Joseph Wolins

TOAST TO THE BAR MITZVA Modernist Judaica Oil Painting

1967

Morris Kantor New York (1896 - 1974) Paris from the Ile St. Louis, 1927 (view of Eiffel Tower) Oil painting on canvas Hand Signed lower left. Provenance: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution ( bears label verso) Size: 20 3/4"H x 28 1/8"W (sight), 28.75 "H x 36"W (framed) Morris Kantor (Belarusian: Морыс Кантор) (1896-1974) was a Russian Empire-born American painter based in the New York City area. Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously relocated to the states. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974. He produced a prolific and diverse body of work, much of it in the form of paintings, which is distinguished by its stylistic variety over his long career. Perhaps his most widely recognized work is the iconic painting "Baseball At Night", which depicts an early night baseball game played under artificial electric light. Although he is best known for his paintings executed in a realistic manner, over the course of his life he also spent time working in styles such as Cubism and Futurism, and produced a number of abstract or non-figural works. A famous cubist, Futurist, painting of his "Orchestra" brought over 500,000$ at Christie's auction house in 2018 Kantor found employment in the Garment District upon his arrival in New York City, and was not able to begin formal art studies until 1916, when he began courses at the now-defunct Independent School of Art. He studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). In 1928, after returning to New York City from a year in Paris, Kantor developed a style in which he combined Realism with Fantasy, often taking the streets of New York as his subject matter. He did some moody Surrealist Nude paintings and fantasy scenes. In the 1940's he turned towards figural studies. Later in his career, Kantor himself was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s, and taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil...

Genre: Modern Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: United States Sabina Teichman: (1905-1983) Studied at Columbia Univ. (BA, MA), also with Charles J. Martin and A...

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...

Morris Kantor, American, 1896-1974 Seaside View, 1930 Hand signed M. Kantor and dated 1930 lower right Oil on canvas 22 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches 24 1/2 x 21 (frame) Morris Kantor (Belarusian: Морыс Кантор) (1896-1974) was a Russian Empire-born American painter based in the New York City area. This is a beautiful boat scene with a river or lake probably on Long Island. Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously relocated to the states. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974. He produced a prolific and diverse body of work, much of it in the form of paintings, which is distinguished by its stylistic variety over his long career. Perhaps his most widely recognized work is the iconic painting "Baseball At Night", which depicts an early night baseball game played under artificial electric light. Although he is best known for his paintings executed in a realistic manner, over the course of his life he also spent time working in styles such as Cubism and Futurism, (influenced by the Art Deco movement) and produced a number of abstract or non-figural works. A famous cubist, Futurist, painting of his "Orchestra" brought over 500,000$ at Christie's auction house in 2018. Kantor found employment in the Garment District upon his arrival in New York City, and was not able to begin formal art studies until 1916, when he began courses at the now-defunct Independent School of Art. He studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). In 1928, after returning to New York City from a year in Paris, Kantor developed a style in which he combined Realism with Fantasy, often taking the streets of New York as his subject matter. He did some moody Surrealist Nude paintings and fantasy scenes. In the 1940's he turned towards figural studies. Later in his career, Kantor himself was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s, and taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil...

Signed and Dated Modern Line Drawing Oil Painting of Nude Man. Louis Stettner (November 7, 1922 – October 13, 2016) was an American photographer of the 20th century whose work included streetscapes, portraits and architectural images of New York and Paris. His work has been highly regarded because of its humanity and capturing the life and reality of the people and streets. Starting in 1947, Stettner photographed the changes in the people, culture, and architecture of both cities. Stettner also spent significant time sculpting and painting, as well as mixing his work and “painting” on some of his photographic images. He continued to photograph New York and Paris up until his death. Louis Stettner was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Austrian immigrant parents where he was one of four children. His father was a cabinet maker, and Louis learned the trade when young, using the money he earned to support his growing love of photography. He decides to be a photographer after seeing photographs by Alfred Stieglitz and Weegee. He was given a box camera as a child, and his love affair with photography began. His family went on trips to Manhattan and visited museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where his love of art began. At 18, in 1940, Stettner enlisted in the United States army and became a combat photographer in Europe for the Signal Corps. After a brief stint in Europe he was sent to New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan. Back from the war he joined the Photo League in New York. Through the Photo League’s exhibits, Stettner was further exposed to the work of Weegee, Edward Weston, and Lewis Hine. Stettner visited Paris in 1946 and in 1947 moved there. From 1947 to 1949 he studied at the "Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques" in Paris and received a Bachelor of Arts in Photography & Cinema. He went back and forth between New York and Paris for almost two decades and finally settled permanently in Saint-Ouen, near Paris, in 1990. Stettner still frequently returned to New York. Stettner's professional work in Paris began with capturing life in the post-war recovery. He captured the everyday lives of his subjects. In the tradition of the Photo League, he wanted to investigate the bonds that connect people to one another. In 1947 he was asked by the same Photo League to organize an exhibition of French photographers in New York. He gathered the works of some of the greatest photographers of the era, including Robert Doisneau, Brassaï, Edouard Boubat, Izis Bidermanas, and Willy Ronis. The show was a big success and was largely reviewed in the annual issue of U.S. Camera. Stettner had begun a series of regular meetings with Brassaï who was a great mentor and had significant influence on his work. In 1949, Stettner had his first exhibition at the "Salon des Indépendants" at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. In 1951 his work was included in the famous Subjektive Fotografie exhibition in Germany. During the 1950s he free-lanced for Time magazine, Life, Fortune, and Du (Germany). While in Paris he reconnected with Paul Strand, who had also left New York because of the political intolerance of the McCarthy era—Strand had been a founder of the Photo League that would be blacklisted and then banned during those years. In the 1970s Stettner spent more time in New York City, where he taught at Brooklyn College, Queens College, and Cooper Union. In his own social realist work, Stettner focused on documenting the lives of the working class in both Paris and New York. He felt that the cities belong to the people who live there, not to tourists or visitors. His upbringing caused him to take great care in capturing the simple human dignity of the working class. He also captured noteworthy architectural images of both cities, including bridges, buildings, and monuments. Stettner produced well-known silver gelatin prints in fine images, including: Aubervilliers, Brooklyn Promenade...

Nice American Modernist Oil Painting. with old label verso. not dated but estimating it to the 70s. Not sure which Doris turner this is...

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...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, oil on canvas, 36 x 28 inches, c. 1936, signed lower right, ex collection of Platt Fine Art, Chicago, Illinois (label verso). About the Painting Joseph Meert’s painting, Goldmine, Central City, Colorado, depicts the short-lived resurrection of a once prominent city just outside Denver. Central City was founded in 1859 soon after John Gregory struck gold in the area. As word spread, thousands of miners converged into “Gregory’s Gulch” and its surroundings became known as the “richest square mile on earth.” Mining production quickly increased resulting in Central City to becoming Colorado’s largest city in the early 1860s. Despite some technical difficulties transitioning to lode mining and the rise of competition from Leadville, Central City remained an economic boom town through the turn of the century. But, with every boom, there is a bust. World War I marked the end of Central City’s prominence as ore production ground to a halt and by 1925, the town’s population shrank to only 400 people. The desperation of the Great Depression and a nearly 100% increase in the price of gold lured labor and capital back to Central City. Meert painted in Colorado during the mid-1930s, a time when he created his most desirable works. It is during this period of renaissance that Meert captures one of Central City's outlying dirt streets bordered by 19th century wooden houses from the town's heyday and the more recently installed electric lines leading to a distant gold mine. A lone figure trudges up the hill, a mother with a baby in her arms, putting us in mind of the rebirth of the town itself. Meert had solo exhibitions at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1936 and the Denver Art Museum. Although it is not known whether Goldmine, Central City was included in either of these exhibitions, it seems likely. Moreover, the painting is closely related to Meert’s painting, The Old Road, which was painted in 1936 and exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and at the Dallas Museum of Art. About the Artist Joseph Meert was a well-regarded painter and muralist, who initially made a name for himself in the American Scene and later as an abstract expressionist. Although initially successful, Meert struggled financially and with mental illness later in life. He was born in Brussels, Belgium, but moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. As a child, a chance encounter at the Union Pacific Railyard changed his life. Meert happened upon a worker repainting and stenciling a design on a railroad car. Meert later recalled that this experience introduced him to the idea of being a painter. Without support from his father, Meert obtained a working scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute. After four years at the Kansas City Art Institute, Meert studied seven years at the Art Students League and in Europe and Los Angeles. At the Art Students League, Meert fell under the spell of Thomas Hart Benton and Stanton MacDonald-Wright. In 1931, he befriended Jackson Pollock. By 1934, Meert was part of the Public Works of Art Project when he met his wife, Margaret Mullin...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s. The Landing/Dawn Landing, 1944, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 x 30, titled verso; exhib...

This painting is illustrated in the Catalogue of the 1945 Encyclopedia Britannica Collection of Contemporary American Painting, p.84. Written and edited by Grace Pagano. "Painting ...

Industrial Mid-20th Century WPA Modern Men Working American Scene Social Realism George Pearse Ennis (American, 1884-1936) "Forging a Gun Tube #1...

Signed lower right: Will Barnet; on verso (photo available): Will Barnet / Aug 1963