Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Janice Haefner
'Blue Pierrot', Large Figural Oil, California Modernist, Woman Artist, Los Altos

Circa 1960

About the Item

Signed lower right, 'Haefner' for Janice Haefner (American, 1919-2002) and painted circa 1960; additionally signed, verso, and with artist address. This life-time member of the Pacific Art League lived in Los Altos, Palo Alto and Carmel where she painted and exhibited with success for over fifty years. A substantial figural oil showing a dramatic frontal view of a young man dressed in the costume of the stock member of the Commedia dell'arte. The artist offers us a bold, forward perspective on this traditional theatrical character that successive art movements over the centuries have adapted in different ways to fill their evolving needs. The Symbolists saw Pierrot as a lonely fellow-sufferer, crucified upon the rood of soulful sensitivity, his only friend the distant moon; the Modernists converted him into a Whistlerian subject for canvases devoted to form and color and line. Over time, Pierrot has become an alter-ego of the artist, specifically of the famously alienated artist, and caustic observer, of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Pierrot's often frustrated pursuit of Columbine, coupled with his never-to-be-vanquished unworldly naïveté—have conspired to lift him out of the circumscribed world of the Commedia dell'arte and into the larger realm of myth inhabited by Everyman.
  • Creator:
    Janice Haefner (1919 - 2002)
  • Creation Year:
    Circa 1960
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 38 in (96.52 cm)Width: 26 in (66.04 cm)Depth: 0.75 in (1.91 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    minor marks, restored split to lower stretcher bar, shows well; unframed.
  • Gallery Location:
    Santa Cruz, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU3446699882

More From This Seller

View All
'Women with Flowers', Early Los Altos California Modernist, Floral Still Life
By Janice Haefner
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed verso, on stretcher bar, 'Janice Haefner' (American, 1919-2002) and painted circa 1960. A substantial mid-century, Expressionist figural abstraction showing two women seated ...
Category

1960s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Still Life, Roses with Figure Approaching', German Expressionist, Robert Graves
By Karl Goldschmidt
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Karl Goldschmidt' (Anglo-German, 1912-1995) and painted circa 1930. Photo of Karl Goldschmidt (Kenneth Gay) with Robert Graves courte...
Category

1930s Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Still Life with Florist', Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Large Post-Impressionist
By Guily Joffrin
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed upper right, "Joffrin" for Guily-Jeanne Joffrin (French, 1909-2007) and painted circa 1965. Photo of the artist in her studio, 1995. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Born in Paris, Joffrin first attended the École Supérieure Sophie-Germain before, in 1928, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, initially in the studio of Lucien Simon. She continued her studies there for several years in the studios of Jacques Despierre and Lucien Fontanarosa. After receiving her diploma, Joffrin was appointed Professor of Drawing and taught in Paris until 1945, when she began to devote herself exclusively to her career as a fine artist. Over the course of a long career, she exhibited internationally with success including at more than forty exhibitions in France (Paris, Aurillac, Rennes, Strasbourg, Reims, Rodez, Toulouse, Barbizon, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Cannes) as well as in Geneva, Vevey, San Francisco and Tokyo among other cities. The human face was of particular interest to Joffrin and she created many portraits of academic notables including Paul Guth...
Category

1960s Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Woman Reclining', Paris, Louvre, Salon d'Automne, Académie Chaumière, LACMA
By Victor Di Gesu
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower right, "Di Gesu" for Victor Di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and painted circa 1965. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attended the Los Angeles Art Cen...
Category

1960s Post-Impressionist Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil, Paper

'Attic Series, Yellow', California Woman Post-Impressionist Artist, Sonoma State
By Jill Davenport
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Davenport' for Jill Davenport (American, 1930-2019) and painted circa 1985; titled, verso, 'Attic Series- Yellow'. Framed dimensions: 28 x 1.5 x 25 inches. Born in Kansas, Jill Davenport moved to California in 1963. A lifelong artist and art enthusiast, she raised a family before focusing, in her early forties, on her vocation as an artist. In 1976, she graduated from Sonoma State University with a Bachelors in Art, subsequently continuing her studies with the California Post-Impressionist, Maury Lapp. During this period, her work was primarily representational and her favored medium was oil. In the late 1980's, however, she became an early exponent of computer-aided design and worked with some of the earliest Mac computers...
Category

1980s American Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

'Bentwood Chair, High-waist Gown', California Woman Post-Impressionist, Sonoma
By Jill Davenport
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
Signed lower left, 'Davenport' for Jill Davenport (American, 1930-2019) and dated 1987; titled, verso, 'Attic Series - Pink Dress'. Framed dimensions: 31 x 1.5 x 25 inches Born in Kansas, Jill Davenport moved to California in 1963. A lifelong artist and art enthusiast, she raised a family before focusing, in her early forties, on her vocation as an artist. In 1976, she graduated from Sonoma State University with a Bachelors in Art, subsequently continuing her studies with the California Post-Impressionist, Maury Lapp. During this period, her work was primarily representational and her favored medium was oil. In the late 1980's, however, she became an early exponent of computer-aided design and worked with some of the earliest Mac computers...
Category

1980s American Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like

"Cattleya Orchids" Jane Peterson, Modernist Bright Flowers, Female Impressionist
By Jane Peterson
Located in New York, NY
Jane Peterson Cattleya Orchids, circa 1940s Signed lower right Oil on canvas 32 x 32 inches Provenance Estate of the artist Artist’s estate sale, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1960s Priva...
Category

1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Post Impressionist Oil Painting Still Life with Fruit William Meyerowitz WPA Art
By William Meyerowitz
Located in Surfside, FL
William Meyerowitz (1887 - 1981) Oil painting on canvas Depicting a still life scene with fruit bowl, bananas, flowers and quilt. Post Impressionist oil painting. Hand signed low...
Category

1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Still Life Oil Painting Betsy Podlach American Post Feminist Modernist Art
By Betsy Podlach
Located in Surfside, FL
Betsy Podlach (American, born 1964.) Still life with Tin Cup, 1996 17.5 X 16.5 inches. Framed it measures 18.25 X 17.25 Betsy Podlach graduated from Harvard, cum laude, (she studied at Harvard with Alfred Decreido and William Reimann as well as Carlos Fuentes continuing her studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, Ms. Podlach was awarded an art fellowship and residency at The International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. Betsy Podlach is an American painter who considers the Italian Venetians and the american abstract expressionist painters her mentors. The two painters she is most inspired by are Titian and Jackson Pollock, Both use the picture plane and abstraction and space, light, movement and form to communicate a physicality built entirely on the principals of painting, in the “classical” sense of a flat plane and lines, color, shape, space and light applied to that flat surface to create magic – light, space, form, emotion, force, movement, the physical and the spiritual. She describes her work as a figurative version of abstract expressionism. She was influenced by many of the abstract expressionists from the NY school...
Category

1990s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Henry Ernst Schnakenberg, (Still Life with Skull)
By Henry Ernst Schnakenberg
Located in New York, NY
Henry Schnakenberg is mostly known for New York City scenes. This is clearly a departure. It is signed at the lower left and dated '4-53' on the r...
Category

1950s American Modern Still-life Paintings

Materials

Oil

Shovel Handles, 1950s Framed American Modernist Oil Painting, Green Bronze Blue
By Paul Kauvar Smith
Located in Denver, CO
"Shovel Handles" is an original 1953 semi-abstract modernist oil painting on board by renowned Denver artist Paul K. Smith (1893-1977). This captivating piece showcases Smith’s signa...
Category

1950s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Hospitalities Long Past, 1940s Oil Painting of Store Front
By Clarence Holbrook Carter
Located in Beachwood, OH
Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Hospitalities Long Past, 1941 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 37 x 27 inches "Looking into store front windows has always i...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil

Recently Viewed

View All