Jack Levine

Outside a Deli

1940's

John Edward Costigan, N.A. American, 1888-1972 Woman and Child Oil on canvas Signed ‘J.E. Costigan N.A.’ lower left 24 by 30 in. W/frame 32 by 38 in. John Costigan was born of Irish-American parents in Providence, Rhode Island, February 29, 1888. He was a cousin of the noted American showman, George M. Cohan, whose parents brought the young Costigan to New York City and was instrumental in starting him on a career in the visual arts. They were less successful in encouraging him to pursue formal studies at the Art Students League (where, however, he later taught) than in exposing him to the commercial art world through the job they had gotten him with the New York lithographing firm that made their theatrical posters. At the H. C. Miner Lithographing Company, Costigan worked his way up from his entry job as a pressroom helper, through various apprenticeships, to the position of sketch artist. In the latter capacity he was an uncredited designer of posters for the Ziegfeld Follies and for numerous silent films. Meanwhile, he had supplemented his very meager formal studies in the fine arts with a self-teaching discipline that led to his first professional recognition in 1920 with the receipt of prizes for an oil painting and watercolor in separate New York exhibitions. A year earlier, Costigan had wed professional model Ida Blessin, with whom he established residence and began raising a family in the sleepy little rural New York hamlet of Orangeburg, the setting for the many idyllic farm landscapes and wood interiors with which he was to become identified in a career that would span half a century. John Costigan’s first national recognition came in 1922 with his winning of the coveted Peterson Purchase prize of the Art Institute of Chicago for an oil on canvas, “Sheep at the Brook.” It marked the start of an unbroken winning streak that would gain him at least one important prize per year for the remainder of the decade. The nation’s art journalists and critics began to take notice, making him the recurring subject of newspaper features and magazine articles. The eminent author and critic Edgar Holger Cahill was just a fledgling reporter when he wrote his first feature, “John Costigan Carries the Flame,” for Shadowland Magazine in 1922. Costigan had his first one-man show of paintings at the Rehn Gallery on New York’s 5th Avenue in November, 1924, to be followed less than three years later by another at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, Costigan’s work has been—and continues to be included, side-by-side with that of some of America’s most high-profile artists, in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country. His renown had peaked in the early 1930s, by which time his work had been honored with nearly every major award then being bestowed in the fine arts and had been acquired for the permanent collections of several prestigious American museums, including New York’s Metropolitan (which only recently, in 1997, deaccessioned his “Wood Interior,” acquired in 1934). Although Costigan’s celebrity had ebbed by the late 1930s, the Smithsonian Institution saw fit in 1937 to host an exhibition exclusively of his etchings. And, in 1941, the Corcoran Gallery (also Washington, D.C.) similarly honored him for his watercolors. (Another Washington institution, the Library of Congress, today includes 22 Costigan etchings and lithographs in its permanent print collection.) During World War II, Costigan returned briefly to illustrating, mainly for Bluebook, a men’s pulp adventure magazine. A gradual revival of interest in his more serious work began at the end of the war, culminating in 1968 with the mounting of a 50-year Costigan retrospective at the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oils, watercolors and prints were borrowed from museums and private collections throughout the country, and the exhibition was subsequently toured nationally by the Smithsonian Institution. John Costigan died of pneumonia in Nyack, NY, August 5, 1972, just months after receiving his final prestigious award —the Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal of the Artist’s Fellowship, Inc., presented in general recognition of his “...achievement of exceptional artistic merit...” in the various media he had mastered in the course of his career. This painting depicts one of the artist's favorite themes --the farm family bathing...

Leonce De Joncieres French, 1871-1947 A Day at the Beach Oil on canvas Signed and dated 'L. de Joncieres/ 1903' (lower right) 46 1/2 by 65¼ in. W/f...

Georges d'Espagnat French, 1870 - 1950 Les Vendanges Signed gdE (lower left)  Oil on canvas 67 by 43 in. W/frame 71 by 47 in. Born at Melun on 14th August 1870, Georges d’Espagnat...

Arthur George Collins American, b.1866 Biskra Algeria Oil on canvas Signed and dated Biskra, 1893 26 ½ by 32 ½ in. W/frame 32 ½ by 38 ½ in. Arthur studied at the Julien Academy, P...

James George Weiland American, 1872-1968 Young Girl Resting in a Bed of Flowers Oil on canvas 24 by 30 in. W/frame 30 by 36 in. Signed lower left...

George Botti Italian, 1923-2003 Ballon Man Oil on canvas 36 by 36 in. W/frame 42 by 42 in. Signed lower right Barrel George Botti was born on  24 Mar...

Signed LL John Grabach was a highly regarded New Jersey artist, teacher and author of a classic text, How to Draw the Human Figure. He was born in Massachusetts, and with his widow...

Great Wall Street piece by John R. Grabach (March 2, 1886 – March 17, 1981) with expressive colors and figures. Grabach was a renowned American painter, best known for his evocative...

the Shop Window New York City, 1940s 17.75X25 sight size. Maurice Becker (1889–1975) was a radical political artist best known for his work in the 1910s and 1920s for such publica...

This lively oil painting depicts Baltimore’s busy waterfront, specifically the former piers that lined Pratt Street in the Inner Harbor. Painted by local artist Rosalie Mills ( née Hamblin), the scene depicts the watermelon boats that berthed near Pier 5. The painting dates to the 1950’s. The historic buildings that once lined Pratt Street, before urban renewal clearance of the 1960’s, provide the background for the scene. Hamblin’s attention to detail is quite good and calls to mind other Baltimore painters...

Atlantic Enclosure 58x58cm including Black wooden Frame A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, Brander gained a BA (Hons) in 2011 Early on, Garry discovered an interest in old buil...

A view of Sebastopol in the Crimea. Oil on canvas. In a 19th century gild wood and plaster frame. This painting can be dated around 1830/1840 given the dresses worn by the women i...