1950s Abstract Paintings

This stunning British abstract oil on paper painting is by noted radical British artist Robyn Denny. One of his earlier works, it was painted in February 1959. Entitled blue and gree...

Wonderful abstract expressionist painting of guitarist painted by Norman Rubington (American, 1921 - 1991) while in Rome, 1952. Signed lower left and on verso. Dated "11 - 52, Roma" ...

Unknown Artist - Fall Palette, Year: 1959, Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed, titled and dated in pencil on verso, Size: 15.5 x 9.75 in. (39.37 x 24.77 cm), Description: Signed "Frieda...

This stunning Scottish Abstract Expressionist oil painting is by noted Scottish artist William Gear. Painted in 1950 it is an early and significant painting which dates to the early ...

Rolph Scarlett painted and exhibited nationally over a multi decade career. Paintings by Rolph Scarlett were exhibited at the Museum of Art, at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, and the University of Guelph. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum owns over sixty of Scarlett's oils, watercolors, and drawings. The Dance, is a mixed media gouache on paper, signed, c.1950. A bright, modernist depiction of musicians and dancers...

Artist: Nicolas Ionesco, Romanian (1919 - ) Title: Untitled Year: 1956 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed and dated l.r. and verso Size: 23.5 x 28.5 inches (59.7 x 72.4 cm) Frame: 24.75 x...

Impressive early American modernist still life oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed.

This stunning abstract still-life composition was signed by Dutch artist E.J.E. Dulfer (Rotterdam 1909 - Bussum 1965), dated 1958, and named "Summer in the windowsill" (Zomer in de v...

Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco by Garrett Price (American, 1896-1979). Signed "Garrett" lower right. Unframed. Image size, 11.75"H x 15.25"W. G...

GJ Rogers Surreal Octopus 1959 Oil on Canvas 36"x24.5" Signed and dated in paint lower right George Jay Rogers was born in Yonkers, New York on June 9, 1926. During the Great Depression George's mother being a single mother and falling on hard times sent George to a home for boys in New York City. George remained there and later attended The School of Industrial Arts in New York City. Shortly after his 18th birthday George enlisted in the Army. He was sent to Germany where he drove a light truck as a message center courier. He was given an honorable discharge and moved back to New York City. Under the GI Bill he enrolled in the Art Students League of NYC in 1948. Here George studied under noted artists Robert Brackman, Morris Kantor, Louis Bouche, Harry Sternberg and Robert Beverly Hale to name a few. He was a student at the League from 1948-1956. In order to support his desire to paint, George worked as a message courier in NYC. In the late 1950s George painted...

Initialed lower right, 'J.e.t.' for Jessie E. Thomason (American, 20th Century) and dated 1956. Exhibited: Jack London Art Festival, 1956. Displayed in the original and period, paint...

The actors is an original artwork realized by Maurice Rouzée in the 1950's. Tempera on paper; signed by the artist on the upper left margin. Very good condit...

Wonderful oil on panel by Henriette Gremeret. Dated 1954, signed low left. The painting has been wonderfully framed on a glass support frmed in oakwood. Cette artiste peintre ( 1895...

Vibrant abstract acrylic painting with primary tones of yellow, lime green and black with white accents, 1952. Signed and dated lower right. Original artwork on paper displayed on...

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 comes housed in a modern black frame presentation. John Woodsum Hatch 1919-1998 During his fifty-year career as an artist, John Woodsum Hatch explored the people, the landscape, and the seascape around him. From his extensive travels to his years in New Hampshire, he developed a body of work that captures a sense of place. Through watercolor, ink and sand, he depicted the grandeur of the White Mountains. The crisp light and distinct topography of the Isles of Shoals and Great Bay Estuary are precisely and clearly documented in acrylic and tempera paintings. His ability to convey the sheer scale and longevity of the mountains and sea, and by comparison the fleeting nature of human life, conveys in a not-so-subtle way that the natural environment is to be revered and preserved. Hatch took his first teaching job at the University of New Hampshire in 1949, the same year he graduated from Yale University. He never left. A former student, Sam Cady, described his contributions: “He was a wonderful mix of jokester and sage. A teacher who obviously loved people, loved teaching, and had a great gift for it.” After retiring in 1985, he was made an honorary Professor Emeritus at UNH. Hatch contributed to New Hampshire's cultural life in three areas: his teaching, his art, and his community service. His effectiveness in these three areas can be traced his commitment to give something of himself to help others. Many artists teach by necessity and resent it as a drain on their creative energies but Hatch found his greatest fulfillment from a combination of teaching, making art, and being deeply involved with his community as an art historian and as an environmentalist. Hatch’s work can be seen in numerous public collections, including: the Addison Gallery of American Art; DeCordova Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; State of New Hampshire's Living Treasures Collection, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. John Woodsum Hatch, New Hampshire's 1997 Living Treasure Award recipient, died on August 6, 1998, at the age of 78. Hatch was a draftsman, an artist and a muralist. His works can be found in public and private collections throughout the region. He exhibited at the New Hampshire Art...

Stephen Pace Untitled, 58-A8, 1958 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 64 x 48 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operated a groce...

Stephen Pace Untitled, 59-A12, 1959 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 29 x 24 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operat...

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...

Signed lower right, "Cucaro" for Pascal Cucaro (American, 1915-2003). An icon of the Beat years in San Francisco's North Beach, Pascal Cucaro was the winner of numerous medals and a...

Very finely painted modernist landscape by Robert Noel Blair (1912 - 2002). Watercolor and gouache on paper. Signed Image size, 22 by 29 inches. In excellent original condition. ...

Abstract Landscape is an original contemporary artwork realized by Maria Asnago. Signed in the bottom right. Hand signed on the back. Mario Asnago. A renewed architect and painte...

This intense abstract watercolor has drawed on sheet of Fabriano paper, an Italian high quality paper specially made for artists and its artworks. About Keller arworks was told many words but we want to add that every time we look at his creations we can feel at once his whole world. Erich Keller...

Lively abstract painting with primary tones of yellows, reds and greens with accents of blue and black on white background, 1952. Signed lower right. Original artwork on paper dis...

Captivating acrylic abstract painting using a vast array of colors to depict an abstract human face and hand with a landscape in the background under a setting sun and souls Flying o...

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

Abstract Composition is a suggestive artwork realized by Piero Sadun (1919-1974) in 1953. Original Title: VII n.912. Tempera on heavy paper. Signed and dated by the artist on the...

Very unusual and boldly colored original oil on canvas abstract painting done by the Russian artist Gufor Malyanov. Signed in cyrillic verso, dated 1952 and titled in cyrillic “Abst...

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...

Harold Nickerson "Cool Birches", Abstract/Landscape Oil on Canvas, 28 x 36, Mid 20th Century, 1958 Colors: Green, Yellow, Blue, White, Brown, Black

An original oil painting by Egyptian Born French Artist, Raymond Abner (1919 - 1999) entitled "Espace en Gris". Abner rubbed shoulders with the top arti...

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 comes housed in a modern black frame presentation. John Woodsum Hatch 1919-1998 During his fifty-year career as an artist, John Woodsum Hatch explored the people, the landscape, and the seascape around him. From his extensive travels to his years in New Hampshire, he developed a body of work that captures a sense of place. Through watercolor, ink and sand, he depicted the grandeur of the White Mountains. The crisp light and distinct topography of the Isles of Shoals and Great Bay Estuary are precisely and clearly documented in acrylic and tempera paintings. His ability to convey the sheer scale and longevity of the mountains and sea, and by comparison the fleeting nature of human life, conveys in a not-so-subtle way that the natural environment is to be revered and preserved. Hatch took his first teaching job at the University of New Hampshire in 1949, the same year he graduated from Yale University. He never left. A former student, Sam Cady, described his contributions: “He was a wonderful mix of jokester and sage. A teacher who obviously loved people, loved teaching, and had a great gift for it.” After retiring in 1985, he was made an honorary Professor Emeritus at UNH. Hatch contributed to New Hampshire's cultural life in three areas: his teaching, his art, and his community service. His effectiveness in these three areas can be traced his commitment to give something of himself to help others. Many artists teach by necessity and resent it as a drain on their creative energies but Hatch found his greatest fulfillment from a combination of teaching, making art, and being deeply involved with his community as an art historian and as an environmentalist. Hatch’s work can be seen in numerous public collections, including: the Addison Gallery of American Art; DeCordova Museum; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; State of New Hampshire's Living Treasures Collection, and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine. John Woodsum Hatch, New Hampshire's 1997 Living Treasure Award recipient, died on August 6, 1998, at the age of 78. Hatch was a draftsman, an artist and a muralist. His works can be found in public and private collections throughout the region. He exhibited at the New Hampshire Art...

Richard Anuszkiewicz Near and Far Acuity, 1957 Gouache and watercolor painting Hand signed and dated 1957 by Richard Anuszkiewicz on the right front Frame included Anuszkiewicz' artworks from the late 1950s are rarely found on the market. This historic painting is one of the works that helped launch the artist's career. It was done in 1957 - the year the artist arrived in New York. Near and Far Acuity has been removed from its original frame, and re-framed in an elegant wood frame with conservation materials and UV plexiglass. The original gallery label from The Contemporaries has been preserved and affixed to the new backing, and the collector who acquires this work will also be provided with a copy of the original receipt - signed by Karl Lunde (director of the Contemporaries and author of a major monograph on the artist). Measurements: Frame: 32 x 28 x 2 inches Artwork: 21 x 25 inches This work was first exhibited in the groundbreaking, and career-making 1960 exhibition at The Contemporaries gallery (New York, February 29, 1960 - March 19, 1960) and was featured in the exhibition catalogue, shown in the images here. In his essay entitled "Richard Anuszkiewicz: Color Precisionist" by art historian John T. Spike, he writes, "In the spring of '57, Richard Anuszkiewicz left Ohio for good. "I was ready. I came to New York with a substantial amount of work. I was ready to go around to the galleries and I was prepared because I really had something. I had an idea. I had a series of paintings that showed this idea and I felt good about it and I felt now that's the only place for me to be." A friend helped him get a job touching up the plaster models of classical temples and statues in the Junior Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He took off six months the next year to travel around Europe in a Volkswagen, also seeing some places in North Africa. "When I came back, I remember taking my work around to the galleries and receiving interesting comments — positive comments from the various people. But Abstract Expressionism was very popular. My things were very hard-edged, very strong in color — a use of color that nobody was using. Everybody would say. 'Oh, they are nice, but so hard to look at. They hurt my eyes". Leo Castelli considered him seriously but the gallery was developing a specialization in pop artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. "I can remember going to Martha Jackson and having her look at the work and she would put her hands straight out in front of her and block out parts of the painting with her hand and she'd say, mmm no rest areas." He finally caught on with The Contemporaries Gallery in the fall of 1959. The gallery at 992 Madison Avenue mainly represented new European talent. Karl Lunde, the gallery director, saw some of his canvases hanging...

Vintage American modernist oil painting by Morris M. Shulman (1912 - 1978). Oil on board, circa 1955. Housed in a vintage frame. Signed. Image size, 28 by 20.

Edward Zutrau An Orange Seducing a Lemon while a Bunch of Grapes Look On, 4/20/1953 Signed, dated and titled on stretcher bar, and on the side of the work Oil on linen 18 x 21 inches...

Gertrude Greene Byzantine, 1955 Signed and dated lower right; signed titled and dated on verso Oil on canvas 36 x 28 inches A political leftist and social activist, Gertrude Greene...

Large Surrealist Abstract, Yellow, Original Oil Painting By French artist, Sophie Danielle Rubinstain 1922-2018 The painting is stamped with the artis...

Antique American modernist oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1950. Housed in a vintage frame. Image size, 24L x 18H. Signed.

Antique American modernist oil painting by Victor De Pauw (1902 - 1971). Oil on board, circa 1950. Framing available. Image size, 24L x 27H. Signed.

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...

An original very large British Abstract Expressionist oil on canvas by Trevor Bell, the last of the St Ives modernists. Titled December in Anticoli and painted in 1959 after Mark Rot...

Albert Heckman Untitled, circa 1950 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 25 1/4 x 32 1/4 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art world in 1915 after graduating from high school and landing a job at the Meadville Post Office. In 1917, at the age of 24, Heckman enrolled part-time in Teachers' College, Columbia University's Fine Arts Department to begin his formal art education. He worked as a freelance ceramic and textile designer and occasionally as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1920s, at the age of almost 30, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia Teachers College. He was especially impacted by his instructor at Columbia, Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, he was hired by the Teachers' College as a Fine Arts instructor. He stayed with Columbia Teachers' College until 1929, when he left to attend the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Isami Doi (1903-1965), who was born in Hawaii, was arguably his most impressive student at Columbia. Doi is now regarded as one of the most prominent artists hailing from Hawaii. Heckman became an active member and officer of the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York in the 1920s as part of his early commercial art career. The Society's mission was to share knowledge and showcase textile and ceramic design exhibits. In 1922, Heckman married Florence Hardman, a concert violinist. Mrs. Heckman's concert schedule during the 1920s kept Albert and Florence Heckman apart for a significant portion of the time, but they spent what little time they had together designing and building their Woodstock, New York, summer house and grounds. A small house and an acre of surrounding land on Overlook Mountain, just behind the village of Woodstock, were purchased by Albert and Florence Heckman at the time of their marriage. Their Woodstock home, with its connections, friendships, and memories, became a central part of their lives over the years, even though they had an apartment in New York City. Heckman's main artistic focus shifted to the house on Overlook Mountain and the nearby towns and villages, Kingston, Eddyville, and Glasco. After returning from the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in 1930, Mr. Heckman joined Hunter College as an assistant professor of art. He worked there for almost thirty years, retiring in 1956. Throughout his tenure at Hunter, Mr. Heckman and his spouse spent the summers at their Woodstock residence and the winters in New York City. They were regular and well-known guests at the opera and art galleries in New York. Following his retirement in 1956, the Heckmans settled in Woodstock permanently, with occasional trips to Florida or Europe during the fall and winter. Mr. Heckman's close friends and artistic career were always connected to Woodstock or New York City. He joined the Woodstock art group early on and was greatly influenced by artists like Paul and Caroline Rohland, Emil Ganso, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andre Ruellan, and her husband, Jack Taylor. Heckman operated a summer art school in Woodstock for several years in the 1930s with support from Columbia University, where these and other Woodstock artists gave guest lectures. The Potter's Shop in New York City hosted Mr. Heckman's first art show in December 1928. The exhibit received some positive reviews from critics. The American Institute of Graphic Arts chose the plate of "Wehlen, Saxony" as one of the "Fifty Prints of the Year in 1929." There were sixteen etchings displayed. The remaining plates depicted scenes in Saxony, Germany, while five of the plates were based on scenes in Rondout, New York. Heckman started switching from etching to black and white lithography by the early 1930s. A lifelong admirer of Heckman's artwork, Mr. Gustave von Groschwitz organized a significant exhibition of Heckman etchings and lithographs at the Ferargil Gallery in New York City in 1933. The exhibition traveled to the Stendahl Galleries in Los Angeles (May 1933), the Charles Lessler Gallery in Philadelphia (May 1933), J.L. Hudson in Detroit (June 1933), and Gumps in San Francisco (July 1933). Together with his early etchings, the exhibition featured brand-new black and white lithographs depicting scenes in and around Woodstock as well as "A View from Tudor City...

Thisoil painting on masonite board, "Untitled," by Modernist Stanley Bate was created circa 1950, part of his earlier body of work. The dark, heavy line work combined with bright col...

RICHARD ANDRES American, 1927–2013 Untitled, c. 1950 oil on canvas signed lower left 10 x 7 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate of the Clevelan...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) White & Yellow, c. 1953 oil on canvas signed lower right, signed and titled verso 30 x 20 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...

Oil on paper. Signed and dated 'Walinska 57' (lower left). image size 20 x 13 1/2 in. framed size 28 1/3 x 22 1/2 inches Provenance Martha Jackson Gallery Anderson Gallery, Buffalo...

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

This stunning Scottish Abstract Expressionist oil painting is by noted Scottish artist William Gear. It was painted in 1959, just after Gear moved to Eastbourne. While contemporaries...

Original Sierra Mountain Cabin Abstract Expressionist Landscape Original acrylic painting depicting a cabin in the Sierra Mountains by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985), circa 1950....

Presenting a just discovered mixed media painting by American artist Robert McIntosh, (1916-2010.) Ascension, is an original mixed media gouac...

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting by Adele Becker (1929-2021). Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.

Oil on canvas depicting an abstract subject by Tristan Fabris. He is a painter from italy where he was born in 1927. He moved early to France and there he attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon. His work is influenced by the cubism and surrealism. He worked with Le Corbusier and his activity was mostly making decors for theatres. He died 1989...

Presenting a mid century mixed media painting by American artist Robert McIntosh, "Cubist Nude in Green:, an original oil and collage on panel, ...

This is a Happy New Year Card Signed by Virgilio Guzzi, to Silvio Perina, the director of the C.I.M, Roman warehouses, during the Seventies. Rome, Febr...

Pierre MONTHEILLET (1923-2011) Composition in green and yellow Mixed media on paper - monotype Signed and dedicated “pour mes amis Sallaz” lower right Dimensions of the work: 28.5 x ...

Federico Castellon Boats in the harbor, ca. 1950 Oil on paper 25 1/5 × 17 3/10 in 64 × 44 cm (without frame) Frame included

A Colorful 1956 Gouache Titled "Sunday in Torromolinos, Spain" by Samuel Butnik. Artwork size: 18" x 25". Archivally matted to: 24" x 30". Biography...

This set is composed of Two Autographs Signed by Virgilio Guzzi, addressed to Silvio Perina, the director of the C.I.M, Roman warehouses, during the Fifties. Excellent condition, pe...

This Untitled Abstract Composition signed by the Polish Born artist Zvi Mairovich, originating from Haifa Israel, Circa 1950. Features a highly gestural abstracted landscape in hues ...