American Realist Figurative Paintings

An original acrylic on panel by American female artist Catherine Koenig. This stunning work created in 1980 is part of the Draw Near exhibition on view at Benjaman Gallery

"The Great Man Comes to Take His Oath" Life Magazine Spread, July 4th, 1960, This epic narrative depicts the celebration of George Washington's inauguration, en route to Federal Hall...

An oil painting of a man resting on a bed. His arms reach to the left of the panel, and one leg bent, the other extending towards the end of the bed and the viewer. The edges of the ...

An amazing, magical realism painting by renowned artist, Herbert Laurence Davidson (1930-2018). This painting depicts a young boy’s innocent discovery on the beach of a sand sculptur...

This artwork "Horseman with Cattle" c.1990 is an oil painting on canvas by noted American artist John Stanford. It is signed at the lower right corner by...

Complex and detailed epic scale history painting of an African tribal celebration with an on-looking king. The work has an abundant amount o...

Bruce Adams often references historical painting themes and styles in order to throw into relief western tropes in figurative art. Here as part of the artist's series Myths and Lies,...

Original Painting. Colliers Magazine Cover Published 1933 Wedding Illustration Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) The Wedding Colliers published, June 17, 1933 17 1/4 X 11 1/2 inches (sight) Framed 23 1/4 X 17 1/2 inches Gouache on board Signed lower right BIOGRAPHY: Antonio Petruccelli (1907-1994) began his career as a textile designer. He became a freelance illustrator in 1932 after winning several House Beautiful cover illustration contests. In addition to 24 Fortune magazine covers, four New Yorker covers, several for House Beautiful, Collier’s, and other magazines he did numerous illustrations for Life magazine from the 1930s – 60s. ‘Tony was Mr. Versatility for Fortune. He could do anything, from charts and diagrams to maps, illustrations, covers, and caricatures,’ said Francis Brennan, the former art director for Fortune. Over the course of his career, Antonio won several important design awards, designing a U.S. Postage Stamp Commemorating the Steel Industry and designing the Bicentennial Medal...

Christopher Clark's (US based) "Aspen Autumn II" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts a forest of Aspen trees in Fall colors of orange and yellow. Bio/artist statement: Christopher has been an artist since early childhood, when he would watch Bob Ross...

Bruce Adams is best known as a conceptually based figurative painter who references various (often historical) painting styles. In exploring the act of painting, Adams peels back the...

An oil painting of a vintage flannel zip-up. A classic red tartan plaid jacket, on a wooden hanger, hanging from a single nail, against a grey backdrop...

An oil on linen painting of a bird on a branch, seen through Contemporary Realist painter Stephen Bauman's signature cerulean lens. The pigeon appears blue, with a pink belly, and a ...

Street Scene WPA American Scene Mid-20th Century Modern Coin Tower California SF Victor Arnautofff (1896 – 1979) City Street 12 x 14 inches Oil on board, c. 1930s Signed lower left BIO Born in the Ukraine of Russia, Victor Arnautoff became one of the most influential muralists in San Francisco in the 1930s and worked for the Federal Arts Project, WPA, in the expressive, social protest...

Among the many accolades I would grant Dean Cornwell, the one that rises to the top would be that he is one of America's greatest portrait painters. With a few strokes, he captures h...

Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel "Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed Riggs was a Gay Artist...

Plump, fleshy, or a voluptuous nude - you describe it as you see it. Signed, titled, and dated lower left: John Steuart Curry / 1934 "Hilda Nellis". The present work depicts a natur...

"Coral Cove Rock" is an oil painting by contemporary artist, Carl Bretzke. Coral Cove is located in Jupiter Florida, known for it's large rocks along the b...

"Buddha Statue, Ayutthaya" plein air oil painting at historic site in Thailand Framed Dimensions: 18 x 14 inches Marc Dalessio was born in 1972 in Los Angeles, California. Even in...

"Study for Long Beach" WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Modernism Ashcan Daniel Ralph Celantano (1902-1980) "Study for Long Beach" 8 x 10 inches Oil on artist bo...

Ken Valastro's "In The Neighborhood" is an original, handmade oil painting.

Carl Frederick Gaertner (American, 1898-1952) Flower Garden, Cape Cod, c. 1940s Gouache on illustration board 17.5 x 29 inches 27 x 39 inches, as framed Carl Gaertner was one of the greatest painters to emerge from the Cleveland School...

A walk through any major museum will reveal paintings that depict or legitimate only certain kinds of experience. Despite the good intentions of critical theorists questioning the va...

This artwork "Seascape" c. 1990 is an oil painting on canvas by noted artist June Nelson, 20th Century. It is signed at the lower right corner by the artis...

"Two Sisters" is a contemporary realist painting of two young women sitting at a bar. One sister looks a bit reserved, her hair down, clasping her hands in...

An oil painting of a tropical landscape. Crystal teal-blue water is surrounded by verdant bushes and palm trees, which cast dappled shadows onto the sand. A few figures splash around...

Sidney Goodman (1936-2013) The Tryout Oil on Canvas Hand signed lower right Dated 1965 Provenance: bears labels verso from Terry Dintenfass Gallery (partial label) George Krevsky Ga...

Industrial Mural Study, Veterans Memorial Building, Santa Barbara WPA American Joseph Edward Knowles (1907-1980) "Study for Industry Mural, Veterans Memorial Building, Santa Barbara, CA" 19 1/2 x 50 1/2 inches Oil on board, c. 1930s. Estate stamp verso Framed: 27 x 60 inches The completed mural is currently hanging on the wall, part of the building actually, at the Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Barbara. A photo of the work insitu is included in the attached photos. BIO Joseph Edward Knowles was born in Kendall, Montana, on June 15, 1907. He grew up in San Diego, California. At age twenty, two years before the beginning of the Great Depression, he moved north to another town on the coast of California---Santa Barbara. There he began studying fine art at the Santa Barbara School of the Arts* (1927-1930), under the supervision of Frank Morley Fletcher, previously director of the Edinburgh College of Art. Fletcher, who was trained in portraiture, landscape painting, and woodblock* printing, was a great influence on young Knowles. It was there that Knowles learned the art of color woodblock printmaking, a medium in which he showed great skill. Not long after completing his studies with Fletcher, Knowles began teaching art. For a period of thirty years, from 1930 to1960, he taught at the Cate School in Carpinteria, California. In 1934-1935, Knowles traveled throughout Europe, further developing his artistic skills in England, France, and Italy. Upon his return, he continued to teach art at various schools and institutions: Cate School, Crane Country School, extension classes at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), and at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA). Knowles also served as an art education consultant for the County of Santa Barbara. In addition, he was founding co-director and president of the Santa Barbara Fine Arts Institute (1969-1972), which later developed a specialization in photography and became the Brooks Institute of Photography. Knowles died at his home in Santa Barbara on September 8, 1980. Much of Knowles' watercolor work is associated with what has been termed the "California School*," a loose grouping of artists throughout the state that included such figures as Millard Sheets, Phil Dike, Dong Kingman, George Post, and the Santa Barbara painters Dan Lutz and Standish Backus, Jr. The California School artists, including Knowles, were known for their fresh, direct, spontaneous style of watercolor painting. Knowles and other members of the school found inspiration in nature and the built environment alike, emphasizing elements of design in their exuberant, boldly stated, colorful scenes from everyday life. While painting in a representational* manner, Knowles generally avoided photographic realism, preferring subjective interpretation of his subjects. In this, as well as in his experimental approach and vigorous brushwork, he displayed a strongly modern sensibility. Knowles often used the wet-on-wet watercolor technique as he painted seascapes and landscapes, mostly along the California coast. He also employed dry-brush* techniques in many of his paintings, often leaving some of the white of the watercolor paper exposed. Some of the latter depict trees and other forms in a broken and airy manner that recalls Cezanne. Knowles' colored woodblock prints are more reserved and exact in their draftsmanship than his paintings. Spare, clean, lyrical lines are drawn to illustrate floral motifs and boat scenes with a touch of asymmetry conjuring Japanese woodblock prints. His murals from the post-World War II period are considerably more modern in their approach and show an emphasis on design and color. PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS California Watercolor Society (1940 - 1955) Santa Barbara Art Association (Vice President - 1952) ONE-MAN EXHIBITIONS Golden Gate International Exposition (GGIE) - San Francisco, California San Diego Fine Arts Gallery (SDMA) - San Diego, California Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) - Santa Barbara, California Cowie Galleries - Los Angeles, California Gallery de Silva - Santa Barbara, California Bradley Galleries - Santa Barbara, California MURALS Westmont College - Ellen Porter Hall Mural - Santa Barbara, California Safeway Grocery (now Vons Grocery on West Victoria Street) - Exterior Tile Mosaic - Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara Bank & Trust - Interior Mosaic Panels, Santa Barbara, California Santa Barbara Girls Club - Interior Mosaic Mural - Santa Barbara, California Ernest Righetti High School - Mosaic Mural - Santa Maria, California Shell Oil Company - Mosaic Panel - California Beckman Instruments, Corporate Headquarters - Mosaic - Fullerton, California STAINED GLASS WINDOWS, WALLS and PANELS Katherine Thayer Cate Memorial Chapel - Cate School, Carpinteria, California William S. Porter Memorial Chapel - Cottage Hospital, Santa Barbara, California La Rinconada Building - Santa Barbara, California ILLUSTRATIONS "California's Wonderful Corner: True Stories for Children from the History of the Santa Barbara Region," by Walter A. Tompkins (1962 & 1975) China Designs: Two sets of dinnerware for Winfield China...

A contemporary female nude hovering a hairs breath over a lily pond, blue butterflies swirling around her, possibly lifting her into the twilight sky with them. Her arms are extende...

Saturday Evening Post interior illustration Signed lower right

Three Young Men California WPA Figurative Modern Art Gay American Scene 1930s An artist on the WPA mural project, Deutsch was born in Lithuania and died in Los Angeles. Works of Boris Deutsch are housed in Carnegie Institute, National Museum of American Art, Los-Angeles County Museum of Art, Scribal Museum, Pomona College...

In the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the first decade of the twentieth, New York City art aficionados could count on finding recent work of Seymour Joseph Guy hanging on the walls of the city’s major galleries. Primarily a genre artist, but also a portraitist, between 1859 and 1908 Guy showed more than seventy works at the National Academy of Design. From 1871 to 1903 he contributed over seventy times to exhibitions at the Century Club. From 1864 to 1887, he sent about forty pictures to the Brooklyn Art Association. A good number of these works were already privately owned; they served as advertisements for other pictures that were available for sale. Some pictures were shown multiple times in the same or different venues. Guy was as easy to find as his canvases were omnipresent. Though he lived at first in Brooklyn with his family and then in New Jersey, from 1863 to his death in 1910 he maintained a studio at the Artist’s Studio Building at 55 West 10th Street, a location that was, for much of that period, the center of the New York City art world. Guy’s path to a successful career as an artist was by no means smooth or even likely. Born in Greenwich, England, he was orphaned at the age of nine. His early interest in art was discouraged by his legal guardian, who wanted a more settled trade for the young man. Only after the guardian also died was Guy free to pursue his intention of becoming an artist. The details of Guy’s early training in art are unclear. His first teacher is believed to have been Thomas Buttersworth...

Margaretha E. Albers The Ordell, Brooklyn Bridge Signed LR Oil on artist board 12 x 16 inches Provenance Kennedy Galleries, New York Private Collection, New York St. Lifer Art, New...

American Painter of flowers and garden scenes. Many of her works are in public collections. “It’s interesting where you go in a 45-year art career. I look back now and see that I ...

"Artichokes" is a contemporary realist oil painting still life, with its green and purple hues dominating the neutral surroundings. A rustic wooden bowl holds two whole artichokes, a...

Scott Duce Biography American, b. 1956 Scott Duce is an international artist working in New York. Duce’s work is included in many corporate, museum, and private collections. Notable...

Charming, delicious still life with ripe fruits of strawberries. I just want to reach out and take a red fragrant berry. I specially applied the technique of painting, putting a deli...

Anthony Ackrill paints directly onto found objects, seamlessly blending painting and sculpture. In "Relapse" Ackrill depicts a swan in water, humorously smoking a cigarette. Green li...

Scott Duce Biography American, b. 1956 Scott Duce is an international artist working in New York. Duce’s work is included in many corporate, museum, and private collections. Notable...

"Secret Beach" is an oil painting of a path towards the beach, and a lighthouse in the distance. Dunes make up the foreground, and a sandy path leads us to a body of water. Small painting with a vertical orientation. Signed "MKW" in upper right corner. Painting dimensions: 12 x 8 inches Framed dimensions: 14 x 10 inches Matthew Weigle...

Meticulously rendered account of three prospectors trying to rustle up some water before they can dig up some gold. Magazine Illustration of the Old West, American West, Cowboys Casein on board, Western / Frontier Art...

Miriam Story Hurford was a prolific and major American female illustrator in the 1930s to the 1950s. Her work was for cover art for women's magazines and home magazines and religious magazines. This work depicts t the wise men being guided by the star of Bethleham to the birth of the Christ child for a Christmas magazine...

An oil painting of a rural property on a sunny day in the United States. A man wears a cowboy hat, a denim shirt, bandana over his face, and boots, while holding a shotgun. He's walking with determination to the left of the scene, with a medium sized black dog following him in tow. The bed of a pickup truck catches light in the distance, parked beside the residential structure. A farmhouse with a metal roof, and a wide-hooded porch, stands tall, offering shade and comfort, especially with cushioned armchairs to sit on out-front. A few electrical poles reach up towards the sky, confirming the contemporary time frame. In the foreground, a garden is fenced in with wire and wood. A statuette of the Virgin Mary is placed within this fenced garden, absorbing sunlight alongside the plants. An apt depiction of contemporary Americana...

"Riggs openly identified as gay to his friends in the Philadelphia art community, but did not disclose his orientation to his employers." - Woodmere Art Museum Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel "Robert Riggs was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence by the New York Art Directors Club for ten consecutive years and received many additional awards." He was elected to the Society of Illustrators' Hall of Fame. His work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts and the U.S. Library of Congress. Riggs's compositons are "monumental" Walt Reed Riggs was a Gay Artist...

As they take center stage, four acrobats are depicted, forming an architectural structure composed of contorted human bodies. The small gallery of onlookers displays a variety of ex...

A walk through any major museum will reveal paintings that depict or legitimate only certain kinds of experience. Despite the good intentions of critical theorists questioning the va...

Frida Gugler Building the Westside Highway (Near the George Washington Bridge), circa 1935-37 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 20 x 28 inches Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the pain...

Pruett Carter captures the quintessential look of the 1950's in this loosely rendered but charming work for Redbook. Bright, punchy colors define each object and are arranged in a simplified but complex composition of intersecting and overlapping planes of color. The double portrait of the girl expresses a peak moment of introspection. She ponders her situation while preparing to get dressed for her special occasion. The whole scene is imbued with suspense about her future. Carter is a great academic painter. With just a few light touches of the brush, he quickly defines the form of the subject and achieves the X factor of the work. The profile and frontal view of the girl clearly are the same person. He nails her look. This is hard to do. Do not underestimate it. Sadly, there is a reason why there are very few contemporary artists can actually paint and draw without tracing photographs or resort to naive painting. It's hard to do. It's hard to be a painter. You can not fake...

Christopher Clark's (US based) "Misty City" is an original, handmade oil painting that depicts orange and green hued clouds arching over a water and city lights Bio/artist statement: Christopher has been an artist since early childhood, when he would watch Bob Ross on PBS and mimic the famed oil painter’s art with crayons. He considers himself a self-educated artist, with his studies ranging from personal training with contemporary masters, to classical academic art technique, with much inspiration from 19th Century art and the Impressionist Movement. Christopher lived in Italy for a time, immersing himself in Italian culture and art, which continues to influence his painting. His fan base has grown considerably since his return to the US, gaining the attention of Lucasfilm and Marvel Fine Art, which both signed him as an officially licensed artist in 2016. Other clients include George Lucas, Major League Baseball, Louisville Slugger...

This painting by Jenness Cortez is an homage to artist Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and several of his paintings, including: “A Bar at the Folies Bergère,”...

Meticulously rendered account of three prospectors trying to rustle up some water before they can dig up some gold. Magazine Illustration of the Old West, American West, Cowboys Casein on board, Western / Frontier Art...

The sacrificial ceremony, Freemans The Collection of Philip Desind Signed Three times Riggs l.r. A powerful account of moments a tribe member is cut open and the heart is handed over to a young brave, There is a reason why there are few contemporary painters who can paint a portrait this good. It's hard to do. It's easy to throw some paint or spray a mess of graffiti on canvas. That's easy. To execute a portrait with a great depth of anatomy and structure takes years of academic training. In Riggs's time there were teachers who knew how to pass on this knowledge. He studied at the Art Students League and the Académie Julian . Today, they are very few and far between. - Robert Riggs was a Gay Artist...

Bright flowers, juicy fruits and of course the helpers of our garden: hardworking bees. They also love the juice of ripe pears. Being behind a canvas woven from my thoughts and emoti...

This modern still life diptych by Gio Bellagio is inspired by ancient Greek ceramic vessels. The pots are adorned with minimalist patterns reminiscent of Greek geometry, emphasising...

This modern still life diptych by Gio Bellagio is inspired by ancient Greek ceramic vessels. The pots are adorned with minimalist patterns reminiscent of Greek geometry, emphasising...

Kevin Frank statement: For me, combining the techniques of the ancient Greco-Roman painters with those of the old and new masters help to create unique modern images. As with all enc...

Excellent Mid-century nude by famous illustrator/ artist Walter Charles Klett. The work is masterfully painted with a sound understanding of the basic academic principles guiding t...