1940s Figurative Paintings

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. ...

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...

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...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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...

Painted with four hands. Josep Padró Gonzalez (1904-1982) and Pedro Serra Farnés (1890-1974). Oil measurements 47x62 cm. Frame measurements 70x85 cm.

A dramatic mid-century western figurative action scene depicting a shootout in an old western town by Randy Steffen (American, 1917-1977), 1947. Several ...

Riders of Pigeon Hill, c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 24 x 36 inches, label verso with title, artist’s name and address; same information inscribed verso; ex-collection...

"Sock Hop" Mid-Century American Modernism WPA Female Artist 20th Century Realism. 30 x 24 inches. Oil on canvas. Signed on stretcher, c. 1940s. Frame is likely original to the painting. Realist painter-printmaker Kyra Markham...

Constantin Kluge was a Russian-born French painter best known for his naturalistic scenes of Paris and French countryside. Kluge was born to a wealthy military family on January 29, ...

Very finely executed modernist ballet scene. Pastel and gouache on paper. Handsomely framed. Image size, 12H by 16L.

"Pay Day" American Scene Social Realism WPA Era Mid 20th Century Modern Workers Don Freeman (1908-1978) Pay Day 20 x 30 inches Oil on board, c. 1940s Signed lower right BIO Illustr...

Work on canvas Beige wooden frame 80.5 x 93.5 x 6 cm

Artist: Pál Fried (Hungarian, 1893-1976) Title: "Hortense (Ballerina)" *Signed by Fried lower left Circa: 1940 Medium: Original Oil Painting on Canvas Framing: Framed in a light gold...

The Pin-Up of ravishing young beauties in mid-century America was a widely popular art form. The assumption that Pin-Up art was the exclusive domain of men is a misnomer. Female illu...

"Union Square" NYC American Scene Social Realism Modernism WPA Mid-20th Century Agnes Hart (American, 1912-1979) "Union Square, New York City" Sight: 14 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches Gouache...

Hawaiian Symbolism Figurative & Landscape Oil painting of Mauna Uhane (Mountain Spirit) Symbolic and surreal landscape with a figure of spirit ascen...

Nicely painted mid century impressionist bather scene by John Edward Costigan (1888 - 1972). Oil on board. Framed. Signed verso.

Abel Warshawsky (American 1883-1962) Spring Fantasy, 1948 Oil on artist's board Signed lower right and verso 16 x 13 inches 20 x 17 inches, framed Impressionist painter A.G. Warshaw...

NYC Subway Mid 20th Century American Modernism WPA Realism industrial Colorful "New York Subway," 36 x 48 inches. Oil on Masonite (backed with a wood frame), Signed and dated ’47 upper left. The colors of the painting are extraordinarily vibrant. The white gold frame, signed Richard Tobey...

Jean Dominique Van Caulert, (1897-1979), although most often associated with his celebrity portraits and works for the theater, he was also a true symbolist in the tradition of the Belgian symbolist's. "The Nurturing", oil on canvas, dated 1947, is Van Caulert's depiction of the nurturing of post war Europe, as the shrouded woman offers an apple to an androgynous figure.

Jean BURKHALTER (1895-1982) Saint Clare of Assisi, 1944 Gouache and white chalk cardboard glued on panel ; mis au carreau Dated "1944" and located “Saint-Etienne” on an old label on ...

A modern interpretation of the biblical story Suzanna and the Elders. Signed lower right Ink and wash on paper The Downtown Gallery Felix Landau Gallery Ernest Brown & Phillips, Ltd...

Adolf Dehn: 1895-1968. Well listed American artist with a high auction record of $20,000 which was achieved this year. He was born in Minnesota and studied at Minneapolis School of F...

Nathan Hoffman Brighton Beach, July 31, 1946 Signed, dated, and estate stamped on the reverse Oil on artist's board 10 x 13 1/2 inches Provenance: Esta...

Les Guilleries. Original oil on canvas Casimiro Martínez Tarrassó, a painter known simply as Tarrassó. He was trained at the La Llotja School in Barcelona. He completed his studies i...

Signed figures in cityscape oil on canvas circa 1940 by sought after French impressionist painter Jules Rene Herve. The piece depicts a view of a crowded stall selling paintings besi...

Nicolás Raurich Petre - Costa Brava - Oil on board Oil mesures 14x23 cm. Frame mesures 31x40 cm.

Parade Mexicaine by Jean Dufy (1888-1964) Gouache on Ingres paper 45.1 x 55.6 cm (17³/₄ x 21⁷/₈ inches) Signed Jean Dufy lower centre Executed circa 1948-1950 Provenance Galerie Kät...

Charming and bright mid century California figurative landscape with a female figure walking down a verdant and inviting path by William Hiller (America...

Mid-century oil on masonite modern painting by the well known Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed top left and dated 1949. Titled verso. Condition is fair. Provenanc...

Wonderful 1940s genre landscape of traditional English cottage painted in the European style by Henry T. Harvey (English/American, 1908-2000). Signed lower right corner. Presented in...

This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Knight’s Lodging, 1941, oil on canvas panel, signed and dated lower left, 16 x 20 inches, exhi...

Ignasi Mundó Marcet (1918-2012) - woman in white - Oil on canvas Canvas measures 73x60 cm. Frame size 76x63 cm. MUNDO Ignasi Ignasi Mundó trained at the School of La Lonja, with Joa...

Saturday Evening Post Cover, August 5, 1944 Framed Measurements: 36.00" x 29.50" Signature: Signed Lower Left

Beautiful mid century figurative landscape of a contemplative woman in Cotswold village, England by David L. Ghilchik (b. 1892 Romania; d. 1972 London), c.1945. Signed lower right "Ghilchik." Presented in rustic wood frame. Image measures: 14.5"H x 17.5"W. With frame, measures: 21"H x 25"W x 2"D. David Louis Ghilchik was a painter, and cartoonist for Punch Magazine and the Daily Sketch. He was the son of Abraham Josef Ghilchik, who traded in lace and linen, and his wife Sali. The family settled in Salford in 1920, where David enrolled at the Manchester School of Art and studied under Adolphe Valette...

1940s New York Interior -- An Evening Scene of Artist and His Wife Wonderful moody 1940s New York interior and figurative oil painting in Ashcan Schoo...

BUCKLEY MACGURRIN "ALEXANDRIA" OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED, TITLED AMERICAN, DATED 1949 EXHIBITED: DALZELL-HATFIELD GALLERY 14 X 20 INCHES Buckley MacGurrin 1896 –1971 Buckley MacG...

Albert Heckman Glasco Landscape, circa 1940 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 25 1/4 x 39 1/2 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art world in 1915 after graduating from high school and landing a job at the Meadville Post Office. In 1917, at the age of 24, Heckman enrolled part-time in Teachers' College, Columbia University's Fine Arts Department to begin his formal art education. He worked as a freelance ceramic and textile designer and occasionally as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1920s, at the age of almost 30, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia Teachers College. He was especially impacted by his instructor at Columbia, Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, he was hired by the Teachers' College as a Fine Arts instructor. He stayed with Columbia Teachers' College until 1929, when he left to attend the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Isami Doi (1903-1965), who was born in Hawaii, was arguably his most impressive student at Columbia. Doi is now regarded as one of the most prominent artists hailing from Hawaii. Heckman became an active member and officer of the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York in the 1920s as part of his early commercial art career. The Society's mission was to share knowledge and showcase textile and ceramic design exhibits. In 1922, Heckman married Florence Hardman, a concert violinist. Mrs. Heckman's concert schedule during the 1920s kept Albert and Florence Heckman apart for a significant portion of the time, but they spent what little time they had together designing and building their Woodstock, New York, summer house and grounds. A small house and an acre of surrounding land on Overlook Mountain, just behind the village of Woodstock, were purchased by Albert and Florence Heckman at the time of their marriage. Their Woodstock home, with its connections, friendships, and memories, became a central part of their lives over the years, even though they had an apartment in New York City. Heckman's main artistic focus shifted to the house on Overlook Mountain and the nearby towns and villages, Kingston, Eddyville, and Glasco. After returning from the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in 1930, Mr. Heckman joined Hunter College as an assistant professor of art. He worked there for almost thirty years, retiring in 1956. Throughout his tenure at Hunter, Mr. Heckman and his spouse spent the summers at their Woodstock residence and the winters in New York City. They were regular and well-known guests at the opera and art galleries in New York. Following his retirement in 1956, the Heckmans settled in Woodstock permanently, with occasional trips to Florida or Europe during the fall and winter. Mr. Heckman's close friends and artistic career were always connected to Woodstock or New York City. He joined the Woodstock art group early on and was greatly influenced by artists like Paul and Caroline Rohland, Emil Ganso, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andre Ruellan, and her husband, Jack...

Romantic still-life of a beautiful porcelain lady and her two dogs - perhaps Borzoi - set among a display of fresh cut lilies by listed artist Nell Walker Warner (American, 1891-1970). Signed "Nell Walker Warner" lower left. Displayed in a giltwood frame with linen liner. Image, 30"H x 36"L. Nell Walker Warner was born in Richardson County, Nebraska on April 1, 1891. She was educated in Colorado Springs, Colorado and graduated from the Lexington College in Missouri in 1910. She moved to California in 1916 where she studied and graduated from the Los Angeles School of Art and Design. After her marriage to Dr. Bion Smith Warner in 1920, the couple settled in La Canada. During the 1920's, Nell was the curator of the Tuesday Afternoon Club in Los Angeles and further studied with Nicolai Fechin, Paul Lauritz and Fritz Werner. Her floral paintings are radiant; an article in the Christian Science Monitor stated, ''California flowers...

This original vintage 1945 oil painting beautifully captures a serene interior still life scene, featuring a vase of flowers, a delicate tea cup, and flowing drapery. Created by reno...

EMILIO GRAU SALA Spanish, 1911 - 1975 RUE DE PARIS signed "Grau Sala" (lower right) oil on canvas 24 x 19-3/4 inches (61 x 50 cm.) framed: 29-3/8 x 25-1/4 inches (74.5 x 64 cm.) PRO...

Antique American modernist abstract painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1940. Housed in a vintage frame. Image size, 18L x 24H.

Beautiful oil on canvas painting with aerosol spray paint of two reclining figures by the well known Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed upper right and dated 1949. ...

Just discovered within an exceptional private west coast collection, the signature and inscription on this incredible small oil on paper, is at the moment, undecypherable, we are res...

Initialed lower right, 'A.E.M' for Anna Elisabeth Munch (Danish, 1876-1960) and painted circa 1940. This notable Danish Modernist first studied with Karl Jensen (1889) and C. N. Overgaard (1891–1892). She later traveled and studied in Italy and, subsequently, at the Académie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. After her return to Denmark, Munch became a student of the Impressionist Julius Paulsen (1895-1897) and made her début at the 1898 Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition. Munch became the first Danish woman to receive commissions for large devotional altarpieces and her early subjects were often derived from Nordic and Christian mythology. These themes were also explored in the large fresco commissions she completed after studying fresco with Joakim Skovgaard (1909-10). Munch continued her studies in both France and Italy and also traveled extensively to Sweden and Norway. Together with the writer Sophie Breum, Munch built a house on the island of Funen at the artist's colony of Kerteminde. Munch illustrated several of Breum's books and, through her, was introduced to the women's movement. She furthered her art studies with Fritz Syberg...

Signed lower right 'Dante' for Giglio Raphael Dante (American, born 1916), titled verso and painted circa 1940. Raphael Dante first studied at the Academy of Rome prior to moving to...