Mid-20th Century Figurative Paintings

Cityscape Mid-20th Century Modern Social Realism American Scene Regionalism WPA Samuel Thal (1903 to 1964) "Cityscene" 12 x 16 inches Oil on board, c. 1940s Signed verso Framed: 19...

Artist/ School: by Henri Van Der Beck (French 1886-1956), signed and stamped verso Medium: oil on canvas, unframed Painting: 13 x 16 inches Provenance: private collection, France ...

Portrait of a Man by Roger Allain (French 1920-1992) signed and dated 1941 (a very rare period due to WW2) oil on canvas canvas: 22 x 18 inches provenance...

Jane Peterson Cattleya Orchids, circa 1940s Signed lower right Oil on canvas 32 x 32 inches Provenance Estate of the artist Artist’s estate sale, Ipswich, Massachusetts, 1960s Priva...

Young Blonde Girl is an original painting realized by Lucie Navier in the 1930s. Original oil painting on cardboard. Hand-signed by the artist on the lo...

THE EXPECTANT NUDE Size: 55.5 x 70.5cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A brilliantly executed and emotive mid-century modernist figurative portrait of a reclining pregnant nude...

The Wrestlers by Clyde Singer is an excellent Mid-Century painting of a popular Aschan subject. The artist George Bellows (1882-1925) was a precursor of Singer's who often depicted ...

Oil on canvas by Jallais, France, 1960s. Boats in port. In its pretty dark brown wooden frame. With frame: 68x58 cm - 26.8x22.8 inches, without frame: 61x50 cm - 24x19.7 inches. 12F ...

100 NYC cocktail party oversized oil on canvas signed on verso

Striking vintage portrait of "Lady in Red". In high quality carved and gilt frame. Oil on canvas. Circa 1950. Unsigned. # Hollywood regency mid century modern portrait lady women...

Beautiful nude female portrait boudoir scene by Cynthia Kleinmeyer. Watercolor on paper measures 8 x 12 inches. Framed measurement: 12 x 16 inches. Signed and dated 1932 by artist...

Verbrugghe Charles Bruges 1877 – 1974 Paris Belgian Painter 'A View of Damme' Signature: Signed bottom right, on reverse placed "Damme" Medium: Oil on panel Dimensions: Image size 3...

Meet the genuinely exciting modernist William Einstein, who is probably better known in Europe, where numerous publications on his work have been written, than in his native US! Eins...

Uprising - a huge and incredibly powerful and topical painting by Jamaican master painter Barrington Watson (1931-2016). It depicts the 1865 Moran...

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...

"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...

EDOUARD LÉON CORTÈS French, 1882 - 1969 PARIS EVENING signed "EDOUARD CORTÈS" (lower right) oil on canvas 25-3/4 x 36-1/4 inches (65 x 91.5 cm.) unframed This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity issued by "Comité Édouard CORTÈS" PROVENANCE Private Collection, France Edouard Léon Cortès (1882–1969) was a French post-impressionist artist of French and Spanish ancestry. He is known as "Le Poète Parisien de la Peinture" or "the Parisian Poet of Painting...

Alex Minewski, 'Dockside', gouache on paper, 1953. Signed in the image, lower left. Annotated 'April 1953, Minewski, ‘Dock Side’, verso. A fine, modernist re...

Substantial California oil painting of a Navajo horseman in the New Mexico mountains. Stylistically similar to Constantine Cherkas Navajo Rider painti...

Jewish Chassidic Klezmer Shtetl Musicians

River Landscape English School, mid 19th century circle of Joseph Paul (b.1804) oil on canvas, framed Framed: 14 x 17.5 inches Canvas: 10 x 14.5 inches Provenance: private collection...

Countryside Barn at Dusk - Oil Pastel On Paper Oil pastel drawing depicting a small wooden barn atop a country hillside by Oakland, California artist Grace Anna Pfister (American, 1...

Bold composition of two people on a porch by Majel McHugh Logan (American, 1916-1982). Two people sit facing each other on a porch, backlit by warm sun. The piece is sketchy but confident, with thick brushstrokes adding high contrast shadows and highlights. Although the subjects' faces are undefined, there is nonetheless an expressive quality in their body language. Signed "Majel Logan" in the lower right corner.\ Artist's tag on verso with title. Presented in a wood frame with a gold accent. Frame size: 14.75"H x 16.75"W Canvas size: 14"H x 16"W Majel Logan (nee McHugh) (American, 1916-1982) was born in Utah. After graduation from St. Mary of the Wasatch College in Utah, she studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. She continued to study at Idaho State University before eventually settling in Santa Clara, CA. Although she was a professional artist at the time, she nonetheless continued her studies at San Jose State University in the 1970s. By the mid-70s, she had won 43 awards in state, regional, and local competitions, including Fiesta des Artes (Los Gatos...

Clara Deike (American, 1881-1964) My Studio Stove, 1936 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right, titled verso 23.5 x 19.5 inches 29.75 x 25.5 inches, f...

Portrait of a Lady by Maurice Delavier (French 1902-1986) stamped verso with the artists studio mark oil on board, unframed board: 7.75 x 9.5 inches provenance: private collection, F...

'Young Man in a Yellow Brocade Waistcoat' by David Monies, 1849. Paris, Munich, Danish Royal Academy ----- Monogrammed lower right, 'DM' for David Monies (Danish, 1812-1894) and dat...

Frank Kleinholz (Brooklyn, 1901 - 1987) Original oil on panel painting titled "Fire Escape", a preliminary study for a mural commissioned for Marquette University. The composition de...

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

Mid 20th Century oil on canvas view of a street in Grenada, Spain by J Georges. The painting is signed and titled bottom right. Presented in a deep patinated and gilt wood frame. A ...

Original oil painting of a busy Paris street with figures and cars under blue skies. Signed by the artist lower left and dated 1954. Condition is very good, no issues or restorations...

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

Sketch n. 13 is an original modern artwork realized by Giovanni Brancaccio in 1948. Mixed colored oil on canvas. Hand signed and dated on the lower margin. Good conditions.

WPA Mural Study American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern Workers Seymour Fogel (1911-1984) Mural Study, untitled 11 x 49 1/4 inches (sight) Tempera on board Provenance:...

Pastel on silk by Elizabeth O'Neill Verner. Verner (December 21, 1883 – April 17, 1979) was an artist, author, lecturer, and preservationist who was one of the leaders of the Charle...

Olle Hjortzberg (1872-1959) Sweden Portrait of a Young Boy in Red oil on board signed with monogram OH  unframed 41 x 31.5 cm (16 1/8 x 12 3/8 in) framed 51 x 41.5 cm (20 1/8 x 16 ...

This exceptional oil on canvas by master Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein is an exceptional and unique example of his early pre-pop work. It is signed by the artist, upper right. After m...

"Young Westminster" by Kathleen Emily Temple-Bird (British 1879 - 1962) signed and dated 1931 oil painting on canvas, framed framed: 33 x 24 canvas: 29 x 20 inches condition: very go...

Bruce Kurland – Still Life with Decoy and Shells Oil on board, framed in antique gold leaf A master of intimacy and restraint, Bruce Kurland’s Still Life with Decoy and Shells is a ...

Title: Mid-Century French Watercolour Beach Scene With Green Umbrella and Seated Figure by Anne Marie Migette Perard (French 1902-1977) Medium: Watercolor on unframed paper Size: 13....

Artist: Ian Hornak (1944-2002) Title: Untitled (Abstract Male Reclining Nude) Year: 1963 Medium: Watercolor on heavy archival paper Size: 29.5 x 21 inches Condition: Good Provenance:...

Beautiful painting of a ballet dancer. Oil on masonite panel, measuring 9 x 12 inches. Titled and dated 2/54 on verso. Signed "Degas" lower right.

Vira McIlrath Scheibner First Baptist Church of St. Augustine, 1943 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 38 1/2 x 27 1/2 inches Provenance Private Collection, Massachusetts Est...

Impressive American modernist winter landscape. Detailed and well painted skating scene. Oil on canvas. Nicely framed.

Exquisitely precocious portrait of a little flower girl or "Petite Fille de Journal", paper girl in Paris by Roger Etienne (French, 1923-2011). Signed and dated lower left, "Etienne ...

Cagnes sur Mer by Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) signed and inscribed verso dated 1960 oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 18 x 13 inches Colors: Grey colors, green, beige, ...

Maud Tausey Fangel - Baby Painter. In profile, we see a charming, young, ruddy-cheeked, blond girl with pig tales in a bright red-orange dress. She is reading Snow White as a sma...

Wonderful mid century Bay Area figurative painting of a reclining nude by Berkeley artist Marjorie Cathcart (American, 1918 - 2014), circa 1964. The woman reclines on a bright red drape, stretching diagonally across the horizontal canvas...

Beautiful portrait of older woman, possibly a Nonna (Grandmother) with Gardenia by Raul (or Raoul) Viviani (Italian, 1883 - 1965), circa 1950. Lovely tex...

"6th Avenue El" American Scene Social Realism Mid-20th Century New York City Ernest Fiene (1894-1965) "6th Avenue El" 12 1/4 x 14 1/4 Oil on canvas board, c. 1940s Signed lower righ...

Original post impressionist oil on canvas painting of the landmark Cafe Weber in Paris by C.H. Duval. Circa 1950. Signed by the artist lower left. Condition is excellent. Titled and signed again verso on top left wood stretcher. The painting is housed in its original gold over wood frame in fine condition. Overall framed measurements are 20.75 by 24.75 inches. Cafe Weber was located on Rue Royale near Le Madeleine and adjacent to the outdoor flower...

Lausanne signed by Regine David (female French artist, 1910-2018) oil painting on canvas, unframed measures: 18 x 13 inches condition: the painting is in very sound and presentable c...

Edouard Dumoulin (1898 - 1973) Creole woman 1938 Oil on canvas 89 x 74 cm (97 x 85 cm with frame) 35.04 x 29.13 in (38.19 x 33.46 in with frame) Signed and dated top right Online ca...

The Fruit & Vegetable Market French School, circa 1950's signed and inscribed to the lower corner oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 13 x 18 inches provenance: private collection, Fran...

The Bank Manager by Stuart Scott Somerville (1908-1983) signed oil on canvas, framed Framed: 56 x 47 inches Canvas: 50 x 40 inches Provenance: private collection, UK Condition: very ...

Title: Mid Century French Bust Portrait Artist: Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) Medium: Pencil/ charcoal on artists paper Size: 19 (height) x 12.5 (width) Stamped: Verso Condit...

Beautiful oil painting of nude study titled "The Red Table Cloth" by Bay Area, California artist Shirley Loyst (American, b-1928), circa 1960. Exhibition...

Hudson River School Style - The Homestead and Grist Mill 1942 In the Hudson River School style by A (K) Mathieu (American, 19th-20th C). Harvest time at the Homestead with a hay wago...

Lucien Delarue (1925-2011) Paris Seine River Scene. "Seine at Paris" Provenance: Newman Gallery, Phila. Label verso. Hand signed on Canvas. Dimensions: H: 25 inches: W: 31.5 inches: Frame: 35 X 41 inches Artist Lucien Delarue was born in Paris in 1925, and he is known for his spectacular cityscape painting. Post Impressionist painter He studied at the studios of Grande Chaumiere, Paris and was a pupil of Maitre Yves Brayer. He is best know as a French Impressionist. He loved to paint the romantic streets of Paris with its stunning architecture and beauty. Also included in his repertoire is colorful French floral still life paintings, South of France country cottages, harbor views, and river scenes. At a very early age Delarue began taking part in exhibitions. Quickly he was talking medals for his works including first prize and the Vermeil-Medaille at the Salon Violet. Other gold medals include the Salon of Vincennes, and the Salon of Clichy (1973). In 1974 he won the silver medal at the Salon des Artistes Francais, and a bronze medal at the "Arts-Sciences-Lettres" exhibition in Paris. He also exhibited works at the Museum of Ile de France in the chateau of Sceaux. He held exhibitions in New York and in San Francisco in the United States. He was a member of the Salon des Artistes Francais and of the French Watercolor Society.Lucien Delarue excelled in recreating the cottages, harbor views, and expressionist architecture of Paris in his artwork. His watercolor paintings include color-rich representations of France's many scenic rivers. Delarue would eventually become a member of the French Watercolor Society and the Salon des Artistes Francais. He showed with Henk Bos...

NYC Subway Mid 20th Century Modern American Scene Social Realism Contemporary David Atkins (1910 – 2012) Subway Train Departure 24 x 30 inches Oil on can...

Drawing of a Woman at Work Josine Vignon (French 1922-2022) ...