American Realist Paintings

Joseph Orr (b. 1949) "The Home Place" Acrylic on Canvas Canvas Size: 9 x 12 Framed Size: approx 12 x 16 Joseph Orr, from Missouri, has been painting profes...

This piece is an original oil painting on linen panel. It features a colorful bouquet of flowers and a graphic black and white background--one in a series of pieces where the artist ...

"Perkins Cove" with glowing water reflections of wooden boats tied up to the dock is a quintessential example of Tom Swimm's enhanced realism. This colorful o...

"See No Evil" is an oil painting. It depicts a woman, the artist, Maryann Lucas covering her eyes with her hands. The two tone composition represents the artist's astrological sign, ...

Willard Dixon, who says "the charm of Still Life painting for the artist lies in the ability to manipulate ones subject matter and in the intimate, direct nature of the painting proc...

The painting features a 3/4 bust portrait of a gentleman from the Verplanck family of Orange County, New York. The painting shows a young man seated for her portrait in a fine black ...

An oil painting of an antique key, hanging by a teal colored ribbon, from a single nail. Painted in the realist style known as Trompe-Loeil, which is French for "Trickery of the Eye"...

'Urban Retreat', 2021 is 50 x 50 inches. By focusing on a single subject, the artist immerses herself in the nuanced lines, shapes, and tones that the oil paint offers. Contemporary ...

Oil on panel by Jenness Cortez signed and dated lower left beautifully framed and matted measuring 16" x 21" including the frame. This painting features two jockeys and their race ho...

"Hat and Bird's Nests" is part of Levin's "plumage" series, where he contrasts hats to birds, their nests, eggs, and feathers. Here, a hat sits centered between two nests, inside of ...

Charming hand painted photograph, portrait of a young ballerina as Tinker Bell by an unknown artist (American, 20th Century). Circa 1957. Signed "Studio d'Art Los Altos...

This American realist western landscape, "Above Big Pine", depicts a scene from the majestic Sierra Nevadas in an area above Big Pine in Inyo County from celebrated artist Willard Di...

This piece is an original oil painting on linen canvas. It features a beautiful bouquet of two varieties of tulips. Harkening back to Dutch floral paintings, export porcelain popular...

This piece is an original oil painting on linen panel. It features a blue and white porcelain bowl holding a bouquet of Hellebores. In the Victorian language of flowers, Hellebores s...

"Company For Supper" - After Dale Nichols "Company For Supper" oil on canvas painting by Arlene a mid-west artist (American, 20th Century). Painted by an anonymous artist in the sty...

Artist: William Deshazo Title: Pacific Sea Scape Medium: Oil on Canvas Dimensions: Framed 28.5" x 48.5". Unframed: 39" x 19.5" Artist Bio: William D...

A quintessential New England snow scene in the impressionist style. Snow scenes by this artist were considered to be some of his finest works. Frame...

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...

John Haberle (1856-1933) was an American painter in the trompe-l'œil period and was most commonly known for his skill of painting objects that were laid out so perfectly that they could be mistaken for the objects themselves. This artist is considered one of the three major artists of this period. Although he was most famous for his Still Life works, there are many portraits that he made. Mark Twain, a famous writer of the gilded age known for his many stories, especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

By M.A. Bhatti 16" x 20" Oil on Canvas Framed Size: 21.5" x 25.5" This fast-paced western painting depicts a lasso-weilding cowboy on horseback chasing down a rogue calf. The scene...

Arne Charles Besser (1935-2012) was a Mid-Century Gay American Realist Painter whose work showed in galleries throughout Europe and North America. This 1970s painting showcases Besser's ability to capture the intricacies of human and animal figures, with the musculature of the horse and nude...

This meticulously rendered work depicts a three-quarter view of a young woman lost in deep introspection. Inscribed on verso: " The Captain's Lady" Leslie of ____________ St. ...

"Laid Bare" is a landscape painting featuring hues of grey, green, blue and yellow. Kathryn Keller is inspired by the works of George Inness, Edward Hopper, Giorgio Morandi & Alexander Drysdale. Kathryn Keller is a painter based in New Orleans and Alexandria, Louisiana. She received a BA in Fine Art and English from the University of the South...

"Savannah Shadows" is a colorful sun lit scene of a tree shaded street in this charming city, and is a quintessential example of Tom Swimm's enhanced realism. This colorful oil pain...

Coastal Farm Landscape. Oil on canvas painting, created in 1972 by James Torlakson who is known for his photorealist oil paintings, watercolors and aquatint intaglio etchings. Torla...

This piece is an original oil painting on panel by American artist Ginny GC Williams. It was painted en plein air during a painting expedition to Vermont. Catching the waning light of an autumn day, the artist has captured the brilliant yellow of birch trees. The piece is beautifully framed in a handmade curly maple floater frame with contrasting spline joints at the corner. a beautiful presentation. GC Williams has a degree in art history which gave her an understanding of, and appreciation for, not only the art of the past, but the historical events and ideologies that fostered various aesthetics, movements, and styles. She has studied at several classical ateliers, including three years at Boston's Academy of Realist Art. Her work has been shown in galleries throughout the US and is included in public and private collections. She maintains a studio on the north shore of Massachusetts. "My work is about the little moments of beauty that comprise our existence: the greening of the landscape in early spring, the glint of light on an object; growing things and made objects. I enjoy creating interesting interactions, and making up narratives. I love the way light animates objects...

This piece is an original oil painting on panel. It features cheerful yellow flowers and a graphic black and white background--one in a series of pieces where the artist has used the...

Dr. Rowland S. Russell PhD. writes about his experience directly witnessing Greg's practice as a “plein air” artist: Whether he’s portraying quiet scenes from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park or the Botanical Gardens, intriguing remnants of New York’s varied industry (grain silos...

December 1959, Scrap Metal Loading Area, 8A Yard between 9th & 8th Street by Kent Avenue. Looking East. American, b. 1949 In his more than three decades as an artist, Nicholas Berg...

Fletcher Martin Lunch Break, circa 1940 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 31 1/2 x 37 3/8 inches When Fletcher Martin died in 1979, the New York Times entitled his obituary “Artist o...

Artist: Fil Mottola, American (1915 - 2008) Title: Market Place, Taxco Mexico Medium: Oil on Masonite, signed l.r. Size: 30 x 40 inches [76 x 102.5 cm] Framed: 38 x 48 inches [96.5 ...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA -- Chidlaw is an American realist seeking, and finding, profundity in the realm of the commonplace. She takes aims at dignity and a dur...

A fine, large-scale portrait of a Philadelphia lady, fabled soprano singer Florence Foster Jenkins, by Richard Langtry Partington (American, 19...

​Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA -- Gary Faigin says of Kurt Solmssen’s work, “Though a realist, Kurt Solmssen does not so much record what ...

Boy with Fish Thomas Kerry, British/American Date: circa 1970 Oil on Board, signed and dedicated verso Size: 24 x 20 inches Frame Size: 29 x 25 inches

A moody and surrealistic still life of peonies. While the scene seems to take place outside, the reflection in the vase reveals a window with light streaming into a dark room. As alw...

An oil painting of a cloud filled sky at sunset. The foreground is set along a sandy beach, white sand meeting dunes, tire tracks in the sand lead our eye to a pair of figures, seate...

Outlaw Mesa Shadows, oil on canvas 17 x 30 inches (Framed size: 18 x 31 inches), $2,900 Leslie Thomas returned to painting after working 20 years as a computer engineer. She has since studied painting under Mark Knudsen...

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...

Artist: Sandu Liberman, Romanian/Israeli (1923 - 1977) Title: Woman on a Park Bench Year: Circa 1970 Medium: Oil on Canvas, unsigned Size: 24 x 24 in. (60...

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...

American Painter of flowers and garden scenes. Many of her works are in public collections. “It’s interesting where you go in a 45-year art career. I look back now and see that I ...

This piece is an original oil painting on panel. A garden is shown with the subtle shadow cast by a picket fence on the path between the flowers. In a wide, linen-lined frame, the ov...

"Study for Long Beach" WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Social Realism Modernism Ashcan Daniel Ralph Celantano (1902-1980) "Study for Long Beach" 8 x 10 inches Oil on artist bo...

Battle Mountain, Nevada (2005), oil on canvas, 30x40 inches (framed size: 39 x 50 inches) Earl Jones (1937- ) is one of Utah’s best known landscape artists. As an undergraduate at the University of Utah, where he earned a BFA in 1959 and an MFA in 1962, Jones was preoccupied with the figure, studying under the tutelage of portrait painter Alvin Gittins. He then ventured from Utah to New York and the Art Students League where he took figure painting classes with Joseph Hirsch. Later Jones became heir to the landscape legacy of LeConte Stewart...

James Elliott Bama was born in 1926 in New York City. He studied at the Arts Student League and became a very successful illustrator for magazines like ...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA -- Alex Roulette’s paintings depict false realities. The artist constructs landscapes from numerous source photographs, which he uses a...

"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: Estate of the artist Bio Throughout his life, William Gropper used his artistic talents to protest social injustice. Born in New York City, he grew up there in poverty and left high school to work as a dishwasher and delivery boy. He eventually began a career in art and was able to study with Robert Henri and George Bellows from 1912 to 1915. He adopted their realistic painting style, and his own work expressed sympathy for common laborers and outrage at society's ills. In 1919 Gropper established a reputation as a political cartoonist working for the New York Tribune. His blunt, forceful style attracted the attention of other publications, and he provided illustrations and cartoons for a variety of magazines, from the left-wing New Masses to mainstream Vanity Fair. Like many social realist artists of the 1930s, Gropper supported liberal political causes, depicting subjects such as the plight of migrant laborers and striking factory workers. In his first gallery exhibition in 1936 at ACA Galleries, Gropper's work was so well received by critics, collectors, and artists that the following year he had two one-man exhibitions at ACA Galleries. In 1937, Gropper traveled west on a Guggenheim Fellowship and visited the Dust Bowl and the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dams, sketching studies for a series of paintings and a mural he painted for the Department of the Interior. That same year he had paintings purchased by both the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art. Gropper exhibited at the 1939 New York World's Fair, Whitney Museum of American Art (1924-55), Art Institute of Chicago (1935-49), Carnegie International (1937-50), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1939-48), and National Academy of Design (1945-48). He was a founder of the Artists Equity Association and member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters. From 1940 to 1945 William Gropper was preoccupied with anti-Nazi cartoons...

Artist: Moses Soyer, American (1899 - 1974) Title: H.G with Standing Nude Year: circa 1960 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 24 x 20 inches Frame: 32 x 28 inches ACA Galleries...

This wonderful urban landscape painting showed up in our inventory, but we have lost the name of the artist who created it. At any rate, it depicts a train arriving in the station of...

Presented is a wonderful example of mid-19th-century American Portraiture. Portrait of a Girl, c. 1850s Oil on Canvas 27" x 22" Housed in its original period frame Spandrel Sit...

Artist: Judith Klausenstock– American (1928- ) Title: Untitled Year: circa 1995 Medium: Watercolor Sight size: 17 x 27.75 inches. Framed size: 26.25 x 36.25 inches Signature: Signe...

Gregory Block's (US based) "Apples" is a still life oil painting that depicts a glass bowl of reddish Apples sitting in situ with a knife and halved Apple slices in a dark interior. ...

Signed and dated lower left: "Molly Luce 27". In fine condition. A similar painting, The Zoo (1926), is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Exhibited: The Soci...

Industrial Railroad WPA Mid 20th Century American Scene Rural Modern Realism Large oil on canvas genre painting depicting laborers working on a railroad, with rural landscape in the...

Artist: Jan De Ruth, Czech (1922 - 1991) Title: Seated Nude Year: circa 1960 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed lower left Size: 36 in. x 24 in. (91.44 cm x...

Texas Longhorn and Sheep Realism 20" x 16" oil Bovine Landscape Animals The Duo is an 20 X 16 oil on canvas painting of a sheep and a longhorn who look as if they are in searc...

Dale Zinkowski is a master of still life. His work, reminiscent of Golden Age Dutch still life painting, glows with light and subtle, quiet beauty. This original oil painting shows ...

Signed lower left 'Moessel' for Julius Moessel (American, 1872-1960) and dated 1943; additionally titled verso, 'In the Artist's Garden'. A substantial, mid-century horticultural oi...

The primary subjects of my paintings are 21st century man's working monuments, which represent our culture's dedication to production and consumption. The essence of our way of life ...

William Sharp (1900 - 1961) Factory on the River Oil on canvas 17 1/2 x 23 1/4 inches Initialed lower right: WS Provenance: Estate of the artist Private Collection, New York Swann Auction Galleries, American Art, June 13, 2019, Lot 178 William Sharp was born on June 13, 1900, in Lemberg, Austria, where he attended college and the Academy for Arts and Industry. He later studied in Kraków, Poland, and in Berlin and Munich, Germany. Sharp began his career as a designer of stained-glass windows and as a painter of murals. He served in the German army during World War I. After the war he became a newspaper artist in Berlin and a well-known etcher. Sharp drew political cartoons that were bitterly critical of the growing Nazi movement. As the influence of National Socialism intensified, he began to contribute drawings, under a pseudonym, to publications that were hostile to Hitler. After Hitler assumed power, Sharp was confronted with these drawings and told that he would be sent to a concentration camp. However, in 1934, he escaped to the United States. His first newspaper assignment in America was making courtroom sketches for The New York Mirror...

Both spare and dynamic, Karl Hartman’s hyper-saturated countrysides and surreal depictions of Americana perfectly match the vividness of our late-summer heatwave. Hartman’s tightly c...

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 ...

Dina Brodsky is a contemporary realist painter. Known for her miniaturist style, her highly detailed depictions of urban interiors, natural environments, and unsuspecting human and animal subjects are evocative of renaissance portraiture and landscape. Brodsky often paints on small circular surfaces, forcing viewers to move closer to the work. She was drawn to miniature painting from her study of Islamic miniature art and medieval illuminated manuscripts, whose techniques she combined with those of classical painting. She is amongst a group of contemporary realist painters, such as Timothy Barr...

"Setauket Sailboats" is a realist oil on canvas painting by Doug Reina. This painting depicts two boats sitting at a dock in Setauket, Long Island. Light blue fills the canvas on bo...

Vibrant, colorful still-life of fruit arranged in front of a bowl and pitcher by Joseph Yeager (American, 20th Century). Circa 1940. This piece is partially incomplete. Unsigned, but...

This painting, exemplifies the type of traditional portraits the artist Ariane Beigneux was specially known for. Here, Beigneux depicts the portrait of a little boy and horse in a realistic, and seemingly idealized manner. The artist uses local colors and controlled brushstrokes to render the subject, paying close attention to details adding a special clarity to the naturalism of the portrait. it is painted on Whatman illustration board. some drawing in the margins. Ariane Beigneux was born to French parents in Roxbury, CT in 1918 and passed in 2011. She studied art at the National Academy of Design with Gifford Beal, Sidney Dickinson and Ivan Olinsky and at the Art Students League in New York with Jon Corbino and Jean Liberte. Ariane painted professional artist childrens portraits for six decades. Her work was included in the book 6 Artists Paint a Portrait: Alfred Chadbourn...