American Realist Paintings

By Texas artist A.D. Greer This Autumn landscape depicts a peaceful lake in the morning. A large tree with orange leaves towers in the foreground and hazy, blue and pink mountains gl...

Zoe Hawk Artist Statement My work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging. These themes are tackled within scen...

Zoe Hawk Artist Statement My work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging. These themes are tackled within scen...

Zoe Hawk Artist Statement My work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging. These themes are tackled within scen...

Zoe Hawk Artist Statement My work deals with the complex experience of girlhood, exploring adolescent anxiety, feminine identity, and belonging. These themes are tackled within scen...

Don Elmore Image Size: 14 x 27 Frame Size: 25 x 38 Medium: Oil "Llano Blues" Bluebonnet

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Factory Worker, c. 1936, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 18 ¼ x 36 inches; exhibited in City ...

Oil on canvas, signed lower left. Measures 20" x 22" painting and 21.75". x 23.75". including the frame. Provenance: Harmon Meek Gallery Naples, Florida Weinstein Gallery, Robert Kipniss, 21st Century...

St, Louis River Mural Study American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century WPA Jo Cain (1904-2003) The Drama of the St. Louis Great River 23 1/4 x 25 ½ inches Gouache on board c. 19...

American realist painter Carl Bretzke is particularly adept at nocturne scenes which ooze in darkness, reminiscent of Edward Hopper. Bretzke remarks: “What most people don’t notice i...

Jack Levine: 1915-2010. Well listed American social realist painter with auction results over $220,000. This fabulous gem was most likely painted between 1942 and 1945 as he was serv...

Title: Early Spring II Medium: Oil on canvas Size: 12 x 16 inches Frame: Framing options available! Condition: The painting appears to be in excellent condition. Note: This painting is unstretched Year: 2000 Circa Artist: Tao Yu...

Antique American realist figurative Blue Jay on a branch. Oil on board. Framed.

Incredibly detailed Original illustration of Santa Claus on what I imagine is Christmas Eve. He must be falling behind schedule as he has commandeered planes instead of reindeers. I ...

Poker Players NYC Mid 20th Century Modern WPA American Scene Social Realism Philip Reisman (1904-1992) Poker Players 12 x 16 oil on board Signed and dated 1949 lower right BIO Phi...

Charming late 19th or early 20th century oil on board. This little gem has great detail of a horse with a feedbag in a landscape. It is signed or initialed but I cannot make it out. ...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA --A walk through any major museum will reveal paintings that depict or legitimate only certain kinds of experience. Despite the good in...

LOOK FOR FREE SHIPPING AT CHECKOUT. Couple is an 20 X 16 oil on canvas painting of a sheep and a longhorn who look as if they are in search of something. Couple is by Texas arti...

American, b. 1964 Michael Harrell focuses on capturing natural light in both landscapes and cityscapes while working with nautical themes, especially ...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Farm Mural Study, c. 1940, oil on Masonite, signed lower right, 15 x 42 inches; presented in a newer wood frame About the Painting A delightful regionalist composition, Cecil Head’s Farm Mural Study features a tidy and verdant farmscape where the animals outnumber the farmer and remind the viewer of an idealized fecundity of the American Midwest. Head gained early recognition for his mural designs in 1934 when his work was selected to represent Indiana in a Public Works of Art Project exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington DC. Head excelled at rural Indiana scenes and the present work bears comparison to his most famous painting, Potato Planters, a 1936 work, which won first prize at the Hoosier Salon and was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in 1941. Both works feature hard-working farmers in straw hats standing against the back drop of farm buildings. A critic's commentary about Potato Planters also applies to Farm Mural Study, "the various farm objects...

"Grand Canyon Series" is an oil on panel painting by Sheldon Orrin Parsons, painted in 1943. The work is signed in the lower left, “Sheldon Parsons 16”...

Studio Interior Scene Mid 20th Century American Modern WPA Still Life Realism The painting measures 10 x 12 inches. Framed, the work is 13 1/4 x 15 1/...

Long Beach WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Modernism Ashcan Daniel Ralph Celantano (1902-1980) "Long Beach" 8 x 10 inches Oil on artist board Signed lower left:...

Female artist Louise Lue Osborne paints a classic composition with an interaction of two women and a child soaked in golden late light. The figural gro...

"Navajo Camp" is an oil on panel painting by Gerard Curtis Delano. The painting is signed lower left "Delano". The framed piece measures 31 x 36 3/4 x 1 7/8 inches. Delano was a pai...

Gail Chase Bien paints thinly layered oil on linen over extended periods (from months to years) to complete a single work of art. Taking cues from nature’s extraordinary visual offer...

Alterpiece. Oil on canvas, meticulously painted by Brooks Anderson. Canvas edges are painted dark in the artist's signature style. Lovely to behold from every angle. Singed, titled, ...

Gail Chase Bien paints thinly layered oil on linen over extended periods (from months to years) to complete a single work of art. Taking cues from nature’s extraordinary visual offerings — specifically, the play of light as it touches upon water and earth — her nature-inspired works bridge realism and abstraction, and they convey a thin veneer of the of human spirit. Complex, rich, and slow in the making, the paintings, with their serene simplicity, are intended to be viewed and enjoyed over time. Ten Mile Beach...

Represented by George Billis Gallery - Born in Spokane, WA (1986), Tamalin Soleil Baumgarten paints quiet landscape scenes with a tonal, melancholic realism. She received her MFA fro...

Represented by George Billis Gallery - Born in Spokane, WA (1986), Tamalin Soleil Baumgarten paints quiet landscape scenes with a tonal, melancholic realism. She received her MFA fro...

LOOK FOR FREE SHIPPING AT CHECKOUT. Questioning is an 16 x 20 oil painting of two sheep who look as if they are in search of something. Questioning is by Texas artist Luke Autr...

We have a fantastic interior painting for sale that has a cheeky orange cat rubbing up against the glass of a fish tank. This picture displays the artist's skill at portraying animal...

LOOK FOR FREE SHIPPING AT CHECKOUT. Done for the Day is an 11 x 14 ( 17 x 20 framed ) oil on panel painting of the famous Radio Flyer Red Wagon that m...

ASHLEE SELBURG Champagne Cat Ink and pencil on paper 20 x 16 inches

This watercolor is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Circus Wagons, 1927, watercolor on paper, signed and dated lower left, 10 x19 ¾ inches (sight), provenance includes Stary-Sheets Art Gallery (Gualala, CA); J. Ralph & Louis Stone Foundation; presented in a newer metal frame behind glazing About the Painting Millard Sheets was only twenty years old and in his third year of studies at the Chouinard Art Institute when he painted Circus Wagons. Despite his youth, Sheets was already an accomplished artist who had publicly exhibited his work and won prestigious prizes. Within several years, he would have his first solo exhibition at one of Los Angeles’ premiere galleries and become a painting instructor at his alma mater. In Circus Wagons we already see Sheets deft handling of the watercolor medium and his interest in the California Scene. In this case, Sheets captures a back lot view of a traveling circus, a subject he sometimes returned to, including in a color screen print in the collection of the National Gallery. Sheets made a career by painting what he knew and observed firsthand. This approach allowed Sheets to capture with authenticity the details of each narrative. Even with a narrowly limited palette and an economy of brushstrokes, Sheets effectively depicts the southern California scene with its strong and mysterious shadows, as well as the workers and circus animals. Seen through the hindsight of his six-decade long career, Circus Wagons offers a fascinating insight into the early development of California Scene painting which would by the mid-1930s become the best recognized style on the West Coast. About the Artist Millard Sheets was the dean of California watercolorists. His list of accomplishments is so extensive that his entry in Who was Who in American Art is over forty lines. Born in Pomona, California, Sheets became a painter at an early age, winning a prize at the Los Angeles County Fair in 1918. By the mid to late-1920s, Sheets became a regular at art exhibitions in the western part of the United States, winning several additional prizes before he reached the age of twenty-five. Sheets studied at the prestigious Chouinard Art Institute from 1925 through 1929 with Frank Tolles Chamberlin and Clarence Hinkle and had his first solo show with Los Angeles’ Dalzell Hatfield Gallery in 1929. During the 1930s, Sheets was invited to exhibit at almost every major American Museum and in many ways, his work came to represent the California watercolor school...

Represented by George Billis Gallery - Born in Spokane, WA (1986), Tamalin Soleil Baumgarten paints quiet landscape scenes with a tonal, melancholic realism. She received her MFA fro...

Signed lower right: 'A.Brook '59'. Painted in Sag Harbor, Long Island in 1959. Adeline (Adaline) Glasheen was a writer. She was a friend of the artist and worked in literary circle...

Street Scene WPA American Scene Mid-20th Century Modern Coin Tower California SF Victor Arnautofff (1896 – 1979) City Street 12 x 14 inches Oil on board, c. 1930s Signed lower left BIO Born in the Ukraine of Russia, Victor Arnautoff became one of the most influential muralists in San Francisco in the 1930s and worked for the Federal Arts Project, WPA, in the expressive, social protest...

Robert Hamblen (American, 1932-2017) Untitled, c. 20th century Oil on board 12 x 15 3/4 in. Framed: 16 x 19 3/4 x 1 3/4 Signed lower right: Hamblen Robert Hamblen was a self-taught ...

What is she dreaming about? Something in the book that is open in front of her? And who are the other characters in this moody, quiet, lovely scene? Not only a wonderful painting, but really captures that WPA period feel. A pensive painting sure to bring you peace. With frame it measures 33" x 27"; canvas measures 30" x 24". Frame has some weathering (probably original) but is still serviceable. The following is some bio information about the artist I pulled from AskArt: "Born in Swerzen, Russia, Bernard Green came to the US at a young age and settled in the New York City area. He studied art at the National Academy of Design, the Art Students League, the College of the City of New York and NYU, exhibiting at the NAD as early as 1910, where he won a prize both in 1910 and 1913, as well as at the ASL, winning another prize in 1914. Highly accomplished both as painter and etcher, Green continued exhibiting at the NAD throughout the years 1913-1946, at the Pan-Pacific Exposition in California in 1915, and at various galleries and other venues including a solo show at the Roerich Museum in 1930. His style was early 20th-century American Impressionist, and his interests covered a wide range from landscapes and still life to portraiture, including black subjects...

C Hjalmar Amundsen's 'Boats at Dock' is a Mid-20th Century Oil on Canvas painting depicting a sailing vessel docked next to a couple of wharf buildings. The colors are rich values of...

Francis Dixon (American, 1879-1967) Untitled (Winter Landscape), 20th Century Oil on canvas 12 1/4 x 16 in. Framed: 18 5/8 x 22 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. Signed lower right: Francis Dixon Thi...

Hani Naji original work. mesmerizing realistic work color pencils. it was created in 1996 and signed in 2006. the prizes won several prices. there are prints available in different...

Represented by George Billis Gallery - Born in Spokane, WA (1986), Tamalin Soleil Baumgarten paints quiet landscape scenes with a tonal, melancholic realism. She received her MFA fro...

LOOK FOR FREE SHIPPING AT CHECKOUT. "Playtime" is a 16 by 20 oil on panel painting of the famous Mercury Wagon that many children had growing up in the USA. Here is the history ...

Kevin Frank is represented by George Billis Gallery. Kevin Frank statement: For me, combining the techniques of the ancient Greco-Roman painters with those of the old and new master...

Oil on artist's board, 20th century, signed P. Zimmerman Reminiscent of the Mid Century Social Realist and WPA works of Ben Shahn this captures a still life table top kitchen scene. ...

This mural study is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Industry and Commerce, 1936, tempera on panel, 16 ½ x 39 ½ inches, signed verso “John Ballat...

Oil on artist's board, 20th century, signed Paul Zimmerman Reminiscent of the Mid Century Social Realist and WPA works of Ben Shahn this captures a group of tenement children of mixe...

Turquoise, Hani Naji original portrait artwork of beautiful model. The work is about the interaction of the turquoise color of the dress with model amazing skin colors. The size of ...

John Steuart Curry "Sketching Wisconsin," 1946 oil on canvas 31.13 x 28 inches, canvas 39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame Signed and dated lower right Overall excellent condition Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression. Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin. The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills. Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception. Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin. Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him. The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields. Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...

​Represented by George Billis Gallery -- Gary Faigin says of Kurt Solmssen’s work, “Though a realist, Kurt Solmssen does not so much record what he sees, as use his surroundings as a...

Loti-kee-yah-tede, a Laguna woman who often posed in that same fringed costume and jewelry for photographer Carleton Moon is a Paul Surber acrylic painting on a board in an ornate gold frame from one of those photographs. Loti-kee-yah-tede, was the chief’s daughter of the Laguna Pueblo, when she was photographed wearing Ka-waik clothing with a belt and beaded necklaces by Carl Moon in about 1905. The Laguna Pueblo is located in the semi-arid lands west-central New Mexico, near Albuquerque. From 1905-1906, Moon had a short-lived partnership in Albuquerque with businessman Thomas F. Keleher, called the Moon-Keleher Studio. After the partnership dissolved, Moon continued working, photographing carefully selected Indian “subjects” in a romantic, posed style. His photographs began appearing in magazines and he exhibited at the Museum of Natural History in New York. President Theodore Roosevelt invited Moon to exhibit his Native American photographs...

This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Knight’s Lodging, 1941, oil on canvas panel, signed and dated lower left, 16 x 20 inches, exhi...

"Unemployed" WPA American Scene Social Realism Mid 20th Century Modern William Gropper (1898 - 1977) Unemployed 20 x 16 inches Oil on canvas, 1937 Signed lower right Provenance: E...

Kevin Frank is represented by George Billis Gallery. Kevin Frank statement: For me, combining the techniques of the ancient Greco-Roman painters with those of the old and new master...

This powerful and graphically composed image of a black man with white angel wings was painted in a realist style by African American artist Thomas Blackshear...