Watercolor Figurative Paintings

Elegant and glamorous fashion illustration from the 1920's, Original signed gouache painting on paper. Monogrammed V.S. lower right. Site: 10"x 7.75" Frame: 19.25"x 17"

Marc-Luc (French, active 1920s-30s). Boys Fashion Illustration, ca. 1920s. Watercolor and pencil on paper, image measures 8 x 11 inches on panel measuring 12.5 x 18 inches. Signed lo...

Troisemmè Dame from 1919 is a gouache painting on paper, 12 x 9.5 inches, framed in a custom, closed-corner, Art Deco frame to 20.25 x 18 inches. Signed recto 'Erté' mid lower right ...

Les Rois des Lègendes, Costume pour femme ésclave from 1919 is a gouache painting on black paper, 10.75 x 9 inches, framed in a custom, closed-corner, Art Deco frame, 24 x 20 inches....

La Pendule from Au Réveil de Passé was created in 1923 and is a gouache on paper measuring approximately 15 x 10.75 inches and framed in a custom, closed-corner Art Deco...

Untitled (Fashion Design) was created for Harper's Bazar and appeared in the February, 1920 edition of the magazine. This is a gouache painting on tissue paper measuring approximately 10 x 6.5 inches and framed in a custom, closed-corner Art Deco...

Martha, Act I (Chicago Opera) from 1925 is a gouache on paper measuring approximately 9 x 7 inches and framed in a custom, closed-corner frame. Signed recto 'Erté' mid-right and stamped with Erte's Villa Excelsior block stamp and 'Composition originale' verso. Annotated in fountain pen verso 'No 659 Martha I acte Pour Madame Ganna Walska...

Optimism and Pessimism, created in 1927, was the cover design for Harper's Bazar in May 1929. This is a gouache painting on board, signed recto 'Erté' lower right in the image, and f...

The Treasures of Indo-China, created in 1922, is a gouache on paper, 15 x 11.25 inches and framed in a custom, closed-corner Art Deco frame. Signed rec...

Déméter from Les Idoles, Folies Bergère was created in 1924 and is a gouache on paper measuring approximately 14.75 x 10.5 inches. Framed in a custom, closed-corner Art Deco...

Le Roi Yvetot (no. 227) from 1919 is a gouache painting on tissue paper mounted on board. The image size is 9.25 x 6 inches, framed in a gold-tone frame, 22.5 x 19 inches. Signed recto 'Erté' lower right, in the image and annotated verso, 'Les Rois des Lègendes, No 8, Le Roi Yvetot 227'. Erte name and 'Composition originale' stamps verso. Le Roi Yvetot is a design by Erte for the 1919 theater production of Les Rois des Lègendes. The King of Yvetot William Makepeace Thackeray: 1811 –1863 There was a king of Yvetot, Of whom renown hath little said, Who let all thoughts of glory go, And dawdled half his days a-bed; And every night, as night came round, By Jenny, with a nightcap crowned, Slept very sound: Sing ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! That's the kind of king for me. And every day it came to pass, That four lusty meals made he; And, step by step, upon an ass, Rode abroad, his realms to see; And wherever he did stir, What think you was his escort, sir? Why, an old cur. Sing ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! If e'er he went into excess, 'Twas from a somewhat lively thirst; But he who would his subjects bless, Odd's fish!—must wet his whistle first; And sofrom every cask they got, Our king did to himself allot, At least a pot. Sing ho, ho, ho! and he, he, he! To all the ladies of the land, A courteous king, and kind, was he; The reason why you'll understand, They named him Pater Patriae. Each year he called his fighting men, And marched a...

The paper in some of these photos looks overly textured due to the sharpness of the high-res digital camera. In person, with the human eye, the paper looks reasonably smooth with out blemishes. For this fashion illustration, Georges Lepape paints a stunning abstract pattern for the subject dress that is repeated in her hair. The work represents an early use of metallic paint, with silver metallic in the dress and bronze metallic in the blouse. Lepape's highly detailed drawing becomes more evident the closer you look. It's quite amazing how deftly he rendered facial feature on such a small scale. "Eva" 1918 Gouache, watercolor, and ink on paper Signed and dated, lower right: '1918' Inscribed, verso: "Costume for L'enfantement du mort, (miracle en pourpre, et or.). Devised by Marcel L'Herbier and performed at the Théatre Edouard VII and the Comédie des Champs-Elysées, 1919" Provenance: Ex-collection Lucien...

One Thousand and One Nights - It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights. What is notable about this work is how magnificently composed, designed, and rendered it is. Its l...

Unique, one of a kind original gouache on paper from Harper's Bazar series. Hand signed lower front by Erte; titled top front with studio catalog number on verso. Sheet size 10.7...

Barbara Shermund (1899-1978). Showgirls Cartoon for Life Magazine, 1934. Ink, watercolor and gouache on heavy illustration paper, matting window measures 16.5 x 13 inches; sheet measures 19 x 15 inches; Matting panel measures 20 x 23 inches. Signed lower right. Very good condition with discoloration and toning in margins. Unframed. Provenance: Ethel Maud Mott Herman, artist (1883-1984), West Orange NJ. For two decades, she drew almost 600 cartoons for The New Yorker with female characters that commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony. In the mid-1920s, Harold Ross, the founder of a new magazine called The New Yorker, was looking for cartoonists who could create sardonic, highbrow illustrations accompanied by witty captions that would function as social critiques. He found that talent in Barbara Shermund. For about two decades, until the 1940s, Shermund helped Ross and his first art editor, Rea Irvin, realize their vision by contributing almost 600 cartoons and sassy captions with a fresh, feminist voice. Her cartoons commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony, using female characters who critiqued the patriarchy and celebrated speakeasies, cafes, spunky women and leisure. They spoke directly to flapper women of the era who defied convention with a new sense of political, social and economic independence. “Shermund’s women spoke their minds about sex, marriage and society; smoked cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so,” Caitlin A. McGurk wrote in 2020 for the Art Students League. In one Shermund cartoon, published in The New Yorker in 1928, two forlorn women sit and chat on couches. “Yeah,” one says, “I guess the best thing to do is to just get married and forget about love.” “While for many, the idea of a New Yorker cartoon conjures a highbrow, dry non sequitur — often more alienating than familiar — Shermund’s cartoons are the antithesis,” wrote McGurk, who is an associate curator and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. “They are about human nature, relationships, youth and age.” (McGurk is writing a book about Shermund. And yet by the 1940s and ’50s, as America’s postwar focus shifted to domestic life, Shermund’s feminist voice and cool critique of society fell out of vogue. Her last cartoon appeared in The New Yorker in 1944, and much of her life and career after that remains unclear. No major newspaper wrote about her death in 1978 — The New York Times was on strike then, along with The Daily News and The New York Post — and her ashes sat in a New Jersey funeral home...

Unique, one of a kind original gouache on paper from Harper's Bazar series. Hand signed lower front by Erte; titled top front with studio catalog number on verso. Sheet size 10.7...

A rare original signed Art Deco gouache on paper by Erte (Romain de Tirtoff) . This stunning theatrical costume design is signed Erte at the lower right. The piece is 20 by 18 fram...

Rarely do you come across a work of art that is vastly different than just about anything you see. This work is undeniably brilliant and a sheer pleasure to behold. Alexander Leydenfrost...

Viktor Schreckengost (American, 1906-2008) Mayan Watercolor heightened with gouache over pencil on paper Signed lower right 39 x 29 inches 45.5 x 35.5 inches, framed Registered with The Viktor Schreckengost foundation, stock no. 6891 The son of a commercial potter in Sebring, Ohio, Viktor Schreckengost learned the craft of sculpting in clay from his father. In the mid-1920s, he enrolled at the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art, or CIA) to study cartoon making, but after seeing an exhibition at the Cleveland Museum of Art he changed his focus to ceramics. Upon graduation in 1929, he studied ceramics in Vienna, Austria, where he began to build a reputation, not only for his art, but also as a jazz saxophonist. A year later, at the age of 25, he became the youngest faculty member at the CIA. In 1931, Schreckengost won the first of several awards for excellence in ceramics at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and his works were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, and elsewhere. By the mid-1930s, Schreckengost had begun to pursue his interest in industrial design. For American Limoges...

Original on Gouache on paper. Hand signed on front; signed, titled, dated with dedication on verso. Stamped "Composition originale". Frame size 30.5 x 26.5 inches. Artwork is in e...

"Translucent Purple Bubbles" is a hand-painted acrylic painting on high-quality 300g paper by artist Ryan Rivadeneyra. These painting, influenced by modernist artists of the 50's, 6...

This is a masterfully rendered and brilliantly designed scene from the Arabian Nights. page 33 from Random House. We are not sure if this is by Gustaf Tenggren. ( Gustaf Tenggren At...

PHILIPPE NOYER "AU BAR" WATERCOLOR, SIGNED FRANCE, C.1960S 25.5 X 19.5 INCHES Philippe Henri Noyer 1917-1985 Philippe Henri Noyer was born on June 28, 1917 in Lyons, France. After a traditional education at the elite Ecole des Roches, Noyer enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Lyon. Next he moved to Paris, where he worked in decorative arts and advertising. It was during this time, he discovered his talent for oil painting, officially starting his painting career in 1943. That same year, Noyer met the famed Parisian art deal, Emmanuel David, who would promote his work and career. Noyer produced many portraits, for which he quickly gained an international reputation, but he also painted dream figures in rural or maritime settings, compositions that were classical in technique but surreal in concept. In 1947, Noyer held his first one-man show at the prestigious Drouant-David Gallery in Paris. In 1949 the gallery consigned twenty of Noyer’s paintings to an American art dealer who had agreed to organize an exhibition of them in the United States. However the American dealer sold the paintings at cost, in order cover a gambling debt, to Robert Goldstein...

This work is an exceptional example of Kádár's mature Cubist style. It's effortlessly designed around a complex composition of nude men and women tending to horses in a surreal landscape with Greek columns, friezes and marshmello clouds set against a rich blue saturated sky. Kádár was a Hungarian painter influenced by Der Blaue Reiter...

Gustaf Tenggren- Attributed This masterfully designed and graphic interpretation of the Arabian Nights saga features a monumental figural profile while small figures float above on a magic carpet. Gustaf Tenggren (American 1896-1970) Attributed - We are not certain if Tenggren did this work. There is stylistic evidence to support Tenggren. It's the brilliance factor of how he assembles all the elements of the work and composes it into a cogent and readable form. This says Tenggen. As a former New York advertising agency art director, I have seen artists work in different styles. Usually this is not the case but great artist can do it. Their styles can change but the brilliance remains. Untitled Untitled 1957 Gouache on illustration board - Unframed Not signed 9 x 7.25 live - 10.5 x 9.5 board Original book illustration...

Signed lower left: Seymour Ball Inscribed upper left: To Morris E Weiss with best wishes Seymour Ball" Matted not framed

work is matted but not framed. Golden Age of Hollywood no illustrator chronicled the great stars, pin-ups and good girls better than Jaro Fabr...

Framed Size 28.5 x 21 Jaro Fabry was a brilliant illustrator with a defined style of his own. There is not a brushstroke out of place in his works that appear loosely rendered. He is best known for his depiction of Golden Age of Hollywood...

Most likely done for Cher. Gouache and watercolor on Arches paper. There is some minor undulation of the paper suface but only visible under raking light. Nicely framed and read...

Cherry Dancer Marcel Vertes French, 1895-1961 Beautiful girl juggling cherries is a beautiful and charming idea that is deftly rendered in a quick and loose style. Work is round De...

This work is an exceptional example of Kádár's mature Cubist style. It's effortlessly designed around a complex composition of nude men and women tending to horses in a surreal landscape with Greek columns, friezes and marshmello clouds set against a rich blue saturated sky. Kádár was a Hungarian painter influenced by Der Blaue Reiter...

Our Gallery acquired the estate of a Northern California artist, Thelma Terrell. Terrell lived in Oakland and was an illustrator and professional graphic artist. "Femmes Fatal" is a...

Caption: "He proposed this morning right after the alarm clock went off." From the Estate of Charles Martignette Signed lower center unframed

A monumental watercolor on paper, painted in Paris by Russian artist Sacha Zaliouk. Zaliouk moved to Paris in the early 1920's and became an artist and illustrator, becoming part ...

Emmanuel Cocard. Fairy Tale Scene Of A Knight With A Young Woman On Horseback. Fairy tale scene of a knight abducting a young woman on horseback. Behind them, we see dark silhouett...

Scene of a knight atop a ship with sword raised. Emmanuel Cocard, Lyon, 1929. Painted in gouache on thick cardboard, currently protected by a wooden panel. The author of the paintin...

A French drawing and watercolour portrait of a Breton Girl by Renée Béja noted pupil of Fernand leger. The work is signed on the right margin and presented in a gilt frame with a fine cut card mount. A wonderful character portrait of a girl in traditional Breton costume and head dress. Beja has completed a pencil drawing and then used washes, watercolour and gouache to give the composition life. Lifelike flesh tones and the blue of the subjects eyes give the whole a charming intimacy. Renée Anne Béja was a French painter and theatre decorator of Greek origin born in Thessaloniki (Ottoman Empire, today in Greece) on July 4, 1905 Renée Béja was still a young child when the family moved to Solliès-Pont in France, where her father worked as a flour miller at the Crédit Agricole. In the 1930s, Renée Béja was a pupil of Fernand Léger. Between 1935 and 1938, she exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries, presenting mainly Views of the Périgord, she also participated in 1938 in the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants. During the Second World War, Renée Béja, her husband and some of her family were saved by being hidden by Eugène Viès, executive of the SNCF in Solliès-Pont, the industrialist Étienne Arnaud and the secretary of the town hall registering them under a false name on the register of inhabitants, so as to entitle them to food tickets. A Gestapo raid, however, meant that the Béja family had to leave Solliès-Pont for Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, always with the help of Eugène Viès and his wife Walda, to whom the Yad Vashem Institute has since awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Based at 41, rue Blomet in Paris, Renée Béja then also worked as a decorator for the theatre. She created the sets, costumes and masks for the play Les Choéphores by Aeschylus, performed in the great amphitheatre of the Sorbonne in June 1949, then at the Palais des Papes as part of the Avignon Festival in July 1950. The works of René Béjà, including portraits, nudes, still lifes, landscapes of Provence, Brittany and Paris, were presented at the Salon du Gemmail in Tours, stylistically, as with her colleague Andrée Bordeaux-Le Pecq, post-cubist and abstract experiments, but also classifying it, with Germaine Lacaze, Marguerite Bermond, Geneviève Gavrel and Guillemette Morand...