Expressionist Figurative Paintings

In the mid-1960s Joseph Solman (American, 1909 - 2008) was commissioned to create portraits of the Begg family. This is a portrait of Marian Begg, the mother in the mid-century nuclear family...

Artist: Carlos Irizarry Title: Child with Doll and Buggy Year: circa 1965 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Size: 30 in. x 24 in. (76.2 cm x 60.96 cm)...

Artist: Unknown Title: Sailing Ships Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed "Thoms", lower left Size: 24 x 20 inches

Artist: Juan Garcia Ripolles, Spanish (1932 - ) Title: The Artist III Year: 1970 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Size: 19.5 in. x 24 in. (49.53 cm x 60.96 cm) Frame Size: 22 x 27 ...

Artist: Juan Garcia Ripolles, Spanish (1932 - ) Title: Woman with Flowers III Year: 1970 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Size: 18 in. x 10.5 in. (45.72 cm x 26.67 cm)

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...

In the mid-1960s Joseph Solman (American, 1909 - 2008) was commissioned to create portraits of the Begg family. This is a portrait of John Begg Jr., the son of the mid-century nuclear family...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...

Original oil on canvas painting. Hand signed on front; signed and titled on verso by the artist. Canvas is stretched. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of authenticity ...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1971 by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wonderful representation of his landscape paintings, with expressive use of color, shape, and form. Later in his career, Baxte explores Expressionism, infusing both European and North American stylistic trends. This piece is from later in his career, but we can feel this underlying style throughout. Art measures 18 x 21.75 inches Michael Posner Baxte was born in 1890 in the small town of Staroselje Belarus, Russia. For the first half of the 19th century it was a center of the Chabad movement of Hasidic Jews, but this group was gone by the middle of the 19th century. By the time the Baxte family immigrated to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish population numbered only on the hundreds. The native language of the Baxte family was Yiddish. It is likely that the death of Michael Baxte’s father triggered the family’s immigration. Three older brothers arrived in New York between 1903 and 1905. Michael and his mother, Rebecca, arrived in 1907. By 1910 Michael, his mother, and brother, Joseph, were living in New Orleans and may have spent some time on a Louisiana plantation. Around 1912, Michael Baxte returned to Europe to study the violin. In 1914 he, his mother, and Joseph moved to New York City. Meanwhile, in Algeria, a talented young woman painter, Violette Mege, was making history. Since for the first time, a woman won the prestigious Beaux Art competition in Algeria. At first, the awards committee denied her the prize but, with French government intervention, Mege eventually prevailed. She won again 3 years later and, in 1916, used the scholarship to visit the United States of America. When Violette came to New York, she met Baxte, who was, by then, an accomplished violinist, teacher, and composer. Baxte’s compositions were performed at the Tokyo Imperial Theater, and in 1922 he was listed in the American Jewish Yearbook as one of the prominent members of the American Jewish community. As a music teacher he encouraged individual expression. Baxte stated, “No pupil should ever be forced into imitation of the teacher. Art is a personal experience, and the teacher’s truest aim must be to awaken this light of personality through the patient light of science.” By 1920 Michael Baxte and Violette Mege were living together in Manhattan. Although they claimed to be living as husband and wife, it seems that their marriage did not become official until 1928. On their “unofficial” honeymoon around 1917, in Algiers, Baxte confided to her his ambition to paint. There and later in New Mexico where the wonderful steeped sunlight approximates the coloring of Algiers, she taught him his heart’s desire. He never had any other teacher. She never had any other pupil. For ten years she devoted all her time, energy, and ambition to teaching, encouraging, inspiring him. Then in 1928, their mutual strivings were rewarded, as his works were being chosen as one of the two winners in the Dudensing National Competition for American Painters. Out of 150 artists from across the country participated in the Dudensing, and Michael Posner Baxte and, Robert Fawcett, were the winners. In his 1924 naturalization application, he indicated that he was sometimes known as “Michael Posner Baxte.” One of the witnesses to his application was Bernard Karfiol, a Jewish American artist. That’s when Michael may...

Lithograph printed on tan wove newsprint-type paper. Signed in pencil and in the stone. 15 3/4 x 12 3/4". Sheet Size: Image Size 8 1/4 x 6 3/4". Rudolf Bauer (1889-1953) e...

An original mid century portrait of an artist and his muse or model inside his studio. This work is signed "Simon" although a definitive artist has not been determined.

"Parade" Oil, graphite on linen canvas, canvas 46x39 with frame 63x55. Jurgen Gorg was born in 1951 in​ Dernbach Germany. His formative years were spent in Koblentz, before moving ...

Original oil on canvas painting. Hand signed on front; signed and titled on verso by the artist. Canvas size 24 x 36 in. Framed. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of a...

In the mid-1960s Joseph Solman (American, 1909 - 2008) was commissioned to create portraits of the Begg family. This is a portrait of John Begg Sr., the patriarch of the mid-century ...

Substantial small painting of a Swiss Mountain village by Otto Hamel (German, 1866-1950). Signed "Otto Hamel" lower right. Presented in a giltwood frame. Image, 9.5"H x 13"L. A German Expressionist, Otto Hamel studied at the Royal Art School in Erfurt under Eduard von Hagen...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1963 by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wonderful representation of his figures in water landscapes with expressive use of color, shape, and form. Later in his career, Baxte explores Expressionism, infusing both European and North American stylistic trends. This piece is from later in his career, but we can feel this underlying style throughout. Art measures 18 x 21.75 inches Michael Posner Baxte was born in 1890 in the small town of Staroselje Belarus, Russia. For the first half of the 19th century it was a center of the Chabad movement of Hasidic Jews, but this group was gone by the middle of the 19th century. By the time the Baxte family immigrated to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish population numbered only on the hundreds. The native language of the Baxte family was Yiddish. It is likely that the death of Michael Baxte’s father triggered the family’s immigration. Three older brothers arrived in New York between 1903 and 1905. Michael and his mother, Rebecca, arrived in 1907. By 1910 Michael, his mother, and brother, Joseph, were living in New Orleans and may have spent some time on a Louisiana plantation. Around 1912, Michael Baxte returned to Europe to study the violin. In 1914 he, his mother, and Joseph moved to New York City. Meanwhile, in Algeria, a talented young woman painter, Violette Mege, was making history. Since for the first time, a woman won the prestigious Beaux Art competition in Algeria. At first, the awards committee denied her the prize but, with French government intervention, Mege eventually prevailed. She won again 3 years later and, in 1916, used the scholarship to visit the United States of America. When Violette came to New York, she met Baxte, who was, by then, an accomplished violinist, teacher, and composer. Baxte’s compositions were performed at the Tokyo Imperial Theater, and in 1922 he was listed in the American Jewish Yearbook as one of the prominent members of the American Jewish community. As a music teacher he encouraged individual expression. Baxte stated, “No pupil should ever be forced into imitation of the teacher. Art is a personal experience, and the teacher’s truest aim must be to awaken this light of personality through the patient light of science.” By 1920 Michael Baxte and Violette Mege were living together in Manhattan. Although they claimed to be living as husband and wife, it seems that their marriage did not become official until 1928. On their “unofficial” honeymoon around 1917, in Algiers, Baxte confided to her his ambition to paint. There and later in New Mexico where the wonderful steeped sunlight approximates the coloring of Algiers, she taught him his heart’s desire. He never had any other teacher. She never had any other pupil. For ten years she devoted all her time, energy, and ambition to teaching, encouraging, inspiring him. Then in 1928, their mutual strivings were rewarded, as his works were being chosen as one of the two winners in the Dudensing National Competition for American Painters. Out of 150 artists from across the country participated in the Dudensing, and Michael Posner Baxte and, Robert Fawcett, were the winners. In his 1924 naturalization application, he indicated that he was sometimes known as “Michael Posner Baxte.” One of the witnesses to his application was Bernard Karfiol, a Jewish American artist. That’s when Michael may...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...

Bold and expressive oil portrait of a modernist nude figure in blue seated in profile with bright yellow flowers by Allie William “Bill” Skelton (American, 1942-1986). Signed and dated "Allie Bill Skelton '72" by the artist in the lower right corner. Unframed. Image size: 48.75"H x 32.75"W. Allie William “Bill” Skelton (American, 1942-1986) was a painter and sculptor active in San Francisco who was involved in the gay art...

"The Saint of the Flaming City" is an original oil painting on canvas by Raymond Breinin. It depicts a group of figures looking over an abstracted and green city as the colors of fire rage through the sky. The artist signed and dated the piece in the lower right. This painting was lent by the David Barnett Gallery to the Art Institute of Chicago for their 52nd Annual Exhibition. 30" x 40" art 39 3/4" x 49 3/4" frame Raymond Breinin, Russian/American painter & designer (1910-2000), was born in Vitebsk, Russia, where he commenced his art studies with Uri Pen (who was also the first teacher of Marc Chagall) and later attended the Vitebsk Academy of Art where Malevitch was the director. He came to the United States with his family in 1922. When he came to America he attended classes at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. A painter of murals for the WPA, he was invited to join the Downtown Gallery in New York City, one of the foremost galleries at the time, where he exhibited in one man shows and group shows over a period of 18 years. The winner of numerous major prizes at the Chicago Art Institute and other museums, he also won the $1000 purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition. He designed the sets and costumes for Anthony Tudor's ballet, "Undertow" produced by the American Ballet Theater. He executed commissions for "Life", "Fortune" and "Redbook" magazines, for the Capehart Corporation, Eli Lilly...

Wonderfully expressive Bay Area Figurative School piece featuring a silhouette of a couple in a dynamic and colorful sunset landscape scene ...

An oil painting by Theo Tobiasse from 1967. An expressionist-style textural painting of intensely dark and vivid color palette. Inspired from the artist's personal experiences of the...

Gian Berto Vanni's "Dance of Shiva" is a 68 x 36-inch figurative versus abstract oil painting on canvas. The painting has a simple gallery display frame in natural wood with a black reveal. It represents Shiva, one of the principal deities of Hinduism. The figure of Shiva slowly fades into an abstraction. The outcome is a powerful composition between a fiery warrior and a magic tree with an explosive bark. The beautiful interplay between different shades of brown adds a unique austerity and elegance to the artwork. The figure is an homage to the Dancing Shiva...

An original expressionist oil on canvas painting by American female artist Jackie Felix.

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...

Artist: Alexander Raymond Katz, Hungarian / American (1895 - 1974) Title: Nude with Fruit Basket Year: circa 1949 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 48 x 33 in. (121.92 x 83.82 cm)

An original oil on canvas painting by American modern female artist Jackie Felix.

An original oil on paper by contemporary artist Bruce Adams from his Fish and Bicycles series. This work is currently part of an exhibition at Benjaman Gallery "Over the Fence". This piece comes framed in an archival natural wood frame presentation. The Fish and Bicycle series employs a similar strategy as my Men at Work series. This time the subject matter includes both men and women (exhibited in pairs) representing a range of gender identities. The title is derived from Irina Dunn’s witty statement (often erroneously attributed to Gloria Steinem...

Woman reclining, pink we send the work anywhere Edgardo CORBELLI (Turin, 1918 - 1989) From the traditional composition of the 1930s, the painting of Corbelli leads to technical and ...

An original oil painting by American female artist Jackie Felix titled Sing it Cindy, or High C.

Artist: Leandro Velasco, Colombian (1933 - ) Title: Equilibrium in the High Wire Year: 1974 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed and dated l.l. Size: 60 x 50 in. (152.4 x 127 cm)

An original oil painting by American female artist Jackie Felix titled Cinderella from the artists Argentina Series.

An original acrylic on paper by American female artist Jackie Felix from the artist Blue Mary period. This work is currently featured in the exhibition at Benjaman Gallery "Over the...

We are proud to premier for the first time in more than twenty years, the paintings of Austrian/American artist Gustav Rehberger (1910–1995). ...

Carmen Gutierrez painting "Demasiado". Oil on canvas. Signed by the artist. 23.6 x 31.5 in. image.

Wonderful figurative of male ballet dancers by Patricia Gren Hayes (American, 20th Century), 1980. Signed, titled and dated on verso. Presented in rustic w...

Jean Carzou, L'etang, 21.5x26 inches, oil on canvas, 1991 LIST OF MUSEUMS WITH WORKS BY JEAN CARZOU Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Musée d’Art Moder...

An original expressionist painting by American female artist Jackie Felix.

Her work with signs, symbols and esoteric spirituality reflects her passion for the ancient past and represents a symbolic return to the ground from which we emerged. Her work creates a commentary about “beginnings” and the transmission of signs and emotions through visual elements evoking a spiritual essence to our scientific notion of etymology. After studying under Rolf Dürig...

Signed lower left, 'Lavallen', dated 1987 and titled verso 'Mujer Dormida' (Woman Sleeping). A large figural oil painting of a young woman shown reclining on a sofa. Julio Lavallen...

Pastel and carbon pencil on cardboard, ca. 1930 by Hugo Scheiber. Signed lower left: Scheiber H. Dimensions: 14.96 x 12.99 in ( 38 x 33 cm ), Framed: 19.69 x 15.75 in ( 50 x 40 cm ) Hugo Scheiber born 1873 Budapest - he died 1953...

Gouache on paper, 1920's by Hugò Scheiber ( 1873-1950 ) Hungary. Signed with pencil lower central: Scheiber H. Framed under glass. Height: 25.98 in ( 66 cm ), Width: 19.69 in ( 50 c...

An unsigned large scale oil on un-stretched canvas, created in the 1970's. This work is meant to hang pinned to the wall.

An original oil on canvas diptych by American contemporary artist Mark Lavatelli created in 1996. 72" X 122"

Dream Mystique Artist signed and titled, new frame. Wallace Bassford was an American painter and illustrator, born in 1900 in St. Louis Missouri, he attended the St. Louis School of ...

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...

The Fighters. Signed and dated lower left, also signed and titled on reverse. Erwin Guillermo was born in Guatemala City in 1951. He is one of the best representatives of Guatemalan Art...

Signed expressionist oil on canvas portrait circa 1942 by French painter Jean Albert Pougny. The work depicts a violinist in an interior. Signatur...

Adolphe Aizik Feder (Ukrainian, 1886-1943), alternate spelling Adolf Feder "Portrait of a Rabbi" Oil painting mounted to board. Signed (upper left). Sight size, 6 3/4 by 5 1/8 inches; overall as framed, 8 3/8 by 6 3/4 inches. Adolphe Féder (1886 – 1943) was a Jewish-Ukrainian painter and illustrator. He moved to France in 1908, where he remained until his deportation and subsequent murder at the hands of the Vichy regime. Adolphe Feder is best-known today for the artwork he produced of those interned with him in the Drancy internment camp. Born to Jewish Ukrainian merchant parents, in 1905 Féder found himself involved in the revolutionary Bund Labor Movement. His involvement in the organization would force him to flee to Berlin, Germany at the age of 19. Following his time in Berlin, Féder moved to Geneva, Switzerland before moving to Paris, France in 1908 to study at the Académie Julian. At the Académie he studied painting and worked closely with the French Impressionist, Henri Matisse in his workshop. In 1926, Féder made a trip to British Mandate Palestine (Israel). On his trip he encountered many Judaic elements, which he painted. The trip's impact on him yielded many of his most notable paintings such as "Juif à barbe tenant un plateau" ("Bearded Jew holding a tray"). When Féder returned to Paris, he brought many of these paintings back with him, which garnered him recognition in the Parisian artistic community. Before Féder was sent to Auschwitz he painted prisoners and guards in the Drancy internment camp. When Nazi troops marched across France in 1942, Féder, aged 52, tried to get in contact with the French Resistance but was caught by the Pétain militia. He and his wife were arrested on 10 June 1942 and imprisoned in Cherche-Midi prison; he was transferred to the Drancy internment camp in September 1942. In Drancy, Féder continued to paint, creating portraits of those around him such as the other prisoners and guards. His paintings stopped with his deportation to the Auschwitz concentration camp on 13 December 1943 where he was murdered. Féder's wife, Sima Féder, donated Féder's works from inside Drancy to the Ghetto Fighters' House upon her death in 1967. Féder's success came in 1912 when his landscape works were displayed at the Salon d'Automne. He continued to paint following this including a series of 45 illustrations created for a book of poetry by French poet Arthur Rimbaud. The book received a limited run of 350 copies in 1924, but was commended for its watercolor illustrations. When Féder's work appeared in the Fearon Galleries in 1923, his work received great praise. A monograph on Féder was written in 1929 by Gustave Kahn. (also known as Aizik Féder or Айзик Федер) He was associated with The School of Paris, Ecole de Paris, which was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a center of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940 the city drew artists from all over the world and became a centre for artistic activity. School of Paris was used to describe this loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centered in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse. Before World War I, a group of expatriates in Paris created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. The term "School of Paris" was used in 1925 by André Warnod to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris. The term soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists—many of whom were Jewish—as a threat to the purity of French art. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism", Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the Ecole de paris, School of Paris name "allows any artist to pretend he is French. it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it. The artists working in Paris between World War I and World War II experimented with various styles including Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism and Dada. Foreign and French artists working in Paris included Jean Arp, Joan Miro, Constantin Brancusi, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, artists from Belarus like Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, and Jacques Lipchitz, the Polish artist Marek Szwarc and others such as Russian-born prince Alexis Arapoff. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris...

During the artists carrier he only painted 2 Picador's of this size for the exhibition at Galerie Maurice Garnier, in Paris France, who was his dealer at the time. Shortly after the ...

Bernard Lorjou has painting this subject "Harlequins" many times in watercolors, drawing , oil paintings and later on in the late 60's in acrylic, both on canvas, paper and some on m...

This is a rare ceramic plaque painted with enamel glaze by famed Israeli German artist Irene Awret (these are generally hand signed Awret Safed on the verso. I just have not opened the frame to check) the actual glazed ceramic is 10.25 X 14.75 inches. It depicts a girl or woman with potted plants, birds, pomegranates and other fruits and flowers in a naif, folk art style. Irène Awret was born to a Jewish family in Berlin called Spicker, the youngest of three children. Her mother died in 1927, when Irène was six years old. In 1937 she was forced to stop high school, due to the Nazi race laws. Because she could not continue her regular studies, her father sent her to study drawing, painting and art restoration with a Jewish painter. Among his students were a large number of German Jews who knew they would have to leave Germany within a short time and would require a profession to enable them to support themselves. When the situation grew worse, following the Kristallnacht (the first major attack on German and Austrian Jews in November 1938), her uncle decided to move to Belgium. In 1939 the situation became even worse - her father was fired from his job and the family were forced to leave their home. As a result, Awret's father tried to send her and her sister to Belgium, with the help of smugglers. The first smuggler proved to be a double agent and they were sent back from Aachen to Berlin. Two weeks later they made a second, successful, attempt to sneak across the border. Awret worked for a Dutch Jewish family as a maid. As she had her room and board there, she was able to save enough money to study art part-time at Brussels' Académie Royal des Beaux-Arts. A few months later Awret's father joined her and her financial situation became easier. She left her job and studied full-time, helping support herself with restoration work when it was available and by painting portraits to order. Later, Awret found a hiding place on a farm in Waterloo with a Jewish family who were connected with the underground. In January 1943 she had to return to Brussels, living with a false identity card which stated she was a married woman with two children. Awret succeeded in renting an attic without informing the police where she was - she told her landlady that she had been forced to flee her husband because he beat her. While there, she supported herself by restoring wooden sculptures. A Jewish informer gave her up to the Gestapo, accompanying the two Gestapo men who arrested her. Awret was able to take a bag containing food and drawing materials. She was detained in the Gestapo cellars in Brussels where she drew. Because there was nothing there to draw, she sketched her own hand (view this work). Awret was interrogated in order to reveal the hiding place of her father who was still in Brussels. The National Socialist regime was determined to persecute him, even though he had fought for Germany in World War I and been permanently disabled. They stepped up their torture and brought Awret before Hartmann, the head of the Gestapo in Brussels. When Hartmann saw her block of drawings, he asked her where she had studied art and halted the interrogation. Awret was placed in a narrow cell and then transferred to Malines camp, which the Belgian's called Mechelen. Malines was a transit camp to Auschwitz, regularly sending 2000 people at a time. Although she arrived just before Transport No. 20, Irène Awret avoided being included. Instead she was put to work in the leather workshop, decorating broaches. While she was there, Hartmann visited the camp and spotted her: "I could have discovered where your father is hiding," he told her. When her artistic talents became known, she was transferred to the Mahlerstube (artist's workshop) where she worked producing graphics for the Germans until the end of the war. When Carol (Karel) Deutsch (whose works are now on view at Yad Vashem) was sent from Mechelen to his death with his wife, he left young Irene his paintbox. Irene also recalls seeing the great painter Felix Nussbaum and his wife being pushed into a boxcar bound for the gas, and tells of the aftermath of the famous 20th Train incident, when a young Jewish doctor armed only with a pistol and helped by two unarmed friends with a lantern ambushed one of Mechelen's Auschwitz-bound trains carrying 1,618 Jews, most of whom had fled Eastern Europe for Belgium. Awret's job enabled her to paint and draw - mainly in pencil, but also in watercolors and oils. In the artists' workshop she met a Jewish refugee from Poland - Azriel Awret - who would later become her husband. Among the other artists in the workshop were Herbert von Ledermann-Vütemberg, a sculptor from an aristocratic family with Jewish roots, Léon Landau, and Smilowitz, who perished in the camps in the East. Irène and Azriel tried to bribe a German officer to prevent Smilowitz's deportation. Not only were they unsuccessful, but they were almost put onto the same train. Jacques Ochs was another artist with whom they became friends in the camp. Ochs, a French-born Protestant who lived in Belgium, was interned as a political prisoner. He remained in Belgium after liberation. After the war the Awrets immigrated to Israel and made their home in Safed. They continued to work, and were instrumental in founding Safed's artists' quarter. The Beit Lohamei Haghetaot (Ghetto Fighters' House Museum) art collection holds works donated by Awret. These date from her time in Malines camp and from her stay in Brussels after the war, when she was in the company of orphans who had hidden while their parents were sent to Auschwitz. Her highly expressive works have made their way to exhibitions at theTel Aviv Museum, the Haifa Museum of Modern Art and the Modern Art Gallery in Washington, D.C., as well as into the private collections of such individuals as Dr. Jonas Salk...

A crayon and chalk drawing of a band by French artist Jean Arène. The work is signed and dated top left. Presented in plain metal frame under glass. A charming coloured drawing of a Provencal musical band. The French equivalent of a 'mariachi band'. Two trumpet players, a tuba and a drum. The musicians are all wearing straw 'boater' hats and striped blazers. In the background is the terrace of a café with its green tables. Arene has captured, with a lightness of touch, all the excitement and animation of the scene. Jean Arène was a student of August Chabaud, a highly sought after French artist in Provence who in turn took his inspiration from Cezanne. After a stint in 1949 at the School of Fine Arts in Marseille, then a year in Paris in 1950 with the poster artist Paul Colin, Jean Arène returned to Marseille the following year where he founded the "Group of under 30' with Trofimoff, Trabuc, Zutter and Mela and began painting as an autodidact, while earning a living in advertising and decoration. His first exhibition dates from 1956. Then, from 1957, Jean Arène left the city for the countryside, which served as his base for many trips, often hitchhiking and backpacking, but always accompanied by a pencil and a sketchbook: Spain, Morocco in 1957, West Africa in 1960, (followed by an exhibition in Dakar), Northern Europe (Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Lapland , Lofoten, Netherlands and Belgium) In 1963 a trip to Tunisia. Then in 1966 his first retrospective in Toulon. In 1970 Arène left for the United States and Mexico, followed two years later by West Africa again: Tassili, the Sahara and Algeria. He exhibited extensively in Provence and the Gard: Aix-en-Provence, Uzès, Avignon, La Ciotat...

Nudes By. Salcia Bahnc (Polish, American, 1898-1976) Signed Lower Middle Unframed: 14 x 18 inches Framed: 23 x 26 inches Painter, illustrator, printmaker, teacher. Born in Dukla, Poland. Though she was born in Dukla, a town in south-eastern Poland, she moved to Prsemysl, one of the largest and most ancient cities of southern Poland, at a young age. Her mother was reportedly descended from the "Van Ast" family, a Dutch dynasty that produced several artists, including Balthasar van der Ast (1593/4 - 1657). According to one art historian she came to New York at the age of five (c. 1903), and another, at the age of eight (c. 1906). Her family was Jewish and reportedly quite wealthy. Why they would have left imperial Austria, under whose sovereignty either of her proposed birth cities were under, is unknown. However, while these areas did not suffer the pogroms typical in neighboring imperial Russia, the Austro-Hungarian empire had become much more anti-Semetic, which may have hasten there departure. How, according to one source, they ended up living in the Jewish ghetto of New York is extremely puzzling. Did they loose their wealth to some business disaster? Where they forced to leave it behind? Was there some familial tragedy? We may never know. In her youth she lived first in New York City and then in Boston, Massachusetts, where her family had relatives. It is reported that when she was in fourth grade she was found to be so competent in drawing that for the next two years she taught a drawing class after school for the other children. In Boston, Bahnc's mother eventually remarried and moved the family to Chicago where the young artist was primarily raised. In Chicago she worked during the days as a sales clerk in a department store. At night she put herself through school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and taught at her former alma mater after her graduation during the years 1923-1929. She also studied at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. She took up design work and began exhibiting painted silk creations at a private Chicago gallery (probably Thurber, see below). The first museum exhibitions she is known to have participated in were held at the Art Institute of Chicago. During this period she became known for her portraits. Originally a resident alien, she was naturalized at the district court of Chicago, Illinois in July of 1913. In 1920 she lived on East Ontario Street in Chicago in a neighborhood filled with art studios and artists, including James Allen Saint-John (1872-1957), Paul Bartlett (1881-1965), Pauline Palmer (1867-1938), and George Ames Aldrich (1872-1941). It is in Chicago that she saw her greatest success as an artist. In 1927, Chicago art dealer Chester H. Johnson said of her work: "The Art of Salcia Bahnc is a sincere manifestation of the spirit we know as 'Modernism' . . . . . . She is the spirit of the Age, not its Fashion." Local reviewers agreed, one going as far to say that her exhibition was " . . . the most interesting one man show by a young artist that has ever been presented to Chicago, and I keep telling myself that New York will get her if we don't watch out." She was apparently a favorite and friend of art critic Clarence Joseph Bulliet (1883-1952), who authored a number of books and articles that praised Bahnc's work. Bulliet was central in introducing and popularizing modern art in the mid-western United States. In his book Apples and Madonnas: Emotional Expression in Modern Art (1935) he called Bahnc a "A thorough Expressionist." A year later in his book The Significant Moderns and Their Pictures (1936) he noted that one of her paintings of a nude was ". . . powerful in its elemental brutality." During this period other critics reported positively on the work she was producing. Ida Ethelwyn Wing reported in a volume of the Delphian Text (1930) that Bahnc, was without doubt, ". . . the most vigorous and intensively original of the American Expressionists." Paul Masserman and Maxwell Baker said of her in their work The Jews come to America (1932) that she was part of a group of artists that were "Chief among modern Jewish painters. . . " Salcia Bahnc traveled back and forth to Europe during the late 1920s and into the 1930s, a period when she faced the rise of totalitarianism. She wrote about this fact to a fellow artist to whom she commented " . . . about the difficult art scene in Paris . . . . . . and the growing power of fascism." In 1930 she was maintaining a studio in New York City at 1218 East 53rd Street and a residence in Brooklyn, Long Island. She returned to France where she married a French citizen and writer named Eugene Petit (b. 1901) and bore a son there named Alain Petit (b. 1934). She again returned to the United States in November of 1937 and traveled back to France after a brief stay in America. During her stay she continued to exhibit in Chicago, where Quest Galleries gave her a solo show. Like so many ex-patriot authors and artists who were living in Paris, she found herself trapped in France (first in Paris, then in Mayenne) following the German invasion in 1940. Being of Jewish extraction the situation could prove to be quite dangerous if she were reported or discovered by German authorities. She and her husband were able to obtain passports and escape to Portugal where in August of 1941 they boarded the S. S. Escambion to return to America. In 1940, American Export Lines, owners of the Escambion, discontinued its normal Mediterranean routes and placed their ships into service sailing from Lisbon, Portugal to New York City. Over the next two years (1940 - 1941) their ships played an important role in transporting thousands of people who were trying to escape the Nazi regime before America's own entry into World War II. One survivor, Ludwig Lowenberg, who sailed on the Escambion on the same day that Bahnc did, reported the ordeal his family endured getting to Lisbon to his own descendants: "[The family] received their American visa on May 28, 1941, only three days before the U.S. consulate in Stuttgart closed for the duration of World War II. They left Berlin on June 23, 1941, traveling for 27 hours on a locked train to Paris. There they were forced to spend an additional night in the locked train until their coach was attached to a train headed for San Sebastian in Spain. After an overnight hotel stay in San Sebastian, the train (now no longer locked) continued to Lisbon. All in all it took six days from Berlin to Lisbon. They remained for four weeks in Lisbon until they embarked on the Excambion for New York." Bahnc had given up her citizenship during her time in France and was forced to reapply for naturalization once again upon her return. She was living in New York City at 101 West 85th Street when she was re-naturalized in April of 1947. Exactly how much of her artwork was lost in Europe is not known. Clearly, she would not have been able to bring much, if anything, with her during her escape. One writer had noted that between 1930 and 1934 she had worked hard to prepare a large group of new works for a show in Paris. Between those, and what she would have produced during the next six years, the actual amount of the loss might have been staggering. Bahnc's 1942 exhibition with Julio de Diego included works recalling the suffering going on in Europe. One work in the exhibition was a portrait of the painter Katherine Dudley, who, at the time, was reportedly interned near Paris. In the later years of her career she worked extensively as a teacher and illustrator of children's books. In 1950 she taught at the Evanston Art Center, where she lead a demonstration in portrait painting. She authored or illustrated a number of works during and after World War II, including: The House in the Tree and Other Stories of Places, People and Things (1941); Claude Of France: The Story Of Debussy For Young People (1948); Time for Poetry (1951); Hidden Silver (1952); From Many Lands - The Children's Hour, Volume 9 (1969); and That Boy (no date). She returned to teach at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during 1943-44 and 1947-53; and taught later at the Garrison Forest School in Garrison, Maryland, from 1955-57. Bahnc was known to have exhibited widely, both in Europe and in America. Her known lifetime exhibitions include: The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1919-29, 1942 (The 53rd Annual; and Room of Chicago Art: Exhibition of Paintings by Salcia Bahnc and Julio de Diego), 1943; Chicago Architectural...

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