Figurative Paintings

Original charcoal drawing by Russian-French artist, from the Art Deco period. 22 x 10 Inches without the frame. George Artemoff 1892 - 1965 George Artemoff was born in the Don Va...

Nude Moroccan beauty, Orientalist oil painting on canvas after Adam Styka Beautiful orientalist painting signed A S ( we sell it as follower or after Adam Styka ) in a nice frame. ...

Donald Vogel’s paintings reflect his interest in seeking beauty in life and in sharing pleasure with his viewers. Vogel entreats us to "rejoice and celebrate each new day, knowing it...

Boris Deutsch (American Lithuanian Russian, 1892-1978) "The Flute Player," 1947 Oil paint on canvas, Hand signed and dated upper left, Provenance: gallery label (Pasadena Art Museu...

⭐ Garlic and Chili Peppers starwars ⭐ The still life focuses on two main elements: bright red chili peppers and garlics. The composition is dynamic, with the peppers clustered in t...

John Steuart Curry "Sketching Wisconsin," 1946 oil on canvas 31.13 x 28 inches, canvas 39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame Signed and dated lower right Overall excellent condition Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression. Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin. The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills. Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception. Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin. Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him. The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields. Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...

Arthur Willett British 1868 -1951. Willett was a renowned landscape artist who settled in Brighton but his paintings of the British countryside and country pursuits are highly sought...

Self-portrait by Edouard Dumoulin (1898 - 1973) 1928 Oil on canvas 48 x 37 cm (54 x 42 cm with frame 18.9 x 14.57 in (21.26 x 16.54 in with frame) Signed and dated lower left Online...

Original advertisement for the Treo Girdle Company, published in the October 1923 issue of McCall’s Magazine, page 93, and likely in other publications as well. This original adver...

Algerian women in an interior. Oil on panel. Signed. This work will be recorded in the catalogue raisonné of the work of the artist currently in preparation. Jules Van Biesbroeck w...

In the tradition of Modigliani, Maurer's depictions of women are expressive and lively. America had very few modernists who painted in this manner but Maurer is famous for exactly t...

A sadistic laughing Devil grinning a big smile is pictured hovering over a Hellfire. He is reveling while witnessing tiny ant-like sinners engage in eternal torture, torment, and co...

Illustrated for the 1949 Four Seasons Calendar, published by Brown and Bigelow. A young girl holds a freshly-picked bouquet of flowers as she strolls alongside a boy who carries he...

Alexander O. Levy was a painter, illustrator, printmaker and designer who was born in 1881 in Bonn, Germany. He died in 1946 in Buffalo, New York. At age three, he was brought to ...

Les Baigneuses by Paulémile Pissarro (1884-1972) Oil on canvas 89 x 118 cm (35 x 46 ¹/₂ inches) Signed and dated lower right, Paulémile - Pissarro. 1928. This work is accompanied by...

Woman with Two Children in Red - Interior Scene in Oil on Canvas Lovely interior scene by notable artist Joseph Tomanek (Cech-American, 1889-1974). A woman sits near a window, holding a small child dressed in bright red in her lap. Another child, somewhat older, stands next to her, looking at the young child. Soft lights spills though the window, illuminating the scene in a warm glow. A plant with red flowers sits on the windowsill, and foliage can be seen outside. Signed "Tomanek" in the lower right corner (note that the shape above the signature is a toy train) Presented in a carved wood frame with a linen liner. Frame size: 30.75"H x 26.75"W Canvas size: 24"H x 20"W Tomanek, the son of a carpenter, was born in Moravia. His family discouraged his art talent and wanted him to be a shoemaker. He studied in his homeland of Czechoslovakia at the School of Design in Prague. He emigrated to America around the turn of the century and arrived in Chicago in 1910 and worked as an interior decorator. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago and studied with Antonin Sterba. He also studied with Albert Krehbiel and K.A. Buehr. He was a member of the Bohemian Artist Club, Association of Chicago Painters, and Sculptors, and the Chicago Gallery Association. His work is included in the collection of the Vanderpoel Art Association (Chicago). He exhibited from the 1910s-40s, including exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Georgia Museum of Art. Of the difficulty of posing nudes in Chicago, he said, "In Paris you can rent little gardens studios and pose your models there in privacy. Here, if I work out of doors, I have to pose the girls in bathing suits...

Belgian Symbolist artist Jan Frans DeBoever (1872 - 1948), created symbolist/allegorical paintings throughout his lifetime. He centralized on allegorical and literary subjects, gener...

Arthur Clifton Goodwin Boston Square Signed lower left Oil on canvas 30 x 36 inches A painter especially known for street and waterfront scenes of Boston, Arthur Clifton Goodwin di...

Symbolic and surreal landscape with a Makaula or seer and a woman seeking to know her future by Marguerite Louis Blasingame (American; 1906-1947), circa 1940-45. Marguerite and her h...

Hudson River School Style - The Homestead and Grist Mill 1942 In the Hudson River School style by A (K) Mathieu (American, 19th-20th C). Harvest time at the Homestead with a hay wago...

Saut de la Ravine original watercolor by Louis Claude 1928 is a very rare watercolor by Louis Claude created for the publishing house of Sidney Lucas. Mr. Lucas lived in France f...

Edward Zutrau Toucan, 7/29/1949 Dated on verso Oil on linen 30 x 23 inches Edward Zutrau (1922–1993) was an American painter whose career spanned from the 1940s through the early 1...

Josephine Reichmann Bass Rocks Signed lower right Oil on canvasboard 14 x 16 inches Reichmann was born in 1864 in Louisville, Kentucky. After studying at the School of the Art Inst...

Signed lower right, 'Justin Murray' (American, 1912-1987), titled, verso, 'The Doctor's Office' and painted circa 1945. Framed dimensions: 9¼ x 1½ x 21 inches. Born in Minneapolis, ...

A beautiful art deco portrait by well listed American Ashcan School artist Alexander Oscar Levy. This piece was featured in the American Art Review article about the Levy retrospect...

Gordon Coutts (1868-1937) Scottland & California Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 45 x 50 Medium: Oil Circa 1920s "Scouting" Indian Biography Gordon Coutts (1868-1937) Born...

Vibrant mid century California landscape of the beautiful San Ynez Valley Indian Trail with Native American children walking towards the sunset by H. Hansen (American, 20th Century), 1944. The small figures walk through a majestic, sprawling landscape full of plants, rocks, and tall trees flanking this gorgeous trail that leads towards an epic mountain range in the distance. Signed and dated "H. Hansen 1944" lower left corner. Label on verso with title and "Rubicon Lodge" (an old California...

Sandor Vago (Hungarian/American 1887-1946) The Chinese Girl, 1925 Oil on canvas Signed lower right 34 x 30 inches 38 x 34 inches, framed Exhibited: Clevela...

Blue Lake in the Rockies and Hunter - Oil on Linen Cascades and snow capped mountains over look a blue lake with a successful hunter carrying his trophy deer by Vern Byers (American...

Tom Ivester Lloyd 1871-1942 was a fine artist who worked mainly in water colour but was also very accomplished in oils. He served in the first war and produced pictorial records which are now in the army museum. He was a keen hunting man and was Master of the Sherrington Foot Beagles. He was a great hound man and wrote and illustrated a book on hounds. Acquiring an early 20th-century English fox hunting...

Signed oil on canvas seascape circa 1920 by French naive painter Camille Bombois. This work depicts workers out at sea on a large sail boat with a few ...

Oil on canvas by Amedee de La PATELLIERE, France, 1928. Eclipse with four characters. With frame: 63x54 cm - 24.8x21.25 inches ; without frame: 41x33 cm - 16.15x13 inches. Format 6F....

Otto Lindberg was a Swedish artist born in Söderhamn in 1880. Lindberg was known for his landscapes and marine paintings. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm an...

Marguerite Stuber Pearson Nude, circa 1940 Signed lower right Oil on artist board 20 x 16 inches Marguerite Stuber Pearson was an American painter best known for her elegant portra...

A rare and breath taking work, with masterful bursh work and sublime execution of light. We are drawn to the subtle beauty and elegant pose. The tasteful compostion lends an intimate scene into the artists studio where Philip has captured her effortlessly. This piece comes displayed in a wonderful frame and hanging wire on verso. Art measures 24 x 20 inches Frame measures 30 x 26 inches Robert Philipp was born on February 2, 1895 in New York City. He was an American painter influenced by Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and known for his nudes, still lifes, and portraits of attractive women and Hollywood stars. Moses Solomon Philipp showed early talent and grew up in a family atmosphere that fed and cultivated his creativity. At age of 15, he entered the Art Students League for four years and then continued his training at the National Academy of Design. His teachers at the League included George Bridgeman and Frank DuMond, and at the National Academy he studied with Douglas Volk...

Label verso: "Portrait of a Lady / Oil / MUC / Beatrice Whitney Van Ness / unsigned / size 30h x 25w ". From the estate of the artist. Beatrice Whit...

Original oil on canvas painting of Les Halles de Paris by the London born artist, H.F. Root. Signed lower left. Circa 1945. Very good condition, no restorations. Les Halles de Paris was the largest food market...

Oil Painting of River Forest Landscape in Ireland by 20th Century Post War Irish Artist, Tobias Everet Spence Art measures 20 x 16 inches Frame measures in...

Oil on canvas by Louis BERTHOMME SAINT-ANDRE, France, 1940s. Young Red-haired Woman. with frame: 74x63 cm - 29.1x24.8 inches ; without frame: 61x50 cm - 24x19.7 inches. Format 12F. ...

'Landscape', oil on canvas, by Charles Kvapil (1928). The artist, Kvapil, has scores of tremendous artworks which depict scenes in nature such as this one. Here, a bit of Mediterrane...

Scottish artist John Maclauchlan Milne, RSA, (1885-1957) is a contemporary of Scottish Colourists Peploe, Fergusson, Cadell and Hunter. Like the...

A magnificent oil on canvas by Russian American WPA artist Nahum Tschacbasov (1899-1984), dating from 1943. Depicting a Maternity scene - or possibly a m...

Carl Frederick Gaertner (American, 1898-1952) Rocky Cove, 1947 Oil on canvas Signed lower left 24 x 30 inches 31 x 37 inches, framed Carl Gaer...

John F. Carlson Forest Landscape, circa 1925 Signed lower right Watercolor on paper Sight 21 x 24 1/2 inches The native Sweden John Fabian Carlson became a household name in New Yo...

Signed by Artist Lower Left The present work was published on the cover of the September 4th, 1948 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. An accompanying “Keeping Posted” article about Norman Rockwell’s process behind the painting was printed on page 10 inside the issue. (Image above) The Post described, “Boston baseball fans saw a strange spectacle at Braves’ Field early this summer. As the stands filled, two respectable-looking men stood on the field staring at the spectators. Every now and then they would point to someone, run up into the stands and invite the man or woman to sit in a box above the dugout. Then the thinner of the two would contort his face into an expression of wild delight or disgust and invite the spectator to do the same, while a photographer made pictures. The explanation is on our cover. The two suspicious characters were Kenneth Stuart, the Post’s art editor and the artist, Normal Rockwell. For a detailed description of how Boston...

Initially read as archaic and simple, Halleluja is a complex celebratory spring painting full of color, imagination, and humor and combines many elements seen throughout her later ca...

Gorgeous European figurative of a simpler time. Horses being watered in the plains by Janos Viski (Hungarian/American 1891-1965), circa 1940. Signed lower ...

Seated Nude Woman American Figurative School 1940s Mid-century American impressionist painting of a woman by American artist Frederick "Fred" Yost (American/Swiss, 1888-1968). He studied: at Mt. Union Col., Alliance, OH; American Students League, New York, and with Homer Boss, John Sloan, Robert Henri, R. Lahey. The painting gleans much form his studies with John Sloan and Robert Henri in the French post-impressionist style. Image 24"H x 18"W Frame, 30"H x 24"W x 1.5"D Signed "Yost" lower right Painter, lithographer, teacher, lecturer About Fred's life: by Hal Fry of the Herald “Fred Does Whatever He Likes” was a title given to a biography written about Fred Yost by Hal Fry of the Herald. The following is taken directly from this column: “Fred Yost’s living style is like his painting style. He has fun with it. Fred John Yost was born in Switzerland, he’ sure, on November 6, 1889, he thinks. His father John brought the family to his country when Fred was about a year old—first to New York and later to Canton, Sebring and finally Alliance, where Yost Sr. loaded freight for a railroad. Fred like drawing and painting so far back he can’t remember how or when it started—it was always that way. But through the public schools in Alliance he didn’t think of this as a career possibility. He wanted to be a newspaperman. He worked his way through Mt. Union College, finishing, he thinks, about 1912. Then he beat it for New York and after kicking around for a time got a job as a proofreader for the Wall Street Journal. He combined this and art school until World War I took him into the Army. In infantry, field artillery and ordnance duties he served with the 27th New York Division through St. Mihiel and the Argonne and the rest—in the process getting his hearing clobbered by blasts from his outfit’s own guns. Coming out a Sergeant in 1919, he went back to the Wall Street Journal briefly—then caught on as a staff artist for the (New York) Herald. For several years, when he felt like it, Yost would take a bus to the Mexican border and switch to a Mexican bus to carry him way down south, then make it any way he could to the places he wanted to see. On these trips he virtually becomes a peon, disappearing totally from those who know him—living with, like and clearly thoroughly liked by the people among whom he moves.” Yost was a graduate of the Art Students League and past president of the Ohio Watercolor Society. Fred Yost, a man who eminently loved the Mexican landscape, Exhibited: S. Indp. A., 1928, 1930-33; MMA, 1945; AIC; Butler AI, 1947-1951; Ohio WC Soc.; PAFA, 1948-1950; Akron AI, 1947-1951, 1958; Fla. Southern Col., 1952; Ohio Univ., 1950; Columbus Gal. FA, 1947-50; AWCS, 1958; Salons of Am.; 3 solo: Canton AI; Akron AI, Springfield Mus. A. Contributor to Ford Times, 1958-59. Awards: prizes, Massilon Museum, 1944; Ohio Watercolor Society, 1944, 1948; Indianapolis, Ind., 1944; Tri-State Pr. M., 1945, 1946; Butler AI, 1946; Youngstown Pub. Schools, 1946 (prize); Ohio Univ., 1950; Ethel Printz award, 1950; Fla. Southern Col., 1952; Akron AI, 1952, 1956-1958; Canton AI, 1961, 1963; medal, Phila. Pa., 1950 Member: Ohio Watercolor Society (president) Work: Massillon Mus.; Youngstown Pub. Sch. Coll.; Butler AI; Akron AI; Kennedy & Co., NY; Beaver Col., Beaver Falls, Pa.; Block Gal., Indianapolis; Prospect Park, NY; murals, Sioux City Steak House; Sioux City A. Center; City Hall, Sioux City; Akron AI; Evangelical Church, Akron; Rockefeller Center; Radio City, NY; Brooklyn Zoological Park. Affiliated with NYC Park Dept. Mural Projects. Comments: Came to U. S. in 1889. Position: teacher, Butler AI; Akron AI; instr., Akron AI, Akron, Ohio; cur. Historical House of Refuge...

Oil on canvas by Charles PICART LE DOUX (1881-1959), France, 1924. The Italian girl. Very beautiful work where post-impressionism embellished with a few cubist touches form a harmoni...

Beautiful oil on wooden panel realized by Piero Marussig between 1928 and 1930. Very good conditions. Published in the general catalogue of the Artist...

Cecil Chichester Woodstock in Winter, circa 1947 Signed lower left Oil on artist's board 12 x 16 inches Provenance Private Collection, Rhinebeck, New...

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...

Ex Voto; Holy Tribute for Saving a Brother. Oil on tin with ink, circa 1925, anonymous Mexican artist with a contemporary custom frame hand-carved by artisan Michael Blatnik. Ex-Vot...

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...

Bathers 1940s Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism WPA Modern Ashcan Marion Gilmore (1909-1984) Bathers 15 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches oil on canvas boar...

Original cover for The Saturday Evening Post, published March 30, 1929. J.C. Leyendecker's holiday covers, particularly his iconic New Year's baby, were instrumental in driving The...

Signed figures in landscape oil on canvas c.1920 by French post-impressionist painter Jacques Martin-Ferrieres. The piece depicts a harbour at Collioure, a commune in the southern Fr...

Symbolic and surreal landscape with three women in a mystical garden setting walking toward a plaque "The dream and the dreamer are one" by Marguerite Louis Blasingame (American; 190...