Russell Limbach

1946 WPA Ohio Artist Russel Limbach American Colonial Home Oil Painting

1946

Hildegarde Hamilton (Florida, Virginia 1898-1970) Oil on canvas painting of a docked navy ship with sailors on shore. Hand signed lower left Measures: Canvas 19"H x 23"W; Framed 23.5"H x 28"W. Hildegarde Hume Hamilton (1898 - 1970) was active/lived in Florida, Virginia. He is known for Impressionist buildings in landscape and coastal view painting, illustration. Hildegard Hume Hamilton was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1898. After her education there, and brief training at the age of six in art schools in Venice, Italy, while on a European sojourn with her father, she studied fine art at the Académie Julian, the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Grande Chaumière in Paris, France, during the 1920s and 1930s. Back in the United States, Hamilton studied for a short time at the Herron Art Institute in Indianapolis, the Cincinnati Art Academy and under the tutelage of the landscape and maritime painter Anthony Thieme (1888-1954) in Rockport, Massachusetts. The Ainslie Galleries on Fifth Avenue held an exhibit of Hamilton’s French Alpine Scenes to much acclaim. Hamilton exhibited in venues throughout the city and sold as many as 300 landscapes. In 1927, Vice President Charles Gates Dawes acquired one of Hamilton’s paintings following her one person exhibit at the Women’s National Party Headquarters in Washington D.C. In the autumn of 1928, an exhibition of her landscapes and cityscapes at the Galerie Bernheim Jeune in Paris was widely and positively reviewed. In 1929, she became the first American woman to exhibit at Philip Dillon’s club – L’Artistique, in Provence. She also contributed to the Salon des Artistes Independants in Paris. In 1930, Hamilton exhibited at the Carlton Hotel in Washington D.C. and in New York at the Grand Central Palace, American Art Association-Anderson Galleries on 57th Street, and the Huntington Bay and Yacht Clubs. During this period, the artist resided at 9 Gramercy Park in New York City. The picturesque neighborhood inspired Hamilton’s painting entitled 4 Gramercy Park, Mayor Harper’s House, Manhattan. C. 1930. The oil painting captures the red brick façade and intricate cast iron embellishments of 4 Gramercy Park, the former home of publisher and New York City Mayor James Harper (1795- 1869). The two lamps at the foot of the steps signify the home was a mayoral residence and remain at the site to this day. Mrs. Hamilton studied at the Art Students League, New York, New York, and the Cincinnati Art Academy, Cincinnati, Ohio. Hamilton exhibited her topographical street-scenes and landscapes widely throughout the United States with shows at the Syracuse, New York, Museum of Fine Art; the University of Kentucky; the University of Georgia, and most importantly, New York City’s Society of Independent Artists from 1929 to 1933, 1938, 1939, 1943 and 1944. She also illustrated books. Hamilton’s paintings are included in the collections of Wesleyan College, She was aof a generation of American artists that included Alfred Hutty, Wayne Beam Morrell, Frank Henry Shapleigh, Jane Peterson, Henry Martin Gasser, Emil Holzhauer...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. Simka painted what he thought was typical of Jackson. His impression of pre-civil rights Mississippi was evidently Greek Revival column houses, weeping willow trees, working class families, and the oppression of African Americans. He painted African American men picking cotton, while a white man took account of the harvest and a white judge advised a white family, calling it Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. Though clearly endorsed by the government and initially generally well-received, the mural soon raised concerns with locals as the climate toward racial segregation began to change. The main concern was whether depictions that show African Americans in subjugated societal roles should be featured in a courtroom. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...

Wonderful 1940s figurative of paper boy reading the comics by Louise Miller Clark (American, 20th Century). Signed "Louise Miller" lower right. Unframed. Im...

Charming mid century figurative landscape of Aptos Village Apple Shed and Market by listed California artist Jon Blanchette (American, 1908-1987). Aptos is just south of Santa Cruz,...