James MacMaster

"Gray Morning" James MacMaster, Scottish Seascape, Marine Ship Landscape

Max Kuehne (1880 - 1968) Train Station, circa 1910 Watercolor on paper 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Illinois Max Kuehne was born in Halle, Germany on November 7, 1880. During his adolescence the family immigrated to America and settled in Flushing, New York. As a young man, Max was active in rowing events, bicycle racing, swimming and sailing. After experimenting with various occupations, Kuehne decided to study art, which led him to William Merritt Chase's famous school in New York; he was trained by Chase himself, then by Kenneth Hayes Miller. Chase was at the peak of his career, and his portraits were especially in demand. Kuehne would have profited from Chase's invaluable lessons in technique, as well as his inspirational personality. Miller, only four years older than Kuehne, was another of the many artists to benefit from Chase's teachings. Even though Miller still would have been under the spell of Chase upon Kuehne's arrival, he was already experimenting with an aestheticism that went beyond Chase's realism and virtuosity of the brush. Later Miller developed a style dependent upon volumetric figures that recall Italian Renaissance prototypes. Kuehne moved from Miller to Robert Henri in 1909. Rockwell Kent, who also studied under Chase, Miller, and Henri, expressed what he felt were their respective contributions: "As Chase had taught us to use our eyes, and Henri to enlist our hearts, Miller called on us to use our heads." (Rockwell Kent, It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1955, p. 83). Henri prompted Kuehne to search out the unvarnished realities of urban living; a notable portion of Henri's stylistic formula was incorporated into his work. Having received such a thorough foundation in art, Kuehne spent a year in Europe's major art museums to study techniques of the old masters. His son Richard named Ernest Lawson as one of Max Kuehne's European traveling companions. In 1911 Kuehne moved to New York where he maintained a studio and painted everyday scenes around him, using the rather Manet-like, dark palette of Henri. A trip to Gloucester during the following summer engendered a brighter palette. In the words of Gallatin (1924, p. 60), during that summer Kuehne "executed some of his most successful pictures, paintings full of sunlight . . . revealing the fact that he was becoming a colorist of considerable distinction." Kuehne was away in England the year of the Armory Show (1913), where he worked on powerful, painterly seascapes on the rocky shores of Cornwall. Possibly inspired by Henri - who had discovered Madrid in 1900 then took classes there in 1906, 1908 and 1912 - Kuehne visited Spain in 1914; in all, he would spend three years there, maintaining a studio in Granada. He developed his own impressionism and a greater simplicity while in Spain, under the influence of the brilliant Mediterranean light. George Bellows convinced Kuehne to spend the summer of 1919 in Rockport, Maine (near Camden). The influence of Bellows was more than casual; he would have intensified Kuehne's commitment to paint life "in the raw" around him. After another brief trip to Spain in 1920, Kuehne went to the other Rockport (Cape Ann, Massachusetts) where he was accepted as a member of the vigorous art colony, spearheaded by Aldro T. Hibbard. Rockport's picturesque ambiance fulfilled the needs of an artist-sailor: as a writer in the Gloucester Daily Times explained, "Max Kuehne came to Rockport to paint, but he stayed to sail." The 1920s was a boom decade for Cape Ann, as it was for the rest of the nation. Kuehne's studio in Rockport was formerly occupied by Jonas Lie. Kuehne spent the summer of 1923 in Paris, where in July, André Breton started a brawl as the curtain went up on a play by his rival Tristan Tzara; the event signified the demise of the Dada movement. Kuehne could not relate to this avant-garde art but was apparently influenced by more traditional painters — the Fauves, Nabis, and painters such as Bonnard. Gallatin perceived a looser handling and more brilliant color in the pictures Kuehne brought back to the States in the fall. In 1926, Kuehne won the First Honorable Mention at the Carnegie Institute, and he re-exhibited there, for example, in 1937 (Before the Wind). Besides painting, Kuehne did sculpture, decorative screens, and furniture work with carved and gilded molding. In addition, he designed and carved his own frames, and John Taylor Adams encouraged Kuehne to execute etchings. Through his talents in all these media he was able to survive the Depression, and during the 1940s and 1950s these activities almost eclipsed his easel painting. In later years, Kuehne's landscapes and still-lifes show the influence of Cézanne and Bonnard, and his style changed radically. Max Kuehne died in 1968. He exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, and in various New York City galleries. Kuehne's works are in the following public collections: the Detroit Institute of Arts (Marine Headland), the Whitney Museum (Diamond Hill...

Edward Dufner (1872 - 1957) Monhegan Island, Maine Watercolor on paper Sight 16 x 20 inches Signed lower right With a long-time career as an art teacher and painter of both 'light' and 'dark', Edward Dufner was one of the first students of the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy to earn an Albright Scholarship to study painting in New York. In Buffalo, he had exchanged odd job work for drawing lessons from architect Charles Sumner. He also earned money as an illustrator of a German-language newspaper, and in 1890 took lessons from George Bridgman at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy. In 1893, using his scholarship, Dufner moved to Manhattan and enrolled at the Art Students League where he studied with Henry Siddons Mowbray, figure painter and muralist. He also did illustration work for Life, Harper's and Scribner's magazines. Five years later, in 1898, Dufner went to Paris where he studied at the Academy Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and privately with James McNeill Whistler. Verification of this relationship, which has been debated by art scholars, comes from researcher Nancy Turk who located at the Smithsonian Institution two 1927 interviews given by Dufner. Turk wrote that Dufner "talks in detail about Whistler, about how he prepared his canvasas and about numerous pieces he painted. . . A great read, the interview puts to bed" the ongoing confusion about whether or not he studied with Whistler. During his time in France, Dufner summered in the south at Le Pouleu with artists Richard Emil Miller...

Julian Alden Weir River Landscape Signed lower left Watercolor on paper 9 x 11 1/2 inches Provenance: Kraushaar Galleries, New York Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, 1965, Lot 27 E....

Louis Wolchonok (1898 - 1973) Gondolas at the Dock, Venice, Italy, 1928 Watercolor on paper Sight 18 x 23 1/2 inches Signed and dated lower right Louis Wolchonok was an author of ar...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) New York City Skyline View from the East River Watercolor on paper 13 x 19 inches Signed lower left In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Ann Wyeth McCoy (1915 - 2005) Afternoon Sun Watercolor on paper Sheet 24 x 18 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Somerville Manning Gallery Private ...

Larch Season, Lake Louise 10 x 15 inches (Framed size: 21.75 x 17.25 inches) watercolor on paper (painted using lightfast pigments, acid-free paper and archival framing materials) $2,450 Landscape: Banff National Park, Canada. Snowy peaks above Lake Louise. - Rebecca Livermore...

Cedar Breaks Saturation 11 x 11 inches (Framed size: 18 x 17.75 inches) watercolor on paper (painted using lightfast pigments, acid-free paper and archival framing materials) $1,850 Landscape: Cedar Breaks National Monument, Utah. Colorful eroded sandstone cliffs. - Rebecca Livermore...

"Utah Layers" by Rebecca Livermore, watercolor, 10 X 15 inches (Frame size: 17 1/4 X 21 3/4 in.), $2150. "Quiet places are my usual subjects. We liv...

Neapolitan gouaches appeared in the eighteenth century when tourism in the Naples area was developing: the discoveries of Herculaneum and Pompeii made this city a mandatory stop on the Grand Tour, the journey made by wealthy Europeans to complete their education. Generally small in size for ease of transport and affordable in price, these gouaches were the ideal travel souvenir that these tourists of the early days were bringing back to capture the idyllic landscapes they had discovered during their journey and to share them with family and friends upon their return at home. The Bay of Naples and the eruptions of Vesuvius are the favourite themes of these views. Here we have a view of the Ovo Castle, which was rebuilt on the island of Partenope, in the middle of the Bay of Naples and about a hundred metres from the shore by the Normans in the 12th century on antique ruins...

William Daniell (British, 1769-1837) Bridged Fortification in a Mountainous River • Blue wash on paper, laid on card, ca. 18 x 32 cm • Presented behi...

Watercolour, Acrylic Painting on archival paper. Work Title : "Vu d'ici" (EN : Seen from here) Artist : Fabien Granet (FR) The work is signed and dated on the back of the work. Uniq...