Janet Ament De La Roche

California Fauvist Oil Painting Carmel Bohemian Expressionist Lemons & Flowers

Norman Carton (1908 – 1980) was an American artist and educator known for abstract expressionist art. He was born in the Ukraine region of Imperial Russia and moved to the United States in 1922 where he spent most of his adult life. A classically trained portrait and landscape artist, Carton also worked as a drafter, newspaper illustrator, muralist, theater set designer, photographer, and fabric designer and spent most of his mature life as an art educator. Carton showed in and continues to be shown in many solo and group exhibitions. His work is included in numerous museums and private collections throughout the world. Norman Carton was born in the Dnieper Ukraine territory of the Russian Empire in 1908. Escaping the turbulence of civil war massacres, he settled in Philadelphia in 1922 after years of constant flight. While attending the Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Art, Carton worked as a newspaper artist for the Philadelphia Record from 1928 to 1930 in the company of other illustrator/artists who had founded the Ashcan School, the beginnings of modern American art. From 1930 to 1935, he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Henry McCarter, who was a pupil of Toulouse-Lautrec, Puvis de Chavanne, and Thomas Eakins. Arthur Carles, especially with his sense of color, and the architect John Harbison also provided tutelage and inspiration. Following his time at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Carton studied at the Barnes Foundation from 1935 to 1936 where he was influenced by an intellectual climate led by visiting lecturers John Dewey and Bertrand Russell as well as daily access to Albert C. Barnes and his art collection. Carton was awarded the Cresson Traveling Scholarship in 1934 which allowed him to travel through Europe and study in Paris. There he expanded his artistic horizons with influences stemming from Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Chaim Soutine, and Wassily Kandinsky. While at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Carton was also awarded the Toppan Prize for figure painting as well as the Thouron Composition Prize. He received numerous commissions as a portrait artist, social realist, sculptor, and theatrical stage designer as well as academic scholarships. During this time, Carton worked as a scenery designer at Sparks Scenic Studios, a drafter at the Philadelphia Enameling Works, and a fine art lithographer. From 1939 to 1942, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project employed Carton as a muralist and easel artist. He collaborated with architect George Howe. The WPA commissioned Carton to paint major murals at the Helen Fleischer Vocational School for Girls in Philadelphia, the Officers’ Club at Camp Meade Army Base in Maryland, and in the city of Hidalgo, Mexico. Throughout the 1940s, Carton exhibited and won prizes for his semi-abstract Expressionist and Surrealist paintings. He socialized with and was inspired by Émile Gauguin and Fernand Leger. During World War II, Carton was a naval structural designer and draftsman at the Cramps...

Marti Somers Rice Bowl (an Asian inspired image with chopsticks and a bowl of rice) with fish. hand written poem verso. 24 X 24 inches A California artist, Somers received her BFA at the University of Hawaii. She returned to California and worked as a graphic designer at Stanford University and was a principal at Artefact Design in Palo Alto. But ultimately turned to painting. She opened Studio Believe in San Carlos and co-founded Somersault Studios, a non-profit publishing venture to benefit the arts of Northern California. Somers’ sensibility is both poetic and suggestive. Her scrapbook-like merger of natural images (both painted and collage) and writing, rendered in tactile, fragrant wax-based encaustic paint, is seductive and convincing. Rich compilations of vintage images, words, colors, and textures. Flowers, trees, and leaves share the space in each picture with animals, fragments of patterned paper, layers of thin oil paint over thick, glazes that partially obscure one layer and provide a new layer to work with. Stylized flowers, butterflies and birds appear prominently within Somers’ heavily textured, ‘antiqued’ bands of color and pattern. Robert Rauschenberg meets Odilon Redon in her assemblage juxtapositions of dreamy words and images. She has exhibited her work at Caldwell Snyder...

This colorful painting by Eleanor Parke Custis is in the spirit of Louis Valtat and the Fauves. The subject of flowers in the foreground is repeated in the backdrop. It straddles the line between abstraction and representation. Signed lower right - Work is framed. Eleanor Parke Custis studied in Corcoran School of the Arts and Design under Edmund C. Tarbell and Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Henry B. Snell. Initially, she began her art career as a painter, creating watercolors. Custis created illustrations for Scribner's Magazine, Harper's, Doubleday, Harcourt. She started to take photographs in her youth, using a Brownie camera...

"Magnolia Forever I" and "Iris Bloom Too" form a captivating duo, each capturing the unique beauty of nature in its own way. In "Magnolia Forever II," the blooming magnolias evoke ti...