Modern Landscape Paintings

A fine mixed media plien air painting by Gradwell. The Amalfi coast, Italy . An evening study in low light. mixed media on paper: 34cmx 54cm Glazed gallery frame: 52cm x 73cm

Drying the Nets French School, mid 20th century signed oil on board, framed framed: 13 x 18 inches board: 10.5 x 15 provenance: private collection, France condition: might benefit f...

Early modernist Israeli Judaica painting, by British mid-century artist. Israel Old City of Jerusalem scene.

Jersey Shore III Casein on Masonite, 1967 Signed lower right (see photo) Initialed, dated and titled verso Provenance: Estate of the artist Virginia Dehn (the artist's widow) Dehn Quests Created on location on the Jersey Shore. The Jersey Shore was the main playground for thousand to escape the summer heat of New York. This small painting shows Dehn's mastery of patterning color to depict movement and recreation. Part of a suite of paintings done on this theme. Within a year of it's creation, Dehn dies from a heart attack. Casein on Masonite Condition: Excellent Image: 6 x 11" Frame: 9 3/8 x 14 1/2" Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer, the publisher of the most notable modernist art and poetry magazine...

Oil on canvas painting by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1987-1968) titled 'View from the Park'. Presented in a custom frame measuring 28 ¾ x 32 ¾ inches; image size is 22 ½ x 26 inches. ...

The Market Sellers French School, mid/ last quarter 20th century signed oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 7 x 9 inches provenance: private collection, F...

Antique American modernist signed seascape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.

"Winter" American Modernism WPA Regionalism Landscape Mid-Century Magic Realism. 30 x 40 inches. Oil on canvas, c. 1960s, Signed lower right. As we list the painting now, the work is currently being cleaned, restored and a hand carved frame is being built. Additional photos will be uploaded as soon as possible. Our gallery, Helicline Fine Art, just launched our new digital exhibition: American Art: The WPA and Beyond. Three dozen paintings, works on paper and sculptures which are available here on 1stDibs. In person viewings can be arranged by appointment at our midtown Manhattan gallery. Provenance: "Winter" was originally purchased by Stanley Byer. Mr. Byer owned homes in Key West, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He purchased the painting from Dunning Auction in 1984 in Elgin, Illinois. Mr. Byer was related to Abraham Weiss from Florida. Saul Babbin, now deceased was a cousin of Mr. Weiss. I purchased the painting from Joy Babbin, Mr. Babbin's wife, now living in from New Mexico. Dale Nichols (1905 – 1995) Artist, printmaker, illustrator, watercolorist, designer, writer and lecturer, Nichols did paintings that reflected his rural background of Nebraska where he was born in David City, a small town. Although he did much sketching outdoors, most of his paintings were completed in his studio and often included "numerology, magic squares...

Incised lower right, 'Gavin' for Boyd Gavin (American, 20th century) and dated 1986; additionally titled, verso, on old exhibition label, 'Painted Trunks...

Work on paper

Leonard Creo (American, 1923-2019) Untitled, c. 1960s Oil on canvas 29 x 48 in. Framed: 30 1/8 x 49 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. Signed lower right: Creo Creo was bor...

Exotic Landscape is an artwork realized by Kabemba Situna Wa. Oil on Canvas, 1970s. 38 x 58 cm ; 65 x 85 cm with frame. Good conditions

A fine study piece by A. M. Gradwell. Painted plein air during winter months in 'The Lake District'. He revisits the place since his Residency at Grizedale Forrest , Artist in Reside...

City landscape is an artwork realized by Lello Barresi in 1980s. Oil on Canvas 67 x 47 cm ; 100 x 80 cm. Good conditions

Antique American modernist signed landscape oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed.

"Coney Island" Brooklyn NYC Amusement Park Mid-century American Scene WPA Modern Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962), “Coney Island" 35 x 27 inches Oil on board Signed lower left Origin...

HOUSES AT MIDNIGHT Size: 40 x 65 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A delightful modernist-style composition, executed in oil onto canvas and dated 1998. This picturesque compositi...

ALP TREES Size: 64 x 74.5 cm (including frame) Oil on canvas A vibrant modernist style nature landscape composition, executed in oil onto canvas and painted in 1952. Featuring a ri...

Here is a small paper piece produced in 2019 by Louisiana artist Francis X Pavy . About Francis X Pavy In the vast tapestry of the art world, Art collectors are attracted to the ...

Landscape is an artwork by Alberto Sillani, realized in the mid-20thCentury. Oil on Canvas 49 x 39.5 cm ; 75 x 65 cm with frame. Handsigned in the lower margin. Good conditions

This beautiful oil-on-canvas painting was created by Francois Gentilini (1930 -). This is a small-scale oil painting by the well-listed French Modern painter Francois Gentilini. The ...

The Sleepy Harbor French artist signed and dated 1976 oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 18 x 21.75 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very good and sound condition

Bela de Tirefort (1894 – 1993) Snow at Madison Square Park, 1951 Oil on canvasboard 16 x 20 inches Signed and dated lower left; signed and titled on the reverse on artist label Prov...

Place de l'Elige, Lacoste, French artist, signed and dated oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 22 x 18.5 inches inscribed verso provenance: private collection, France condition: very go...

Antique American signed modernist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24L x 20H.

George Gustav Adomeit (American, 1879-1967) Coastal Scene Oil on canvas Signed lower left 19 x 23 inches 21.5 x 25.5 inches, framed A major painter of American scene subjects, Georg...

Campsite, 1977 Oil on canvas 14 x 18 1/2 in. Framed: 21 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 7/8 in. Initialed & dated lower right: 'J 77' Inscribed verso: 1977 Campsite

here is an original work by Francis X Pavy. The work was done in 2014 and is part of his 3rd coast suite of paintings and multimedia work. the piece is mixed media on paper (unframe...

A gem of a painting depicting a Nantucket lighthouse by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was...

Oded Feingersh. painter and chemical engineer. Born in Jerusalem. Graduate of Bezalel Art Academy, studied art in Paris. Education 1960–63 Bezalel Academy of Art & Design,, Jerusalem 1979-83 Avshalom Institute, Tel-Aviv Geography of Israel 1965–68 Paris, Brussels and Madrid Feingersh's work ranges between social realism, naturalism, pop-art and surrealism. As a vagabond-artist, he draw endless influences from all around the world, his world is abundant with personal and collective mythology, classic and modern influences, from the medieval art to Hieronymus Bosch and Thomas Huffman. Selected one person exhibition: 1964 Chermernisky Art Gallery, Tel-Aviv 1966 Tournesol Galerie, Paris 1966 Montjoie Gallerie, Brussels 1967 Campo Gallerie, Antwerp 1968 Sala Amadis, Madrid 1969 Views of Fear, Engel Gallery, Jerusalem 1970 Psychic Drawings, Dugit Gallery, Tel-Aviv A secret Agent's Battles Against International Communism, Engel Gallery 1975 Tel Aviv Museum 1977 Arta Gallery, Jerusalem 1978 Ella Gallery, Jerusalem 1979 Fontana Gallery, Stockholm 1982 Art...

A landscape snowy scene by K.Bernath. The day snowy scene depicts a house / cabin in the middle of the snowy woods with a blue sky. The painting is framed. Dimensions Framed: 17.75...

GOLDEN MEADOWS Size: 58 x 70 cm (including frame) Oil on board An large and alluring textured modernist coastal landscape composition, executed in oil onto board and dated 1950. Th...

Northwoods, 2001. Signed and dated Military Enamel, Watercolor, Glitter, Decal, Aluminum Paint on Aluminum. Bears a label from Angles Gallery verso. Tom LaDuke (born 1964) is an Am...

'Port of Saint-Malo', oil on canvas affixed to board, French Modern School (1984). Although the artist dated this painting '84, it depicts a nostalgic view of the port of Saint-Malo in Western France's, Brittany in 1884 judging by the clothing worn by the characters depicted. The crowd on the shoreline is watching a sailboat regatta starting just inside the port's breakwater. A rather rare sunny day in Brittany brought out the parasols of the sitting ladies on the edge of the old ramparts. The walled city...

Duncan Gleason lived in New York and other places for work or studies but it was really Southern California where he felt most at home, and looking at his body of work, that love of ...

Signed and dated lower right: DALE NICHOLS 1953; on stretcher bar: “STARS” by Dale Nichols

The Pathway by Andre Guillou (French 1925-2017) signed and dated 1970 oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 23.5 x 29 inches provenance: private collection, Fr...

Signed upper right, 'Graham' for Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007) and painted circa 1985; additionally signed, verso, and titled, 'View Study'. This early California Modernist ...

Jerusalem Israeli landscape cityscape with the Har Habayit, The Temple Mount. Size includes frame. canvas is 37.5 X 42.5 Edward Ben Avram (born 1941) is an Indian - Israeli artist w...

Antique American modernist industriala oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.

This painting is unique, like all the works of art by the fascinating artist Carmen Gutiérrez; made of acrylics, oils, gold and silver inks and as a practical and sublime method of b...

A colorful view of Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from the 1930s. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of the city’s most popular and celebrated painters in his day. Born at the dawn of the 20th Century in Bristolville, Ohio, Chapin graduated from Washington & Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. He would set down deep roots at the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibiting there over 31 times between 1926 and 1951. In 1927 Chapin won the prestigious Bryan Lathrop Fellowship from the Art Institute – a prize that funded the artist’s yearlong study trip to Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Chapin decided to remain in Chicago, noting the freedom Chicago artists have in developing independently of the pressure to conform to pre-existing molds (as was experienced by artists in New York, for example). Chapin became a popular instructor at the Art Institute, teaching there from 1929 to 1947 and at the Art Institute’s summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan (now called Oxbow) between 1934 – 1938 (he was the director of the school from 1941-1945). A prolific painter, Chapin produced numerous works while traveling in Mexico, France, Spain, Saugatuck and Martha’s Vineyard, where he frequently spent summers and taught at the Old Sculpin Gallery there. Chapin was best recognized for his dynamic and vibrant images of Chicago during the 1930s and 40s. Chapin was a resident of the Old Town neighborhood where he lived and kept his studio on Menomonee Street for many years. Described as a “colorful figure, nearly 6 feet 6 inches tall, and thin, and usually wearing tweeds”, it is easy to imagine Chapin at work observing the busy street life of the city. In addition to his many exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, Chapin’s work was shown during his lifetime at such institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the National Academy of Design, New York; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, among others. Francis Chapin’s paintings are represented in the collections the Art Institute of Chicago; the Friedman Collection, Chicago; the Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown; the Denver Art Museum; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse; the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach...

Battle at Sea by Gordon Wood Armstrong (British late 20th century) signed oil on board, framed framed: 23 x 29 inches board: 18 x 24 inches provenance: pr...

Pathway in Provence by Andre Guilou (French 1925-2017) signed and dated 2000 oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 24 x 29 inches provenance: private collection, France condition: very goo...

Autumn Provence by Andre Guillou (French 1925-2017) signed and dated 2002 oil on canvas, unframed canvas: 25.5 x 21 inches provenance: private collection...

Provenance: The Artist. Menikoff collection (friends of the artist) About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as th...

A painting depicting a lighthouse in Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, w...

Transporting oil painting on canvas of a tropical bayscape with a boat, houses and palm trees on a sunny day highlighting light and shadow. Signed J. Drooks in the lower right and pr...

Oil on canvas on board, signed lower left Image size: 10 1/2 x 14 inches In the course of a long and varied career, Sep Scott exhibited in the Royal Academy and was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society. Scott produced some famous works for the railway poster campaigns in his early years. He became a book illustrator and one of the highest paid and respected of all British poster artists. Towards the end of his life, during a period when his style had gone somewhat out of vogue, he began working for Leonard Matthews and his trio of comics, Knockout, Sun and Thriller Comics Library. At first, Scott was used for picture strips, drawing all the adventures of the pirate hunter, Captain Flame, and proving to be a natural born strip artist. Then, when Matthews took over Thriller Comics Library, Scott began to paint the covers. He drew scores of full colour cover paintings, which would, as Leonard Matthews commented, “grace the walls of any stately home”, and were, in all probability, largely responsible for the success of the Library and the fact that these comics are so valued today amongst collectors. Scott also drew a number of short Robin Hood strips for the Library and some fine full-length adventure picture stories including Jane Eyre, Pride of the Ring, Secret Operator and the splendidly atmospheric, The Dark Shadows of London. For a short period, he also painted the occasional cover - and back page - for Comet and Sun and also contributed some paintings for the first Buck Jones Annual and the covers for both issues of the Billy the Kid Book...

A colorful view of Menemsha in Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one...

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 view of Oak Bluffs, MA on Martha's Vineyard by Francis Chapin, from around 1950. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of...

Dhiraj Chowdhury - Boat - 14.5 x 22, inches (unframed size) Mixed Media on Paper, 2014 ( Unframed & Delivered ) Style of the Artist : He steadfastly believes that art has to be clos...

Work on canvas

This lovely mid 20th century English oil on board by Tom White depicts a view over the rooftops of period houses in Spring. A quintessentially English view in the modern/impressioni...

'Blue Landscape' is an original painting by the master of Haitian art Antonio Joseph. In the painting, Joseph works with magic realist themes: The landscape is a deep and saturated blue, with greens and yellows covering the Haitian mountains as they emerge out of the sea. The mountains are likewise dotted with the colorful houses so emblematic of Haitian vernacular architecture. The viewer looks out toward at these features while seemly contained within a set of sea walls. In the immediate foreground, pushed up against the picture plane, a mysterious vine grows out of the hard industrial ground, with nearly a dozen different flowers bursting from the same vine. The impossibility of these flowers perhaps relates the artist's work to the strong Latin American surrealist artists, like Frida Kahlo and Remedios Varo, while also referencing Haitian folk culture and spirituality. caesin on masonite 23.88 x 36 inches, artwork 26.38 x 38.25 inches, frame signed "Antonio Joseph" lower right and dated 53 inscribed "172" in green ink, on reverse, center inscribed "380- 91-150" in white chalk, on reverse, center left inscribed "13" in graphite, on reverse, center right Overall good condition; some dust accumulation to surface; tidemarks on reverse; some scratches and surface losses to vintage frame. Presented in a mid-century modern profile wood moulding with gold leaf bevel and 1-inch linen liner. Antonio Joseph was born on April 15, 1921 in Barahona, Dominican Republic to Haitian parents. In his youth he was trained as a tailor and also attended Varones' "La Escuela Graduata" and studied at the Santa Cecilia Music Academy. When he was seventeen, at the time of the "perejil" massacre where thousands of Haitians were murdered, he was smuggled out of the Dominican Republic with his mother, brother and sister. When he arrived in Haiti, he first lived thanks to the practice of tailoring. In 1944, he was the first student and member registered at the Art Centre upon the official opening of the institution. There he studied geometric design and watercolor with DeWitt Peters, who recognized his potential as the Centre's first "discovery" and an asset to the nascent institution. He also practiced sculpture with Jason Seley, ceramics with Edith Wegard, and silkscreen printing with Franck Jacobson. He learned the first notions of composition and perspective with the French sculptor Pierre Bourdelle, who came to Haiti to oversee the creation of the murals of the Cité de l'Exposition in Port-au-Prince. From 1945 to 1949, he worked with Bourdelle on the enormous state-funded project, conceived as part of the festivities commemorating the bicentenary of the founding of the city of Port-au-Prince. In 1952, Paul Keene, an artist from Philadelphia taught and exhibited at the Art Center. While there, he passed on to Antonio Joseph the techniques of casein painting, which combine the virtuosity of oil painting with the possibilities of watercolor. This discovery was instrumental in Antonio Joseph’s career, and he then entered an intense production phase. He at that time produced a series of paintings for which, in 1953, the Guggenheim Foundation awarded him a prestigious research and development grant. He was the first Haitian artist to receive this scholarship in the field of "creative painting...

'Abandoned (Colorado)' is an oil painting by William Sanderson (1905-1990) depicting an abandoned house in green grass hills. Presented in a custom frame measuring 13 ¼ x 16 ½ inches; image size measures 8 ½ x 11 ¼ inches. Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born Latvia 1905 Died Colorado 1990 The elder son of a construction engineer, he was born Wilhelm Tsiegelnitsky in a seaside resort near Riga, Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Grigori Mojesevich (later Anglicized to Gregory) was of Russian-Jewish heritage, while his mother Berta (Bertha) came from a German-Jewish background. Because preference in awarding construction contracts at that time were being given to members of the Russian Orthodox Church, his father had the whole family baptized in that church which he kept a secret from Sanderson’s grandparents. His father’s profession took the family to a number of cities in various parts of the Russian Empire including Warsaw, Kharkhov, Kiev, and Samarkand in Asia. To his mother’s annoyance, he scribbled on anything within easy reach, deciding by age ten that he would make art his lifetime goal. During the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 the family lived with relatives in Rostov-on-the-Don where his mother enrolled him in the local Chinyenov Art School, marking the first step in his art career. Feeling that they would have no place in the new Communist political reality, in 1921 the family left Rostov for Kiev, emigrating to Italy and Greece on short-term visas before arriving in New York two years later, sponsored by Gregory’s relatives in New Jersey. The Tsiegelnitsky surname was changed to the more pronounceable Siegel. Experiencing the frustration shared by most immigrants seeking to establish themselves in a new, unfamiliar environment, Sanderson sufficiently mastered English by 1924 to attend the Fawcett School of Industrial Art in Newark (later the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art) where he studied with Ida Wells Stroud, herself a student of William Merritt Chase and Arthur Dow and part of the early twentieth-century Arts & Crafts Movement. Seeking a more challenging curriculum, he enrolled at the National Academy of Design in Manhattan (1924-1927), studying painting with Charles Hawthorne, etching with William Auerbach-Levy, and life drawing with Charles L. Hinton. Sanderson won the Suydam Medal for Life Drawing, First Prize in Composition, and Honorable Mention in Etching. He also briefly attended the Art Students League in New York in 1928, studying lithography with Charles Locke who in 1936 taught a summer course in the medium at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. However, Sanderson quit the League when he could no longer afford the tuition. With his art studies behind him, he began a successful career in illustration in New York. Briefly associated with the Evening Graphic, he maintained a decade-long affiliation with the New Masses, honored to be in the company of such established artist-contributors as Jean Charlot, Stuart Davis, Adolf Dehn, Louis Lozowick, Reginald Marsh, Jan Matulka and Boardman Robinson – some of whom later were affiliated with the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in the 1930s and 1940s. As a young immigrant he came to share some of the popular views of the left-wing intellectual community in American in the 1920s and early 1930s; but in 1936 he severed his connections with the New Masses because he did not like the direction it had taken by that time. In 1929, the year of the stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, he began doing commercial book illustration in New York which he continued until being drafted during World War II. However, his steady income disqualified him from participation in the Works Progress Administration (WPA)-era art projects. A barometer of his success was his inclusion in the Fifth Exhibition of American Book Illustration in 1935 sponsored by American Institute of Graphic Arts whose jurors included Edith Halpert of The Downtown Gallery in New York. Among the book titles he illustrated were: Marian Hurd McNeeley, The Jumping Off Place; P.N. Krasnoff, Yermak the Conqueror; Joe Lederer, Fanfan in China; Fay Orr, Freighter Holiday; and The Cavalcade of America. His images of a covered wagon and a Daniel Boone prototype in the last-named publication anticipate subjects he later explored more fully in his easel painting in Colorado with likenesses such as The Woman of the Plains and Hombre. In the 1930s and early 1940s he also produced illustrations and covers for leading American magazines such as The New Yorker, Esquire, Cue, and Harper’s. In 1931 he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in Manhattan and by 1936 began informally using Sanderson as his surname, making the change official in 1941. In 1937 he was given a solo show at the American Contemporary Art (A.C.A.) Gallery in New York. The following year he became art director at the McCue Ad Agency in New York where he worked until after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Looking forward to the day when he could give up illustration for the fine arts, his career change was set in motion when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in March 1942. After basic training at Kessler Field near Biloxi, Mississippi (where the Tuskegee Airmen also trained) he shipped out at his own request to Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, becoming part of the Army Air Corps and taking an instant liking to Colorado. At Lowry his humorous drawings of barracks life were published in the base newspaper, The Rev-Meter. In the summer of 1943 he had his first solo exhibition in Colorado at the Denver Art Museum-Chappell House that consisted of black-and-white drawings of army life. He also began painting watercolor scenes from memory of his previous life in the East. His two visits to Vance Kirkland’s studio in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood, while stationed at Lowry, occasioned a lifelong friendship and professional association. On Sanderson’s excursion in 1943 to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Ruth Lambertson from Cedar Falls, Iowa, whom he married eight weeks later, initiating a union lasting forty-seven years. His fluency in Russian landed him an assignment as an interpreter with the American ground forces meeting up with the Soviet Army marching westward toward Berlin in the last months of World War II. His impressions and photos of the bombed-out city formed the basis of his montage, Berlin 1945, painted in Denver in 1947. Its palette and collage-like quality and that of some of his other paintings from this period reflect the influence of American modernist, Stuart Davis. Following his military discharge and some brief design work for the Kistler Stationery Company and the A.B. Hirschfeld Press in Denver, Sanderson swapped commercial art for academia in 1946 when Vance Kirkland hired him as Assistant Professor of Advertising Design at the University of Denver, which subject he taught until retiring in 1972. Along with Kirkland and other faculty artists, he became a charter member of the 15 Colorado Artists. Founded in 1948, the group comprised some of the state’s leading contemporary artists seeking to distance themselves from much of the traditional imagery then being produced and exhibited in Denver and elsewhere. Reflecting the viewpoint of his fellow charter members Sanderson said, "I’m very taken with the nature scenes in this region, but it’s not the function of the artist to paint them when there are photographers around." Paraphrasing Picasso, the leading representative of contemporary art at that time, he added: "The painting is the artist’s representation of what nature is not." The financial security and stability of his teaching position at the University of Denver (DU) gave him the freedom to develop his easel painting. He produced a large body of oils and watercolors in both stylized Realism and Surrealism depicting, respectively, Colorado-inspired subject matter and social criticism of modern life and industrial civilization. One of his first canvases, Steamship Ruth, titled in honor of his wife and incorporating elements remembered from the port of Rostov in Russia has large, precisely-arranged areas of flat color with crisp edges seen in many of his Colorado paintings in the 1950s and 1960s. Similarly, Mountain Rhythm employs a bright palette and undulating lines conveying his fascination with the overall composition of irregular mountain and cloud shapes. Trailer Park, near the foothills west of Denver, provided abundant material for a geometric form study, while Composition with Fried Eggs in the Denver Art Museum’s collection essentially is a semi-cubistic arrangement of interlocking planes and spaces that was reproduced in the August 25, 1952, issue of Time Magazine. His work was also shown in group exhibitions outside Colorado at the Dallas Fine Art Museum, Museum of New Mexico (now, New Mexico Museum of Art) in Santa Fe, Joslyn Memorial Museum in Omaha, San Francisco Art Association, Salt Lake City Art Center, and the Cedar City Art Museum Association in Utah. The positive notice accorded his work in the early 1950s earned him a commission from the Ford Motor Company to illustrate an article, Fort Garland, by Marshall Sprague in the June 1954 issue of Ford Times. (Similar commissions were also given at that time to Denver’s Vance Kirkland and Richard Sorby.) In the mid-1950s Sanderson also executed several murals in different techniques for secular and religious buildings in Colorado, reminiscent of artists’ commissions under the Federal Arts Projects (FAP) during the Depression era: the Graland School lobby and the Colorado Tobacco Building, both in Denver; St. Joseph’s School, Salida; Mesa Elementary School, Cortez; as well as the Andrew Jackson Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. Sanderson’s life in Europe and illustration work for the New Masses in New York made him very aware of ethnic and racial prejudice. He said, "I believe the artist is first of all a human being with the ability to see and depict the hope, aspirations and the despair of other human beings." In the 1950s he recorded the political movement for Black racial equality in paintings such as Noon Hour, Whites Only...

Oil on board Image size: 6 x 8 1/2 inches (15 x 21.5 cm) Contemporary hand made float frame We have a considerable collection of Benham's landscape works. Please get in contact if ...