1940s Paintings

Julia (Elsie Julia Miller) Schleicher (Canadian/American, 1916-1988) she was an important female illustrator Woman Tennis Player Pastel and gouache on boa...

A charming and stylized depiction of a day at the Central Park Zoo. with World War Two uniformed visitors front and center. Sea lions put on a show in front o...

Italian painting from the first half of the 20th century. Framework oil on board depicting a wooded landscape with a character of good pictorial quality. Modern frame in carved and g...

Graham Noble Norwell, Canadian, 1901-1967 Untitled watercolour on paper 7 x 13 in (sight) Signed lower right framed

Village is an original drawing in pen realized by Enrico De Tomi in 1947 ca, hand-signed on the lower-left of margin. In good condition. Sheet dimension :18.5 x 24 cm. The artwork...

PURRMANN, Karl (1877-1966) Baroque interiors of Castle Oil on wood panel signed and dated 1947 Low left Framed by Gault (Paris) Dim wood : 52 X 66 cm PURRMANN, Karl (1877-1966) Ger...

FRANCISCO BORES Spanish, 1898 - 1972 SANS TITRE signed and dated "Borès 42" (lower left) oil on panel 13-3/4 x 10-5/8 inches (35 x 27 cm.) framed: 19 x 15-3/4 inches (48 x 40 cm.) BIBLIOGRAPHY: Francisco Bores, Reasoned Catalogue, Volume I - Painting 1917-1944, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2003, nº 1942 / 63, reproduced in p. 494 PROVENANCE Carmen Bores Collection, Francisco Bores daughter Private Collection, Madrid Francisco Bores López (Madrid, May 5, 1898 - Paris, May 10, 1972) was a Spanish painter of the so-called New School of Paris. His artistic training originated both in the Cecilio Pla painting academy, where he met Pancho Cossío, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz or Joaquín Peinado, and in the literary gatherings in Madrid related to ultraism. At this time he made engravings and woodcuts for a large number of magazines such as Horizonte, Cruz y Raya, Index, Revista de Occidente. In 1922 he participated in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. In 1925 he participated in the first exhibition of the Iberian Artists Society. The limited success of this exhibition pushes him to go to Paris. In this city he shared a studio with the Spanish painter Pancho Cossío and also met Picasso and Juan Gris. In 1927 he held his first solo exhibition in Paris. From this moment on, Bores integrates himself into the Parisian artistic environment where he will live practically his entire life. In 1928, his first exhibition in a gallery in the United States, in 1930 he exhibited again, within a group exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the following years, he continued exhibiting in different galleries in Paris, such as the Georges Petit Gallery, the Bernheim Gallery and the Vavin Raspail Gallery. He also participates in several group exhibitions, highlighting the Exhibition of Contemporary Spanish Art...

"Backstage, Ambassador" Broadway Theatre NYC Mid-century Modern Modernist CubistSigned lower left, titled on the stretcher. Norkin was a Brooklyn, Ne...

Born in Ontario, Canada, Rolph Scarlett left home at age eighteen for New York City, making that city his home for long periods during his lifetime. While beginning his career as an ...

John Edward Costigan, N.A. American, 1888-1972 Woman and Child Oil on canvas Signed ‘J.E. Costigan N.A.’ lower left 24 by 30 in. W/frame 32 by 38 in. John Costigan was born of Irish-American parents in Providence, Rhode Island, February 29, 1888. He was a cousin of the noted American showman, George M. Cohan, whose parents brought the young Costigan to New York City and was instrumental in starting him on a career in the visual arts. They were less successful in encouraging him to pursue formal studies at the Art Students League (where, however, he later taught) than in exposing him to the commercial art world through the job they had gotten him with the New York lithographing firm that made their theatrical posters. At the H. C. Miner Lithographing Company, Costigan worked his way up from his entry job as a pressroom helper, through various apprenticeships, to the position of sketch artist. In the latter capacity he was an uncredited designer of posters for the Ziegfeld Follies and for numerous silent films. Meanwhile, he had supplemented his very meager formal studies in the fine arts with a self-teaching discipline that led to his first professional recognition in 1920 with the receipt of prizes for an oil painting and watercolor in separate New York exhibitions. A year earlier, Costigan had wed professional model Ida Blessin, with whom he established residence and began raising a family in the sleepy little rural New York hamlet of Orangeburg, the setting for the many idyllic farm landscapes and wood interiors with which he was to become identified in a career that would span half a century. John Costigan’s first national recognition came in 1922 with his winning of the coveted Peterson Purchase prize of the Art Institute of Chicago for an oil on canvas, “Sheep at the Brook.” It marked the start of an unbroken winning streak that would gain him at least one important prize per year for the remainder of the decade. The nation’s art journalists and critics began to take notice, making him the recurring subject of newspaper features and magazine articles. The eminent author and critic Edgar Holger Cahill was just a fledgling reporter when he wrote his first feature, “John Costigan Carries the Flame,” for Shadowland Magazine in 1922. Costigan had his first one-man show of paintings at the Rehn Gallery on New York’s 5th Avenue in November, 1924, to be followed less than three years later by another at the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, Costigan’s work has been—and continues to be included, side-by-side with that of some of America’s most high-profile artists, in museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the country. His renown had peaked in the early 1930s, by which time his work had been honored with nearly every major award then being bestowed in the fine arts and had been acquired for the permanent collections of several prestigious American museums, including New York’s Metropolitan (which only recently, in 1997, deaccessioned his “Wood Interior,” acquired in 1934). Although Costigan’s celebrity had ebbed by the late 1930s, the Smithsonian Institution saw fit in 1937 to host an exhibition exclusively of his etchings. And, in 1941, the Corcoran Gallery (also Washington, D.C.) similarly honored him for his watercolors. (Another Washington institution, the Library of Congress, today includes 22 Costigan etchings and lithographs in its permanent print collection.) During World War II, Costigan returned briefly to illustrating, mainly for Bluebook, a men’s pulp adventure magazine. A gradual revival of interest in his more serious work began at the end of the war, culminating in 1968 with the mounting of a 50-year Costigan retrospective at the Paine Art Center and Arboretum in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Oils, watercolors and prints were borrowed from museums and private collections throughout the country, and the exhibition was subsequently toured nationally by the Smithsonian Institution. John Costigan died of pneumonia in Nyack, NY, August 5, 1972, just months after receiving his final prestigious award —the Benjamin West Clinedinst Medal of the Artist’s Fellowship, Inc., presented in general recognition of his “...achievement of exceptional artistic merit...” in the various media he had mastered in the course of his career. This painting depicts one of the artist's favorite themes --the farm family bathing...

This artwork is an oil painting on canvas created by "Shapovalov." It is inspired by a work by Arkady Plastov, capturing the style and essence of the original piece. The scene depic...

Ernest Fiene, American (1894-1965), Thistles with Greek Relief, 1948 Signed lower right: "E. Fiene". Titled and signed on stretcher: "Thistles with Gree...

After his academy Theo Meier moved to Germany where he came into contact with Max Liebermann and German expressionists from Die Brücke. Inspired by Paul Gauguin, he left for Tahiti at the age of 24. The influence of Paul Gauguin and the German Expressionists can be clearly seen in his works. After a year in Tahiti, he moved toBali where he found the culture and art that he had missed in Tahiti. He settled in Sanur and befriended the other artists who had settled in Bali, such as Rudolf Bonnet, Walter Spies, Antonio Blanco...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed and Dated Lower Left Dimensions: Sight Size 30.50" x 34.75," Framed 36.00" x 39.50"

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Unsigned Preliminary study for Life magazine, Circa 1941. Features a study of the work titled; "The Postman Always Drinks...

Portrait of a woman holding a bouquet of flowers by Helen Enoch Gleiforst (American, 1903-1997). Signed "Gleiforst" lower right. Unframed. From the Estate of Helen Gleiforst. Helen...

This highly atmospheric, original and unusual painting, by James Exley, was executed in 1941. The focus of the headlights, dancing off intricately detailed branches and trunks, is m...

Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel Robert Riggs was a gay man. Being gay in American during the 1940's time was something not to flaunt in public. Rigg's had to communicate his underlying feelings in more symbolic ways. Throughout Riggs oeuvre, one sees continuous references to strong hunked out manly men and vulnerable boys. It is a core element of is iconography and is described in a powerful graphic style. In “Prospector firing Rifle” is a Dick Pic. Riggs is clearly making a sexual statement about the moment of climax. The long, straight rifle explodes and is captured at the peak moment of climax. Meanwhile, the bag two bags of gold clearly resemble the other part of the male anatomy. Riggs was a thoughtful and meticulous visual thinker and nothing in any of Riggs’s compositions were haphazardly placed. In tribute to the artist’s suppressed feelings, I have given this work a second title “Happiness is a Warm Gun...

The oil painting features a family at the fairground stopping by the ice cream stand. An elegant mother hands a treat to one of her three children, while another holds his ice cream, and the last one a red balloon. A couple with a child stands on the left part of the painting, while in the background, men sitting on stools face a cook at a counter. The latter looks down and focuses on preparing food for his clients. The overall impression is joyful and lively, though it looks more like the end of the day because of the dark warm colors used by the artist to depict the scene. Edgar O. Kiechle was born in 1911. He was a movie illustrator and a painter. Edgar studied landscape painting with Jean Mannheim, and architecture, and became an excellent watercolorist. After studying at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, he interned with leading architects and designers in the area. He worked at most major studios but his career as an illustrator saw him primarily at the Universal Studio Art department. In 1933, Edgar joined Lwerks as a background artist and worked on many films produced by Animated Picture Corporation through 1935. In the summer of 1941, Edgar Kiechle...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed and Dated '1941' Upper Right This illustration was published for the interior story "Sugarfoot" by Clarence Budington Kelland in the Saturday Evening Post, February 7th, 1942. Signed and dated '1941' upper right Harold von Schmidt grew up in the West a generation after Remington...

"Abstractions" by American modernist painter Leonard Nelson is a double sided work on paper. The front is 10.5" x 7.5" and the back side drawing is 10" x 6.75". Both sides are signed and dated "Nelson 46", and the artworks are matted and framed behind glass. Leonard Nelson (1912 - 1993) Born in Camden, New Jersey, Nelson applied for a scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, regardless of having no portfolio. He was persuasive enough to be given one semester and subsequently was awarded an Academy fellowship to study painting. Nelson went on to earn the Academy's prestigious Cresson Traveling Scholarship award in 1939. He studied at PAFA from 1936 - 1940 with, among others, Henry McCarter...

Medium: Watercolor and Gouache on Paper laid on Board Signature: Signed and Dated on the Reverse Study for advertisement promoting Webster Cigars at Florida's Boca Raton Club, circa...

Signed and titled verso on stretcher "Lea Ancient Revel". Subtitled verso on label in artist's hand: "An attempt to marry ancient mineral matter with people". Exhibited at the 194...

“Graduation Day” is emblematic of mid-century American Illustration. But the real story of this storytelling work is that it embodies the lost art of portrait painting and graphic design. Alex Ross borrows on the classical tradition and flaunts his skills as a narrative painter. In “Graduation Day”, he paints a complex composition involving at least thirteen portraits. The subjects are beautifully rendered and lit. They are set against a dark grey background and jump off the surface at the viewer. The composition is complexly designed. The future graduate in the red jacket engaging with a girl photographer is a compositional device that leads the viewer's eye to the main subject - a father congratulating his son on graduating from medical school. Creating art that relies on facial expressions and body gestures is a talent absent in contemporary art. Why? It’s very hard to do and takes years and training and practice to get it right. Despite Alex Ross's folksy subject matter, this work is a high example of naturalism and representation by an important member of the Golden Age of American Illustration. Signed lower right Born in the town of Dunfermline, Scotland, Alexander Sharpe Ross (1908-1990) moved with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911. After attending Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Ross moved to New York and joined the Charles E. Cooper Studio, where he worked among such notable illustrators as Ward Brackett, Stevan Dohanos, J. Frederick Smith...

Born in Ontario, Canada, Rolph Scarlett left home at age eighteen for New York City, making that city his home for long periods during his lifetime. While beginning his career as an ...

Alternate cover for Fortune Magazine February, 1940. Gouache on board. 350x285 mm; 13 3/4x11 1/4. Signed "A. Petrucelli" in lower left image. Tipped t...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Unsigned

Decorative Chinese school painting. Fine detail and painted with rich colors. In a wonderful carved frame painted in pastel blue.

*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 20% VAT ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE Father, Daughter and Horse by Orovida Pissarro (1893-1968) Oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm (23 ⅝ x 28 ¾ inches) Signed a...

Date: 1942 Medium: Oil on Board Dimensions: 18.50" x 15.70" Signature: Signed Image of woman holding pie and a man calling out to farmhands. An early 20th-century illustrator work...

HUGO SCHEIBER 1873-1950 1873 - Budapest - 1950 (Hungarian) Title: Self Portrait Technique: Original Signed Pastel Drawing on Paper Size: 37.7 x 30 cm. / 14.8 x 11.8 in. Additiona...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Yelva Petrea Sophie Vermehren, born February 13, 1878 in Helsingborg, died in 1980 102 years old, was a Swedish-Danish painter. She was the daughter of the wholesaler Johan Carl Emil Bock and Nanna Oline Christiane Augustinus. She married the Danish artist Sophus Vermehren in 1901 but the marriage ended in divorce. She studied at "Voss tegnskole", Wermehren's art school in Copenhagen and at Teknisk Skole in Odense as well as with Valdemar Irminger...

This is an original oil on velvet painting created c. 1942. Syd Cockell was an accomplished American illustrator during World War II.

Byron Browne was an important American modernist painter. Ink, tempera, and crayon on paper Signed and dated lower right.

This oil painting is hand signed by the artist "Kremegne" in the lower right corner. The work was painted in circa 1948. Provenance: The Issachar Ber Frydman collection. Acquired i...

Original watercolour circa 1947 of a Palm Beach tropical pool oasis by the acclaimed German artist & architect Franz Bueb (1919-1982) who designed Town & Co...

Bryon Browne was an important American modernist painter. Signed upper right; signed, dated and situated 'New York' on reverse

Marta Sawyers. Illustrator Journalist. She was sent to war-ravaged countries to “Paint the Story”. What's unique here? This represents the work an Artist Journalist/War Correspondent...

A nude white woman gazes out and over a Giorgio de Chirico like surrealist landscape to an overly dramatic sunset with stylized orange rays. In the center of the composition is a cut-out of a mountain with a moat. In the extreme foreground is a silhouetted orange plane with a spiral of leaves. Along with the empty landscapes of de Chirico, it's possible that Frederick Haucke was influenced by Salvador Dalí " The Persistence of Memory" in 1931, and Dali's painting was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1934. In that painting, Dali, paints a vacant landscape doted with symbols from the unconscious. This painting by Frederick Haucke owes a debt to giants of the Surrealist movement but still, Haucke carves out his style. The shape of the nude's hair echoes the shape of the sunset. What the symbolism to the mountain is and the flower in the foreground we will leave to the viewer to speculate. It was shown at the very prestigious Pearls Gallery in New York City. Artists in the famous Perls' stable included Derain, Dufy, Rouault, Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani, Pascin, Soutine, Chagall and Vlaminck. With a 1971 retrospective of Alexander Calder's work. This Haucke from the Perls Gallery...

A recent Kuhn Circus Performer sold for $312,000 at Bonhams, NY Bert Lahr shined in the role of The Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of OZ. Here he is depict...

Artist: Jean Louis Liberte, French (1896 - 1965) Title: Rockport, Maine Year: circa 1940 Medium: Acrylic on Board, signed l.r. Image Size: 12 x 21 in. (30.48 x 53.34 cm) Frame Size: ...

Exhibitions: It's a Man's World, Illustration Art by and for Men: November 14-17 2012, Illustration House NYC Cover Illustration of Complete Northwest, April 1940

Date: 1940 Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Right Dimensions: 36.00" x 37.00" “New Departure: Pioneers for Fifty Years” Advertisement, New Departure Brakes, ca. 1940;

Date: 1940 Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Right Dimensions: 26.00" x 26.00" Fertilizer advertisement, image of a man, girl, boy and dog. This illustration was also a...

"Swinging Harmony," is an oil painting on canvas by Edgar O'Kiechle. It transports viewers into a lively dance scene featuring a couple of black dancers swinging at the heart of the...

These artworks by Carl Holty are only sold as a pair. Each painting measures 9" x 11" and framed 18" x 20.25" x 2.5" The red and gold work is signed "Carl Holty" in the lower right. About this artists: Carl Holty was awakened to his interest in art as a child through visits to the Layton Art Gallery of Milwaukee, and began painting lessons with Friedrich Wilhelm Heine at a young age. Though born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1900, he was raised in Wisconsin and enrolled at Marquette University. Before long, Holty abandoned his pre-medical studies in order to pursue art. He spent a summer at the School of the Chicago Art Institute in Saugatuck, Michigan, and set off for New York in 1920. He then studied at the National Academy of Design under Francis Coates Jones...

When the Wood Grows Dry "Good House Keeping Magazine" illustration Surreal depiction of a young mid-century girls social life Good House Keeping Magazi...

This Gil Elvgren gouache painting on board was probably intended to be used as an ad for beer. The husband is returning from work with a bouquet of flowers behind his back, while his wife is waiting at the door with a bottle of beer for her husband. This painting was probably done in the late 1940's. The model in this image has the typical Elvgren look, which is very similar to Elvgren's models that he used for his pin up calendar...

Exhibited: Vanderwoude Tananbaum Gallery, New York Caldwell Gallery, Manlius, N.Y.

Two women in a garden and two men walking and talking in the background. A Native American finding a Raggedy Ann doll on a lonely western road. A ...

A bright portrait of a woman in pageant dress before a St. Louis skyline and riverboat.

Thomas M. Dietrich 1912-1998 The Death of Crispus Attucks, 1943 Tempera and oil on board 21 x 15 inches Signed and dated: Tom Dietrich 1943 Thomas M. Dietrich was an artist in residence at Lawrence College for 30 years and painted in the American Regionalist style. He exhibited yearly at the Art Institute of Chicago where he also received the acclaimed International William Tuthill Prize for watercolors in 1941 (Charles Burchfield won the associated Logan prize that same year) Dietrich also received a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation fellowship and was a founding member of the Wisconsin Watercolor Society. In 1943 Deitrich painted The Death of Crispus Attucks, depicting the historical battle known as the Boston Massacre...

Hand-signed and dated "Franks 44" lower right. This work is in its original hand painted frame, made by the artist. The frame measures 29 ½" x 35 ½" x 1 ¾" and the canvas measures 26...

WILLEM VAN DE BERG Den Haag 1886-1970 Amsterdam Portrait of a fisherman, Volendam 1940 Oil on canvas 70 x 55 cm. Signed and dated: lower left ‘Willem van den Berg...

Approximate Date: 1949 Medium: Mixed Media on Paper Dimensions: 18.50" x 22.00" Signature: Signed Lower Right Story Illustration

A charming and stylized depiction of a day at the Central Park Zoo. with World War Two uniformed visitors front and center. Sea lions put on a show in front of a packed audience. The...

Signed upper left