Arthur Ernest Becher

Early Spring

1950

Henri Pierre Fortier, Untitled (Autumn Landscape), gouache, c. 1940s. Signed in ink. Inscribed 'To my Friend CLINTON R. MULFORD'. A fine, painterly watercolor, with rich, layered colors, on heavy dark brown drawing paper with approximately 1/4 inch margins; an unfinished figurative sketch...

B.J.O. Nordfeldt, 'Broad Street (Wall Street)', etching, edition not stated, c. 1915. Signed in pencil. A superb impression, with rich burr, selectively wiped plate tone, and inky plate edges, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (3/4 to 1 1/4 inches), in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Impressions of this work are in the permanent collections of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Princeton University, Smithsonian American Art Museum. A view looking down Broad Street past the New York Stock Exchange Building on the right with the columned Federal Hall...

Robert Philipp, 'Rehearsal, "Long Day's Journey Into Night" ', color pastel, c. 1957. Unsigned. A fine, atmospheric rendering, on warm gray charcoal paper; a reinforced crease (1/2 inch) across the bottom left sheet corner; otherwise in very good condition. Image and sheet size 17 1/2 x 21 3/4 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Provenance: Art Students League, from the artist’s personal portfolio. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Philipp (1895–1981) was a celebrated American Post-Impressionist painter known for his nudes, still lifes, and portraits. Noted art critic Henry McBride named Philipp one of America's top six painters of his generation. Philipp was an instructor of painting at the Art Students League, New York, for 33 years. Philipp was Secretary of the National Academy of Design, a National Academician, and a Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. His composition and painting style has been compared to the art of Edgar Degas and Pierre Auguste Renoir. In 1940, Philipp was invited to Los Angeles by Hollywood producer Louis B. Mayer to paint portraits of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie stars. The same year, Walter Wanger, producer of ‘The Long Voyage Home’, directed by John Ford and based on plays by Eugene O'Neill, contracted with Reeves Lewenthal, head of the Associated American Artists gallery in Manhattan, to bring nine well-known artists to the set and paint scenes from the movie and portraits of the actors in character. The artists included Robert Philipp, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Ernest Fiene, George Schreiber, Luis Quintanilla...

Albert Lorey Groll, 'Storm Clouds (Arizona)', graphite on paper, c. 1914. Signed in pencil, in the image, lower left. A fine spontaneous rendering on heavy buff, wove paper, with margins (1 1/2 to 2 inches); slight toning at the sheet edges, in good condition. With a pen and ink landscape drawing, verso. Image size 7 5/8 x 10 inches; sheet size 10 3/4 x 13 5/8 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Provenance: Ex. collection Kennedy Galleries, New York. ABOUT THE ARTIST Albert Lorey Groll (1866-1910) was born in New York in 1866, the son of a pharmacist immigrant from Darmstadt, Germany. During his early years, he traveled to Europe to study at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich under Nicholas Gysis and Ludwig von Löfftz. He further pursued his studies in London and at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, Belgium. Groll returned to New York in 1895 and moved from figure to landscape painting while expanding his interests to printmaking. In 1904 Groll made the first of several trips to the American Southwest, traveling to Arizona with ethnographer Stewart Culin of the Brooklyn Museum. Later he went to New Mexico with his friend, the artist and illustrator William Robinson Leigh (see our 1stDibs listing no. LU53239015112 ). He focused on impressionistic scenes of Native American lands. The Laguna Pueblo people admired Groll's paintings, honoring him with the name "Chief Bald Head Eagle Eye." Groll kept a studio in the Gainsborough Studios in Manhattan and won several awards for his work in Arizona and New York, including the Salmagundi Club Shaw Prize in 1904 and a gold medal at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1906. He was also awarded the George Inness gold medal from the National Academy of Design in 1912 for his painting of Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. In 1910 he was elected into the National Academy of Design and, in 1919, an associate member of the Taos Society...

Kerr Eby 'Shipping' also 'Shipping, Connecticut', etching and sandpaper ground, 1932, edition 100, Giardina 171. Signed in pencil and titled 'Shipping' in the bottom left sheet edge. A superb, atmospheric impression, with skillfully controlled plate tone, on heavy, cream wove paper; the full sheet with wide margins (2 to 2 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 8 3/8 x 17 1/4 inches (316 x 176 mm); sheet size 13 7/16 x 8 3/8 inches (341 x 213 mm). The scene depicted was on the Connecticut coast...

Robert Philipp, 'Portrait of a Young Man', color pastel and wet brush, c. 1967. Signed in pencil, lower right. A fine, painterly drawing, on cream laid Michallet drawing paper. The artist's tack holes in the four sheet corners, in very good condition. Image size 19 x 11 1/2 inches (483 x 292 mm); sheet size 19 x 12 3/8 inches (483 x 314 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Provenance: Art Students League, from the artist’s personal portfolio. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Philipp (1895–1981) was a celebrated American Post-Impressionist painter known for his nudes, still lifes, and portraits. Noted art critic Henry McBride named Philipp one of America's top six painters of his generation. Philipp was an instructor of painting at the Art Students League, New York, for 33 years. Philipp was Secretary of the National Academy of Design, a National Academician, and a Benjamin Franklin Fellow at the Royal Society of Arts in London. His composition and painting style has been compared to the art of Edgar Degas and Pierre Auguste Renoir. In 1940, Philipp was invited to Los Angeles by Hollywood producer Louis B. Mayer to paint portraits of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie stars. The same year, Walter Wanger, producer of ‘The Long Voyage Home’, directed by John Ford and based on plays by Eugene O'Neill, contracted with Reeves Lewenthal, head of the Associated American Artists gallery in Manhattan, to bring nine well-known artists to the set and paint scenes from the movie and portraits of the actors in character. The artists included Robert Philipp, Thomas Hart Benton, Grant Wood, Ernest Fiene, George Schreiber, Luis...

"Compline is a recent piece, a work honoring New England. It is a culmination of what I developed and experienced from those decades painting and trekking through the northeast in th...

The painting is in good condition and artist Lynn signed the lower right.

Signed lower right: Irving R. Wiles

As one of the first, and most important, American Impressionists, Theodore Robinson helped to introduce the French style to American artists and audiences.

Signed lower left: Guy Wiggins; on verso: THE PUBLIC LIBRARY /NEW YORK WINTER / Guy Wiggins N.A.

Elzy Jay (Bill) Bird (Utah, 1911-2001) Elzy J. "Bill" Bird was a Salt Lake City native known for his artistic talent. He grew up on a farm in East Layton, Utah, and worked on cattle ranches in Swan Valley, Idaho. Bird's childhood is detailed in his book, The Old Farm, which features his own sketches. He attended West High School in Salt Lake City, where he studied art under Cornelius Salisbury...