Frank London

"Sunflowers, " Frank London, Modernist Yellow Floral Still Life with Window

Edith Kramer (1916 - 2014) Still Life with Mask, n.d. Oil on canvas 26 x 20 inches Signed and titled on the stretcher Provenance: Estate of the artist Kramer was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary in 1916. At age 13 Kramer began art lessons with Friedl Dicker. Dicker was graduate of the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany and was an artist and art teacher of note. Kramer studied drawing, sculpture and painting, and was influenced by the method for teaching art developed by Bauhaus artist Johannes Itten. It was in 1934 after Kramer graduated from Realgymnasium that she, then 18, followed Dicker to Prague to continue to study under her. During this time in Prague, Kramer witnessed the therapeutic impact of art when she assisted Dicker in teaching art to the children of political refugees. With the threat of Nazi invasion looming, Kramer took refuge in America in 1938. In New York City, she worked for three years teaching sculpture at a progressive school called the Little Red School House. During World War II Kramer worked as a machinist at a tool and die shop in the Soho district of New York City. She stayed after her shift to draw the other workers in their industrial setting. These works were rendered in the social realist style. In 1947 Kramer visited some of the earliest known artwork, in the caves at Lascaux. Kramer spoke of these cave paintings as an example of the universal language of art. At the age of 33 she returned to New York City, with hopes of making a living as an artist. Still in her 33rd year, Kramer was offered a job at Wiltwyck School for Boys, a school and residential treatment facility for children with behavioral and emotional needs. This job was arranged for her by psychoanalyst and board member at Wiltwyck, Dr. Viola Bernard. Dr. Bernard gave Kramer the title, "Art Therapist," noting that few teachers were willing to work with such challenging students. It was here that Kramer worked with disturbed boys, ages 8 through 13, for the following seven years. Raised in a family which was interested in psychoanalytic theory, Kramer herself became a follower of Sigmund Freud. Kramer especially believed in the concept of sublimation. Freudian theory describes sublimation as a process in which primitive urges coming from the id are transformed into socially productive activities that lead to gratification of the original urge. Kramer's training was in art, art education and psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy. Kramer believed sublimation to be one of the most vital goals of art therapy...

Albert Swinden (1901 - 1961) Still Life of Fruit, 1937 Oil on canvas 18 x 30 inches Provenance: Graham Gallery, New York Albert Swinden (1901–1961) was an English-born American abstract painter. He was one of the founders of the American Abstract Artists, and he created significant murals as part of the Federal Art Project. Albert Swinden was born in Birmingham, England in 1901. When he was seven, he moved with his family to Canada, and in 1919 he immigrated to the United States. He lived in Chicago, where he studied for about a year and a half at the Art Institute. He then relocated to New York City, where his art education continued briefly at the National Academy of Design. He soon changed schools again, to the Art Students League, which he attended from 1930 to 1934. He studied with Hans Hofmann and gained an appreciation for Synthetic Cubism and Neoplasticism. According to painter and printmaker George McNeil, Swinden "could have influenced Hofmann ... He was working with very, very simple planes, not in this sort of Cubistic manner. Swinden was working synthetically at this time." While still a student, Swinden began teaching at the Art Students League, in 1932. Swinden married Rebecca Palter (1912–1998), from New York. Their daughter, Alice Swinden Carter, also became an artist. Carter, who attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, received an award from the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston for her large sculptures. Swinden was hired for the Federal Art Project (FAP) of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), and he is best known for the murals which he painted as part of that project. In 1935, New York City Mayor Fiorello La Guardia attended the opening of the inaugural exhibit at the Federal Art Project Gallery, accompanied by Audrey McMahon, New York regional director for the Works Progress Administration/Federal Art Project. Among the works on display was Abstraction, a sketch by Swinden; it was the design for a mural planned for the College of the City of New York. A newspaper account described it as consisting of "brightly colored T-squares, triangles and rulers in horizontal, vertical and diagonal positions". La Guardia asked what it was, and upon being told it was a mural design, he said he didn't know what it depicted. Someone joked that it could be a map of Manhattan. The displeased mayor stated that "if that's art, I belong to Tammany Hall." (Tammany Hall, which the Republican mayor referenced, was the New York Democratic Party political society.) Fearing that the mayor's negative attitude could jeopardize the future of abstract art within the Federal Art Project, McMahon dispatched an assistant to summon an artist who could speak to the mayor in defense of abstraction. The assistant returned with Arshile Gorky. Swinden played an important role in the founding of the American Abstract Artists. In 1935, he met with three friends, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, her future husband Byron Browne, and Ibram Lassaw, with the goal of exhibiting together. The group grew and started meeting in Swinden's studio, which adjoined those of Balcomb and Gertrude Greene...

Albert Heckman Untitled, circa 1950 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 18 x 24 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art world in 1915 after graduating from high school and landing a job at the Meadville Post Office. In 1917, at the age of 24, Heckman enrolled part-time in Teachers' College, Columbia University's Fine Arts Department to begin his formal art education. He worked as a freelance ceramic and textile designer and occasionally as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1920s, at the age of almost 30, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia Teachers College. He was especially impacted by his instructor at Columbia, Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, he was hired by the Teachers' College as a Fine Arts instructor. He stayed with Columbia Teachers' College until 1929, when he left to attend the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Isami Doi (1903-1965), who was born in Hawaii, was arguably his most impressive student at Columbia. Doi is now regarded as one of the most prominent artists hailing from Hawaii. Heckman became an active member and officer of the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York in the 1920s as part of his early commercial art career. The Society's mission was to share knowledge and showcase textile and ceramic design exhibits. In 1922, Heckman married Florence Hardman, a concert violinist. Mrs. Heckman's concert schedule during the 1920s kept Albert and Florence Heckman apart for a significant portion of the time, but they spent what little time they had together designing and building their Woodstock, New York, summer house and grounds. A small house and an acre of surrounding land on Overlook Mountain, just behind the village of Woodstock, were purchased by Albert and Florence Heckman at the time of their marriage. Their Woodstock home, with its connections, friendships, and memories, became a central part of their lives over the years, even though they had an apartment in New York City. Heckman's main artistic focus shifted to the house on Overlook Mountain and the nearby towns and villages, Kingston, Eddyville, and Glasco. After returning from the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in 1930, Mr. Heckman joined Hunter College as an assistant professor of art. He worked there for almost thirty years, retiring in 1956. Throughout his tenure at Hunter, Mr. Heckman and his spouse spent the summers at their Woodstock residence and the winters in New York City. They were regular and well-known guests at the opera and art galleries in New York. Following his retirement in 1956, the Heckmans settled in Woodstock permanently, with occasional trips to Florida or Europe during the fall and winter. Mr. Heckman's close friends and artistic career were always connected to Woodstock or New York City. He joined the Woodstock art group early on and was greatly influenced by artists like Paul and Caroline Rohland, Emil Ganso, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andre Ruellan, and her husband, Jack...

Albert Heckman Untitled, circa 1950 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 24 x 30 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art world in 1915 after graduating from high school and landing a job at the Meadville Post Office. In 1917, at the age of 24, Heckman enrolled part-time in Teachers' College, Columbia University's Fine Arts Department to begin his formal art education. He worked as a freelance ceramic and textile designer and occasionally as a lecturer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the early 1920s, at the age of almost 30, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia Teachers College. He was especially impacted by his instructor at Columbia, Arthur Wesley Dow. After graduating, he was hired by the Teachers' College as a Fine Arts instructor. He stayed with Columbia Teachers' College until 1929, when he left to attend the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, Germany. Isami Doi (1903-1965), who was born in Hawaii, was arguably his most impressive student at Columbia. Doi is now regarded as one of the most prominent artists hailing from Hawaii. Heckman became an active member and officer of the Keramic Society and Design Guild of New York in the 1920s as part of his early commercial art career. The Society's mission was to share knowledge and showcase textile and ceramic design exhibits. In 1922, Heckman married Florence Hardman, a concert violinist. Mrs. Heckman's concert schedule during the 1920s kept Albert and Florence Heckman apart for a significant portion of the time, but they spent what little time they had together designing and building their Woodstock, New York, summer house and grounds. A small house and an acre of surrounding land on Overlook Mountain, just behind the village of Woodstock, were purchased by Albert and Florence Heckman at the time of their marriage. Their Woodstock home, with its connections, friendships, and memories, became a central part of their lives over the years, even though they had an apartment in New York City. Heckman's main artistic focus shifted to the house on Overlook Mountain and the nearby towns and villages, Kingston, Eddyville, and Glasco. After returning from the Leipzig Institute of Graphic Arts in 1930, Mr. Heckman joined Hunter College as an assistant professor of art. He worked there for almost thirty years, retiring in 1956. Throughout his tenure at Hunter, Mr. Heckman and his spouse spent the summers at their Woodstock residence and the winters in New York City. They were regular and well-known guests at the opera and art galleries in New York. Following his retirement in 1956, the Heckmans settled in Woodstock permanently, with occasional trips to Florida or Europe during the fall and winter. Mr. Heckman's close friends and artistic career were always connected to Woodstock or New York City. He joined the Woodstock art group early on and was greatly influenced by artists like Paul and Caroline Rohland, Emil Ganso, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Andre Ruellan, and her husband, Jack...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Vernors and Oreos” is a clever colorful piece by Richard Wilson that is full of significant meaning for native Detroiters. The beverage and cookies are specific treats for many people in Detroit and Michigan, but for Stevie Wonder in particular who is also a native Detroiter. The soda is produced and has been manufactured in the city of Detroit since 1862 by the Vernors Co. The story goes that prior to his concerts, Stevie Wonder, always requested that Vernors' Ginger Ale and Oreos be provided in his dressing room. Wilson has a great admiration for Stevie Wonder and as a gift to the city of Detroit he painted a mural of Stevie Wonder on an outside wall of the Music Hall. The “Ginger Ale and Oreos” painting...

WPA Landscape American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern Farm Rural James McCracken (1875 – 1967) WPA Landscape 28 x 36 inches Oil on canvas, c. 1930s Signed lower right ...

A mid-century modern oil painting by listed female artist Helen L. Roberts. This painting depicts an interior scene with a vase of beautiful flowers and decorative pitcher. Housed ...

Jack Hooper "View From the Window" c. 1950s Oil on Canvas 32"x25.25" silver and black wood frame 26.5"x33.25" Unsigned Minor wear consistent with age and ...