Wolf Kahn

"Barns and Silos in New Jersey" Wolf Kahn, Landscape, Abstract Impressionist

1985

Charles Green Shaw Harvard vs. Yale, 1944 Signed and dated on the reverse Oil on canvasboard 9 x 12 inches Provenance: Harvey and Francois Rambach, New Jersey Private Collection, California Washburn Gallery, New York D. Wigmore Fine Art, New York Private Collection, New York Charles Green Shaw, born into a wealthy New York family, began painting when he was in his mid-thirties. A 1914 graduate of Yale, Shaw also completed a year of architectural studies at Columbia University. During the 1920s Shaw enjoyed a successful career as a freelance writer for The New Yorker, Smart Set and Vanity Fair, chronicling the life of the theater and café society. In addition to penning insightful articles, Shaw was a poet, novelist and journalist. In 1927 he began to take a serious interest in art and attended Thomas Hart Benton's class at the Art Students League briefly in New York. He also studied privately with George Luks, who became a good friend. Once he had dedicated himself to non-traditional painting, Shaw's writing ability made him a potent defender of abstract art. After initial study with Benton and Luks, Shaw continued his artistic education in Paris by visiting numerous museums and galleries. From 1930 to 1932 Shaw's paintings evolved from a style imitative of Cubism to one directly inspired by it, though simplified and more purely geometric. Returning to the United States in 1933, Shaw began a series of abstracted cityscapes of skyscrapers he called Manhattan Motifs which evolved into his most famous works, the shaped canvases he called Plastic Polygons. The 1930s were productive years for Shaw. He showed his paintings in numerous group exhibitions, both in New York and abroad, and was also given several one-man exhibitions. Shaw had his first one-man exhibition at the Valentine Dudensing Gallery in New York in 1934, which included 25 Manhattan Motif paintings and 8 abstract works. In the spring of 1935 Shaw was introduced to Albert Gallatin and George L.K. Morris. Gallatin was so impressed with Shaw's work, he broke a policy against solo exhibitions at his museum, the Gallery of Living Art, and offered Shaw an exhibition there. In the summer of 1935 Shaw traveled to Paris with Gallatin and Morris who provided introductions to many great painters. Shaw regularly spent time with John Ferren and Jean Hélion. The following year Gallatin organized an exhibition called Five Contemporary American Concretionists at the Reinhardt Gallery that included Shaw, Ferren, and Morris, Alexander Calder, and Charles Biederman...

Artist Unknown (20th century) New York City Skyline, 1950s Oil, watercolor and gouache on paper 13 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches A bright abstract skyline view of a metropolis on a blue / teal background with red, yellow, and blue lights...

John Grillo Intimate Landscape II, 1975 Signed and Dated LR Signed, Titled, and dated on the reverse of the frame Oil on artist board 10 x 11 3/4 inches Provenance The Little Galler...

George Picken Playground, Carl Schurz Park, 1938 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 28 x 36 inches Provenance: Estate of the artist A native New Yorker, George Picken was born in 1898. His father, an artist and photographer, emigrated from Scotland; his mother came from Wales. They joined other European immigrants settling in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. Picken enlisted in the army during World War I and saw action at Verdun. After the war, he stayed in France and like many Americans returning from the vibrant Paris art scene, was inspired by the radical movement known as Impressionism. Upon his return Picken decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and become an artist. George began his studies in 1919 at the Art Students League during Robert Henri, Max Weber, and John Sloan’s tenure. There he took classes in studio art, illustration, and etching through 1923 studying extensively with George Bridgman. The writings of French philosopher Henri Bergson were widely circulated among the artistic community and looking at Picken’s early paintings one cannot help but wonder if as a young artist he was influenced by Bergson’s ideas. Bergson said, "[There are] two profoundly different ways of knowing a thing. The first implies that we move round the object; the second that we enter into it. The first depends on the point of view at which we are placed and on the symbols by which we express ourselves. The second neither depends on a point of view nor relies on any symbol. The first kind of knowledge may be said to stop at the relative; the second, in those cases where it is possible, to attain the absolute.” Picken’s recognition came early with showings of his work while he was a student. His drawings were published in the New Masses, a significant left-wing publication. The New York Public Library honored him with one-man shows in 1924 and 1928 and his work was included in group exhibitions at the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, the Whitney Studio Club, Montross Gallery, and the Art Students League. During this time Picken married Viola Carton, one of Reginald Marsh’s models, and they lived in Westchester. Later they moved to Yorkville in Manhattan between 82nd street and East End Avenue where they began their family. Picken’s grandson Niles Jaeger recalled that, “Grandpa’s home and studio were in a five-story walk-up apartment, heated only by a coal stove. But there were wonderful views of the East River and the Queensborough Bridge...

To Shizico, a triptych is a compilation of visual prayers; it embodies a meditative voyage akin to a form of meditation. For her, the repetition of motifs within the triptych serves ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed lower right. Original Period Newcomb Macklin Frame George William Sotter (1879 - 1953) Born in Pittsburgh on September 25, 1879, Sotter began his art education with local teachers and with Henry G. Keller, who had studied in various German academies. Keller, known for his superb, atmospheric watercolors, taught at the Cleveland School of Art but Sotter studied with him in Pittsburgh. Later Sotter would exhibit between 1903 and 1937 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. His works were also shown at the Corcoran Gallery (1912-23), the Carnegie International (1901-26), the National Academy of Design (1913 and 1921), and at the Art Institute of Chicago (1911-27). In 1915, Sotter exhibited four works at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where he won a silver medal. Sotter was known mainly as a stained-glass artist; his work may be seen from New York City to Salt Lake City. Around a dozen craftsmen worked under him for these commissions. Sotter spent the summer of 1902 with Pennsylvania impressionist Edward Redfield in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Between 1910 and 1919, Sotter taught at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. His paintings often feature large areas of sky filled with clouds and he frequently painted winter night scenes, such as Moonlight, Bucks County (Beacon Hill Fine Art), a perfectly successful depiction of a quiet, moonlit landscape filled with twinkling stars. Star-studded skies, although rare in landscape painting, go back at least to 1600 when they appear in the oeuvre of Adam Elsheimer...

This piece is a wonderful Mid Century pertinent example of Nannot de Groot's works from the prime of his career with thick use of impasto oil paint, and gestural brushwork throughout. In 1957 it was a transitional year from painting figures in his New York studio to his new studio into the countryside. And in 1959 he and his wife came back to Provincetown Massachusetts and rented a small cabin that was in a field belonging to Mary Cecil Allen on the west end. It was a small space, and there was a tree that was outside the front door, he was inspired and painted this tree over and over, and soon it was the beginning of a whole new series. The brush landscape that was outside of the window of the cabin became a focal point of this series and every year it would change, picking up inspiration to depict the tree in a new way each year. This piece is signed and dated 59' by the artist upper right corner and it comes housed with the original Mid-Century wood frame with gold rim and hanging wire on verso ready to be displayed. Art measures 49.5 x 39 inches Frame measures 51.5 x 40 inches Nanno de Groot was born on March 23 of 1913, in Balkbrug, Holland. He started drawing at six years of age. Although his father prevented him to study art at an early age, he moved to the United States in the year of 1941, and in 1946 at age 33 he discovered Picasso and he dedicated the rest of his life to painting and drawing. He worked for a year as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. After his marriage to the New York School artist Elise Asher...

This piece is a wonderful Mid Century pertinent example of Nannot de Groot's works from the prime of his career with thick use of impasto oil paint, and gestural brushwork throughout. In 1957 it was a transitional year from painting figures in his New York studio to his new studio into the countryside. And in 1959 he and his wife came back to Provincetown Massachusetts and rented a small cabin that was in a field belonging to Mary Cecil Allen on the west end. It was a small space, and there was a tree that was outside the front door, he was inspired and painted this tree over and over, and soon it was the beginning of a whole new series. The brush landscape that was outside of the window of the cabin became a focal point of this series and every year it would change, picking up inspiration to depict the tree in a new way each year. This piece is signed and dated 59' by the artist upper right corner and it comes housed with the original Mid-Century wood frame with gold rim and hanging wire on verso ready to be displayed. Art measures 49 x 51 inches Frame measures 50 x 52 inches Nanno de Groot was born on March 23 of 1913, in Balkbrug, Holland. He started drawing at six years of age. Although his father prevented him to study art at an early age, he moved to the United States in the year of 1941, and in 1946 at age 33 he discovered Picasso and he dedicated the rest of his life to painting and drawing. He worked for a year as a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle. After his marriage to the New York School artist Elise Asher...