Edward Ben Avram

Edward Ben Avram Israeli School Old City Jerusalem Israel Landscape Oil Painting

c.1980s

Morris Kantor, American, 1896-1974 Seaside View, 1930 Hand signed M. Kantor and dated 1930 lower right Oil on canvas 22 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches 24 1/2 x 21 (frame) Morris Kantor (Belarusian: Морыс Кантор) (1896-1974) was a Russian Empire-born American painter based in the New York City area. This is a beautiful boat scene with a river or lake probably on Long Island. Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously relocated to the states. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974. He produced a prolific and diverse body of work, much of it in the form of paintings, which is distinguished by its stylistic variety over his long career. Perhaps his most widely recognized work is the iconic painting "Baseball At Night", which depicts an early night baseball game played under artificial electric light. Although he is best known for his paintings executed in a realistic manner, over the course of his life he also spent time working in styles such as Cubism and Futurism, (influenced by the Art Deco movement) and produced a number of abstract or non-figural works. A famous cubist, Futurist, painting of his "Orchestra" brought over 500,000$ at Christie's auction house in 2018. Kantor found employment in the Garment District upon his arrival in New York City, and was not able to begin formal art studies until 1916, when he began courses at the now-defunct Independent School of Art. He studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). In 1928, after returning to New York City from a year in Paris, Kantor developed a style in which he combined Realism with Fantasy, often taking the streets of New York as his subject matter. He did some moody Surrealist Nude paintings and fantasy scenes. In the 1940's he turned towards figural studies. Later in his career, Kantor himself was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s, and taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil...

Maritime Impressionist painting in somber night sky colors.

Ivan Schwebel, Israeli American (1932-2011) Oil on canvas. Painting of Winter Landscape. Signed Schwebel, 1985. Sight- L-27" x W-31.5", Frame- L-28.5" x W-32". Ivan Schwebel, Painter. Was born 1932, U.S.A. and immigrated to Israel 1963 after living in Spain, France and Greece. Studies: 1953-55 with Kimura Kyoen whilst serving with the U.S.Army in Japan; 1955-61 Institute of Fine Arts, with Philip Guston; New York University. Larry Abramson, who is very much in the mainstream of Israeli art, curated an exhibition of Schwebel’s work at the Jerusalem Print Workshop in the early 1980s; in the accompanying text, he described him as “an artist from the New York School ship-wrecked on a hill near Jerusalem.” IN SCHWEBEL’S BEST WORK, THE paint speaks for itself: the pools and explosions of rich color, achieved with pigment that he would grind and mix himself, the luminous figures emerging out of dark shadows, the quirky, dramatic compositions. Schwebel was erudite, with a passion for the bible and Jewish and Israeli history. He delved into all of it for his subject matter, bringing together characters and narratives regardless of time, and setting them in modern- day Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, the Judean hills, or New York City. He liked to play with ideas, and thoroughly mixed his visual metaphors. He showed David and Bat-Sheva next to a Nazi deportation train, and Job despairing over his relationship with the Palestinians. He based his characters on photographs of himself, friends and family, or movie stars. On his website, he describes a series of paintings about anti-Semitism in which the Holocaust is merged with the Spanish Inquisition: “Abarbanel who tried to negotiate with Ferdinand and Isabella is reincarnated in Rumkowski – the German appointed Head of the Lodz Ghetto. The bridge connecting two parts of the Ghetto is spanned over a present-day Tel Aviv cityscape. He was included in a portfolio that included Ivan Schwebel, Michael Gross, Liliane Klapisch and Moshe Kupferman, five of Israel's leading contemporary artists who were each approached in May 1977 with a request to contribute a hand-printed screenprint for a portfolio to be titled "Jerusalem". The sole term of reference was the name "Jerusalem", with no qualifications at all. The five artists then spent time working completely independently and individually on the project at the Jerusalem Print Workshop. Each screenprint was hand-signed by their respective artist and numbered from the edition of 200, hand-printed on BFK Rives paper Published by Whartman and Sacks Art Publications His “Tel Aviv” series, in contrast, is fun: “Chen Cinema” shows a couple of actors who seem to have stepped out of an old romantic movie to cuddle in the shabby street outside the cinema. In his final “Safe Place” series of paintings, he goes beyond self-conscious narrative to create his own Garden of Eden. Select Group Exhibitions: Landscape and Nature: Contemporary Israeli Prints...

Saul Schary was born in 1904 in Newark, New Jersey. Painter, Printmaker, Illustrator. He lived and worked in New York City and New Milford, Connecticut. Schary studied at the Art St...

Western Avenue is a main street that runs north and south throughout Chicago. It goes through a multitude of neighborhoods, as diverse as you can imagine. The painting captures the a...

A modernist coastal/dock scene by Edward Christiana. This painting is hand-signed "Edward Chrstiana '52" lower right. Exhibited: 1946 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; 9th Annual Exhibition 2004 Jameson Gallery, Portland, Maine; Edward Christiana (1912-1992) More about this artist: Edward Christiana was born in White Plains, New York in 1912. After high school the artist enrolled at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, graduating in 1933. After returning to the Mohawk Valley and obtaining work he enrolled in the School of Related Arts and Sciences at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. In 1940, noted WPA artist William Palmer came to MWPAI to establish the School of Art, forerunner of the current Pratt at MWPAI. Mr.Christiana became involved with the School almost immediately and studied from 1941 until 1943 under Mr. Palmer, at which point he became an instructor himself and remained in this capacity until 1982. It was apparent at a very early stage in the development of Ed Christiana as an artist that he had a tremendous facility in the difficult medium of watercolor. By 1945, he had exhibited with the American Watercolor Society and did so again in 1947, 1949, and 1950. Mr. Christiana was even awarded the coveted William Church Osborne Purchase Prize in 1949 and 1950. He had his first one-man show at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in 1946, and would be so honored twice more; in 1954, and culminating with a major retrospective in 1989. By 1949 he was elected to the American Watercolor Society. He was represented in a group show at the Kraushaar Galleries in New York in 1951 and in another major one-man show at the Albany Institute of History and Art in 1956 where he received a purchase prize in oil. Strangely, after all of his early success in watercolor, he abandoned the medium in the early 50's to concentrate on oil painting. For over two decades he painted primarily in oil ranging from cubist inspired studies to his Marsden Hartley-inspired paintings of Mount Katahdin in the 1970's. By the mid 70's he had returned to watercolor. He was once quoted as saying "those who are familiar with my old paintings will be aware, I am sure, that in fact, they were not so far removed from watercolor, my technique in oils deriving positively from the aqueous medium." In the 1970's his watercolor style changed from the more wet and spontaneous style of the 40's to a dryer, slightly more controlled style, where the artist would often paint on dry paper, without wetting it prior to the application of paint. In the early 80's he returned to a wetter style, even more spontaneous than his method in the 40's. This culminated in his abstract work of the late 80's inspired partly by John Marin. Also, like Marin, Christiana painted representational work alongside very abstract work during the same period. Fellow artist Easton Pribble once said of Ed Christiana "If there were to be an honorary title -Painter Laureate- of the Mohawk Valley, Edward Christiana would certainly be the prime qualifier for that distinction." Christiana is known for his landscape views of the Mohawk Valley, her wild natural beauty as well as the architectural beauty of her towns and cities. He has also painted extensively in the Adirondacks as well as New Hampshire, Vermont, and especially Maine, which can almost be considered the artist's second home. He loved to paint the pastures, valleys, rivers, and waterfalls of the area as well as children playing on the grounds of his beloved Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute and the neighborhoods surrounding it in Utica, New York. Edward Christiana painted almost right until his death in 1992. He was and still is a beloved man. No one I have talked to has had an unkind word to say about Ed Christiana, either as a teacher, artist, or friend. He was a prolific artist and was known to hand paint Christmas and Birthday cards...

This work epitomizes Prestopino's interest in social realism which captures a quiet interlude in the everyday life of an "everyman." It also provides a contrast for our expectations as we view a tough, blue collar worker, with no one watching, as he sings a melody to the birds. In an original frame measuring 49" x 39" x 3.25" Provenance: Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery (label verso from 13 w. 113th street, where the gallery was located from 1926 until 1939) Private collection, NYC, c. 1935 By descent About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel...

Canvas measures 24" x 30" and framed 30" x 36" x 3" About this artist: Anni Baldaugh was the daughter of Anthonius Hendricus Schade van Westrum. With a father who was a naval officer, the van Westrum family spent significant amounts of time in the Dutch East Indies. After returning to Europe, Baldaugh studied art with various teachers in Vienna, Munich and Paris. She and her husband ended up living in Los Angeles, though they suffered financial losses during World War I. While in Los Angeles, Baldaugh joined the California Watercolor Club, the California Society of Miniature Painters, the Bookplate Association International, the Laguna Beach Art Association, and the San Diego Fine Arts Society. She also became a member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts. During the Great Depression...