American Modern Paintings

Approximate Date: 1920-1925 Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Right Size: 29.50" x 23.00" Interwoven Socks Advertisement Literatu...

"Woman by Basin" by Philadelphia born modernist and surrealist painter Leon Kelly, is a framed and matted portrait of a female nude. The 22.5" x 17.75" mixed media on artist board i...

Artist: Ben Benn, Polish/American (1884 - 1983) Title: Roof Top Year: circa 1920 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed l.r. Size: 24 x 18 in. (60.96 x 45.72 cm) Frame Size: 33.5 x 27.5 inche...

George Gustav Adomeit (American, 1879-1967) Boothbay Harbor, 1924 Oil on canvas Signed lower right 15 x 17 inches 20.25 x 22.25 inches, framed A major painter of American scene subj...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Schooner, Boothbay Harbor, Maine, c. 1924 Gouache and watercolor on paper Signed lower right 14 x 20 inches 19.5 x 25.5 inches, as framed Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox...

Landscape with Trees Watercolor on paper, 1929 Signed in pencil lower right corner Obviously influenced by the Cezanne works in the collection of his patron Alfred C. Barnes of Phila...

This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Subway Construction, c. 1928, oil on board, 19 x 15 ¾ inches, signed upper left, artist and title verso; exhibited: 1) 12th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, The Waldorf Astoria, New York NY, from March 9 to April 1, 1928, no. 864 (original price $250) (see Death Prevailing Theme of Artists in Weird Exhibits, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), March 8, 1928); 2) Boston Tercentenary Exhibition Fine Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Horticultural Hall, Boston MA, July, 1930, no. 108 (honorable mention - noted verso); 3) 38th Annual Exhibition of American Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, June, 1931 (see Alexander, Mary, The Week in Art Circles, The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 7, 1931); and 4) National Art Week Exhibition [Group Show], Montross Gallery, New York, New York, December, 1940 (see Devree, Howard, Brief Comment on Some Recently Opened Exhibitions in the Galleries, The New York Times, December 1, 1940) About the Painting Ernest Stock’s Subway Construction depicts the excavation of New York’s 8th Avenue line, which was the first completed section of the city-operated Independent Subway System (IND). The groundbreaking ceremony was in 1925, but the line did not open until 1932, placing Stock’s painting in the middle of the construction effort. The 8th Avenue line was primarily constructed using the “cut and cover” method in which the streets above the line were dug up, infrastructure was built from the surface level down, the resulting holes were filled, and the streets reconstructed. While many artists of the 1920s were fascinated with the upward thrust of New York’s exploding skyline as architects and developers sought to erect ever higher buildings, Stock turned his attention to the engineering marvels which were taking place below ground. In Subway Construction, Stock depicts workers removing the earth beneath the street and building scaffolding and other support structures to allow concrete to be poured. Light and shadow fall across the x-shaped grid pattern formed by the wooden beams and planks. It is no surprise that critics reviewing the painting commented on Stock’s use of an “interesting pattern” to form a painting that is “clever and well designed.” About the Artist Ernest Richard Stock was an award-winning painter, print maker, muralist, and commercial artist. He was born in Bristol, England and was educated at the prestigious Bristol Grammar School. During World War I, Stock joined the British Royal Air Flying Corps in Canada and served in France as a pilot where he was wounded. After the war, he immigrated to the United States and joined the firm of Mack, Jenny, and Tyler, where he further honed his architectural and decorative painting skills. During the 1920s, Stock often traveled back and forth between the US and Europe. He was twice married, including to the American author, Katherine Anne Porter. Starting in the mid-1920s, Stock began to exhibit his artwork professionally, including at London’s Beaux Arts Gallery, the Society of Independent Artists, the Salons of America, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Whitney Studio and various locations in the Northeast. Critics often praised the strong design sensibility in Stock’s paintings. Stock was a commercial illustrator for a handful of published books and during World War II, he worked in the Stratford Connecticut...

(Note: This work is part of our exhibition Connected by Creativity: WPA Era Works from the Collection of Leata and Edward Beatty Rowan) Oil on panel, 14 ½ x 18 inches unframed, 22 x 25 ½ inches framed, inscribed “painted by David McCosh Property of Edward b. Rowan” and numbered “8” verso Exhibited: The First Exhibit of the Iowa Artist...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) On the Back Porch, Brecksville, Ohio, c. 1922 Watercolor on paper Monogram lower right 21.5 x 27. 5 inc...

Fireman Textile Fabric Design 1920s American Scene Modern Working Men Art Deco Antonio Petruccelli (1907 - 1994) Firemen Textile design, c. 1929 19 1/4 ...

"Concert" Early 20th Century WPA Modernism American City Landscape Scene Ashcan The size of the canvas 28 3/4 x 43 1/4 inches. The painting comes directly from the artist's estate. It is signed lower right as well as signed, titled and dated verso. We have available more than two dozen paintings and works on paper from the 1930s - 80s that come directly from the Loew estate. BIO Michael Loew (1907 – 1985) was the son of a New York City baker. After high school, he was an apprentice to a stained-glass maker, and from 1926-1929, he studied at the Art Students League. In 1929, he traveled to Paris, North Africa, Germany, and Italy with a group of artists. When he returned to New York City in 1931, the Great Depression hit Loew unexpectedly, and for the next two years he paid his apartment rent with his paintings. In 1935, he found work with the WPA where he painted murals and partnered up with longtime friend Willem de Kooning in 1939 on a mural for the Hall of Pharmacy at the New York World’s Fair. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives. In the mid-30’s he painted in Mexico and the Yucatán documenting the construction of a U.S. Naval airbase on Tinian Island. It was from this airbase that the Enola...

Work on canvas Molded frame in wood and gilded plaster 68 x 59 x 7 cm

Signed lower right: AH Gorson

What a Life, c. 1930, mixed media on board, 18 x 24 inches, signed lower left; titled on label; exhibited at The San Francisco Art Association Fifty-Second Annual Exhibition at the P...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Confederate Soldiers' Cemetery, Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio, 1929 Watercolor on paper Signed and dated lowe...

Still Life with Vase of Flowers Oil on board with incised scraffito, c. 1929-1930 Unsigned by the artist Signed and inscribed verso: "Painting by my father, Aileen B. Cramer" verso, the artist's daughter Signed with the estate stamp verso Exhibited: Gerald Peters Gallery, Konrad Cramer and the Woodstock School, 2000. (label, see photo), Ny-00457-38-C H. V. Allison Galleries...

Turkey in the Trees, c. 1922 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 22 x 29 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a mast...

Morris Kantor New York (1896 - 1974) Paris from the Ile St. Louis, 1927 (view of Eiffel Tower) Oil painting on canvas Hand Signed lower left. Provenance: Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution ( bears label verso) Size: 20 3/4"H x 28 1/8"W (sight), 28.75 "H x 36"W (framed) Morris Kantor (Belarusian: Морыс Кантор) (1896-1974) was a Russian Empire-born American painter based in the New York City area. Born in Minsk on April 15, 1896, Kantor was brought to the United States in 1906 at age 10, in order to join his father who had previously relocated to the states. He made his home in West Nyack, New York for much of his life, and died there in 1974. He produced a prolific and diverse body of work, much of it in the form of paintings, which is distinguished by its stylistic variety over his long career. Perhaps his most widely recognized work is the iconic painting "Baseball At Night", which depicts an early night baseball game played under artificial electric light. Although he is best known for his paintings executed in a realistic manner, over the course of his life he also spent time working in styles such as Cubism and Futurism, and produced a number of abstract or non-figural works. A famous cubist, Futurist, painting of his "Orchestra" brought over 500,000$ at Christie's auction house in 2018 Kantor found employment in the Garment District upon his arrival in New York City, and was not able to begin formal art studies until 1916, when he began courses at the now-defunct Independent School of Art. He studied landscape painting with Homer Boss (1882-1956). In 1928, after returning to New York City from a year in Paris, Kantor developed a style in which he combined Realism with Fantasy, often taking the streets of New York as his subject matter. He did some moody Surrealist Nude paintings and fantasy scenes. In the 1940's he turned towards figural studies. Later in his career, Kantor himself was an instructor at the Cooper Union and also at the Art Students League of New York in the 1940s, and taught many pupils who later became famous artists in their own right, such as Knox Martin, Robert Rauschenberg, Sigmund Abeles and Susan Weil...

Waldo Peirce painted View from My Room, Spain while traveling throughout Spain with his good friends, Jack Johnson, a former heavyweight champion, and the...

View Towards Christmas Cove, Maine, c. 1923 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 14 x 19.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1...

Reflections Along the Ohio River, c. 1920 Watercolor and graphite on board Signed lower left 22 x 30 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 1...

Oil on canvas painting by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968) circa 1928-1929 of a Manitou, Colorado with a view of Pikes Peak. Early 20th century mountain landscape painting. Presen...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Cliffs at Paramé, France, c. 1926 Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 14 x 17.5 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17...

Frank Marsdon London (1876 - 1945) Sunflowers Oil on canvas 31 x 22 inches Signed lower right Exhibited: Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art. Frank Marsden London was born in the small Southern town of Pittsboro in central North Carolina in 1876. When he reached adulthood, London attended the University of North Carolina...

Joseph Stella (1877 - 1946) Tree, Trunk, and Roots, Bronx, New York, circa 1924 Oil on canvas 12 x 16 inches inscribed in another hand Joseph Stella/Estate and bears Joseph Stella Estate stamp (on the reverse) Provenance: The Estate of the Artist Rabin & Kreuger, New Jersey Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, March 14, 1968, Lot 147 ACA Galleries, New York Thence by descent Stella was born June 13, 1877 at Muro Lucano, Italy, a mountain village not far from Naples. He became painter laureate of Muro Lucano when he was in his teens with a representation of the local saint in the village church. Stella immigrated to America in 1896 and studied medicine and pharmacology, but upon the advice of artist friend Carlo de Fornaro, who recognized his undeveloped talent, he enrolled at the Art Students League in 1897. Stella objected to the rule forbidding the painting of flowers, an indication of his lifelong devotion to flower painting. He also studied under William Merritt Chase in the New York School of Art and at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island in 1901-1902, displaying the bravura brushwork and dark Impressionist influence of Chase. Stella liked to paint the raw street life of immigrant society, rendering this element more emotionally than the city realists, the Aschcan School headed by Robert Henri. Stella went through a progression of styles--from realism to abstraction--mixing media and painting simultaneously in different manners, reviving styles and subjects years later. The "Survey" sent Stella to illustrate the mining disaster of 1907 in Monongah, West Virginia, and in 1908 commissioned him to execute drawings of the Pittsburgh industrial scene. Steel and electricity became a major experience in shaping his responses to the modern world, and Stella succeeded in portraying the pathos of the steelworkers and the Pittsburgh landscape. Stella went abroad in 1909 at the age of thirty-two, lonely for his native land. He returned to Italy, traveling to Venice, Florence and Rome. He took up the glazing technique of the old Venetian masters to get warmth, transparency, and depth of color. One of Stella's paintings was shown in the International Exhibition in Rome in 1910 and was acquired by the city of Rome. The influence of the French Modernists awakened his dormant individuality. His friendship with Antonio Mancini, a Futurist, also played a role in his new style. At the urging of Walter Pach...

A Pair of Modernist Landscapes by listed female artist Margaret Munro Stratton McLennan. Margaret was a painter working in the early 20th Century in the Syracuse area. These charmi...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1927 by Russian-American painter Ben Benn. With a highly recognizable modern style, fast brush stroke and expressive use of color, shape, ...

Bold outlines and strong weighty forms coalesce with a compositional delicacy that forms the hallmark of Hartley's work. The work has a long and distinguished provenance and exhibit...

Artist: Ben Benn, Polish/American (1884 - 1983) Title: 23rd and 2nd Ave, New York City Year: 1924 Medium: Oil on board, signed l.r. Size: 14 x 11.5 in. (35.56 x 29.21 cm) Frame Size:...

"Self Portrait" by Philadelphia born modernist painter Leon Kelly, is a moody and atmospheric self portrait of the artist in younger years at age 24. The 18" x 16" oil on board, fram...

Medium: Oil on Canvas Signature: Signed Lower Left Sight Size 24.00" x 19.00", Framed 32.50" x 27.00" Cover of The Saturday Evening Post, August 26, 1922. Exhibitions: JC Leyendecker...

Exhibited: New York Society of Artist Sid Deutsch Owings-Dewey Fine Art It's Skyscraper City: 1918. The artist depicts a simultaneous interior and exerterior view.. Based on Cole...

GRACE HILL TURNBULL (1880-1976) Waterfall (Woodstock, New York), c. 1925 Oil on canvas 14 x 20 inches Unsigned PROVENANCE The Maryland Historical Society The work of pai...

ALFRED MAURER (1868-1932) Still Life (double-sided), n.d. Oil on board 22 x 13 ½ inches Signed verso: A. H. Maurer PROVENANCE Estate of Gaston Lachaise [Salander-O'Reilly...

Yours Truly is a work of 1927, a fertile year for Dove, capped by a solo exhibit at Stieglitz’s “The Intimate Gallery,” which included this picture. From 1924 through 1930, Dove produced a notable series of collages, interspersed with drawings, pastels, and oil paintings on a variety of supports. In 1927, the same year that Dove painted Yours Truly, he found inspiration in American popular music, often referring in his titles to works by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin. Yours Truly was the title of a Broadway musical that opened at the Shubert Theater on January 25, 1927. Gene Buck, the producer, had collaborated with Raymond Hubbell, the composer, on the Ziegfield Follies shows of 1923, 1924, and 1925. The production, which contained the title song, “Yours Truly,” ran for 127 performances, closing on May 14, 1927. Given the context of Dove paintings...

This painting is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Oil on canvas, 29 x 24 inches, Signed lower left Price Upon Request

Original Oil on Canvas Illustration for Hearst/Cosmopolitan Aug. 1925 "Land Where Men Forget the Past, The Coconut Pearl" Caption: " 'Anyone who's knocked ...