1940s Figurative Paintings

5-2646 Scandinavian figurative landscape ,oil on artist board Displayed in a gilt wood frame Image size 19,5x15.5 overall 23.5x 19.5

An oil on board Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. It depicts a portrait in profile of an old Jew. The work is signed "Ben-Zion". Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant...

Reg B. Strange Untitled (Harriet Beecher Stowe Ship in Tokyo Bay near Yokohama), 1946 Oil on canvas Framed: 13 5/8 x 17 1/8 x 1 1/8 in. Signed and inscribed lower right One of the f...

“Graduation Day” is emblematic of mid-century American Illustration. But the real story of this storytelling work is that it embodies the lost art of portrait painting and graphic design. Alex Ross borrows on the classical tradition and flaunts his skills as a narrative painter. In “Graduation Day”, he paints a complex composition involving at least thirteen portraits. The subjects are beautifully rendered and lit. They are set against a dark grey background and jump off the surface at the viewer. The composition is complexly designed. The future graduate in the red jacket engaging with a girl photographer is a compositional device that leads the viewer's eye to the main subject - a father congratulating his son on graduating from medical school. Creating art that relies on facial expressions and body gestures is a talent absent in contemporary art. Why? It’s very hard to do and takes years and training and practice to get it right. Despite Alex Ross's folksy subject matter, this work is a high example of naturalism and representation by an important member of the Golden Age of American Illustration. Signed lower right Born in the town of Dunfermline, Scotland, Alexander Sharpe Ross (1908-1990) moved with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911. After attending Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Ross moved to New York and joined the Charles E. Cooper Studio, where he worked among such notable illustrators as Ward Brackett, Stevan Dohanos, J. Frederick Smith...

A small, female nude painting, titled "En Route to VT, Hotel Room" by artist Harold Haydon. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada in 1909. Haydon came to...

Gouache on Paper From the Estate of Samuel Esses and by descent Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, Rolph Scarl...

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

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...

Vicenç Ferrer Torradellas (1927) - Ibiza Market - Oil on canvas Oil measures 46x55 cm. Frameless. Reus 1927. He studied at the School of Work. He dedicated himself to easel painting...

Antoni Vidal Rolland (1889-1970) - Reading a love letter - Oil on canvas Oil measures 55x46 cm. Frame measures 76x67 cm. Disciple of José Ruiz Blasco in Lonja and of Aleix Clapés. H...

John Steuart Curry "Sketching Wisconsin," 1946 oil on canvas 31.13 x 28 inches, canvas 39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame Signed and dated lower right Overall excellent condition Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression. Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin. The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills. Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception. Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin. Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him. The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields. Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...

Neutral toned abstract impressionist portrait of a man wearing a suit by Danish artist Hans Christian Bärenholdt. Signed and dated by the artist at the bottom right. Currently hung i...

This original painting is hand signed by the artist "Scheiber H" in the lower left corner, and dated "1940" below the signature. Exhibited: Hugo Scheiber - Bela Kadar, Galerie Le Mi...

5-3601 Family bathers by the stream Set in a vintage wood frame Image size 9.5x7.5"

3910B Antique oil landscape people working in a beau colic field . Set in a 19th C gilt frame Image size 16x20"

Swimmers and sun tanners at the local watering hole. Her birth name was Theresa Berney. At the time of her passing she was known as Theresa Loew. Birth place: Baltimore artist, blo...

1-4051 Circa 1940's winter scene,oil on canvas displayed in an ornate gilt wood frame,illegible signaure lower right

WPA Mural Study 1940 American Scene Modern Social Realism Figurative Mid Century Michael Loew (1907-1985) Detail for Mural (Social Security Building Washington D.C.) 24 x 24 inches ...

A unique, humorous and colorful landscape painting by Harold Haydon depicting the artist painting alongside cows. The painting dates from 1941. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fo...

Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1912, abstract expressionist painter Morris Shulman studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League and Hans Hofmann School of Art in New ...

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...

4076 Italian Oil on canvas set in an antique wood frame Image size 19.5x15.5" by Alessandro Milesi

Yellow and blue-toned abstract impressionist portrait of a boy by Danish artist Hans Christian Bärenholdt. Signed by the artist at the bottom right. Hung in a gold carved frame. Dim...

Work on canvas

4064 Italian princess oil painting on gilt wood panel

WILLEM VAN DE BERG Den Haag 1886-1970 Amsterdam Portrait of a fisherman, Volendam 1940 Oil on canvas 70 x 55 cm. Signed and dated: lower left ‘Willem van den Berg...

Recently, women artists have been soaring in price to millions of dollars. In many cases, many of these women were quite obscure. For example, recently acknowledged Gertrude Abercrombie, a naive surrealist artist, has recently seen her paintings rise to the area of $400K. Lorraine Fox, who is a consummate female artist/ illustrator whose work rivals any of the recently anointed female stars is still an unknown quantity. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and is in the collection of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and she is a member of the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut along with Norman Rockwell, Today she is relatively unknown and completely off the radar of the so-called art establishment. Wedding Day is a wonderful example of her mid-century, somewhat naive style. The work is signed lower right and was exhibited at the Brandywine River...

A powerful depiction of a KKK member---signed lower right A reminder of the unfortunate history of behavior that this country has not yet ridden itself of.

Signed lower right, 'V. Isbrand' for Victor Isbrand (Danish, 1897-1989), titled, 'Paris' and painted circa 1945. Precocious as a child, Victor Isbrand painted professionally from a...

Love Honor Obey? Lon Megargee ca. 1940 Oil on Board Size: 19.75 x 26.75 inches Frame: 26.75 x 33.75 inches signed lower right Painting is framed Creator...

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...

1-4086 A large scale vintage figurative painting, original oil on canvas in shades of blue .Unframed. Signed on verso G.Pascal Rocca

We are pleased to present a captivating painting by the artist Sam Uhrdin (1886-1964). This beautiful artwork depicts a woman from Dalarna, sitting in front of a warm, glowing fire. The entire painting is bathed in a soft, radiant light, particularly illuminating her face and traditional white/red attire. The woman appears contemplative, lost in thought, perhaps thinking of someone dear to her heart. She is depicted in a kitchen, taking a moment to relax after a day's chores in her home. Sam Uhrdin's artistic journey began in the early 1900s, he traveled to Stockholm in 1903 to further continue his studies in painting. He worked as a painter during the day and attended various evening schools in the evenings. In 1906, he journeyed to America to work as a sign painter, but he mainly ended up working as an upholsterer. Returning to Leksand in 1909 via London and Paris, his artistic talent gained recognition, and with the help of some patrons, he began studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 1911, occasionally attending Althin's painting school in Stockholm. Financial circumstances cut his study time short, and his skill as a portrait painter earned him numerous portrait commissions, which further occupied his time. In 1921, Uhrdin received a scholarship from the Royal Academy, enabling him to embark on a study trip in 1922 to the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, which he had to cut short due to his wife's illness. He later visited places like Spain and Portugal. Uhrdin's breakthrough came with his portrait of the former Prime Minister Nils Edén, which he executed in 1919. In 1921, he portrayed the participants of the Swedish Academy. Among other representatives of official Sweden captured by Uhrdin were Gustav V, Manne Siegbahn, Ludvig Stavenow, and bishops Gottfrid and Einar Billing. In 1932, he held a solo exhibition at Konstnärshuset in Stockholm, and he participated in various exhibitions, including the Swedish Artists' Association in Stockholm in 1917, Swedish Art at Valand-Chalmers in Gothenburg in 1923, Dalarna Artists displayed at Liljevalchs Konsthall in 1936, and the National Museum's traveling exhibition "Barnet i konsten" (Children in Art...

Nathan Hoffman The Beach Estate stamped on the reverse Oil on artist's board 10 1/4 x 14 inches Provenance: Estate of the artist Born in Russia, the s...

After his academy Theo Meier moved to Germany where he came into contact with Max Liebermann and German expressionists from Die Brücke. Inspired by Paul Gauguin, he left for Tahiti at the age of 24. The influence of Paul Gauguin and the German Expressionists can be clearly seen in his works. After a year in Tahiti, he moved toBali where he found the culture and art that he had missed in Tahiti. He settled in Sanur and befriended the other artists who had settled in Bali, such as Rudolf Bonnet, Walter Spies, Antonio Blanco...

Mixed Media on Paper Never afraid of trying new styles, curious and opinionated, constantly engaged with the world around him, Rolph Scarlett more than once proved to be at the arti...

Frederick Serger Genre: Post Impressionist Subject: Flowers, Poppies Medium: Oil Surface: Panel Frederick Serger (given name Frederick Bedrick Sinaberger) was born in 1889 to a family of Jewish manufacturers in the village of Ivancice near Brno Moravia, a province of Czechoslovakia. Showing artistic talent at a young age, he attended art schools in Brno, Czech, Vienna, Austria and Munich, Germany. During World War I, Serger joined the Austrian Army and served in the Balkans. Once his service ended, he traveled to Paris where he resumed his art training and eagerly joined the Ecole de Paris (School of Paris) artists’ movement. During this period, he was greatly influenced by the Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Expressionist movements. While living in Paris, he met and married Helen Spitzer. Serger and his young wife moved from Paris to Scoczow, a city on the Polish-Czech border. They remained in Scoczow for 12 years and he continued to work as an artist, exhibiting in museums in Cracow and Warsaw, Poland. He also showed at the Paris Salon de Tuilleries and the Salon d’Automne. He was part of the generation of expat artists, mostly jewish known as the School of Paris. They created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group included artists Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. Many École de Paris artists lived in the iconic La Ruche, a complex of studio apartments and other facilities in Montparnasse on the Left Bank, at 2 Passage Dantzig, built by a successful sculptor, Alfred Boucher, who wanted to develop a creative hub where struggling artists could live, work and interact. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse. The core members were almost all Jews, included Emmanuel Mane-Katz, Abraham Mintchine...

Jordi Freixas Cortés (1917-1984) - Landscape - Oil on board Oil measures 23x36 cm. Frame measures 31x43 cm. Jordi Freixas Cortés (1917-1984) Jordi Freixas Cortés is a Catalan paint...

Gurevich Anatole Anatol Gurevitch Anatol Gurewitsch (1916-2005) Per the hebrew label on the back, this was exhibited in 1951. I believe at the Tel Aviv museum of art (as per the Israel Museum (Jerusalem) website)m in a manner reminescent of Bezalel Schatz, Moshe Castel, Jean david and other Israeli artists of the New Horizons prominent in that period ts a nude crouching figure against a colorful abstract background. Israeli Painter and stage designer. Yakir of Tel Aviv. Born in Russia, Moscow in the mid-teens of the twentieth century. Studied painting in Berlin. Immigrated to Palestine from Germany in 1934. Served in the British Army (1941-1946). Known for his pantings of Jewish rabbis and other Judaica subject matter. He specialized in stage design for dance troupes: the dance troupe led by Gertrude Kraus, Inbal, the Batsheva Dance Company, the international black dancer tali bati. His first wife was the late dancer and choreographer - the girl Kesten, His son is theater director Michael Gurevich. His second wife was the actress - Rivka Gur, who gave birth to his second son, Eyal. He died at the age of 89 after a serious illness. He left behind two sons: Michael (Miki) Gurevitch and Eyal Gurevitch. He was the uncle of the artist and sculptor - Igael Tumarkin. He was a stage designer in the theaters The brothel of Hunzo from Kibbutz Givat Haim, the British military band of this type, the British army, Gertrud Kraus, the Inbal Dance Theater, the Israeli Ballet, the Batsheva Dance Company and more. He designed a stage for plays The girl and the Negro, the Threepenny Opera, a band on the Thames, the singer of the land (in the military band of 1944), the banknote to Shlomo, the tea department, Nathan the Wise, Herod and Miriam. Awards Yakir Tel Aviv Prize, on behalf of the Tel Aviv Municipality. Anatol Gurewitsch, painter and Stage designer, born 1916, Moscow. After Second World War worked as stage designer. Designed costumes for dancer Gertrud Krausz. Uncle of Igael Tumarkin, and father of the theater Director Miki Gurewitsch. Education Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin, art 1936 with Frenel Frankel 1937 with Miron...

Antique American modernist interior scene oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Image size, 20L x 16H.

Deer Dance, painting by Tonita Pena, Santa Fe, Cochiti, Pueblo, male, female Tonita Peña (born 1893 in San Ildefonso, died 1949 in Kewa Pueblo, New Mexico) was born as Quah Ah (meaning white coral beads) but also used the name Tonita Vigil Peña and María Antonia Tonita Peña. Peña was a renowned Pueblo artist, specializing in pen and ink on paper embellished with watercolor. She was a well-known and influential Native American artist and art teacher of the early 1920s and 1930s. Tonita Peña was born on May 10, 1893, at San Ildefonso Pueblo, to Ascensión Vigil Peña and Natividad Peña of San Ildefonso Pueblo, New Mexico. When she was 12, her mother and younger sister died, as a result of complications due to the flu. Her father was unable to care for her and she was taken to Cochití Pueblo and was brought up by her aunt Martina Vigil Montoya, a prominent Cochití Pueblo potter. Peña attended St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe. Edgar Lee Hewett, an anthropologist involved in supervising the nearby Frijoles Canyon excavations (now Bandelier National Monument) was instrumental in developing the careers of several San Ildefonso “self-taught” artists including Tonita Peña. Hewett purchased Peña's paintings for the Museum of New Mexico and supplied her with quality paint and paper. Peña began gaining more notoriety by the end of the 1910s selling an increasing amount of her work to collectors and the La Fonda Hotel. Much of this early work was done of Pueblo cultural subject matter, in a style inspired by historic Native American works, however, her use of an artist's easel and Western painting mediums gained her acceptance among her European-American contemporaries in the art world. At the age of 25, she exhibited her work at museums and galleries in the Santa Fe and Albuquerque area. In the early 1920s, Tonita did not know how much her painting sold for at the Museum of New Mexico, so she wrote letters to the administrators because a local farmer was worried that she got paid too little. In the 1930s Peña was an instructor at the Santa Fe Indian School and at the Albuquerque Indian School and the only woman painter of the San Ildefonso Self-Taught Group, which included such noted artists as Alfonso Roybal, Julian Martinez, Abel Sánchez (Oqwa Pi), Crecencio Martinez, and Encarnación Peña. As children, these artists attended San Ildefonso day school which was part of the institution of the Dawes Act of 1887, designed to indoctrinate and assimilate Native American children into mainstream American society. In 1931, Tonita Peña exhibited at the Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts which was presented at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York City. Works from this exhibition were shown at the 1932 Venice Biennial. That year is the only time Native American artists have shown in the official United States pavilion at that biennial, and Tonita Peña's paintings were part of that exhibition.[1 Her painting Basket Dance, that had shown in the Venice Biennial was acquired by the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for $225. This was the highest price paid up to this time for a Pueblo painting...

Fiocchetto is an artwork realized by Elica Balla (Rome,1914 - 1993) Hand signed lower right. Hand signed and titled o rear. Good conditions!

Everett Spruce (1908 - 2002) Austin Artist Image Size: 18 x 15 Frame Size: 28 x 25 Medium: Oil on paper / Mixed Exhibited at a University of Texas Faculty art show in 1947 Unsigned Biography Everett Spruce (1908 - 2002) The following, submitted by a researcher of the Ashworth Collection of Native American and Western Art, is from the artist's obituary in the Fort Smith, Arkansas "Times Record" newspaper, October 20, 2002. Everett F. Spruce, well-known artist, teacher, professor emeritus, died Friday, Oct. 18, 2002, at age 94. Everett Spruce was born on a farm in Conway to William E. and Fannie McCarty Spruce. He came to Dallas, at age 17, on a scholarship to study at the Dallas Art Institute, under Olin Travis and Thomas M. Stell Jr. In 1931, he became gallery assistant at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts and in 1934 married Alice V. Kramer, a fellow art student. He was one of the "Dallas Nine" group of Southwest artists...

Gustl Stark (1917 Mainz - 2009 ibid.), Small Nude, 1946. Oil on canvas, marouflaged, 54 x 25 cm (picture), 30 x 60 cm (frame), signed "Stark" top left, verso twice signed "Gustav Stark", inscribed by hand as "Small Nude" and dated by hand "1946". With label of the exhibition of the Bundeshaus Bonn from 1956. - Rubbed area in the lower third of the body, at the same level a retouch in the ochre background. I provisional frame. - Abstract Figurativity - About the artwork During the war, Gustl Stark suffered a particularly severe blow for an artist: he lost his right arm. Nevertheless, he continued to devote himself to art, and the painting, created in 1946, immediately after the end of the Nazi reign of terror, testifies to the dawn of a new era. At the same time, the work is a rare example of the artist's early figurative work, as Stark turned entirely to abstract painting as early as 1950. And even this painting is by no means purely figurative; rather, it already illustrates Stark's turn toward abstraction. We see a female nude, but one that remains faceless. This can be read symbolically and in relation to the immediate past epoch, which, in the face of horrors, silences and blinds - literally renders faceless. In this sense, the figure is positioned to 'look back'. But she does not look. While this meaning may resonate and make the painting an important work of the immediate postwar period, Gustl Stark is primarily concerned with something else here, namely art itself. The absence of the face leads to the body becoming something flat. Due to the de-individualization, we do not see a concrete person with his individual features, but a body surface. And indeed, the body is constructed through an extremely planar design. Even the contour lines that form the corporeality have a planar rather than a linear character, especially where they merge into shadow zones of almost the same color. And the surfaces themselves are not modeled. The incarnate parts do not show any plastic gradations; the corporeality is completely withdrawn into the plane, which is also true for the hair. In addition, there is no uniform background against which the figure could appear; rather, the area next to the hair is kept bluish, creating a succession of earth-toned colored areas, which again binds the figure to the surface. Last but not least, the flatness is also forced by the painting technique. Gustl Stark paints directly, a la prima, onto the coarse canvas, whereby the structure of the painting support remains visible in the picture, and in places - around the hair, for example - the canvas itself can be seen. This structural all-over lends the picture a certain flatness. Gustl Stark thus uses the very motif that stands for the corporeality of art par excellence - the female nude - to transform the spatiality of the traditional picture into a flatness characteristic of modern art. And yet, a strong impression of corporeality is created, without being produced by a painterly modeling of the body. The oscillation between flatness and corporeality creates the intense tension of this groundbreaking painting. In Gustl Stark's oeuvre, as a consequence of the abstraction we see here, the figurative is completely stripped away in a further step, which is also a loss when looking at this early key work. About the artist Gustl Stark was the son of a woodcarver and, after an apprenticeship as a decorative painter, attended the State School of Arts and Crafts in Mainz from 1936 to 1937. Although he was severely wounded in the war and lost his right arm, he studied at the Würzburg School of Painting and Drawing from 1943-1944 and then at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg from 1944-1948. He won a state scholarship at the state art competition in Bad Ischl. Numerous study trips to Sylt, Paris, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Holland and Belgium followed. Gustl Stark worked in Mainz and was the first artist there to focus on abstract painting. His work quickly gained international recognition, including the Salon Réaliés Nouvelles in Paris. From 1963-1970 he taught at the State University Institute for Art and Work Education in Mainz and from 1970-1975 at the Johannes Gutenberg University. Gustl Stark became particularly famous for his color embossed prints, for which he invented his own technique. Gustl Stark received numerous awards for his work. He received the Art Prize for Painting of the City of Mainz in 1962, the State Prize of Rhineland-Palatinate in 1984, and the Gutenberg Bust of the City of Mainz in 1987. Selected Bibliography Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler des XX. Jahrhunderts, Vierter Band, Leipzig 1958, S. 344. Hans H...

Julia (Elsie Julia Miller) Schleicher (Canadian/American, 1916-1988) Woman Tennis Player Pastel and gouache on board 18 x 13-5/8 inches (45.7 x 34.6 cm) S...

Good wholesome mid-century Americana is on full display in the joyous illustration that depicts a red horsedrawn sled of merrymaking folks being rreated at an inn. Signed lower left ...

Beautiful Blue Eyed Boy Vintage Portrait California Impressionist Wonderful 1940s portrait of young boy on cusp of adulthood. His piercing blue eyes draw y...

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. ...

This tribute painting to Flemish art by an unknown artist portrays figures inside a mansion with a yellow and black checkerboard floor and a stained-glass window with brilliant color...

Saint-Germain-des-Prés. 1946. Oil on canvas, 73x92 cm

Outdoor View is an original painting in mixed media and oil realized in the 1940s by Caroline Hill (1935-1983). The artwork is hand-signed on the lower left. Good conditions. This...

Gorgeous horse portrait by Ada Ducker Kruse a Santa Cruz artist (American, 1900-1995), 1947-1948. Signed and dated lower right corner "Ada Ducker "1940". Presented in vintage giltwo...

Original oil on masonite painting of Fleet Week with sailors flirting with young women on the dock by the American artist, Sarah Pace Carothers Rhode. ...

Artist: Pál Fried (Hungarian, 1893-1976) Title: "Intermission (Ballerina)" *Signed by Fried lower left Circa: 1940 Medium: Original Oil Painting on Canvas Framing: Recently framed in a gold Louis XV style frame Framed size: 39" x 33" Canvas size: 30" x 24" Condition: In excellent condition Notes: Provenance: private collection - Port Orange, FL; acquired from Herbert Arnot Gallery, New York, NY in the early 1970's. Titled by Fried on verso. The artist's copyright stamp and various reference number on verso. Biography: Pál Fried was born in Budapest in 1893. He received his art education at the Académie hongroise des arts (Hungarian Academy of Arts) where he was a pupil of Hugo Pohl who became one of his major influences. While under Pohl's direction, he executed many portraits of female nudes and Orientalist works. Later he studied in Paris at the Académie Julian, where he was the pupil of Claude Monet and Lucien Simone. In Paris, he was greatly influenced by the French Impressionists, especially Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas. This inspired him to prepare many paintings of ballerinas...

Blue Lake in the Rockies and Hunter - Oil on Linen Cascades and snow capped mountains over look a blue lake with a successful hunter carrying his trophy deer by Vern Byers (American...

Expressionist style self portrait of the artist, Cornelis Ruhtenberg (1923-2008), oil on board painted in 1949. Signed by the artist on verso. Interior scene of the artist painted in...

Corn Kachina, by Riley Sunrise, Quoyavema, Hopi, Kachina, Dancer, painting Artist Signature - Riley Sunrise (1914-2006) Quoyavema “Another of the earlier Hopi artists, Riley Sunrise (Quoyavema) worked with Fred Kabotie and Waldo Mootzka in illustrating John Louw Nelson’s Rhythm for Rain. He is also known as Quoyavema or Kwayeshva, according to Nelson. His paintings are comparable to Fred Kabotie’s, with some of them showing more action and most of them revealing less detail. Sunrise is represented in the collections of the Denver Art Museum, Gilcrease Institute (Tulsa), and the Southwest Museum. The Museum of the American Indian in New York has an extensive collection of his paintings of native Hopi dances.” (Clara Lee Tanner: Southwest Indian...

Industrial Railroad WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Rural Modern Realism Large oil on canvas genre painting depicting laborers working on a railroad, with rural landscape in the...