Clifford Holmes

“Big Tent” An American Traveling Circus Comes to Town

Pal Monostori-Moller: 1894-1978. Well listed Hungarian artist with auction results over $27,000. This gem might be from his paintings of an amusement park in England. It is oil on ca...

John Sackas (1910-2004) "Marin Art & Garden Fair" '68. Oil on canvas board. 18 x 24 unframed, 23 x 29 framed.

Monumental original painting by listed artist Frank Nelson Ashley The subject matter of this painting is a vibrant scene in New Orleans of the "Poo-Pah Club" jazz band, acrobat performers, finely dressed ladies, and cherubs that have fallen from the heavens to be a part of such a joyous parade. The colors are magnificent! Oil on canvas Signed & dated lower left and verso Title: "Parade of the Poo-Pah Club Jazz Band" 48" x 82" Artist Bio: Frank Ashley American 1920-2007 Joined Carmel Art Association 1970. Frank Ashley grew up in St Paul Minnesota. He attended the University of Minnesota, served as a pilot in the Army Air Corps in England during WWII, and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Purple Heart and four Air Medals. He studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Minneapolis...

The scene flows with a mix of people out and very much milling about against a backdrop of high rises half hidden in mist. There’s the dandy sporting a red fedora, a white-helmeted b...

Carl Thorp 1912-1989 1963 “Entrance to Hunts Circus” Oil on Board 18x24 inches Image size 24x39 inches with frame Good condition Carl Thorp and was an American artist who studied at...

John Costigan (1888-1972) oil on canvas, circa: 1950s. In excellent condition. Exciting Expressionist Painting of a lively Carnival Scene. Signed lower right: ''J.E. Costigan", Title...

This vibrant painting, "Circus" by Paulette van Roekens, captures the energy and excitement of a classic circus scene, bursting with color and lively detail. Van Roekens brings the j...

This watercolor is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Circus Wagons, 1927, watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower left, 10 x19 ¾ inches (sight), provenance includes Stary-Sheets Art Gallery (Gualala, CA); J. Ralph & Louis Stone Foundation; presented in a newer metal frame behind glazing About the Painting Millard Sheets was only twenty years old and in his third year of studies at the Chouinard Art Institute when he painted Circus Wagons. Despite his youth, Sheets was already an accomplished artist who had publicly exhibited his work and won prestigious prizes. Within several years, he would have his first solo exhibition at one of Los Angeles’ premiere galleries and become a painting instructor at his alma mater. In Circus Wagons we already see Sheets deft handling of the watercolor medium and his interest in the California Scene. In this case, Sheets captures a back lot view of a traveling circus, a subject he sometimes returned to, including in a color screen print in the collection of the National Gallery. Sheets made a career by painting what he knew and observed firsthand. This approach allowed Sheets to capture with authenticity the details of each narrative. Even with a narrowly limited palette and an economy of brushstrokes, Sheets effectively depicts the southern California scene with its strong and mysterious shadows, as well as the workers and circus animals. Seen through the hindsight of his six-decade long career, Circus Wagons offers a fascinating insight into the early development of California Scene painting which would by the mid-1930s become the best recognized style on the West Coast. About the Artist Millard Sheets was the dean of California watercolorists. His list of accomplishments is so extensive that his entry in Who was Who in American Art is over forty lines. Born in Pomona, California, Sheets became a painter at an early age, winning a prize at the Los Angeles County Fair in 1918. By the mid to late-1920s, Sheets became a regular at art exhibitions in the western part of the United States, winning several additional prizes before he reached the age of twenty-five. Sheets studied at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute from 1925 through 1929 with Frank Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle and had his first solo show with Los Angeles’ Dalzell Hatfield Gallery in 1929. During the 1930s, Sheets was invited to exhibit at almost every major American Museum and in many ways, his work came to represent the California watercolor school...