Jacob Wagner

Woman in the Garden

"Gathering" Figurative Oil Painting 43" x 63" inch by Omar Abdel Zaher Abdel Zaher is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Helwan and has been painting for three decades and h...

Frederick William Macmonnies Marion Jones Farquhar, 1905-11 Oil on canvas 24 x 20 inches Provenance: William Clerk Private Collection, New York Literature: Mary Smart, A Flight with Fame: The Life and Art of Frederick MacMonnies, with a Catalogue Raisonne of Sculpture and a Checklist of Paintings by E. Adina Gordon, Madison, Connecticut, 1996, no. 90. The work depicts Marion Jones Farquhar who, was an American tennis player who competed during the late 19th century and early 20th century. She won the singles titles at the 1899 and 1902 U.S championships and was the first American woman to medal at the Olympics placing Bronze in singles. Additionally, she was the artist's sister-in-law who often played and competed with MacMonnies in golf and tennis. MacMonnies would often study the movements of her form referenced in his sculpture. When MacMonnies won a doubles golf tournament he said "Marion dragged my dead weight thro' and won us the tournament, showing what great Generalship can do." A sculptor of classical figures, American-born Frederick MacMonnies had fame in the United States and Europe in the later half of the 19th century and early 20th century. He occasionally returned to America but lived most of his life as in expatriate in France. He was especially known for his lithe bronze figures, especially ones titled Diana. The classical names of these figures allowed him the appearance of propriety but gave him the opportunity to model svelte nudes. Frederick MacMonnies was one of the first American sculptors to recognize the potential market of the middle class. He copyrighted his works and then contracted with foundries to mass produce some of his figures such as Diana in smaller sizes. MacMonnies was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was a child prodigy at carving stone. At age 18, he worked in the studio of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, and then persuaded him to become his assistant, keeping models damp and covered, running errands, and cleaning the studio. Evenings he studied at the Art Students League, Cooper Union, and the National Academy of Design. In Saint-Gaudens' studio, he met many of the wealthy people who shared Saint-Gaudens Beaux-Arts based ideas that art and architecture should be unified in order to create public art in America equal to that of classical antiquity or Renaissance Europe. Among the men that MacMonnies met through Saint-Gaudens who later furthered his career were architects Stanford White and Charles McKim...

Blocking Study pair #1 and #2, portrait of a blonde woman, by Gordon Cook (American, 1927-1985). Circa 1960. Signed on verso "G. Cook (3) #1. unframed. Image size: 24"H x 20"W each. Bay area estate sale find. Gordon Cook was born in 1927 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington where he received his B.F.A in 1950. Cook then went on to study fundamentals and life drawing at The American Academy of Art* in Chicago. The same year he studied intaglio* printmaking with Vera Berdich at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago*. He took graduate courses and continued studying intaglio printmaking under artist Mauricio Lasansky at the State University of Iowa. In 1951, Cook moved to San Francisco. Soon after his works received the journeyman's card in International Typographical Union, Local 21. He began exhibiting his prints, drawings, and paintings at the Porpoise Gallery in San Francisco. Four years later, Cook became a charter member of the Bay Printmakers Society and exhibited in their annual exhibitions at the Oakland Art Museum for the next five years. His etchings portrayed mainly San Francisco landscapes such as the Golden Gate Park, Diamond Heights, and Lake Merced as well as flowers, especially roses. He participated in his first weekly drawing group with artist Alvin Light, Manuel Neri, Joan Brown, and William H. Brown. Cook also taught at the San Francisco Art Institute*. His etchings where exhibited in a one-man exhibition at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, in the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts. At this point Cook returned to painting. Moving to Rio Vista...

Mid century portrait of a clown by Marjorie Blake (American, 1920-1994). Signed "Blake" in the lower left corner. Unframed. Marjorie May Gulley Blake w...