Mid-20th Century Abstract Paintings

William Sharp (1900 - 1961) Factory on the River Oil on canvas 17 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches Initialed lower right: WS Provenance: Estate of the artist Private Collection, New York Swann Auction Galleries, American Art, June 13, 2019, Lot 178 William Sharp was born on June 13, 1900, in Lemberg, Austria, where he attended college and the Academy for Arts and Industry. He later studied in Kraków, Poland, and in Berlin and Munich, Germany. Sharp began his career as a designer of stained-glass windows and as a painter of murals. He served in the German army during World War I. After the war he became a newspaper artist in Berlin and a well-known etcher. Sharp drew political cartoons that were bitterly critical of the growing Nazi movement. As the influence of National Socialism intensified, he began to contribute drawings, under a pseudonym, to publications that were hostile to Hitler. After Hitler assumed power, Sharp was confronted with these drawings and told that he would be sent to a concentration camp. However, in 1934, he escaped to the United States. His first newspaper assignment in America was making courtroom sketches for The New York Mirror...

Vintage modernist harbor view by Aksel Jorgensen (1883 - 1957). Oil on board, circa 1957. Signed. Displayed in a period frame. Image size, 24"L x ...

Signed lower right, 'Shaha' and dated, '69'; additionally signed and dated upper right. A large and bright, mid-century abstract oil by this French-born California artist. Giselle S...

A dramatic, Expressionist Coastal landscape showing a view of white-capped jade green breakers crashing against a rocky shoreline, with a distant mountain painted in shades of scarlet, slate blue, and indigo rising in the background. Signed lower right, "Beamish", titled verso and painted circa 1960. Provenance: The Vincent Price Collection...

Herbert Siebner (1925-2004) was a German-born Canadian painter whose work is characterized by its expressive use of color and texture, and its exploration of themes of war, exile, an...

Radiant Relections. Abstract Non-Objective 1950s Oil Mid 20th Century American Woman Female Artist. Signed lower right. Provenance: Estate of Foy C. Casper, Norfolk, Virginia (a close personal friend of the artist and a former director of the Irene Rice-Pereira Foundation). Sothebys American art sale October 10, 2008. The canvas measures 50 x 40. The work has been restored, relined and is housed in its original frame, made by the artist's second husband, George Wellington Brown, a marine engineer from Boston. BIO Periera was an American abstract artist, poet, and philosopher who played a significant role in the development of modernism in America. She is known for her work in the Geometric abstraction, Abstract expressionist, and lyrical abstraction genres and her use of the principles of the Bauhaus school. She helped found the Federal Art Project...

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

Inscribed verso "Dora Masters" and painted circa 1960. A large, Post-Impressionist figural oil of a young woman shown facing the viewer with her gaze averted and surrounded and over...

Marcel Mouly was the last student of Pablo Picasso and painted this abstract original oil in Paris in 1968. The image size is 10" by 13.5" The frame size is 20.5" by 26" Le Cheval ...

Signed lower right, "Eral" for Eral Leek (American, 20th century) and dated 1962. A substantial, mid-century oil abstract comprising bold, overlapping rectangular compositional elem...

Abstract waves watercolor painting by listed artist Doris Ann Warner (American, 1925-2010). Signed "Warner" lower left. Unframed. Image size, 15"H x 2...

From the series Blue Balls, (1960-63). This series preoccupied Francis for a number of years, and as William C. Agee pointed out, are rooted in his threatened physical body. Again, t...

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...

A painting by Carl Morris. "Untitled" is an Abstract Expressionist triptych painting, acrylic on canvas in blues and oranges by American artist Carl Morris. The artwork is signed on ...

Antique American abstract expressionist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed in monogram. Framing is available!

Vintage American modern abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1960. Unsigned. Image size, 48L x 36H. Unframed.

TOM HOLLAND Untitled Mid Century Modern painting (Oakland Museum De-Accession), 1963 Oil on Canvas 16 1/2 × 20 1/2 x .5 inches Unique Signed and dated on the back of the frame Frame...

This stunning post-cubist and colorist still life oil on board painting is by A. Rigollot (France, 20th Century). Colorist painting is characterized by intense color use, which becom...

David Hare Cronus Dining, 1968 Graphite, acrylic, paper collage on board 44 x 34 inches “Freedom is what we want,” David Hare boldly stated in 1965, but then he added the caveat, “and what we are most afraid of.” No one could accuse David Hare of possessing such fear. Blithely unconcerned with the critics’ judgments, Hare flitted through most of the major art developments of the mid-twentieth century in the United States. He changed mediums several times; just when his fame as a sculptor had reached its apogee about 1960, he switched over to painting. Yet he remained attached to surrealism long after it had fallen out of official favor. “I can’t change what I do in order to fit what would make me popular,” he said. “Not because of moral reasons, but just because I can’t do it; I’m not interested in it.” Hare was born in New York City in 1917; his family was both wealthy and familiar with the world of modern art. Meredith (1870-1932), his father, was a prominent corporate attorney. His mother, Elizabeth Sage Goodwin (1878-1948) was an art collector, a financial backer of the 1913 Armory Show, and a friend of artists such as Constantin Brancusi, Walt Kuhn, and Marcel Duchamp. In the 1920s, the entire family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and later to Colorado Springs, in the hope that the change in altitude and climate would help to heal Meredith’s tuberculosis. In Colorado Springs, Elizabeth founded the Fountain Valley School where David attended high school after his father died in 1932. In the western United States, Hare developed a fascination for kachina dolls and other aspects of Native American culture that would become a recurring source of inspiration in his career. After high school, Hare briefly attended Bard College (1936-37) in Annandale-on-Hudson. At a loss as to what to do next, he parlayed his mother’s contacts into opening a commercial photography studio and began dabbling in color photography, still a rarity at the time [Kodachrome was introduced in 1935]. At age 22, Hare had his first solo exhibition at Walker Gallery in New York City; his 30 color photographs included one of President Franklin Roosevelt. As a photographer, Hare experimented with an automatist technique called “heatage” (or “melted negatives”) in which he heated the negative in order to distort the image. Hare described them as “antagonisms of matter.” The final products were usually abstractions tending towards surrealism and similar to processes used by Man Ray, Raoul Ubac, and Wolfgang Paalen. In 1940, Hare moved to Roxbury, CT, where he fraternized with neighboring artists such as Alexander Calder and Arshile Gorky, as well as Yves Tanguy who was married to Hare’s cousin Kay Sage, and the art dealer Julian Levy. The same year, Hare received a commission from the American Museum of Natural History to document the Pueblo Indians. He traveled to Santa Fe and, for several months, he took portrait photographs of members of the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni tribes that were published in book form in 1941. World War II turned Hare’s life upside down. He became a conduit in the exchange of artistic and intellectual ideas between U.S. artists and the surrealist émigrés fleeing Europe. In 1942, Hare befriended Andre Breton, the principal theorist of surrealism. When Breton wanted to publish a magazine to promote the movement in the United States, he could not serve as an editor because he was a foreign national. Instead, Breton selected Hare to edit the journal, entitled VVV [shorth for “Victory, Victory, Victory”], which ran for four issues (the second and third issues were printed as a single volume) from June 1942 to February 1944. Each edition of VVV focused on “poetry, plastic arts, anthropology, sociology, (and) psychology,” and was extensively illustrated by surrealist artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy; Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp served as editorial advisors. At the suggestion of Jacqueline Lamba...

Large American modernist abstract oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas. Signed. Image size, 50H by 40L.

Untitled (43) Hanna Eshel, Israeli (1926) Date: 1965 Oil and Assemblage on Burlap, signed and dated verso Size: 39 x 31 in. (99.06 x 78.74 cm) Frame Size: 45 x 37 inches

Julio De Diego’s Atomic Series paintings made an extraordinary statement regarding the shock and fear that accompanied the dawn of the nuclear age. In the artist’s own words, “Scientists were working secretly to develop formidable powers taken from the mysterious depths of the earth - with the power to make the earth useless! Then, the EXPLOSION! . . . we entered the Atomic Age, and from there the neo-Atomic war begins. Explosions fell everywhere and man kept on fighting, discovering he could fight without flesh.” To execute these works, De Diego developed a technique of using tempera underpainting before applying layer upon layer of pigmented oil glazes. The result is paintings with surfaces which were described as “bonelike” in quality. The forms seem to float freely, creating a three-dimensional visual effect. In the 1954 book The Modern Renaissance in American Art, author Ralph Pearson summarizes the series as “a fantastic interpretation of a weighty theme. Perhaps it is well to let fantasy and irony appear to lighten the devastating impact. By inverse action, they may in fact increase its weight.” Bibliography Art in America, April 1951, p.78 About this artists: Julio De Diego crafted a formidable persona within the artistic developments and political struggles of his time. The artist characterized his own work as “lyrical,” explaining, “through the years, the surrealists, the social-conscious painters and the others tried to adopt me, but I went my own way, good, bad or indifferent.” [1] His independence manifested early in life when de Diego left his parent’s home in Madrid, Spain, in adolescence following his father’s attempts to curtail his artistic aspirations. At the age of fifteen he held his first exhibition, set up within a gambling casino. He managed to acquire an apprenticeship in a studio producing scenery for Madrid’s operas, but moved from behind the curtains to the stage, trying his hand at acting and performing as an extra in the Ballet Russes’ Petrouchka with Nijinsky. He spent several years in the Spanish army, including a six-month stretch in the Rif War of 1920 in Northern Africa. His artistic career pushed ahead as he set off for Paris and became familiar with modernism’s forays into abstraction, surrealism, and cubism. The artist arrived in the U.S. in 1924 and settled in Chicago two years later. He established himself with a commission for the decoration of two chapels in St. Gregory’s Church. He also worked in fashion illustration, designed magazine covers and developed a popular laundry bag for the Hotel Sherman. De Diego began exhibiting through the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, and participated in the annual Chicago Artists Exhibitions, Annual American Exhibitions, and International Water Color Exhibitions. He held a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1935. Though the artist’s career was advancing, his family life had deteriorated. In 1932 his first marriage dissolved, and the couple’s young daughter Kiriki was sent to live with friend Paul Hoffman. De Diego continued to develop his artistic vocabulary with a growing interest in Mexican art. He traveled throughout the country acquainting himself with the works of muralists such as Carlos Merida, and also began a collection of small native artifacts...

Mixed media on board; Signed lower right and dated 1961 Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Vaclav Vytlacil (Vas-lav Vit-la-chil) was born in New York City in ...

INTERSECTIONS OF GREY Size: 65 x 85 cm (including frame) Oil on board A very large mid century modernist abstract composition, painted in oil onto board. Almost monochrome in its p...

Abstract Nude by Therese Hummel (French, 1911-1999) oil on canvas, unframed canvas : 13 x 16 inches Provenance: private collection of this artists work, Paris Condition: sound and go...

size includes frame 20X20 sight size. Richard tum Suden (1936, Brooklyn NY) Painter, sculptor, graphic artist, has taught at Parsons School of Design in New York, Art Students League...

Lawrence Kupferman (1909-1982) is an American Abstract painter and founder of the Boston Expressionist school. His work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Mu...

This original 1949 gouache and wax painting, titled Fetishes, is by renowned New Mexico modernist artist Howard Schleeter (1903-1976). Signed and dated by the artist on the lower rig...

JACOB EL HANANI b. 1947 1947 Casablanca (Israeli) Title: Untitled, 1968 Technique: Signed and Dated Acrylic on Canvas Size: 73 x 93 cm. / 28.7 x 36.6 in. Additional Information...

Artist/ School: E.Johnson, British, signed & dated 1951 Title: "Cumberland". A most dramatic and captivating view of this Lake District landscape, the hill tops covered in snow. M...

Antique American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed "Lee Tang".

Ralph Rosenborg (American, 1913-1992) "American Landscape, Sky and Shore, 1973" Oil on canvas. Signed 'Rosenborg' (lower right). Titled (verso). 30 x 40 in Ralph Rosenborg (1913–1992) was an American artist whose paintings were described as both expressionist and abstract and who was a colleague of the New York Abstract Expressionists in the 1940s and 1950s. Unlike them, however, he preferred to make small works and tended to explicitly draw upon natural forms and figures for his abstract subjects. Called a "highly personal artist," he developed a unique style that was considered to be both mystical and magic. His career was exceptionally long, covering more than 50 years. Rosenborg was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 9, 1913. In 1929, while he was a high school student, he began to work with the designer, artist, and instructor, Henriette Reiss. When Rosenborg encountered her, Reiss was serving as an instructor for the School Art League in the American Museum of Natural History. She was then engaged in instructing both students and their teachers in the city school system by a method she called Rhythmic Design. She believed inspiration for abstract designs could be found in rhythms—rhythms that could be perceived in ordinary perceptions much as they are when listening to music. In May 1930 Reiss selected a drawing by Rosenborg to be shown in an exhibition of creative design by City high school students. From 1930 to 1933, aged 17 to 20, Rosenborg studied with Reiss in what Vivien Raynor of the New York Times called a "pupil-apprentice" relationship. During this time she instructed him in music appreciation, literature, and art history as well as giving technical training in art. In April 1934 Rosenborg was one of 1,500 artists to participate in the annual Salons of America exhibition, which was held that year in Rockefeller Center RCA Building. Each paid two dollars for the privilege of hanging up to three works and none was given prominence over the others. The New York Times reported that by the time the show closed a month later, some 30,000 people had viewed it. The following year he was given a solo exhibition (his first) at the Lounge Gallery of the Eighth Street Playhouse. The year after that he participated in a group show held by the Municipal Art Committee and in 1937 was given a second solo exhibition, this time in the Artists Gallery. That year he also became a founding member of and participated in a group show held by American Abstract Artists, a loose assembly of artists that aimed to promote abstract art and artists in New York. Its founders included Josef Albers, Ilya Bolotowsky, Werner Drewes, Ibram Lassaw, Mercedes Matter, Louis Schanker, Vaclav Vytlacil and Rudolph Weisenborn. At roughly the same time Rosenborg associated himself with a group of abstractionists that called itself "The Ten" (It included Ben-Zion, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb and Joe Solman) and in May 1938 joined with its other members in what would be his first appearance in a commercial gallery: the Gallery Georgette Passedoit. In 1938 he his work appeared in a group show at the Lounge Gallery, in 1939 in group shows at the Artists Gallery and at the Bonestell Gallery with David Burliuk, Earl Kerkam, Karl Knaths and Jean Liberte...

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

Antique American impressionist landscape painting by Genevieve Pierce Law (1906-1995). Oil on board. Framed. Signed.

Signed lower right, "Gilberg" for Robert Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) and dated 1954. A substantial, mid-century gouache abstract comprising pendant geometric forms in pastel tone...

Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Abram Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the University of Caen. In 1939 at the be...

Dynamic Mid-Century Abstract Expressionist Piece by Andres R. Montani (Uruguayan b. 1918 d. 2000) Bold and beautiful 1960s abstract expressionist oil painting. This painting is cons...

Sea. 1968. Paper, gouache, 86x60 cm

Rem Raymond Coninckx was born on 28th March in Couvin (Belgium) 1904 and died in Dinan 1974. He was a painter, draftsman, engraver and also created metallic panels and mosaics. Cont...

"Les Competiteurs" by American modernist painter Leonard Nelson is a 36" x 26" oil on canvas abstract figurative painting, created in 1952. The work is framed in classic black and si...

An original oil on canvas painting by American artist James Koenig created in 1944.

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting by Lela "Jackie" Axline (1910-1998). Oil on board, circa 1940. Signed. Displayed in a period modern frame. Image, 15"L x 19"H.

ANTONI TÀPIES Spanish, 1923 - 2012 PARAGUAS signed "Tàpies" (lower right) paint and pencil on paper 22-1/2 x 15-1/6 inches (57 x 38.5 cm.) framed: 38-1/5 x 30-1/3 inches (97 x 77 cm....

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

This soft toned abstract expressionist watercolor painting, created by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968), is an exceptional example of his evolution as an artist. Featuring bold sw...

Ron Stonier (1933-2001) was a dedicated Vancouver artist celebrated for his exploration of abstract painting, influenced by his mentors Gordon Smith and Jack Shadbolt, as well as by ...

Abstract figurative painting on board. Carl Bredemier label on the reverse. Framed. Oil on board

Aaron Bohrod (1907-1992) oil on gesso panel. Titled: “Shop Windows,” circa 1946. Measures: 16" H x 20" W. Frame measures: 23" H x 27" W. In excellent condition. Aaron Bohrod (1907...

Predominantly recognized as a self-taught painter, he also worked in architectural murals, sculptures, ceramics, prints and drawings. Vigas is one...

Norman Carton (1908 – 1980) was an American artist and educator known for abstract expressionist art. He was born in the Ukraine region of Imperial Russi...

Antique American impressionist seascape signed oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 15L x 12H.

City 13. 1966, paper, monotype, varnish, 47x77 cm Soikans Nikolay, pseudonym Niklo de Martell (till 1953.) 1926. 9 IX Ludza – 1980. 21 II Lester, Great Britain – graphic artist. ...

"Tzadik" A Surrealist oil painting of old mystical Jerusalem with Hebrew calligraphy Sight 13.25" x 19.5" ; frame: 21" x 27.25" David Rakia (1928-2012) was born in Vienna, Austria...

William Baziotes (1912 - 1963) Untitled, circa 1935-1940 Oil on board 14 x 19 3/4 inches Illegible Inscription present to the verso Provenance: Previously from the estate of Consta...

City 9. 1964, monotype, 44.5x64.4cm Soikans Nikolay, pseudonym Niklo de Martell (till 1953.) 1926. 9 IX Ludza – 1980. 21 II Lester, Great Britain – graphic artist. He was born a...

Gorgeous oil and watercolor on paper by abstract expressionist artist Adine Stix. Beautiful shades of pink, purples, cobalt blue with s hint of orange cover the paper to create the h...

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

White, yellow and red asters. 1964. Oil on canvas, board, 46x58 cm Vimba Voldemars ( 1904 St. Petersburg – 1985 Riga, Latvia) He began his artistic education at the St Petersburg...