1950s Abstract Paintings

Abstract Composition is a small yet significant artwork made by Paul Bony, a famous French artist active in the mid-20th century. The artwork is in excellent state of preservation. ...

Work on paper glued to cardboard Dimensions of the "passe-partout" frame 29 x 22.5 x 0.7 cm Work signed lower right and monogram F.V.S. and dated on the up...

"Untitled" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 48.5 in x 23.5 in. The right side of the painting is bowed and needs conservation, otherwise in...

"Image" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 20 in x 21. It is in excellent condition. Donald C. Totten (1903-1964) was a member of a group of artists who quietly began to introduce modernist thought, emanating from Europe and the East Coast, to the Los Angeles art community during the 1920s. Other members of this group were influential artists as Nick Brigante, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg...

Professor George De Goya. PhD. MA. FRSA. Born In Budapest, 1915-1992, related to the Spanish artist Goya on his mother’s side. Educated in Budapest and France where he received a de...

An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist painting was created in the 1950's. Estate stamped on the reverse. The painting com...

Abstract Composition is a small yet significant artwork realized by the artist Paul Henri Bony, a famous French artist, active in the mid-20th century. The artwork is in excellent co...

Print color etching on heavy paper Signed, titled, dated on mat 18 x 11 inches; 20.5 x 17 inches framed Provenance: Private collection, Denver, Colorado

"Composition" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on masonite circa 1950 and measures 28 in x 32 in. The painting is in good condition. Donald C. To...

Antique French modern painting of a fall forest. Oil on board, circa 1950. Signed. Image size, 15.5L x 9.75H. Housed in a period giltwood f...

Antique American modernist sunset cityscape painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1959. Signed. Image size 20L x 24H. Housed in a period modern frame.

An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist painting was created in the 1950's. Estate stamped on the reverse. The painting com...

Charles Green Shaw (American, 1892-1974) By the Dawn's Early Light, 1955 Oil on masonite Signed lower left, dated and titled verso 35.5 x 23.75 inches 38 x 26.25 inches, framed Provenance: The estate of the artist to Charles H. Carpenter Charles Green Shaw, born into a wealthy New York family, began painting when he was in his mid-thirties. A 1914 graduate of Yale, Shaw also completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University. During the 1920s Shaw enjoyed a successful career as a freelance writer for The New Yorker, Smart Set and Vanity Fair, chronicling the life of the theater and café society. In addition to penning insightful articles, Shaw was a poet, novelist and journalist. In 1927 he began to take a serious interest in art and attended Thomas Hart Benton's class at the Art Students League briefly in New York. He also studied privately with George Luks, who became a good friend. Once he had dedicated himself to non-traditional painting, Shaw's writing ability made him a potent defender of abstract art. After initial study with Benton and Luks, Shaw continued his artistic education in Paris by visiting numerous museums and galleries. From 1930 to 1932 Shaw's paintings evolved from a style imitative of Cubism to one directly inspired by it, though simplified and more purely geometric. Returning to the United States in 1933, Shaw began a series of abstracted cityscapes of skyscrapers he called Manhattan Motifs which evolved into his most famous works, the shaped canvases he called Plastic Polygons. The 1930s were productive years for Shaw. He showed his paintings in numerous group exhibitions, both in New York and abroad, and was also given several one-man exhibitions. Shaw had his first one-man exhibition at the Valentine Dudensing Gallery in New York in 1934, which included 25 Manhattan Motif paintings and 8 abstract works. In the spring of 1935 Shaw was introduced to Albert Gallatin and George L.K. Morris. Gallatin was so impressed with Shaw's work, he broke a policy against solo exhibitions at his museum, the Gallery of Living Art, and offered Shaw an exhibition there. In the summer of 1935 Shaw traveled to Paris with Gallatin and Morris who provided introductions to many great painters. Shaw regularly spent time with John Ferren and Jean Hélion. The following year Gallatin organized an exhibition called Five Contemporary American Concretionists at the Reinhardt Gallery that included Shaw, Ferren, and Morris, Alexander Calder, and Charles Biederman...

Abstract Composition Oil on canvas, signed lower left. Judith Sobel was born in Lwow Poland in 1924. After World War II, she attended the Academy of Fine ...

Signed lower right, 'Paula Melcher' (American, 20th century) and dated 1956.

Julio Girona (1914–2002) "Untitled" Circa 1956 acrylic on hardboard 38 x 26.6 in (97 x 67.5 cm). Provenance: Dorotheum, Vienna.

Vintage American modernist landscape abstract painting. Oil on board, circa 1952. Signed. Image size, 21.5"L x 7.5"H. Housed in a period modern frame.

Signed lower right: "Kupferman". Inscribed lower right: "1204". Titled, signed, dated, and inscribed verso: "EG: 1,204.J / "September Landscape, 1967" / Lawrence Kupferman". From the...

An original modern abstract by American artist James Koenig. This work created in 1954 is featured in the Draw Near exhibition currently on view at Benjaman Gallery.

Casein on masonite Like many of his compatriots of the time, Shulman transitioned from representation to abstraction in the post-WWII period as he studied with Hans Hoffman. Yet, his work, whether or abstraction or representation, was inspired by a keen sense of place--in this case, Monhegan Island, Maine, where he returned year-after-year to paint. Many of his works were inspired by the tidal pool and eddies he studied on the island's shore. His work can be found in the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum, the Carnegie Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, Bates College in Lewiston, Me, Vassar College...

"Imprints" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 24 in x 30 in. There is foxing on verso but otherwise in good condition. Donald C. Totten (19...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 96 x 78 inches Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widel...

One of the "Women of Abstract Expressionism" Caradoc Ehrenhalt would often accompany his mother, the artist Amaranth Ehrenhalt, on her visits to the Louvre in Paris and the Metropoli...

Harriet was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and lived with her husband in Park Slope for over 35 years. She attended the Brooklyn Museum School at...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) Blue Wall, c. 1959 oil on canvas signed and titled verso 42 x 60 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1950, he was immediately drafted and served for two years in the army as a mural painter. He received his Master of Arts from Kent State in 1961. A frequent exhibitor at galleries and museums and winner of multiple May Show prizes, Andres taught art in the Cleveland Public Schools for 28 years, as well as teaching the University of Buffalo, the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Western Reserve University. Very little in Richard Andres’ childhood would have predicted his love of classical music, mid-century-modern architecture and certainly not his lifelong passion for art and in particular abstract art. Richard’s father, Raymond, had no more than a third-grade education, and his mother, Clara, was one of thirteen children – only three of whom lived into adulthood and none of whom attended high school. They lived, when Richard was a boy, in a dingy area of Buffalo, NY in a walk-up apartment situated above a tavern. Raymond and Clara supplemented the income from their factory jobs in the bar downstairs with Raymond playing ragtime on the piano and Clara serving drinks. This often left Richard and his two older brothers at home alone to fend for themselves. The two older boys, Raymond and Russell, were - unlike Richard- rather rough and tumble and entertained themselves with stickball, boxing and the like. Richard, on the other hand, from a very young age liked to draw, or better yet even, to paint with the small set of watercolors he received for Christmas one year. Paper, however, at the height of the depression, was hard to come by. Luckily, Clara used paper doilies as decoration for the apartment and Richard would contentedly paint and then cut up doilies, gluing the pieces together to create collages. At eight-years-old, he discovered the Albright-Knox Museum (then known as the Albright Art Gallery) and spent several hours a week there studying the paintings. He was particularly fond of Charles Burchfield‘s landscapes, enamored with their ‘messiness’ and thinking that they somehow captured more ‘feeling’ than works he was previously familiar with. For his tenth Christmas, he asked for and received a ‘how-to’ paint book by Elliot O’Hare. Through this self-teaching, he assembled the portfolio needed for acceptance to Buffalo Technical High School where he studied Advertising Arts. In his Junior year, he was encouraged to enter a watercolor painting, “Two Barns,” in the national 1944-45 Ingersoll Art Award Contest and was one of twelve grand prize winners – each one winning one hundred dollars. More importantly the painting was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute Galleries, which resulted in his winning a national scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art (The Cleveland Art Institute). He flourished at the art school under the tutelage of faculty members such as Carl Gaertner, as well as that of visiting artists such as William Sommer and Henry George Keller. He would say in later years that Gaertner, in particular, influenced his attitude toward life as well as art. “Gaertner,” Andres said, “believed that there was no need to be a ‘tortured artist’, that an artist should rather enjoy beauty, family, and life in general.” Free to spend his days as he chose, he wandered the Cleveland Art Museum for most of the hours he was not attending classes or painting; the remaining time was spent drinking coffee at a local hangout with art school friends – which is where he met fellow Henry Keller scholarship winner, Avis Johnson. Richard was immediately smitten with Avis, but being rather shy, it took him the entire summer of 1948 to build up his courage to ask her out. Over that summer he ‘thought about Avis’ and worked in a diner to save money. He also used the hundred-dollar prize money won in High School to visit the first Max Beckmann retrospective in the United States at the City Art Museum in St. Louis. Over a half century later he spoke of that exhibit with a reverence usually reserved for spiritual matters, “I walked in and it was like nothing I had ever seen before... the color...It just glowed.” Returning to campus in the Fall, the first thing he did was go to the coffee shop in hopes of finding Avis. He did, and she, upon seeing him, realized that she was also smitten with him. They quickly became known as ‘the couple’ on campus, and a year later, with Richard being drafted for the Korean war, they were quickly married by a Justice of the Peace, celebrating after with family at Avis’s Cleveland home. As a gift, faculty member John Paul Miller designed and made the simple gold wedding ring Avis wore for their 65 years of marriage. During those 65 years neither wavered in their mutual love, nor in the respect they shared for one another’s art. The couple lived in a converted chicken coop in Missouri while Richard was in boot camp. At the camp, he would volunteer for any job offered and one of those jobs ended up being painting road signs. His commander noticed how quickly and neatly he worked and gave him more painting work to do - eventually recommending him for a position painting murals for Army offices in Panama. Until her dying day, Avis remained angry that “The army got to keep those fabulous murals and they probably didn’t even know how wonderful they were.” In Panama, their first son, Mark, was born. After Richard’s discharge in 1953, they moved back to the Cleveland area and used the GI bill to attend Kent State gaining his BA in education. The small family then moved briefly to Buffalo, where Richard taught at the Albright Art School and the University of Buffalo – and their second son, Peter, was born. Richard had exhibited work in the Cleveland May Show and the Butler Art Museum during his art school years, and during the years in Buffalo, his work was exhibited at the gallery he had so loved as a child, the Albright Art Gallery. In 1956, the family moved back to the Cleveland area and Richard began teaching art at Lincoln West High School during the day while working toward his MA in art at Kent State in the evenings. Avis and Richard, with the help of an architect, designed their first home - a saltbox style house in Hudson, Ohio, and in 1958, their third son, Max (after Max Beckmann) was born. Richard enjoyed the consistency of teaching high school as well as the time it gave him to paint on the weekends and during the summer months. In 1961, he received his MA and his daughter, Claire, was born. With a fourth child, the house was much too small, and Avis and Richard began designing their second home. An admirer of MCM architecture, Richard’s favorite example of the style was the Farnsworth house – he often spoke of how the concepts behind this architectural style, particularly that of Mies van der Rohe, influenced his painting. Andres described himself as a 1950’s...

Oil on board painting of abstracted New York City skyline by Charles Ragland Bunnell from 1951. Nocturne cityscape painted in colors of black, shades of blue, and yellow. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 30 ¼ x 12 ¼ x ¾ inches. Image size is 30 x 12 ¼ inches. Painting is in good vintage condition - please contact us for detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Charles Ragland Bunnell Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Charles Bunnell developed a love for art at a very young age. As a child in Kansas City, Missouri, he spent much of his time drawing. When he was unable to find paper he drew on walls and in the margins of textbooks for which he was often fined. Around 1915, Bunnell moved with his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado. He served in World War I and later used his GI Training to study at the Broadmoor Art Academy (later renamed the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) during 1922 and 1923. In 1922, he married fellow student, Laura Palmer...

Arctic Light-Orange Sun Unsigned Gouache on Japanese fibrous paper Series: Tundra Paintings Exhibited: Karl Zerbe, Gouaches of the Artic Nordness Gallery, (Madison Avenue, NY) Feb 3 through Feb 23, 1958 Cat. No. 12 (label with work, see photo...

Provenance: Collection of the Artist Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Warner, Washington, Connecticut Collection of the Washington Art Association, Inc. Private Collection, California...

The art market--collectors, curators and museums--is in the early stages of a broad reappraisal of the contribution of previously overlooked groups to the development of post-war mod...

Abstract painting in blue, pink, yellow, green, and black by Paul Kauvar Smith (1893-1977). Oil on board. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 29 ½ x 23 ¾ x 2 inche...

ZORA STAACK 1910-2001 (Yugoslavian/Active in France) Title: Abstract Composition, 1958 Technique: Original Signed and Dated Oil Painting on Canvas size:...

A lovely still vintage Impressionist still life that is almost all the way to abstraction, with the color passages around the fruit and flowers gently blending into one another. Comes framed, but I think it's worthy of a larger gold frame...

Mixed media on laid paper by Hubert Brake. "Abstrakte Komposition I", 1952 48,6 x 62 cm signed and dated

An original oil on board painting by American modernist John W. Hatch. This incredible cubist landscape was created in 1952. Estate stamped and dated on the reverse. Titled, "Naha...

Taro Yamamoto, (American, 1919-1994) "La Gatta Miso" Oil or Acrylic/Canvas 32" x 50" Hand signed lower right, dated 1990, Titled on the stretcher verso, unframed. Taro Yamamoto (1919 – 1994) belonged to the New York School Abstract...

"Untitled (Sacred Family)" is an abstract oil painting on board by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968) circa 1950. Signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Abstracted view of several figures standing together in a group, painted in colors of black, red, blue, green, orange, yellow, and white. Presented in a vintage frame, outer dimensions measure 34 ½ x 29 x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 23 ½ x 18 ¾ inches. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the artist: Charles Bunnell developed a love for art at a very young age. As a child in Kansas City, Missouri, he spent much of his time drawing. When he was unable to find paper he drew on walls and in the margins of textbooks for which he was often fined. Around 1915, Bunnell moved with his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado. He served in World War I and later used his GI Training to study at the Broadmoor Art Academy (later renamed the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) during 1922 and 1923. In 1922, he married fellow student, Laura Palmer...

Antique American modernist New England barn oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1960. Signed illegibly. Image size, 24L x 20H. Framed in a period f...

Jacques Zimmermann was born in Antwerp in 1929. He said: "The abstraction is not for me or a genre painting, nor a limit. It is a starting point. From there, by the automatic gesture...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 90 x 84 inches Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widel...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 90 x 84 inches Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widely recognized for their demanding yet understated means of revealing a serious and sober essence. He identified greatly with Mark Rothko, a friend, as well as Adolph Gottlieb and Jack Tworkov, with whom he had studied privately. Fenton painted in New York City in the late 50's as the explosion of Abstract Expressionism turned into a rebellion against gestural, emotional painting. More concerned about his art than his posture, he expanded upon a tradition in painting with influences as diverse as Whistler and Turner as well as Ad Reinhardt and Joseph Albers. Alan Fenton was born in Cleveland in 1927, studied at the Cleveland School of Art, The Arts Students League, The New School, and at NYU, earning his BFA at Pratt Institute, where he later taught painting for many years. At seventeen, Fenton served in the Merchant Marines where he began a career as a professional boxer, a skill he had honed on the streets. He moved successfully through the graphic design business en route to becoming a painter in New York at the height of the art revolution of the fifties and sixties. Fenton enjoyed success with his subtle washes and pencil drawings as well as large abstract...

Georges Dayez (French, 1907-1991). “Vendimia” Vintage / Grape Harvest / Wine Harvest , Oil on paper, 20”x 26 1/3, framed 27 1/4 x 33 1/4. Dayez was a...

Casein on board. Ethel Magafan is known for her abstracted Western landscapes as well as, earlier in her career, the murals she created during the Great Depression for the Works Prog...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 90 x 84 inches Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widel...

Oil and newspaper collage on paper mounted to masonite. From the estate of the artist. The history of the New York School painters is still being written, but Price earned a well-deserved place from the beginning. Price was one of the youngest of the first generation Abstract Expressionist circle of painters working in New York after WWII. Though only in his late twenties he began exhibiting in 1948 in New York at Hugo, Bodely, Iolas and Egan galleries. In a 1949, showing at Peridot galleries, Price was hailed for his breakthrough "Maze Series." A complex interweaving of organic shapes, automatic in nature and sometimes resembling bones or body parts, the "Maze" paintings exuded a pulsating energy that brought him critical acclaim. He received rave reviews in Art Digest, the New York Times and the New York Tribune. Price's earliest work was biomorphic or surrealist in nature, influenced by the automatism of Andre Breton and his school. By 1946, his work began to move away from this style to an all-over, decentralized style which became the "Maze" works and ultimately AbEx works which saw their culmination in the "Black Warrior...

Estate of the artist Exhibited: Berry Campbell Gallery Includes documentation from the gallery A first-generation action painter, Raymond Hendler started his career as an Abstract Expressionist in Paris as early as 1949. In the years that followed, he played a significant role in the movement, both in New York, where he was the youngest voting member of the New York Artist’s Club. Hendler became a friend of Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Harold Rosenberg in Philadelphia, where he ran an avant-garde gallery between 1952 and 1954. Hendler differed from Rosenberg’s belief that American post-war painting should have a clear break from the past. His work often recalls the autonomism and nonobjectivism of his European predecessors. However, Stuart Preston noted in The New York Times that Hendler had a “totally different approach to nonobjectivism….He excels in bright hard explicit pattern-making, in straightforward parades of independent shapes, not unlike those in Matisse’s collages. There is something reminding of Leger here as well, particularly in the unambiguous glare of contrasted color and in the robust refusal to allow shapes to suggest anything beyond their merry self." Raymond Hendler was born in Philadelphia in 1923. In 1949, he continued his art training in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière on the G.I. Bill. Immersing himself in the Left Bank art...

Small longitudinal dark green and yellow toned portrait by Houston, TX artist Pat Colville depicting a young pregnant woman with short hair and a sleeveless top. The subject's striki...

Dynamic mid century cyan abstract by Erle Loran (American, 1905-1999). Signed "Erle Loran" and dated "51" lower right. Presented in silver toned metal frame with mat sans glass. Image size: 21.75"H x 15"W. Framed size: 25"H x 18"W. Erle Loran was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art under the direction of Cameron Booth...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Pond I, 1958 Oil on canvas 81 x 90 inches Signed, titled and dated on the reverse Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 88 x 82 1/2 inches Signed on the stretcher Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widely recognized for their demanding yet understated means of revealing a serious and sober essence. He identified greatly with Mark Rothko, a friend, as well as Adolph Gottlieb and Jack Tworkov, with whom he had studied privately. Fenton painted in New York City in the late 50's as the explosion of Abstract Expressionism turned into a rebellion against gestural, emotional painting. More concerned about his art than his posture, he expanded upon a tradition in painting with influences as diverse as Whistler and Turner as well as Ad Reinhardt and Joseph Albers. Alan Fenton was born in Cleveland in 1927, studied at the Cleveland School of Art, The Arts Students League, The New School, and at NYU, earning his BFA at Pratt Institute, where he later taught painting for many years. At seventeen, Fenton served in the Merchant Marines where he began a career as a professional boxer, a skill he had honed on the streets. He moved successfully through the graphic design business en route to becoming a painter in New York at the height of the art revolution of the fifties and sixties. Fenton enjoyed success with his subtle washes and pencil drawings as well as large abstract canvases...

Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, Rolph Scarlett more than once proved to be at the artistic zeitgeist in a career that stretched for more than 75 years. Born in 1889, Scarlett had his first retrospective by 1928. He subscribed fully to the modernist credo. Interviewed at the time, he said: "If a futuristic painting brings the casual gallery patron to an abrupt stop and forces him to spend five minutes in front of the painting, then the ends of modernism have been served," A major proponent of non-objective painting, Scarlett's career and artistic philosophy is closely linked with the early history of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. His work, along with that of Kandinsky, Klee, and German artist Rudolph Bauer...

Alan Fenton (1927 - 2000) Untitled, 1958-1960 Oil on canvas 89 x 83 inches Signed on the stretcher Fenton's quiet and contemplative nonobjective paintings and drawings were widely r...

Abstract, 1959 is a sophisticated Carl Holty, experimentingn with color, space, and form. Framed in a new white lacquer frame of high quality. An important artist in Art History wh...

Signed lower left. “Abstract and Fractured Biomorphic and Geometric Forms” which was painted in the mid to late 1950’s is a nod to Picasso’s famous painting Guernica, which Hart may have seen when it was given to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1958. Several elements in the painting clearly reference Guernica: the black geometric and cut-out shapes, the biomorphic shapes, the abstracted horse’s head and body, with a district reference to the bull’s tail, along with the black and white pallet choice and various details throughout-all hallmarks of Picasso’s Guernica. The abstracted reality Hart presents in these references go beyond a simple nod and reflect a personal interpretation reflected in the splintered abstraction and her bespoke interpretation. Agnes Hart’s first began her career as a social realist artist in the 1930’s. She was also WPA artist. Her longtime friend Milton Avery encouraged her, and she exhibited in the same gallery in the late 1940’s, the RoKo Gallery. Her instinctive and personalized modernist periods often reflected a similar path of her compatriot artists during the first half of the 20th century. Her early works were influenced by her teachers Josef Presser, Paul Burlin and Lucile Blanch, and Reginald Neal, and reflected historical modern trends-at times showing the influence of Avery and other modernist. Like Elaine DeKooning, Lee Kraser, Michael Corrine West...

In 1937, at the age of 20, Little started working with Hans Hofmann in both New York and Provincetown. This pushed him towards abstraction and his first serious involvement as a pain...

Moody blue night with rain and wind rendered in a post-impressionist style somewhat like that of Albert Marquet

A fine abstract in brown tones by American artist David Lund (b. 1925). David Lund’s illustrious painting career spans over 65 years. Born in New York, the...

Expressive portrait of a man and a woman looking directly at the viewer as well as indicated chairs. The execution of a series of chair paintings served Wilhelm Ohm (1905 Stettin -...

Vintage American modernist abstract Maine landscape painting. Watercolor and gouache on paper, circa 1960. Signed on verso. Image size, 30...