1950s Paintings

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

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...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 25 x 30 Frame Size: 34 x 39 Medium: Oil on Canvas Circa 1950 "Lazy Day Blues" Texas Bluebonnet 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 is 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...

Y. Gonez (French, mid-20th century) Market Scene, Montmartre with Sacré-Cœur, ca. 1950s Oil on canvas, in a Montparnasse-style frame In this lively street scene, Y. Gonez captures t...

Antique American modernist oil painting. Oil on canvasboard. Signed.

A vibrant composition or portrait in a constructivist style by artist Lars Englund (born 1933), signed and dated "LED 56" (1956). This is an early work by the artist in which he has ...

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...

Unfinished Problem, by 1953, oil on canvas, signed lower right, signed and inscribed verso on stretcher “Charles Goeller/1272 Clinton Place, Elizabeth, NJ...

A large & delightful oil on Masonite, ca. 1950s, Martha's Vineyard street scene painting by artist Francis Chapin. Image size: 24" x 36". Framed size: 27" x 37". In a painted woo...

* No US duty or taxes to pay on this item * A beautiful signed and dated 1953 French naïf oil on canvas depicting the River Seine at the Pont Neuf, by Louis Florquin. Excellent qua...

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

4095 Covered bridge landscape oil on canvas set on board Image size 20x24" Set in a custom wood frame

Antique American impressionist southern oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Label from a Florida frame shop verso.

Nicely painted mid century abstract cubist oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed. Signed.

Lucien Potronat (1905–1981) “Le Trayas, Côte d’Azur”, circa 1950 Oil on canvas Signed lower right Original French frame This radiant oil painting by French artist Lucien Potronat ...

Antique American impressionist Max Kuehne (1880 - 1968) seascape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Signed. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a giltwood mol...

Very nicely painted mid century abstract expressionist oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Great colors and bold brush strokes.

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...

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...

Antique French modernist abstract portrait oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Measuring: 44 by 36 inches overall, and 29 by 36 painting alone. In excellent original condi...

On An Autumn Day - Original Impasto Oil Painting Original oil landscape painting depicting a small wood sided cabin surrounded by trees of green and orange. A focal point of a brig...

Antique Italian impressionist seascape oil painting. Oil on canvas, lain to board. Framed. Signed. Measuring: 30 by 42 inches overall, and 24.5 by 36.5 painting alone. In excellen...

Clarence Van Duzer (American, 1920-2009) The Sea, c. 1950 Asphaltum, encaustic and silver leaf on masonite Signed upper left 48.5 x 48 inches In the annals of Cleveland art history,...

Large oil on canvas by Edouard GOERG (1893-1969), France, 1955. LES 3 BRUNES. With frame : 114x95cm - 44.9x37.4 inches ; without frame : 92.2x73 cm - 36.3x28.75 inches. Format 30F. S...

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

Very impressive mid 20th century cubist abstract. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Artist: Jacques Gaston, French XXth Title: Champs Elysses at Dusk Year: circa 1950 Medium: Oil on Canvas mounted to Wood, signed l.r. Image: 24 x 36 in. (60.96 x 91.44 cm) Frame: 33 ...

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...

5035 Vintage Italian oil Painting "The Streets of Naples Italy" Framed in a black wood frame Image size 13x10"

Vintage abstract beach scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a wood molding. Excellent condition, ready to han...

3991A Vintage Impressionist landscape California coastal inlet. Set in a custom silvered wood frame Image size 23.5x19.5"

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

5-3422 Black and white acrylic on paper Displayed in black wood frame under glass Image size 8x11.5" French artist Signed Jacques Simons

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

Original Mid Century Pen and Ink on Paper "Cowboy and Bronco" Western Genre Compelling pen and ink western picture of Cowboy wrangling the bro...

Mid-Century still life oil painting of a fish, lemons and a bottle of cognac. The painting is signed and dated in the bottom right. With vibrant but gentle colours, the artist has ...

Nicely painted American impressionist tropical beach landscape. Oil on board. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a period wood molding. Excellent condition, re...

* No US duty or taxes to pay on this item * A superb mid 20th century oil on board landscape depicting boats on the beach, by the important French/Russian naïf artist Rastislaw Raco...

Vintage French modernist still life oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Measuring: 35 by 20 inches overall. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a modern...

This elegant oil on mounted canvas is by André Hambourg (France, 1909-1999) and features a seaside composition. The artwork is signed in the bottom left corner. The landscape is a lo...

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

Abstract oil painting on canvas by the french painter François Jousselin. Not framed. Signed and dated 1954 François Jousselin, né à Laval le 27 octobre 1926 ...

Mid Century Mountain Stream Modernist Landscape by Honora Berg This mid century modernist landscape painting by Honora Berg (American, 1897-1985) depicts a vibrant mountain stream, ...

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...

William Mason (1906-2002) was a painter born in Newport, Wales, who studied at Newport College of Art and the Royal College of Art. Aside from painting he also taught at Scarborough...

Chuzo Tamotzu Tama, Mimi, Chan, circa 1950 Signed lower left Oil on canvasboard 40 1/2 x 28 inches Tamotzu was born in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, in 1888. He was educated in poli...

Antique American modernist cityscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Measuring: 29 by 25 inches overall, and 20 by 24 painting alone. In excellent original condition. ...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the 1950s by Russian, American painter Helen Stein. Mostly known for her abstract figures on canvas, this piece...

American life is captured in this Clyde Singer painting, Snow in the City (1954), where he depicts an everyday moment in the city. An ordinary scene, of a group of women making thei...

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...

Original oil painting of a busy Paris street with figures and cars under blue skies. Signed by the artist lower left and dated 1954. Condition is very good, no issues or restorations...

Signed oil on canvas figures in landscape circa 1950 by French post impressionist painter Marcel Dyf. The work depicts doing a late summer harvest in Provence, France. Signature: Si...

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...

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...

Antique American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed verso.

French Landscape by Bernard Labbe (French mid 20th century) Signed original watercolour/ gouache painting on artist paper, unframed Size: 10 x 7.75 inches Condition: very good and re...

Modernist abstract composition signed Geist. Oil on board, circa 1950. Signed lower right. Displayed in a wood frame. Image size, 7"L x 10"H, overall 15"L x 17"H.

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Image size, 30L x 24H.

Autumn Gift - Seasonal Harvest Still Life with Flowers by Albin Kern. This still life by Austrian-American painter Albin Kern (b. 1884, d. 1975) depicts a seasonal spread of gourds...

Overlooking the Bay - Coastal Landscape in Oil on Masonite Serene coastal landscape by unknown artist "Lydia" (American, 20th century). The viewer stands at a vantage point above a small coastal town in possibly Maine. The town is nestled in lush landscape, full of vibrant foliage. Beyond the town, there is a bay with prominent cliffs surrounding it. Signed and dated "Lydia 57" in the lower right corner. Board size: 15.5"H x 19.5"W We are researching Lydia Cooley Freeman (American, 1906-1998) as a possible artist for this painting. Born in Tacoma, Washington on January 13, 1906, Lydia Cooley, by the 1930s, had settled in New York City where she studied at the Art Students League under John Sloan. Her portraits of women, children and the working class are of the Ash Can school...