Mid-20th Century Abstract Paintings

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...

Artist/ School: French cubist/ abstract artist, signed, circa 1970's Title: Blue & white flowers in a vase Medium: oil painting on canvas, framed fram...

Very nicely painted mid century modernist abstract oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 26H by 19L.

Antique American school abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 25L x 47H.

This 43 x 44 inch oil on canvas painting entitled 'Constructivist Abstract' features an energetic entanglement of shapes and lines in a color palette of black, white, gray and variou...

Edward Zutrau Untitled, 1957 Oil on linen 44 x 60 1/2 inches Edward Zutrau is among the American artists who worked within the whirlwind of diverse abstraction that blossomed in th...

A mid-century gouache on board painting by American female artist Harriet Holden Nash depicting an abstract Matisse like floral composition in shades of green and black. The board i...

"The Fire," night landscape by Gabrielle Ricard - Cordingley. Yr 1967. A night landscape with forest fire, painted by Gabrielle Ricard-Cordingley (b. 1924), daughter of a well-known ...

Signed verso with artist monogram 'DM' for Dora Maar (Argentine-French, 1907-1997); additionally impressed, upper left, with Dora Maar Estate stamp, Maison de la Chimie sale, Paris; October, 1998. In addition to her central role as Picasso's model and lover, Dora Maar served as his constant muse during the period of his creation of Guernica for which she also served as model for the lantern-holder, appearing at upper right. Prior to embarking on her two-year relationship with Picasso, Maar had already produced a widely-respected body of work and was celebrated as an influential and cutting-edge photographer. Nevertheless, it is her high-profile relationship with Picasso and her own personality- both in publications about Picasso and in those dedicated to her own life and work- that have acquired particular significance in art-historical literature. Maar's close link to the Surrealists, however, derived from her personal radiance and enigmatic personality as well as to the conscious and politically-informed artistic perspective that underlay her cutting-edge photomontages of the 1930s. Her increasingly radical political views during this period reinforced Picasso's own awareness of the deteriorating international political situation and of the civil war in his homeland. This heightened awareness culminated in the creation of "Guernica', his supreme artistic and political statement of the 1930's. Born in 1907, Henrietta Theodora Markovitch adopted the pen name of Dora Maar during the first years of her photography career. Growing up in Buenos Aires and Paris, she learned to speak French, Spanish and English fluently and, from 1927 on, attended the Art Academy of Andre L'Hote in Montparnasse. At the Academy, she studied painting but, by the end of the 1920s, she had transferred to the Ecole de Photographie de la Ville de Paris. In the early 1930s, she founded a photographic studio together with Pierre Kfer, who was later to make a career as stage designer. Numerous fashion and advertising photography shoots resulted from this collaboration and these were soon followed by her first Paris exhibitions. Dora Maar's photographic style during the 1930s show clear, surrealist characteristics. In her photographs and photomontages, she frequently played with shifting proportions, thus echoing an important feature of surrealist pictures. This tendency was augmented by the combination of disparate objects, which robs the photographs of their character of reflecting extreme reality, converting them to expressions of inner visions and psychic states. In parallel to these surreal photographs, Dora Maar produced sobering documentary photographs of her urban environments in Paris, London or Barcelona. Repeatedly, she records, in her photographs, the underprivileged, the unemployed and homeless, the socially disadvantaged and the physically deformed. It was precisely the simplicity of these photos that enabled Dora Maar to give the day-to-day and the ugly a magnificent monstrosity in which the beautiful and the horrible blend into one another. This recorded reality is thus accompanied by a level of inner associations, fears and visions. This present work, painted in the 1930's, remained in Dora Maar's possession until the end of her life, and shows her early interest in abstraction and her preoccupation with the complex inter-relationships of color and form. This painting is accompanied by a first edition copy of...

Domenick Capobianco (American, b. 1928), Abstract Composition Diptych in Black, Oil on Canvas, 1966, signed and dated to verso. Each canvas: 14" H x 11" W, frame: 14.5" H x 23" W. Pr...

Oil Painting on canvas Hand signed to lower right Lauro. Provenance: Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco, CA Work Size: 39.5 x 39.5 in. framed 44 X 44 inches. Roberto Lauro is a British-Swiss Post War & Contemporary artist who was born in 1932. Roberto Lauro was born in 1932 in Gorey Harbor on the island of Jersey (Great Britain) the son of a Swiss mother, Rosa Ramseier, from Oberdiessbach / Emmental, Switzerland, and and Italian father Innocenzo Roberto Lauro, born in Mondovi, Italy. In 1941 he moved to Switzerland with his mother. 1949-1953 he lived in Gunten (Switzerland) where he did an Apprenticeship as a lithograph and offset printer and graphic designer in Thun. There he was introduced to the color theory of Johannes Itten by Hermann Oberli at the Bern School of Applied Arts. From 1953 to 1955 he worked as a fine art printer in Norway where he was influenced by the color theory of Edvard Munch. These works bears the influence of Russian artist Andre Lanskoy, Tachisme and the Cobra artists Karel Appel, Constant, Corneille, Christian Dotremont, Asger Jorn, and Joseph Noiret. In 1955-1956 he worked as an offset printer in Amsterdam (Netherlands). Visit to the Instituut voor Kunstnijverheidsonderwijs. In 1957 he returned to Gunten, Switzerland. Where he started working in printmaking and and oil painting. He resumed his studies at the Bern School of Applied Arts. He was greatly impacted and influenced by abstract art on the occasion of a large Paul KIee exhibition. In 1958 he moved to Zurich where he worked part-time work as an offset copyist; fulfilling graphic orders for advertising agencies. In 1962 he took his final examination as graphic designer at the Zurich School of Applied Arts. In 1980 he begins his development of three-dimensional picture objects, Sculpture, detachment from the canvas, using metal as a support and play space for light and color. By 1981 he has turned full time to fine art. He spends the next years growing and developing his considerable talent. Inspired by classical music, the rhythm, mood and lightness of which form the basis for the large swings and loops of his colorfully lacquered metal and blown glass sculptures. These are "pensieri", thought sketches that capture the emotions in countless versions. There is something dance-like about his rotating sculptures. Everything becomes music and the rhythm of colors. In 1988, after exhibitions in Europe, he has his first exhibitions in Atlanta and San Francisco (USA), In 1989 he does his first glass and metal sculptures at the Roberto Niederer glassworks, Hergiswil (Switzerland). In 1992 has a retrospective exhibition in the Tan Gallery, Zurich, and the Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco. They Publish a catalogue raisonne, Eine Retrospektive, covering a 45 year career. In 1993 he creates A Retrospective, a unique sculpture in a table top form that contains his catalogue raisonne and an original lithograph. 1993–1995 he begins work on a number of large scale public outdoor commissions, including Light Columns for a Bank building, and a commission of a sculpture-fountain in Oetwil am See. In 2001 he creates a wall sculpture entitled "Color Poems of the Yearly Cycle. A linen bound book enclosed in a unique plexi display with a one - of a - kind metal and glass sculpture,containing 12 linocuts each printed in colors and signed. Roberto Lauro's sculptural work work is spontaneous and loaded with energy. The furrows, rifts, cracks and scars in the metal allow light to enter; it is then reflected back by the glass. His work is a clear statement of our times, uniting the intellect and the heart in search of the spiritual. Like the interplay of light and shadow, his sculpture combines fragile, transparent glass with solid, heavy iron. These colorful and luminous sculptures convey a powerful presence and emit vibrant positive energy. With their jagged exteriors and translucent cores, the spectacular sculptures created by the synergy of metal and glass are powerful - yet fragile. Lauro has created and mastered his own idiom and proven that through the artist sheer will and vision, seemingly incompatible materials such as iron and glass can indeed be combined. In 2004 he has an anniversary exhibition Light and Color, Love of Life on the island of birth, Jersey. Ceramic works (raku with glass inclusions). Roberto Lauro's works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the USA around the world, and he has also realized projects such as "KUNST AM BAU" in public spaces and for industry. He lives and works in Switzerland. Select Exhibitions Eleonore Austerer Gallery, Palm Desert ART IN THE FRAME FOUNDATION: The Harbour Gallery, Isle of Jersey Galerie fur Gegenwartskunst,, Bonstetten, Switzerland Galerie Annamarie Anderson, Zurich, Switzerland “Color and Light,” Austerer-Crider Gallery, Palm Springs, CA, USA “Color and Light: the art of Roberto Lauro,” Eleonore Austerer Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA “Flower Power,” with Ed Baynard, Roberto Azank, Siegward Sprotte, and Daniel Phil...

This superb British 1950's abstract oil on board painting is by noted Slade School trained contemporary artist Leo Davy. Davy was born in Yorkshire but settled in Cornwall in 1968 an...

Red Plant Still Life by Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) oil on artist paper, unframed painting : 20 x 26 inches stamped verso provenance: artists estate, France condition: very good a...

Nicely painted mid century Asian abstract painting. Oil on board. Signed verso.

Mid Century Modern Boats and Bridge, Abstracted Maritime Landscape Painting Wonderful mid-century modern abstracted maritime seascape by listed San...

"France" by Jean Pierre Stagnaro (1927 - 2013) 1960 signed inscribed verso signed oil on canvas, framed framed: 13.5 x 18.5 inches canvas: 13 x 18 inches provenance: private collection, France; Salon exhibition label...

Mary Abbott Postcard Geometry Signed lower right Crayon on paper 4 x 5 1/2 inches Among the early exponents of Abstract Expressionism, Mary Abbott created powerful oil paintings in...

Dynamic abstract landscape painting in the San Francisco Bay Area Abstract Expressionist School-style by an unknown California artist (American, 20th Century), c.1965. Unframed. Imag...

"Abstract Composition" by Armand Rottenberg (French 1903-2000) oil painting on board, unframed board: 36 x 28.5 inches Stunning original Cubist painting by the French abstract art...

Antique American modernist still life oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Measuring 17 by 23 inches overall and 16 by 22 painting alone.

An original mid century modern abstract expressionist painting by American artist Toma Yovanovich. Toma Yovanovich (1931-2016) Yovanovich was a painter/printmaker whose w...

"Annie Nobles Miller" Abstract Florida landscape oil on board painting Hand signed lower left Inscribed on verso St. Lucie County. Measures: Board 24"H x 30"W; Framed - 32"H x 38"W. Annie Miller was a member of the Indian River School of Painting, which was not a formal school but was a group of mostly African-American Florida working class people who wanted to paint. Following is the explanation of that school and its participants. Indian River School is a name applied to Floridian artists in the 1950's and 1960's. They were heavily influenced by nature. Most of the artists in this movement were African American. Their work is characterized by quick strokes and eschews traditional methods of paintings. The main influence for the group was a man named A.E. Backus, a Bohemian white man who mentored the group of young black artists. The group used to congregate in his studio and learnt to paint from 'Beanie' (as he was called) as a way out of their lower class labour jobs. Their work was powerful, dramatic yet captured the serenity and beauty of the Florida Although the exact count of artists mentored by A.E. Backus remains unknown, experts estimate it to be around 20 individuals, many of whom he supported through college. Albert Ernest "Beanie" Backus (1906–1990) was famous for his vivid, naturalist Florida landscapes capturing a fast-vanishing Florida wild lands. Backus would come to be seen as the seminal Florida landscape painter, and others who followed would emulate him. Primarily of the Indian River and Everglades areas of Florida. Backus was a Native Floridian artist of great importance recreating scenes of Florida's sky, rivers, ocean, back country, unpredictable weather, clouds, and birds. Born in Fort Pierce, FL to a family of talented boat designers and builders. His "Uncle" Reg Goodwin helped Backus as a young painter go to the Parsons School of Fine Art in New York in 1924. He was referred to as “Florida’s painter laureate,” and the “Dean of Florida’s landscape painters.”In addition to his influence on the Florida Highwaymen painters (Alfred Hair...

"Shattered" WPA Mid 20th Century Modernism American Scene Surrealism Figurative Estate stamp on the stretcher, verso. Provenance: Estate of the artist. 20 x 24 inches. BIO Leon Bibel continued painting through 1941 and resumed work in both painting and especially wood sculpture by 1960. He worked until his very last day in 1995. His last series of large wood sculptures were modeled on spice boxes, which were miniature buildings...

Giacomo Soffiantino (Turin 1929 - Turin, 2013) He taught at the artistic high school and at the Albertina Academy in Turin. He was a pupil of Francesco Menzio, Aldo Bertini and Mario...

Impressive early American modernist landscape oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas. Signed. Image size, 28 H by 22L.

Abstract Expressionist Sky Composition by Gerard Guegueniat (French 1970's) signed oil painting on board, framed framed: 25.5 x 35 inches board: 24 x 34 inches provenance: private co...

Nicely painted mid century abstract oil painting by Ken Munowitz. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Ethel Rosetta Davis was born in Hardin County, Tennessee in 1897. She studied art in Birmingham, Alabama. Davis married and located to Tuscumbia a...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) Naval Occurrence, c. 1963 oil on canvas signed and titled verso 24 x 32 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...

Metchiled Naviasky Refugee from Europe who studied art in England. During the war she became picture editor of famous magazine PIcture Post. Later she taught mysticism in art at t...

Antique French modernist Paris school cityscape street scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Measuring 27 by 40 inches overall and 26 by 39 painting alone. In excellent...

Antique American modernist seascape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Measuring 18 by 24 inches.

Rene Beckley. City Streets, 1965. Oil on artist board, 16 x 20 inches; 18 x 22 inches framed. Signed and dated lower right.

CRIMSON CONVERSATION Size: 51 x 64 cm (including frame) Oil and gouache on board A bold and expressive mid-century modernist figurative composition, painted in oil and gouache onto ...

Robert Motherwell (1915-1991), alongside Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem de Kooning, made up the quartet of American abstract painters that radically defined abstraction and...

French School, circa 1970's Cubist composition oil on board, unframed board: 29 x 24 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very good and sound condition

André Verdet ( 1913 - 2004 ) . Artiste français né à Nice (alpes maritimes ) mort à Saint Paul de Vence . poète , peintre , sculpteur , céramiste , mus...

Artist/ School: French School, c. 1960's Title: Figurative Study Medium: oil on canvas, unframed Canvas: 36 x 25.5 inches Provenance: private collection, France Condition: The ...

Antique American modernist flower still life oil painting by Samuel Brecher (1897 - 1982). Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Measuring 28 by 30 inches overall and 22 by 24 inches painti...

Composition is a beautiful original painting in tempera applied on cream-colored paper, realized at the beginning of XX century by the Greek-French artist Mathéos Alkis, Signed on lo...

Really impressive early American modernist painting. Oil on board. Framed.

Antique American exhibited cubist nude portrait oil painting. Oil and casein on board. Framed. Signed. Exhibition label verso.

Impactful abstract monotype of abstract figures in black over a bright orange background, circa 1960. Signed lower right. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a g...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 10.75 x 8.5 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we h...

Artist/ School: French Fauvist school, 20th century Title: figures in colorful street scene Medium: oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 24 x 20...

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.

Antique American modernist abstract landscape painting by Ann Anderson. Oil on canvas, circa 1961. Signed. Displayed in a period modern frame. Image, 16"L x 20"H.

This stunning Scottish Abstract oil painting is by much noted artist William Gear. It was painted in 1949, not long after Gear de mobbed in 1947, moved to Paris and established a one room studio at 13 Quai des Grands Augustins, hence the title Interieur, Forme Blanche. At the same time, Gear was introduced to CoBrA, allowing him to exhibit in important early CoBrA shows in Copenhagen and in Amsterdam in 1949. The same year saw an exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, alongside Jackson Pollock. Gear remained in Paris until the early fifties. This bold abstract mixes blocks of solid colour with more geometric lines and is an excellent and important example of his period in Paris. Signed and dated '49 lower left. Provenance: Private London collection. Condition. Oil on canvas, 24 inches by 20 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in a wooded white painted frame, 34 inches by 30 inches and in good condition. Few British painters have played an active role in the modern abstract movement of post-war Europe. William Gear was the most passionate and committed exception. He continued the tradition of the Edinburgh-Paris axis established by J.D. Fergusson, Samuel Peploe and others, spending vital years between 1947 and 1950 living and working in Paris. Significantly, in recent years, he received the greatest acclaim in France, Germany and the Netherlands. He was born in 1915 in Methil, Fife, into a mining family; the particular landscape of "pitheads, the sea, rocks, castles, trees, storms and poverty" marked his earliest identity with a place and probably remained the most influential to his art. Years later he recalled as a schoolboy visiting the local art gallery in Kirkcaldy and seeing 12 colourful still-lifes by Peploe. Art-history lessons during student years at Edinburgh College of Art, in particular Byzantine classes under David Talbot Rice, also influenced his concern for structure. This had as much to do with the formal language of painting as sheer delight in the medium itself. Gear never missed an opportunity to show people the merits of a well-constructed painting. On a travelling scholarship in 1937, he chose to study with Fernand Leger, described by Gear as "a keystone for me, seldom abstract, rather a degree of abstraction". The Second World War interrupted these formative years and, by 1940, Gear had joined the Royal Corps of Signals. Dispatched to the Middle East, he still had the discipline to paint - mostly works on paper of damaged landscapes - with exhibitions in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cairo as well as Siena and Florence. His naturally robust and tenacious temperament was profoundly affected by visiting Bergen-Belsen, and this certainly influenced the later experiments with the black armature. As the British officer in Celle, working for the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Control Commission, he focused on securing the safety of the Berlin Art Collection in Schloss Celle, and organised an important series of modern art exhibitions, including the rejected work of Karl Otto Gotz...

This captivating 1960s vintage oil painting, Demeter and Persephone, is an original, signed work by celebrated mid-20th-century Denver artist Edward Marecek (1919–2004). Inspired by ...

"A dynamic dance of curves and warm tones, capturing the quiet vitality of mid-century French abstraction." Pierre Coquet (1926–2021) Abstract Composition Oil on canvas, 38 x 55 x 2...

Nicely painted American school abstract geometric painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Pointillist Abstract Design by Louis Bellon (French 1908-1998) initialled lower right in the image and again in the margin gouache painting on paper, unframed unfinished sketch on th...

Impressive early American modernist abstract expressionist oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas board.

"One of Pinajian's early works, 'Overlook Mountain, Woodstock, 1974' is a vibrant depiction of the Woodstock mountains. The abstract composition was create...

This original 1960s oil painting titled Sybils Telling Cosmic Jokes on Mankind is a striking semi-abstract work by renowned 20th-century Denver modernist artist Edward Marecak (1919-...

Designs by Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) signed pastel/watercolor on paper, unframed painting: 13 x 20 inches good condition provenance: from the artists estate, France Josine V...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 12.75 x 9.75 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we ...

Man in Boat by Raymond Guidot (French, 1935 - 2021) artists studio stamp verso oil painting on board, unframed board: 10.75 x 9 inches stamped verso condition: very good provenance:...