1950s Landscape Paintings

California Redwood Forest Fauvist Landscape Oil Painting Vibrant mid-century landscape of California Redwood trees with light streaming throu...

"Pilgrimage", a mid century figurative landscape by Carmel, California artist Mary Miller (Klepich) (American, ? - 1957). Presented in a rustic giltwood frame. Signed "Mary Miller" lower right. Titled "Pilgrimage," dated "1952" and signed "Mary Miller" on logo on verso, with Santa Cruz Art League Twenty Third Statewide Art Exhibition Label. Image, 18"H x 24"L. Framed size: 22.5"H x 28.5"W. Mary Miller (Klepich) exhibited in the Twenty-Third Annual Santa Cruz State-Wide Art Exhibition. She and her husband Fred Klepich studied at Bellas Artes, San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Fred and Mary Owned Carmel Craft Studios, later (SAS) Studio Art Supplies...

Original Painting Undersea Whale Life Mag Published 1953 Illustration Ocean Sea Antonio Petruccelli (1907 – 1994) Underwater Whale Life Illustration published, c. November 7, 1953 1...

California Redwood Forest Fauvist Landscape Oil Painting Vibrant mid-century landscape of California Redwood trees with light streaming throu...

Original Antique Western Nevada Desert Oil Landscape by Phoebe K. Higgins A mid-century desert oil landscape of Western Nevada by Phoebe K. Higgins (American, 1895 - c 1960), circa ...

'Les Alpilles Range in Provence', oil on panel, by Auguste Chabaud (1951). This artwork depicts the chain of the 'Little Alps', which is a small range of low mountains in Provence, F...

Closed Doors, 1957, polymer tempera on Masonite, signed lower right, 20 x 40 inches, inscribed verso “Zerbe Closed Doors June 1957,” label verso reads: “Artist Karl Zerbe / No. T / T...

Original vibrant and colorful oil on canvas painting of La Rambla in Barcelona, Spain attributed to the hand of Jordi Freixas Cortes the Barcelona born artist. Signed lower right (F....

Title: Shepherd in the Pyrenees Artist: Enric Porta i Mestre (1898–1993) Technique: Oil on canvas Style: Post-Impressionism with Expressionist influences Dimensions: Unframed: 23.6 x 31.9 in Framed: 29.9 x 38.2 in Signature: Signed in the lower right corner as "E. Porta". Date: 1956 (according to the inscription on the back). DESCRIPTION OF THE WORK Shepherd in the Pyrenees by Enric Porta i Mestre depicts a rural scene with a striking sense of introspection and evocative charm. The painting portrays a shepherd tending to his flock amidst the mountainous landscape typical of the Catalan Pyrenees. The composition captures the serenity and beauty of nature through vibrant colors and dynamic brushstrokes. The work reflects a Post-Impressionist style with loose, bold strokes and vivid tones, combined with Expressionist influences in its ability to evoke emotions beyond the physical depiction. The energetic and textured brushwork infuses the painting with a lively rhythm, while the rich palette of greens and blues immerses the viewer in the landscape's tranquil atmosphere. In this piece, Porta i Mestre showcases a mastery of color and light, illustrating his deep connection to his homeland and its rural life, which served as a source of inspiration throughout his career. ARTIST BIOGRAPHY Enric Porta i Mestre (La Pobla de Segur, 1898–1993) was a Catalan painter known for his landscapes, still lifes, and costumbrist depictions. Trained in Lleida and Barcelona, Porta debuted in 1922 with an exhibition in the Catalan capital. He later moved to Paris to further his artistic studies, where he connected with avant-garde artists such as Miquel Villà...

**Technical Details** - Author: Josep Puigdengolas Barella (1906-1987) - Title: *Landscapes of the Pyrenees and Mallorca* - Technique: Oil on panel (painted on both sides) - ...

Seoul, Korea, 1954 - 56, watercolor on paper, signed lower right 21 x 28 inches (sight), Midtown Galleries label with artist’s name and title verso, likely exhibited at Kingman’s solo exhibition, Midtown Galleries, 1956, literature: Gruskin, Alan D., Saroyan, William (introduction), The Watercolors of Dong Kingman and How The Artist Works, The Studio Publications, Inc. in association with Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York and London (1958), p. 54 (illustrated) (“In Seoul on April 27th and 28th Kingman did some mountain sketching [see reproduction, on page 54, of handsome Kingman painting, “Seoul,” owned by Robert Clary...

Original oil on masonite painting of the Black Crater in the state of Oregon by the American artist Marcel K. Sessler. Signed and dated lower right, 1955. Condition is excellent....

Wonderful antique American modernist Sunflower still life painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Joaquim Marsillach i Codony (1905-1986) - Landscape with characters Oil on canvas Oil measures 46x55 cm. Frame measures 69x78 cm. Marsillach Codony...

Vintage Oil Landscape Art of Redwood National Park Forest in California by 20th Century Artist, Tobias Everet Spence Art measures 14 x 17 inches Frame measures 21 x 24 inches Th...

A very interesting set of five mid-20th-century Italian oils on copper. All five are classical landscape subjects and are signed Roger, though we don't know which artist with the n...

Antique French impressionist opera scene oil painting. Oil on canvas, lain to board. Framed. No signature found

Antique American impressionist seascape beach scene oil painting. Oil on board. No signature found. Framed. Image size, 18L x 14H.

Rafael Durancamps (1891-1979) - Cadaques - Oil on canvas Oil measures 38x61 cm. Frame measures 52x75 cm. Rafael Durancamps i Folguera (Sabadell, March 29, 1891 [1] - Barcelona, January 4...

Work on ark paper

This exquisite painting by the artist Otto Lindberg (1880-1955) is a mesmerizing depiction of a spring sunset. Crafted in 1952, this piece stands as one of Lindberg's final paintings...

➡️Urban scene from 50s⬅️ ⭐Structural Analysis⭐ The painting depicts a quiet urban scene featuring: A man walking with an umbrella, wearing a long coat and a hat, smoking a pipe. ...

A superb large 1950's oil on board which we believe to depict the tenement buildings of the Milnes Court area in Edinburgh. Clothes hang from T shaped driers as a lady hangs her wash...

A large tonal, Mid-Century harbor scene with boats by French artist Georges Rocher. Artwork size: 24" x 30". Framed size: 31" x 36". Georges Rocher was born in Casablanca, Moroc...

Title: Olive Trees, Sóller, Mallorca Artist: José Ventosa Domènech (1897-1982) Technique: Oil on panel Unframed dimensions: 15 x 18 in Framed dimensions: 23.6 x 26.7 in Signature: Si...

2901 City Landscape ,acrylic on canvas Displayed in a custom gilt wood frame Image size 18x24" overall 21x26.5" Signed Varen

A simply beautiful oil on canvas circa 1950 by French post-impressionist painter Jacques Martin-Ferrieres. The work is of a field filled with bright flowers in all shades of red, lil...

A stunning mid-century landscape oil painting by Danish artist Max Victor (1919-1993), signed and dated July 3, 1958. The beautiful composition portrays a vast, open field under a ...

Vibrant tidal pool seascape at sunset at Manresa Beach in Santa Cruz by Cecil F. Chamberlin (American, 1899 -1963), circa 1950. Translucent wave and breaking wave add interest and de...

A stunning mid-century landscape oil painting by Danish artist Max Victor (1919-1993), signed and dated July 3, 1958. The beautiful composition portrays a vast, open field under a ...

Antique American school signed abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 19L x 13H.

A beautiful 1950's Modern British oil on canvas depicting a gardener with a ramshackle shed. The work is very similar in style and execution to the paintings of Cedric Morris from ...

This post-impressionist painting is signed, titled and dated 1955 by the artist, but the signature is difficult to decipher. It is oil on masonite board and is titled “Les Coquelico...

Broadway (?), 1952, oil on Masonite, signed and dated lower left, 15 x 18 inches, inscription verso may say "Broadway", presented in its original frame Jean Dominique van Caulaert w...

Impressionist French River landscape, with boats, a boat house. Rolleboise on the Seine Choosing to acquire a French 1950s Impressionist river landscape by Frederic Luce is an oppo...

Mid Century Seascape and Figural Original oil painting on Linen 1956 Solitary figure on wharf by California artist Robert Watson, painted 1956 (1923 - 2004)The following, is from To...

A very interesting set of five mid-20th-century Italian oils on copper. All five are classical landscape subjects and are signed Roger, though we don't know which artist with the n...

A beautiful large 1950's French expressionist oil on canvas depicting locals taking an afternoon stroll, by Paris painter André Beaucé. Excellent quality ...

"Company For Supper" - After Dale Nichols "Company For Supper" oil on canvas painting by Arlene a mid-west artist (American, 20th Century). Painted by an anonymous artist in the sty...

A rare color lithograph by late French artist, Éliane Thiollier. Edition of 275, certificate of authentication is provided. Minor acid staining from the old mat. Éliane Thiollier s...

Signed lower left, 'Ventosa' for Jose Ventosa Domenech (Spanish, 1897-1982) and painted circa 1950. A very substantial oil showing a luminous view of the isle of Mallorca with ancient olive groves and mountain cliffs bathed in warm evening light beneath clouded blue skies. A large and rare Mallorcan landscape by this notable Catalan painter. Born in Barcelona, José Ventosa Doménech first attended the San Jorge School of Fine Arts in 1911. He then undertook an extended trip to Brussels where he studied Vanguard painting before returning to Barcelona where he continued his studies with the Realist, Martí Alsina. In 1922, Ventosa worked alongside Eliseu Meifren and Domingo Soler in Ripoll. From 1924, Ventosa exhibited in Barcelona as a member of the "Nou Ambient", the Catalan art...

Peaceful landscape of a calm stream winding through an autumnal forest by Lorenz Griffith (American, 1889-1968). Signed "Lorenz Griffith" lower left. Titled "Autumn Reflections - Virginia" and dated 1958 on verso. Unframed. Image size: 24"H x 35.5"W. Lorenz E. Griffith was born in Indiana; he was active/lived in North Carolina, Florida, Indiana and many places across the United States. Lorenz Griffith is known for luminist landscapes and portraits. He painted in the style of the Florida Highwaymen...

Meet the genuinely exciting modernist William Einstein, who is probably better known in Europe, where numerous publications on his work have been written, than in his native US! Eins...

A beautiful 1950's Modern British oil on canvas depicting a gardener with a ramshackle shed. The work is very similar in style and execution to the paintings of Cedric Morris from ...

Artist: Édouard Léon Cortès (French, 1882-1969) Title: "Le Théâtre du Vaudeville (à Paris, France)" Series: Théâtre du Vaudeville *Signed by Cortès lower left Circa: 1950 Medium: Ori...

Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting by Frank Barry. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Measuring 27 by 31 inches overall and 18 by 22 painting alone. Nicely framed in a wood...

Wonderful antique American modernist Sunflower still life painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

A very good & large oil on canvas painting by California artist Ben Abril (1923-1995), Southern California, Los Angeles circa 1950. The artist a California native documented the city...

Untitled Landscape, Woodstock, 1969 Oil on canvas, signed by Arthur Pinajian on the lower right. Includes a certificate of authenticity from the Estate of Arthur Pinajian. Arthur Pin...

Signed lower right, 'Bickerstaff' for George Sanders Bickerstaff (American, 1893-1954) and painted circa 1950. This California landscape painter was born in Arizona and studied at t...

Antique American modernist landscape pastel painting. Pastel on board. Framed in plexi box.

Joaquín Asensio Mariné (1890-1961) - Landscape - Oil on canvas Oil measures 33x41 cm. Frame measures 60x68 cm. Asensio Mariné (Barcelona, 1890-1961) was a painter who specialized in...

Vintage American abstract landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.

Wonderful mid century landscape of Ojai, California with charming stucco cottage and almond trees in bloom and mountains in background titled, "Storm over Ojai" by Margaret Anna Dobson (American, 1888-1981), 1959. Signed faintly, lower right. Signed in pencil "Margaret Dobson", titled "Storm Over Ojai" and dated "1959" on verso. Presented in vintage gilt-toned wood frame. Image size: 12"H x 16"W. Framed size: 14"H x 17.75"W. Margaret Dobson was a painter, illustrator, muralist, etcher. Born in Baltimore, MD on Nov. 9, 1888. Dobson studied at the Maryland Institute, PAFA, Fontainebleau School of Art (Paris), and Syracuse University. She studied privately with Daniel Garber, Cecilia Beaux, Violet Oakley, Emil Carlsen, Robert Vonnoh, Hugh Breckenridge, and others. She was active in London, England until 1933. She then settled in Los Angeles where she remained until her death on Jan. 20, 1981. Primarily a muralist, she also painted floral still lifes and landscapes of the Sierra and southern California. Member: NAC; Royal Society of Etchers (London); Laguna Beach AA; Women Painters of the West; Santa Monica AA; Calif. Art Club; LAAA; Artists of the SW. Exhibits: Fontainebleau, 1927 (prize); Egan Gallery (LA), 1933; Calif. PM Society, 1935, 1936; Ebell Club (LA) 1936 (1st prize); Academy of Western Painters, LACMA, 1937; Santa Cruz Art League, 1938; Friday Morning Club (LA), 1939; GGIE, 1939; Society for Sanity in Art, CPLH, 1944. Murals: Santa Monica Women's Club; Palace of Fontainebleau and Fontainebleau Hospital (France); Kaufman (TX) Post Office (Driving the Steers); Girl Scouts...

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting by Ervin B. Nussbaum (1914 - 1996). Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Dated 1950. Artist Bio: Ervin B. Nussbaum was born in Co...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 39 x 49 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 1957 "Bluebonnet Creek" Texas Hill Country Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910, near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions...

Mid Century Autumn Landscape, Showers Beneath San Gabriel Hills by Aletha Martin Vibrant autumn landscape of a crystal clear stream under the San Gabriel Mountains by California art...

Antique American impressionist seascape beach scene oil painting. Oil on board. No signature found. Framed. Image size, 18L x 14H.

Beautiful mid-century landscape of upper Young Lake and Ragged Peak in Yosemite National Park by Helen Enoch Gleiforst (American, 1903-1997). The artist uses textural impasto in a pa...

View of a Port "59" French Modernist School Oil on canvas Illegibly signed. l.r., dated "59" 28 3/4 x 23 3/4 (30 x 25 frame) inches A positively brilliant, Modernist view of a French port...

Impressive early American modernist abstract oil painting. Framed. Oil on board. Signed. Image size, 15H by 19L.

Vintage Oil Landscape Art of Redwood National Park Forest in California by 20th Century Artist, Tobias Everet Spence Art measures 14 x 17 inches Frame measures 21 x 24 inches Th...

Vintage American modernist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.

Vintage American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed.

Vintage American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed.

Signed lower right, "Mogens Valeur" (Danish, 1927-1999) and dated 1956. Mogens Valeur first studied with Peter Rostrup Boyesen, and later attended the Copenhagen Art Academy. He sub...

Mid-century figurative seascape with boats by Henryk Dzienczarski, (Poland, b-1917). Signed "H. Dzienczarski" lower right. Displayed in a wood fra...

Acquiring a mid-20th-century Fauvist painting by Wilhelm Henning is an opportunity to own a piece of art that captures the vibrant spirit and expressive color palette of the Fauvist ...

Antique American impressionist landscape oil painting. Signed verso. Really nicely framed. Great color and thick impressionist impasto. Image size, 10L x 8H.

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 27 x 33 Frame Size: 35 x 41 Medium: Oil On Canvas Late 1940s-Early 1950s "Bluebonnet Time" Texas Hill Country Landscape Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican-American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910 near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions. While a few of his early works have a soft, tonalist quality, with subtle gradations of sunset colors, most were painted in a style that fits well within the currents of the late American Impressionist style, with solid drawing and a warm, chromatic palette. Like Robert Wood's works of the 1930s, the paintings Salinas produced as a young man were usually well composed and detailed views of the spring wildflowers in full bloom in the Texas countryside. In contrast to Wood's work, however, early Salinas compositions were usually pure landscapes without the pioneer farms or dilapidated fences that Wood often used to add visual interest to his wildflower scenes, and he also painted scenes of San Antonio itself as his mentor Jose Arpa had done. To residents of the Hill Country, Salinas was especially adept at accurately capturing the palette of the region and its unique atmosphere. In 1939 Salinas began working with Dewey Bradford (1896-1985), one of the great characters of Texas art. Bradford was a second-generation dealer whose family operated the Bradford Paint Company in Austin, where they sold art supplies, framed artwork, restored paintings and exhibited paintings by Texas artists. Salinas was struggling when he met Bradford, but the older man took the young artist under his wing and began to sell his work reliably, even though the prices that people would pay for a painting were still low due to the lingering effects of the Great Depression. Bradford was a born salesman with a gift for storytelling, and truth be told, a bit of embroidery. The relationship between Bradford and Salinas was often rocky, but it was to last the rest of the artist's life and give him a modest sense of loyalty and security, things which are all too rare in the art world. While Bradford could be critical of his work, Salinas knew that he had a dealer who encouraged him, believed in him and was not shy about singing his praises to anyone who entered Bradford's store on Guadalupe Street. During the early years of World War II Salinas met a pretty Mexican woman from Guadalajara named Maria Bonillas, who was working as a secretary for the Mexican National Railways office in San Antonio. While he was walking downtown with a painting of a bullfighter under his arm, he started a conversation with the young woman, and things progressed rapidly. The couple were married on February 15, 1942 and settled into life in bi-lingual San Antonio and they eventually purchased a tidy stone home on Buena Vista street that had a detached studio in back. By the time the United States entered World War II, Salinas was starting to make a decent living selling his art and beginning to garner recognition across Texas. However, in 1943, like millions of other young men, he was drafted into the service of his country. Fortunately, as an older Army draftee with special talents, after his training he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, right in San Antonio, allowing him to remain at home while still completing his obligation to "Uncle Sam." Because of his artistic abilities, Salinas was asked to do paintings for the Army as well as a mural for the Officer's Club, which has been re-discovered in recent years. In his spare time he kept working on landscapes and when the war ended in 1945, he was not faced with the same rocky transition from military to civilian life as many veterans. That same year, Salinas became a father as he and Maria celebrated the birth of his only child, Christina Maria Salinas. Like most landscape artists of the era, Salinas was an avid Plein-air painter, and he took his easel and paint box with him on trips throughout Texas and into Mexico. He and his wife traveled deep into her native country, where the artist painted the majestic volcanic peaks of Iztaccihuatl (known as the "Sleeping Woman" because of its unique shape) and Popocatepetl (called the "smoking mountain" because the volcano is still active), south of Mexico City. Salinas also painted studies of rustic villages and their residents. While his most popular paintings were always the scenes of the Texas Bluebonnets and other wildflowers that bloom all over the Hill Country in the spring, he also painted scenes of the twisted Texas oak trees of central Texas, the more arid landscapes of the Texas panhandle and West Texas, and the historic Texas missions; he even sold rapidly executed scenes of bullfights and cockfights for Mexican-American collectors. By the late 1940s, the American economy was finally growing again and wealthier Texans began to collect Salinas paintings, purchasing them from galleries in San Antonio and Dallas and at Dewey Bradford's County Store Gallery in Austin. Salinas also sold work to the Atlanta dealer Dr. Carlton Palmer, who represented Robert W. Wood for many years. In 1948 Palmer sold two large Salinas paintings to the Citizen National Bank in Abilene, Texas. Because Austin was the state capitol, Bradford counted many of the state's elite among his patrons, and due to his interest in history and literature, he played a large role in the cultural history of central Texas. Bradford introduced a number of the major Texas political figures to Salinas' work, including Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), who was then in the House of Representatives and on his way to winning a controversial election that vaulted him in the United States Senate. Johnson became an enthusiastic collector, as did his political mentor, the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882-1961). Johnson decorated his Washington offices with Salinas paintings and he brought a number of them home to his vast LBJ Ranch, near Johnson City, Texas. In spite of his important patrons, Salinas went through a fallow and difficult period in the late 1950s. He had a volatile temperament, which made relationships difficult, and it took great patience for his wife to help him manage his career. As Salinas entered middle age his work began to sell steadily, but except for tourists who purchased his paintings in San Antonio, he was known primarily only to Texas art collectors. All that changed in 1961 with the election of John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) to the Presidency of the United States and his running mate Lyndon Johnson to the Vice Presidency. Johnson was an expansive, larger-than-life character and his status as a long, tall Texan in a cowboy hat was a large part of his imposing political image. During his storied career in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007) spent their time in Washington in a modest house on the edge of Rock Creek Park, but this home would not do for a Vice President. So, in 1961, the Johnsons purchased a French chateau-styled home in the Spring Valley section of the Capitol. Obtained from the famed socialite and ambassador Perle Mesta (1889-1975), the house came with a fine collection of French furniture and tapestries, and the designer Genevieve Hendricks was hired to meld the French look with objects from the Johnsons' overseas travels and paintings of the flora and fauna of their native Texas. Featured prominently in the foyer were the paintings of Porfirio Salinas. Because of the Johnsons' patronage, his work was mentioned in Time Magazine and other national publications. Lady Bird Johnson loved her landscapes of the Texas Hill Country and told reporters that, "I want to see them when ever I open the door, to remind me where I come from." After President Kennedy's death thrust Lyndon Johnson into the Presidency, he brought his Salinas paintings into the historic halls of the White House, further enhaning the Texas painter's national reputation. At the time of the President Kennedy's assassination, Salinas had completed a scene of a horse drinking titled "Rocky Creek" that was to have been presented to Kennedy during his ill-fated visit to Dallas. Instead, in an effort to memorialize the fallen President, Salinas painted a symbolic work of a lone horse depicted against foreboding clouds. During his tenure in the White House, President Johnson presented a Salinas landscape as a state gift to the President of Mexico, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1911-1979). During the 1960s, Salinas paintings sold briskly and, thanks to Presidential patronage, for escalating prices. In an interview with a writer from the New York Times, President Johnson enthused about the work of "his favorite artist" and said that, "his work reminds me of the country around the ranch." Salinas was invited to the LBJ Ranch frequently during the Johnson administration and his paintings were hung throughout the ranch, in the President's offices and even in the private quarters of the White House. The connection to President Johnson was a great boon to sales of Salinas paintings, and in 1964, when the demand was at its height, Texas Governor John Connelly (1917-1993) was told that all Salinas'work was sold and that he would have to wait for a painting. In 1960, a half century after his birth, Salinas was honored by his home town of Bastrop, a celebration that touched the modest artist. In 1962 Salinas was given a solo exhibition at the Witte Museum in San Antonio that featured more than twenty of his works. By the early 1960s, sales of reproductions of the artist's landscapes by the New York Graphic Society and other publishers grew rapidly, enlarging his audience throughout the United States. In 1967, Dewey Bradford helped to organize the production of a book of Texas stories titled "Bluebonnets and Cactus" (Austin: Pemberton Press: 1967), which was profusely illustrated with paintings by Salinas. His works were still popular when Salinas died after a brief illness in April of 1973, just a few months after former President Johnson's passing. He was memorialized in the City of Austin by Porfirio Salinas Day, which honored him for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas together with his paintings." Bastrop, Texas, the city of the artist's birth, has been holding a Salinas Art Exhibition annually since 1981. He painted hundreds of scenes of the wildflowers, including the various varieties of Blue Lupin, the state flower, as well as other flowering flora. These show the influence of his artistic mentors Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa Y Perea. Salinas also painted a number of scenes of Prickly Pear Cactus that show the influence of the English painter Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864-1939), who painted many such works during his tenure in Texas. He painted the more arid Texas landscape infrequently and these works are very rare today and sought after by collectors from the Texas Panhandle and West Texas. Salinas also painted many river landscapes along the Guadalupe, Rio Frio, the San Antonio and the Rio Grande. On trips to his wife's homeland of Mexico, he painted a number of scenes of the volcanic peaks as well as scenes of peasant villages and villagers. Figurative paintings are rare among Salinas' works and these scenes of bullfights, fandangos and cock fights are probably the least sought after of his paintings. There are also a small number of modest marines, painted on trips to the Texas and California coast. Salinas paintings are highly prized by collectors of early Texas art, with the paintings of wildflowers in greatest demand. Works by Porfirio Salinas can be found in a number of public collections, including the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas; the Texas State Capitol; the Texas Governor's Mansion; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch; the Sam Rayburn Library and Museum in Bonham, Texas; Amarillo High School; the Witte Museum in San Antonio; the historic Joan and Price Daniel House in San Antonio; the Stark Museum in Orange, Texas; the R.W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport, Louisiana; the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, Colorado; Texas A & M University and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Salinas has been featured in a number of reference works as well as anthologies devoted to American Western Art...

Jean Porcher, French, 1927, La vieille 'Fiat abandonnée', Oil on canvas modernist painting Provenance: verso gallery label "Galerie Drouant-David St Honore Paris" Hand signed and dated verso and along top to upper left 19 3/4 x 29, framed 22 x 31 1/2 It depicts an antique abandoned Italian Fiat car...

Alexandre de Spengler (1893–1973) was a Swiss painter and engraver active in Geneva and Paris. He is known for his land and seascapes, as well as...

Antique American modernist cityscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.