlike any other Aboriginal artwork at that time. A huge, gold and green abstract work, it was made up of swirling leaf shaped brush strokes positioned close together on a black background. It brilliantly captured the energy and flow of leaves being scattered by a fitful wind, seaweed swirling in a change of tide, or grass billowing in the wind. So much did this artwork fascinate the essentially nature-loving people of this country, that it was to become one of the most popular styles in Aboriginal art, bringing many a devotee to the genre because of its resonance with the viewer. Gloria continued to paint this style for the next 20 years until her retirement in 2019 due to health issues. During that time and subsequently, the style has been adopted and adapted by several generations of her family members. However, Gloria was and is credited with being the creator of this popular style and its most collectable proponent. Gloria's origins are in a region called Utopia, covering an area approximately 230 - 300km from Alice Springs, itself a remote town to many people. Many of Australia's foremost Indigenous artists spring from this area, including Gloria's renowned aunt, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, deceased since 1996, and the most famous and accomplished female Indigenous Artist Australia has produced. Gloria, her family members and her skin family, first became interested in art making by participating in the Utopia Women's Silk Batik Group introduced in 1977 and initiated by CAAMA (the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association). Both Gloria and Emily were founding members of the group. With up to 80 members at a time, the Batik and Tie-die project became the seeding inspiration for the artists, and its tremendous success both in Australia and overseas led to another successful project introduced in 1988, again by CAAMA. This time, the artists were to paint on primed, stretched canvas, and many of the women took to the new medium with ease and enthusiasm, finding it more exciting to work with than the silk and batik techniques they had hitherto used. The resulting works were exhibited at the S.H.Erwin Gallery in Sydney and several other notable galleries across Australia. It was the beginning of the Utopian Art Movement, and it was impressive enough to gain international attention. Gloria was one of the artists at the very centre of it. As demand for Utopian art grew, so did Gloria's career. She travelled with her art to many countries and exhibited in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, the USA and Japan, and of course in regional and commercial galleries throughout Australia. It would be easy to think that Gloria's works were limited to bush medicine leaves works, so popular were they. In fact she had quite a number of Dreamings in her portfolio. She painted the 'Thorny Mountain Devil Lizard Dreaming', a pattern of swirling coloured lines which imitate the tracks made in the sand by the lizard's tail. Yam Dreaming, popularly executed by her aunt Emily, was also one of her commonly painted stories. She also painted Grass Seed, Pencil Yam, Emu, Bean, Small Brown Grass and Body Paint Dreamings. This breadth of subject matter and style has made her an extremely versatile artist. Later in her career, Gloria began to paint massive 'Big Leaf' paintings, expressionistically rendered with giant brush...

Malcolm Maloney Jagamarra "Kangaroo Dreaming" 1991 Framed Signed verso Provenance: Hank Ebes, Aboriginal Gallery of Dreamings, Melbourne, Australia; Acquired from the above in 1991, Richard Kelton Collection, Santa Monica, California Malcolm Jagamarra was born in the Australian outback...

Gregg Robinson, American (born 1948) Canvas mounted on wood board work of art depicts geometric shapes and forms with a lacquered high gloss finish. Hand signed lower left and dated 1995. Dimensions: 24 X 24 X 1.75 in. GREGG ROBINSON The universe of visual art encompasses a huge spectrum of motivation and means of expression. Examples range from the most syrupy sentimentality to extremes of moral and intellectual confrontation. For me, the creative process is, on the simplest level, an aesthetic puzzle. Elements of the puzzle include contrast, color, visual texture, graphic pattern, and in some recent work, a simple cryptic symbolism. I have never been particularly interested in lyric or pictorial content, and though some of my work does contain undeniable spatial illusion, even that tends to be a by-product rather than a goal of the primary pursuit: the balance of light and dark, pure color and organic neutrals, energy and calm, strong pattern and subtle field. Having grown up in an environment of contemporary architecture, I have always valued the classic modern synthesis of form and function exemplified by the Bauhaus movement of the early 20th century. Hence, the simplest solutions are often the most satisfying. Obviously, the modernist ideal of efficiency in form and function requires that method of execution be as well adapted to the aesthetic goal as the visual language itself. The media before you is the result of many years of experimentation that came to its current form in early 1992. I work with dry pigment over a plaster surface. My tools are broad knives, sponges, rags and masking. The finish is a high gloss alkyd resin. His prints have been published by GalleryOnline, publishers of Per Arnoldi, Ricardo benaim, Pierre Marie Brisson, Simon Bull, Fanch Ledan, Claude Gaveau and Laurent Schkolnyk and more. SELECT CORPORATE COLLECTIONS: Allstate Insurance NBC Productions Alaska Airlines...

Nigel Hall Untitled Acrylic and Charcoal Painting on Canvas, 1997 Acrylic and charcoal painting on canvas Signed and titled by the artist on the front. Date...

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

"Cream Soda" is an original acrylic painting on canvas board by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the artwork on the back. This artwork depicts an abstract...

"Untitled" is an original acrylic painting on canvas panel by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece on the back. This artwork features an abstract portrait of a man in blue, b...

The painting is being offered with a work and authenticity certificate

Oil on canvas. Signed, titled, and dated on verso. 36.25 x 42 in. 37.25 x 43.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in maple. Provenance Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta Yoshishige Furukawa...

Landscape is an artwork realized by an unknown artist in 1998. Colorful landscape with dense and material brushstrokes. Illegible signature in the lower right margin. 21x33 cm. A...

Composition 1992., Canvas, oil, 50x60 cm Abstract composition "Composition" is an abstract artwork created in 1992. The medium used is oil on canvas, and the dimensions of the artwork are 50x60 cm. As an abstract composition, the artwork does not represent specific objects or subjects in a realistic manner. Instead, it focuses on elements such as color, form, line, and texture to create a visual expression of the artist's ideas and emotions. The oil medium provides a rich and vibrant quality to the artwork, allowing for the blending of colors and the creation of various textures. This creates depth and visual interest within the composition. Igor Leontiev (1957) - one of the leading independent painters in Latvia Born in Riga, Latvia. Studied in the Art School of Rozental, the Latvian Academy of Arts and private studios of the famous painters and teachers Abram Bikov and Vitaly Karkunov. Participates in exhibitions since 1987. Awards: 1991 – One of the main grants at the International Art Project «Golden Brush» at the Central Painters' House, Moscow, Russia Solo Shows: 2008- Gallery "Antonia", Riga. exhibition "Dream City" 2002 – Open exhibition “Genesis” Austria, Vienna 2002 - «Painting», Blackhead's House, Riga (printed brochure) 2000 - Personal exhibition in Austria, Vienna “Gallery Atelier T” 2000 – Personal exhibition in Riga, Latvia 2000 - Institute of Practical Psyhogy, Riga (printed brochure) 2001 - Gallery «AtelierT», Vienna, Austria 1998 – Joined exhibition with N.Bessonova «Garant», Vienna, Austria 1998 - Gallery «Nelliya», Riga 1998 - Co-project with N.Bessonova «Birds and Fish», Gallery «Nelliya», Riga 1997 - Gallery «Dzintars», Riga 1997 - Insurance Company «New Re» Gallery, Geneva, Switzerland 1997 - Gallery «Rigas Vini», Riga 1997 - Gallery «Goldshidhaus», Gilzenkirken, Germany, with N.Bessonova 1996 – Personal exhibition in “Rigas vini” Gallery, Riga 1996 - Gallery «Sofia», Gilzenkirken, Germany 1991 - Russian Culture Fund, Riga 1991 – Last personal exhibition in Riga Group Shows: 2007 - Museum der stad Bad Ischl”Genesis2000” 2007 -“Art Innsbruck” International Messe. 2004 - Showcase of Latvian painters dedicated to Latvia joining the EU, museum «Horst Shloss», Germany 2004 - «Hungary by the Latvian Painters», Moscow House, Riga 2003 - «Autumn-2003», Latvian State Art Museum 2003 - Autumn exhibitions of Latvian Painters, Gallery «Nelliya», Riga 2003 - «Abstract Art in Latvian Painting», Latvian State Art Museum 2000-2006 - International Project dedicated to the Book «Genesis», Austria 2002 - «Autumn», Latvian State Art Museum 1999 - Participation in exhibition “Gold of Russian Art” Austria, Vienna, “Gallery Atelier T” 1999 – Participation in projects “Genesis” Austria, Vienna, “Gallery Atelier T” 1997 - «Art Expo» New York, USA 1996 - «Art of the Chosen Ones», Latvian State Art Museum «Arsenal» 1995 - «Surrealism in Works of Latvian Painters», Russian Culture Fund, Riga 1994 - «Christmas Exhibition», Embassy of Poland in Latvia, Riga 1993 - «Art of the Russian Painters», Embassy of Russia in Latvia, Riga 1993 - «Golden Brush», Central Painters' House, Moscow, Russia 1993 - «Latvian Painters», Gallery «Sofia», Germany 1992 – sept.,Oct. – exhibition in Baad Goseberg, Germany 1992 - «Artmyth», International Art Festival, Manezh, Moscow, Russia 1992 - «Latvian Art», Berlin, Germany 1991 – «Reshaping», exhibition in Moscow 1991 - «Golden Brush», Central Painters' House, Moscow, Russia 1991 - «Transformation», Youth Palace, Moscow, Russia 1991 - «Latvian Painters», Belver, Germany 1989 - «Artcontact» National Art Project, Culture House of Railroad workers, Riga 1989 - «Artist and Religion», Riga - Moscow 1988 - «Free Art», Rigas Modes, Riga 1987 - First exhibition with painters A.Alekperov and G.Huckivadze in the Culture House of Railroad workers, Riga Auctions: 2002 - «Doroteum» Vienna, Austria - paintings «Russian Art» and «Portrait of Olga...

Diptych, acrylic on canvas. Signed lower right. Two canvases, joined along vertical stretcher on verso. 40 x 60 in. 41 x 61 in. (framed) Custom framed in maple. Provenance Estate of Beatrice Mandelman 203 Fine Art, Taos, NM A certificate of authenticity issued by the Mandelman Ribak Collection at the University of New Mexico Foundation will be provided with this work. Beatrice Mandelman was born on December 31, 1912 in Newark, New Jersey. At age 12, she began taking classes at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, subsequently attending Rutgers University, the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art, and the Art Students League in New York. In 1935, Mandelman was employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), first as a muralist and then as a printmaker with the Graphic Division of the New York Project. One of the original members of the Silk Screen Unit under Anthony Velonis, she worked until the disbandment of the WPA in 1942. During this period, she was associated with numerous New York School artists including Louis Lozowick, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, Jackson Pollock, and Stuart Davis. Mandelman married fellow artist Louis Ribak in 1942, and two years later they traveled to Santa Fe, NM to visit his teacher and mentor, the artist John Sloan. Finding Santa Fe congested, they took the train along the Rio Grande and a stagecoach up to Taos and decided to settle there. An impulsive and inspired move, it was a decision that would effectively remove them from mainstream art involvement, for which Santa Fe had become an important outpost in the west. While Taos was a well-known within the art community, there were no galleries exhibiting modern art. This changed later in the decade, with an influx of new artists arriving from New York and California. Some of these artists would come to be known collectively as the “Taos Moderns...

Artist: Noh Sang-Kyoon, Korean (1958 - ) Title: The Whole Towards the Hole II Medium: Sequins on Canvas, signed, titled and dated verso Size: 54 x 54 inches Frame Size: 55 x 55 inch...

Impasto Oil Painting of River Tree Scene British Postwar & Contemporary Artist, Terry Evans Terry Evans is a British Postwar & Contemporary Painter born i...

Carol Jablonsky (1939-1992) Acrylic on canvas painting with collage titled verso "Letter in a Bottle" 17 X 17 framed 10.5 X 10.5 sight The image is w...

Gregg Robinson, American (born 1948) "Cipher Bar 20" Oil on Canvasboard Panel. Artist signed, title and dated 1990 far right. Very minor rubbing to paint. Panel measures 15-1/4" H x 63-1/2" W, frame measures 24-1/4" H x 72-1/4" GREGG ROBINSON The universe of visual art encompasses a huge spectrum of motivation and means of expression. Examples range from the most syrupy sentimentality to extremes of moral and intellectual confrontation. For me, the creative process is, on the simplest level, an aesthetic puzzle. Elements of the puzzle include contrast, color, visual texture, graphic pattern, and in some recent work, a simple cryptic symbolism. I have never been particularly interested in lyric or pictorial content, and though some of my work does contain undeniable spatial illusion, even that tends to be a by-product rather than a goal of the primary pursuit: the balance of light and dark, pure color and organic neutrals, energy and calm, strong pattern and subtle field. Having grown up in an environment of contemporary architecture, I have always valued the classic modern synthesis of form and function exemplified by the Bauhaus movement of the early 20th century. Hence, the simplest solutions are often the most satisfying. Obviously, the modernist ideal of efficiency in form and function requires that method of execution be as well adapted to the aesthetic goal as the visual language itself. The media before you is the result of many years of experimentation that came to its current form in early 1992. I work with dry pigment over a plaster surface. My tools are broad knives, sponges, rags and masking. The finish is a high gloss alkyd resin. CORPORATE COLLECTIONS: Allstate Insurance NBC Productions Alaska...

1991 Oil and wax on canvas, 2 panels 20 x 20 inches, each; 20 x 40 inches, overall Signed and dated, verso Osvaldo Mariscotti’s art is an art of fundamentals: color, line, and the p...

This oil on canvas painting is by French artist Claude-Max Lochu (1951 -) and features an iconic Paris view with a poetic vision of the Eiffel Tower in yellow and purple tones. The a...

Richard Marshall Merkin (American, 1938-2009) Gladys and Half-Pint Hand signed 'Merkin' (center right), Titled, inscribed, dated, and initialed 'GLADYS BENTLEY AND FRANKIE 'HALF-PINT' JAXON 1997/R.M.' verso. Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 72 in. (95.3 x 182.9 cm) framed 39 1/4 x 74 x 2 in. Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tailcoat and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She tried to continue her musical career but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era she started wearing dresses and married, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, born Frank Devera Jackson was an African American vaudeville singer, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, orphaned, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with medicine shows in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a female impersonator, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, often with such performers as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, whose staging he helped design. He served slightly less than a year in the United States Army in 1918–1919 and rose to the rank of sergeant. In the late 1920s he sang with top jazz bands when they passed through Chicago, working with Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard and others. He performed and recorded with the pianists Cow Cow Davenport, Tampa Red and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, recording with the latter pair under the name of The Black Hillbillies. He also recorded with the Harlem Hamfats. In the 1930s, he was often on radio in the Chicago area, and led his own band, titled Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and His Quarts of Joy. Jaxon appeared with Duke Ellington in a film short titled Black and Tan (1929), and with Bessie Smith in "St. Louis Blues" (1929). Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" (1931) is based both musically and lyrically on Jaxon's "Willie the Weeper" (1927). Richard Merkin, Sometimes described as Rhode Island’s most famous New York artist, Richard Merkin has led a dual life for nearly 40 years - teaching at RISD while enjoying a celebrated painting career based in New York City. He has exhibited in countless gallery and museum shows in the US and abroad and is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the RISD museum and many others. In addition to contributing drawings and paintings to The New Yorker (along with, Art Spiegelman, Saul Steinberg, Harper’s, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and several books on Erotica and Baseball, he is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a former style columnist for GQ. Merkin’s honors include a Tiffany Foundation Fellowship and the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Museums and Selected Collections : The American Federation of Arts, New York, NY Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA First city Bank, Chicago, Ill Fisk University Art Gallery, Nashville, TN Hallmark Collections, Kansas City, MO Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Maimi-Dade Junior College, Miami, FL Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Minnesota Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Pennsylvania Acadamy of the Arts, Philadelphia PA Prudential Insurance Company, Boston, Ma Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Sara Robey Foundation, New York, NY Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC State University of Brockport, Brockport, NY Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Selected Publications : 1986-Present Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair ..1988-Present, New Yorker... 1988-Present, style column, GQ...1997, Text and Illustration for The Tijuana Bibles, published by Simon & Shuster, 1995, Illustrated book, Leagues Apart: the Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues published by Morrow. 1967 Cover of the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” Album (Mr. Merkin appears in the back row, right of center) RISD: MFA in Painting, 1963; Professor, Department of Painting special skill: Merging his role as flaneur (connoisseur of city life) with his role as painter and social historian, Merkin retrieves lost cultural artifacts – a Turkish cigarette, a gangster, a bowler and generally “things most people don’t know about” – and reconstitutes their Jazz Age virtues on canvas in cubist, comic-laced landscapes of tropical color. (ala Robert Crumb and Ben Katchor) breaking in: Perpetually on the fly from his middle-class Brooklyn background, Merkin found the perfect escape in the mid ‘60s in George Frazier, a dapper Boston columnist who inspired the emerging New York painter’s overnight reinvention of himself. The elements of structure, stability and surprise he admired in this well-dressed dandy – a cool linen suit, a splash of suspender, a polka dot scarf and pearl-handled walking stick – soon surfaced in paintings peopled by impeccable underdogs of café society along with his personal pop heroes: William Burroughs, Bobby Short and Krazy Kat...

David Rankin American (b. 1946) Untitled (Black on gray) (1990) Gouache and charcoal on paper signed lower left 19 x 15 inches Rankin is a New York-based, British-born Australian post-war and contemporary artist known for his expressionistic abstract paintings. His work can be categorized by his use of quick, loose brushstrokes, reminiscent of scribbles on a page. Rankin works predominantly in oil painting and acrylic on canvas, but also works with paper, prints, sculptures and ceramics. Rankin has held over 100 one-person exhibitions in cities across the world, including New York, London, Paris, Beijing, Mexico, Vienna, Berlin and Cologne, as well as all over Australia. Represented in many of the world’s leading public and private collections and museums, David Rankin’s work is featured in Australia’s leading institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and Queensland Art Gallery. David Rankin was born in Plymouth, Devon, England in 1946 then emigrated to Australia with his family in 1948. He spent his childhood in the 1950s in the semi-rural Port Hacking region South of Sydney and his teenage years in country New South Wales, from Hay, Wagga Wagga and Albury in the South to Bourke and Brewarrina in the North. Rankin is self-taught, developing his techniques and ideas in the outback towns of his youth. He was inspired by the greats from Leonardo da Vinci to Paul Klee as well as being influenced by the history of Buddhism and Asian art. In his travels before he arrived in Sydney in 1967 he developed a concept of what he wanted to achieve as an Australian artist. His dream was to express the anima, the life spirit or the essence of God in all nature. As an Australian artist he believed could bring the elements of Western Art together with an understanding and love for the cultures of Asia and the Australian Aborigine. He also felt that as Australia was closer to Asia than Europe it made sense to think about the art of Indian, Chinese and Japanese artists, and that one could not be an authentic articulate Australian artist without a love and respect for the artistic and spiritual expressions of the various Aboriginal artists, peoples and cultures. His work combined elements of Abstract Expressionist painting with Jewish and Aboriginal influences. In 1979 his first wife, Jennifer Mary Roberts (née Haynes) died. Rankin subsequently met his current wife Lily Brett, whose own life was etched by tragedy with her parents being survivors of the Holocaust. She too migrated to Australia as a child after the Second World War in 1948. The artist recounts that his empathy for Lily and the pity for his first wife's death fused into what he calls "the dark blessing of my life." The darkness was transformed into images. The author Dore Ashton writes that the events of 1979 and the fire which ravished his studio in 1997 and burnt his art works and many personal possessions, had a profound impact on his work. Having personal life experiences as his subject matter, Rankin's paintings contemplate these things. For example, his Jerusalem series followed a trip to Jerusalem in 1988, which then led to his Golgotha works. His travels to the Australian, American and Mexican deserts became the subject matter for many of his canvases, such as Ridge – Mungo, Golden Prophecy – San Antonio, Grey Sonora Landscape and then led to his Witness Series. From the fire in his studio he then painted Buddha and Flames. He illustrated two books by Lily Brett on the holocaust and explored the theme further in his huge work The Drowned and The Saved from a book by Primo Levi of the same name. Through Brett he encountered Jewish mythology and painted judaica imagery, Black Menorah...

In this artwork the artist takes a child-like approach at depicting the subject using vibrant colors and painterly brushstrokes. Signed and titled on verso, GANG 2/1990.

Avant la Fête or “Before the Party” is a superb and vibrant work by Wemaere who is a well recognized European abstractionist in the tradition of the CoBrA move...

Blue, Red & Green Abstract Expressionist Painting, entitled 'Tropical City #1', an extremely rare early work from leading British Contemporary Artist...

Amaranth Ehrenhalt Untitled, 1994 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 24 x 20 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Long Island Amaranth Ehrenhalt was born in 1928 in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in a Jewish family in Philadelphia. She loved painting from an early age and was soon placed in the “creatively gifted” Saturday morning program at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She carried on with a full-tuition scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In parallel, she attended an art history class at the Barnes Foundation one afternoon per week. After graduation, Ehrenhalt was determined to travel to Paris and from there hitchhiked to Morocco, painting her impressions in her sketchbook as she went. She continued to Rome, where she taught English and continued to paint. Upon her return to the United States, Ehrenhalt settled in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York. Her nights were spent at the Cedar Tavern where she met Abstract Expressionist artists such as Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. The night before Ehrenhalt left on what was meant to be a short trip to Paris, De Kooning told her: “As soon as you get back, call me. We’ll have dinner.” However, Ehrenhalt never returned to New York, as she got sucked into the bustling, creative Parisian life. In Paris, she frequented Le Select, a café that attracted many artists, including Yves Klein and Alberto Giacometti, among others. It was in Paris that she met her husband, a fellow American artist with whom she had two children. They would show their works in their home and live off the sales, until their divorce 15 years later. Though life in Paris was a struggle at times, the city had so much to offer as well, and Ehrenhalt became close with a circle of expatriate American artists among whom were Shirley Jaffe, Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell. Another important connection was Sonia Delauney...

Signed, dated and titled verso. Gelfman is often praised for using unconventional approaches during the creation process. This intricate mixed media piece is no exception. Her use ...

Gregg Robinson, American (born 1948) "Cipher Bar 19" Oil on Canvasboard Panel. Artist signed, title and dated 1990 far right. Very minor rubbing to paint. Panel measures 15-1/4" H x 63-1/2" W, frame measures 24-1/4" H x 72-1/4" W GREGG ROBINSON The universe of visual art encompasses a huge spectrum of motivation and means of expression. Examples range from the most syrupy sentimentality to extremes of moral and intellectual confrontation. For me, the creative process is, on the simplest level, an aesthetic puzzle. Elements of the puzzle include contrast, color, visual texture, graphic pattern, and in some recent work, a simple cryptic symbolism. I have never been particularly interested in lyric or pictorial content, and though some of my work does contain undeniable spatial illusion, even that tends to be a by-product rather than a goal of the primary pursuit: the balance of light and dark, pure color and organic neutrals, energy and calm, strong pattern and subtle field. Having grown up in an environment of contemporary architecture, I have always valued the classic modern synthesis of form and function exemplified by the Bauhaus movement of the early 20th century. Hence, the simplest solutions are often the most satisfying. Obviously, the modernist ideal of efficiency in form and function requires that method of execution be as well adapted to the aesthetic goal as the visual language itself. The media before you is the result of many years of experimentation that came to its current form in early 1992. I work with dry pigment over a plaster surface. My tools are broad knives, sponges, rags and masking. The finish is a high gloss alkyd resin. CORPORATE COLLECTIONS: Allstate Insurance NBC Productions Alaska...

Amaranth Ehrenhalt Untitled, 1994 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 24 x 20 inches Provenance: Private Collection, Long Island Amaranth Ehrenhalt was born in 1928 in Newark, New Jersey and grew up in a Jewish family in Philadelphia. She loved painting from an early age and was soon placed in the “creatively gifted” Saturday morning program at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She carried on with a full-tuition scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where she graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In parallel, she attended an art history class at the Barnes Foundation one afternoon per week. After graduation, Ehrenhalt was determined to travel to Paris and from there hitchhiked to Morocco, painting her impressions in her sketchbook as she went. She continued to Rome, where she taught English and continued to paint. Upon her return to the United States, Ehrenhalt settled in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York. Her nights were spent at the Cedar Tavern where she met Abstract Expressionist artists such as Franz Kline and Willem de Kooning. The night before Ehrenhalt left on what was meant to be a short trip to Paris, De Kooning told her: “As soon as you get back, call me. We’ll have dinner.” However, Ehrenhalt never returned to New York, as she got sucked into the bustling, creative Parisian life. In Paris, she frequented Le Select, a café that attracted many artists, including Yves Klein and Alberto Giacometti, among others. It was in Paris that she met her husband, a fellow American artist with whom she had two children. They would show their works in their home and live off the sales, until their divorce 15 years later. Though life in Paris was a struggle at times, the city had so much to offer as well, and Ehrenhalt became close with a circle of expatriate American artists among whom were Shirley Jaffe, Sam Francis and Joan Mitchell. Another important connection was Sonia Delauney...

Toronto artist David Bolduc was a modernist inspired by Jack Bush and Henri Matisse--his work was described as exotic and eccentric. A prolific traveler...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 56"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 56"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 56"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1992. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 55"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 56"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 56"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

Millennium

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 61"H x 57"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...

An abstract expressionist painting by Duayne Hatchett . Oil on canvas, circa 1990. Signed verso. Framed. Image size, 60"H x 55"L. Duayne Hatchett was a visual artist whose work...