Claude Venard

"Venice Canal, Italy" Claude Venard, French Post-Cubist Mid-Century Modern

circa 1950-55

Charles Green Shaw Tabac, circa 1935 Signed on the reverse Oil on canvasboard 5 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches Provenance: Washburn Gallery, New York, 1982 Private Collection (acquired from the above) Christie's, The Collector, October 20, 2021, Lot 307 Private Collection, Scarsdale, New York (acquired directly from the above) Literature: Hilton Kramer, "Charles Shaw: In the Minimal Tradition," New York Times, February 21, 1982, Section 2, p. 25. Charles Green Shaw was born in 1892 to a wealthy New York family. He lost both his parents at a very young age; his mother died when he was just three years old. Despite the early loss of his parents, Shaw lived the whimsical life of a New York socialite. As a beneficiary to an inheritance based in part upon the Woolworth fortune, he was brought up surrounded by the well-bred, well-groomed and well-moneyed citizens of New York’s elite social class. His social status as an adolescent was cultivated while spending summers in Newport and attending Christmas balls at Mrs. W.K. Vanderbilt’s. At age six, Shaw began to take an interest in drawing, and by nine, he was known to have a fondness for sketching historical costumes. After graduating from Yale University in 1914, Shaw spent a year studying at Columbia University’s School of Architecture. Subsequently he served for eighteen months as a Lieutenant in World War I. After his service, Shaw returned to New York and tried his hand as a businessman selling real estate, but his attempt was short lived. In the early 1920s, Shaw began his career as a journalist and novelist. He achieved professional success, writing consistently for magazines such as The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and The Smart Set. Shaw’s writing was a record of his approvals and disapprovals of the social crowd to which he belonged. His profession along with his social pedigree, brought him in contact with a number of the most significant figures of the 1920s such as, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, George Gershwin, George Jean Nathan and the American artist George Luks. Some of his profiles included celebrity caricatures used as illustrations, these were the publics’ first look at Shaw’s artistic ability. In 1928, a collection of Shaw’s articles and interviews were published in one volume titled, The Low Down. Just previous to the stock market crash and the end of the Jazz Age, Shaw left New York and traveled to Paris and London. He arrived in Paris in 1929. In an autobiographical note Shaw suggests it was on this trip when he first began to paint seriously. London also acted as a great source of motivation for the budding artist. He began to sketch everyday in St. James’s Park, making large pastels of its vistas in the style of Cezanne. When he returned to New York in 1932, Shaw considered himself a painter. Success for Shaw came quickly with his first solo exhibition mounted at the Valentine Gallery in 1934. The following year Albert Eugene Gallatin included works by the artist in an unprecedented solo exhibition at his Gallery of Living Art at New York University. Shaw further cemented his reputation as an artist through his association and friendship with fellow abstract artists Morris and Gallatin. The trio soon was regarded as ‘the Park Avenue Cubists’. As a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, Shaw became an impassioned defender of the style. His 1938 essay in the American Abstract Artists yearbook, “A Word to the Objector”, acted as a defense against those who failed to see the illustrative quality of abstract art and scolded those who disregarded American artists as serious Abstractionists. He was also an influential force at the Museum of Modern Art, where he sat on the Advisory Board from 1936 to 1941. In the later years of Shaw’s life he continued to produce abstract paintings, yet in a more private manner. He was known to be a reserved man— a ‘gentleman’; not much is known about his personal life in these later years. During this time he maintained his career as a writer, publishing the well-known children’s book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk in 1940 and two books of poems in 1959 and 1962. In 1974, Shaw died...

Joseph Cain Virginia City, Nevada Oil on masonite 21 5/8 x 36 1/2 inches Signed lower right A painter, muralist, and art educator, Joseph Cain's work was ...

George Picken (1898 - 1971) The Octagon at Blackwell's Island (Roosevelt Island, New York City), 1928 Oil on canvas 22 x 27 inches Signed lower right Pr...

Emile Albert Gruppe (1896 - 1978) View of Boats in Gloucester Harbor, Cape Ann, Massachusetts circa 1925 Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches Signed lower right Emile Gruppe was an unusually prolific artist. He was at his easel almost every day and created thousands of paintings over a career that lasted 60 years. At his peak, he was completing almost 200 oil paintings a year. Yet he has never failed to find an audience for his depictions of New England in autumn and winter, or his harbor scenes of Rockport and Gloucester in Massachusetts. Gruppe was born in 1896 in Rochester, New York to an artistic family--his father, brother, sister and nephew were all artists. Emile spent his youth in Katwyk an Zee, a fishing village in Holland, where his father, Charles Gruppe, worked as both an artist and an art dealer. Emile lived in the Netherlands until he was 17, when the family returned permanently to the United States to avoid World War I. In New York City, Gruppe attended classes at the National Academy of Design and at the Art Students League, where he studied under Charles Chapman and George Bridgman. He also studied with John Carlson in Woodstock, New York, where he gained an appreciation for outdoor painting. Carlson “turned me into a painter,” he later said. Gruppe helped found the Rockport Art Association in 1921, but he is most closely linked to Gloucester where he lived from about 1940 until his death. He operated the Gloucester School of Painting from the 1940s into the 1970s and helped turn the Rocky Neck area of East Gloucester into a world-famous art colony. The school boasted an impressive faculty but Gruppe’s own exuberant plein-air demonstrations were often the highlight of the week. Gloucester, with its fleet of whimsically painted fishing vessels, crowded wharf buildings and shacks, and picturesque inhabitants, never ceased to fascinate Gruppe. He also helped popularize Rockport’s famous fishing shack known as Motif #1, sometimes called “the most often-painted building in America.” By the 1940s, Gruppe was one of the most prominent of the Cape Ann artists...

Herman N. Hyneman (1849 - 1907) Elegant Lady in Winter, Trinity Church, New York City Oil on canvas 22 x 15 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Freemans, 2005, Lot 76 Herman N. Hyneman was a noted American portrait and figure painter with ties to both Philadelphia and New York. He was born July 27,1849 to Leon and Adeline Hyneman in Philadelphia. ("Who Was Who in American Art" lists his birth date as either 1849 or 1859, but we have confirmed that the birth date is 1849). Virtually nothing is known about his early years, but given the fact that the family resided in a wealthy section of Philadelphia and the fact that he traveled to Paris to study in the studio of Leon Bonnat when he was but 20 years old, it is presumed that the family was financially comfortable if not well to do. Hyneman exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879 and 1881, which was quite an accomplishment given his tender age. He returned to the United States in 1882 and after a year in Philadelphia, he established a studio at 58 West 57th Street, New York, NY, where he painted portraits to support himself and scenes of beautiful fair-skinned women walking in the snow to exhibit at major exhibitions throughout the United States. Hyneman exhibited at the the Brooklyn Art Association in 1882, 1883 and 1884 and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1883 and 1888. Beginning in 1882 and continuing up until 1905, he exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design. Despite the fact that he exhibited fourteen paintings at the National Academy over a span of three different decades, he was never elected as a member. In the 1880's his paintings sold for between $100 and $1500, which were substantial sums for that period. Hyneman also exhibited at the Salmagundi Club and the Philadelphia Art Club and was a member of each organization. He won a medal at the American Art Society in 1904 and also exhibited at the Chicago Art Institute. A handwritten label on one of his paintings indicates that he also exhibited in Budapest, Hungary. In 1892, Hyneman married the noted artist Juliet Jolley (aka Jolly), who had previously modeled for him. Thereafter, they shared a studio and on at least one occasion exhibited together. The February 5, 1896 edition of the "New York Times" reported on a "pleasant studio reception" at 58 West 57th Street where the paintings of both Herman and Juliet were shown to members of New York Society including Mr. And Mrs. Edwin Blashfield. At least one of Hyneman's Painting " A Sensation on Wall Street" which depicted a lovely young woman in fur coat with Muff in front of the Stock Exchange, was made into a post card and reproductions of his paintings are known to exist, although not plentiful. At least one etching is known, "Desdemona," which was reproduced in a book by Frederic Stokes. Herman Hyneman...

Henry Charles Hannig (1883 - 1948) The Green Parasol Oil on canvas mounted on board 6 x 7 3/4 inches Provenance: R.H. Love Galleries, Chicago, Illinois Private Collection, Lake Orion, Michigan Hannig, born in Hirschberg, Germany on 27 February 1883, came to America with his parents at the age of seven. He attended school in the southwest suburbs before the family settled in Chicago. Young Henry enrolled in the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts where Lawton Parker became his mentor. He made ends meet by working in industrial design and illustration. By 1908 he was a pupil in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where students followed the traditional European drawing curriculum, beginning with the copying of master engravings and drawing after plaster casts, then concentrating on the nude figure. Students worked toward the goal of winning various academic prizes. One of Hannig's fellow students was Louis Ritman...

Nicely painted mid century impressionist cityscape oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed. Signed.

Nicely painted mid century modern abstract expressionist textural oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed. No signature found.

Dick Beer (b. London 1893 - d. Stockholm 1938) A French City, 1919 (Fransk stad) oil on canvas canvas dimensions 82x66 cm frame 94x78.5 cm signed Dick ...

Dick Beer (b. London 1893 - d. Stockholm 1938) Utsikt från fönster, View From a Window, 1920 oil on canvas 73 x 60.5 cm stamp signed painted 1920 Exhibi...

Mid-Century cubist oil and acrylic futuristic cityscape on canvas. Signed bottom right, artist unknown. Highly colourful and well-composed interpretation of a cityscape of the futur...

Julio Barragán (1928–2011) was an Argentine painter of the Concretist and Cubist schools. Life and work Barragán was born in Buenos Aires. He beg...