1940s Art

Post Office WPA Mural Study American Scene Social Realism Modern 20th Century Carlos Lopez (1910-1953) "Bounty" WPA Mural Study for Michigan Post Office 19 ½ x 22 ½ inches Oil on B...

Charles Quest, 'Still Life', 1947, wood engraving, edition 8. Signed, dated, and numbered '3/8' in pencil. Titled and annotated 'wood engraving' in the bottom left margin. A fine impression, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (1 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Charles Quest, painter, printmaker, and fine art instructor, worked in various mediums, including mosaic, stained glass, mural painting, and sculpture. Quest grew up in St. Louis, his talent evident as a teenager when he began copying the works of masters such as Michelangelo on his bedroom walls. He studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts, where he later taught from 1944 to 1971. He traveled to Europe after his graduation in 1929 and studied at La Grande Chaumière and Academie Colarossi, Paris, continuing to draw inspiration from the works of the Old Masters. After returning to St. Louis, Quest received several commissions to paint murals in public buildings, schools, and churches, including one from Joseph Cardinal Ritter, to paint a replica of Velasquez's Crucifixion over the main altar of the Old Cathedral in St. Louis. Quest soon became interested in the woodcut medium, which he learned through his study of J. J. Lankes' A Woodcut Manual (1932) and Paul Landacre's articles in American Artist magazine ‘since no artists in St. Louis were working in wood’ at that time. Quest also revealed that for him, wood cutting and engraving were ‘more enjoyable than any other means of expression.’ In the late 1940s, his graphic works began attracting critical attention—several of his woodcuts won prizes and were acquired by major American and European museums. His wood engraving entitled ‘Lovers’ was included in the American Federation of Art's traveling print exhibition in 1947. Two years later, Quest's two prize-winning prints, ‘Still Life with Grindstone’ and ‘Break Forth into Singing’, were exhibited in major American museums in a traveling show organized by the Philadelphia Print Club. His work was included in the Chicago Art Institute's exhibition, ‘Woodcut Through Six Centuries’, and the print ‘Still Life with Vise’ was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1951 he was invited by artist-Curator Jacob Kainen to exhibit thirty wood engravings and color woodcuts in a one-person show at the Smithsonian's National Museum (now known as the American History Museum). Kainen's press release praised the ‘technical refinement’ of Quest's work: ‘He obtains a great variety of textural effects through the use of the graver, and these dense or transparent grays are set off against whites or blacks to achieve sparkling results. His work has the handsome qualities characteristic of the craftsman and designer.’ At the time of the Smithsonian exhibition, Quest's work was represented by three New York galleries in addition to one in his home town. He had won 38 prizes, and his prints were in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In cooperation with the Art in Embassies program, his color woodcuts were displayed at the American Embassy in Paris in 1951. Recognition at home came in 1955 with his first solo exhibition in St. Louis. Press coverage of the show heralded the ‘growth of graphic arts toward rivaling painting and sculpture as a major independent medium’. An exhibition of his prints at the Bethesda Art Gallery in 1983 attracted Curator Emeritus Joseph A. Haller, S.J., who began purchasing his work for Georgetown University's collection. In 1990 Georgetown University Library's Special Collections Division was the recipient of a large body of Quest's work, including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, stained glass, and his archive of correspondence and professional memorabilia. These extensive holdings, including some 260 of his fine prints, provide a rich opportunity for further study and appreciation of this versatile and not-to-be-forgotten mid-Western American artist...

Work on paper Original silver wooden frame with glass window 52 x 66,5 x 1,5 cm

Dinner Jazz (1949) - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print - Limited Estate Stamped (Photo by Slim Aarons/Getty Images) Premium Rates Apply. 1949: American Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Arm...

Impressive early American modernist still life oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas. Signed. Image size, 10H by 8L.

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Robert Vale Faro, 'Bird Dog', color lithograph with relief collagraph, 1946, edition 14. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '123' (the artist's inventory number) and '12/14' in pen. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, cream, wove paper; the full sheet with margins(1 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 10 1/8 x 6 7/8 inches (257 x 174 mm); sheet size 17 x 11 7/16 inches (432 x 291 mm). A collagraph is a relief print made from a collage of various materials adhered to a metal, plastic, hardboard, or other type of ground plate. In this work, the artist appears to have combined a lithograph with a collagraph to achieve the intricately textured image. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Vale Faro (1902-1988) was a well-known modernist architect and artist associated with the Chicago Bauhaus. He received his degree in architecture and design from the Armour Institute in Chicago and worked at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from 1924-27, where he was influenced by Harry Kurt Bieg and Le Corbusier. Upon his return to Chicago, Faro worked with the important modernist Chicago architects George and William Keck under Louis Sullivan. Faro founded the avant-garde printmaking group Vanguard in 1945. The group counted Atelier 17 artists Stanley William Hayter, Sue Fuller, and Anne Ryan as New York members and Francine Felsenthal of Chicago. The Brooklyn Museum mounted a show of Vanguard artists' work in 1946, which subsequently toured several other institutions in the United States. Faro's visionary graphics from the 1940s are a sophisticated blend of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Indian Space...

Charles CAMOIN Mediterranean Landscape, 1946 Original lithograph Signed in pencil bottom right Numbered / XX On Lana vellum 26 x 36 cm (c. 10...

Original vintage travel poster Holy Week in Spain. Original color lithograph in English HOLY WEEK IN SPAIN. Linen backed and in excellent condition, ready to frame. Spanish Nat...

An outstanding oil painting executed with thick use of paint capturing a luminous sight of a train in motion under a bridge with heavy smoke trailing upward. We can feel that a mood...

Montego Bay Fishermen 1940s Toni Frissell Limited Signature Stamped Edition Fishermen at work on a beach in Montego Bay Jamaica circa 1940. by Toni Frissell 30 x 30" inches / 76 x...

Artist: Henri Matisse Medium: Linocut on Arches vellum Title: Plate 14: Ténèbres de moi-meme, je m'abandonne à vous (Darkness of Myself, I Surrender to You) Portfolio: Pasiphae Year:...

Les Mamelles de Tirésias - Choriste - 2nd act is a modern artwork realized in 1947 century by Erté (Romain de Tirtoff). Mixed colored gouache on paper. Hand signed on the lower mar...

Abstract Gouache on Paper by Minnesota/Chicago artist Richard Koppe (1916-1073). Simply titled “Woman,” the work is an excellent composition by the artist created 1941. The painting ...

A dramatic mid-century western figurative action scene depicting a shootout in an old western town by Randy Steffen (American, 1917-1977), 1947. Several ...

Oil on canvas painting by the Russian/American artist, Nicolai Cikovsky. Signed lower left. In good unrestored condition. Housed in custom made wood and lemon gold gilt frame. Overal...

Paris: Place de la Concorde looking towards Rue Royale by Henri Miloch (1898-1979) signed lower right and dated for 16th September 1948 watercolour and gouache painting on artist's paper, unframed Sheet:: 9.5 x 12.25 inches Very pretty painting by the highly regarded painter, Henri Miloch. It depicts Place de la Concorde with a cyclist making their way through the traffic. The artist was seated immediately by the fountain closest to Hotel de la Marine...

Lithograph and stencil on vélin Foreign Affairs paper mounted on Foreign Affairs museum board, as issued . Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition. Notes: From the folio, ...

Pablo Picasso, Spanish (1881 - 1973) - La Fosse Commune, Year: 1947, Medium: Etching on Arches, Image Size: 10 x 8.75 inches, Size: 11 x 17.75 in. (27.94 x 45.09 cm), Reference: Blo...

Guillermo Meza (Mexican, 1917-1997) Sentada Desnuda, 1941 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 23.5 in. h. x 19.5 in. w. 31 in. h. x 27 in. w., as framed He was born in México...

Marc Mouclier (1866-1947) Le Drapeau à la fenêtre, 1942 (The Flag in the window) signed and dated lower right oil on cardboard panel 41 x 32,8 cm framed 62 x 54 cm This magnificent...

Lithograph on vélin a la forme des papeteries d'Arches paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Repli, Gravures de Henri Matisse, 1947. Publ...

Lithograph on vélin a la forme des papeteries d'Arches paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, Repli, Gravures de Henri Matisse, 1947. Publ...

Artist: Margaretha E. Albers, American (1881 - 1977) Title: Twilight Year: circa 1940 Medium: Oil on Board, signed Size: 12 in. x 16 in. (30.48 cm x 40.64 cm)

Work on canvas Beige wooden frame 80.5 x 93.5 x 6 cm

Antique American modernist still life oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Measuring 17 by 23 inches overall and 16 by 22 painting alone.

"Boy With Book Looking Out Window" is an original lithograph print by James Ormsbee Chapin. The artist signed the piece in pencil lower right. This piece depicts a boy looking out th...

Medium: original etching. Printed in 1946 at the atelier Lacouriere on BFK Rives paper and published in a limited edition of 300 for the "Alternance" portfolio (a collective art and ...

Recently, women artists have been soaring in price to millions of dollars. In many cases, many of these women were quite obscure. For example, recently acknowledged Gertrude Abercrombie, a naive surrealist artist, has recently seen her paintings rise to the area of $400K. Lorraine Fox, who is a consummate female artist/ illustrator whose work rivals any of the recently anointed female stars is still an unknown quantity. She has exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and is in the collection of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, and she is a member of the Famous Artists School in Westport, Connecticut along with Norman Rockwell, Today she is relatively unknown and completely off the radar of the so-called art establishment. Wedding Day is a wonderful example of her mid-century, somewhat naive style. The work is signed lower right and was exhibited at the Brandywine River...

"Convolution" is a striking 1948 lithograph on paper by renowned Austrian-American artist Herbert Bayer (1900-1985). This abstract kinetic artwork showcases Bayer’s mastery of form, ...

Wheeler Williams (American, 1897-1972) Untitled Study, 1942 Pencil on paper 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 in. Signed lower right: Wheeler Williams, 1942 A native of Chicago, Wheeler Williams is known for his allegorical, narrative work including "Tablets to Pioneers" on the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago, and "Settlers of the Seaboard" in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. He graduated with honors from Yale University in 1919 and earned a Master of Architecture degree from Harvard in 1922. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago with sculptor Albin Polasek...

Original oil on canvas painting of Canadian geese flying south under a twilight sky. Beautiful light reflection in the water below Signed lower right and attributed to Alice Roge...

Signed and dated nude figure in interior oil on canvas by French post impressionist painter Pierre De Belay. This work depicts a painting of Pierre De Belay's wife - Helene. Here she...

This tribute painting to Flemish art by an unknown artist portrays figures inside a mansion with a yellow and black checkerboard floor and a stained-glass window with brilliant color...

Mallard Drakes (Louisiana Honkers) Drypoint, c. 1940 Signed in pencil lower right (see photo) Titled in pencil lower left (see photo) Note: A famous image by Kleiber. It is was made in a hand colored version which commands a large premium. Condition: Excellent Image/Plate size: 9 7/8 x 7 7/8 inches Hans Kleiber (1887-1967) Hans Norbert Kleiber, painter, etcher, illustrator, and naturalist, was born in Cologne, Germany on August 24, 1887. He emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1900, settling in Massachusetts before moving to Wyoming. Kleiber first worked in lumber camps before working for the United States Forest Service from 1906 until 1924. One of his duties as a ranger was to monitor the logging camps in the Bighorn Mountains. Kleiber was primarily self-taught as an artist and it was in the 1920s that he began devoting himself to art. It appears that he first began to work in watercolor and oil but was producing etchings and drypoints as early as 1924. He traversed the mountains of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho, and his subjects are drawn from the pristine landscapes and wildlife. Kleiber's first exhibition of his etchings was mounted in 1928 at Goodspeed's Book Shop in Boston. His etching, Crossing the Platte, was included in the 1939 New York World's Fair exhibition, American Art Today. There was an exhibition of fifty of his etchings at the National Museum in 1944, and an exhibition of his watercolors was mounted at the Grand Central Galleries in New York in 1950. Kleiber was a member of the Society of American Etchers and the California Society of Printmakers. He received a silver medal in 1931 from the Printmakers Society of California for his print, Leaving the High Country...

(after) Georges Braque, (1882 - 1963) La Mandoline (1943) Lithograph and stencil On vellum 40 x 48 cm (c. 16 x19 inch) Printed signature in the plate Edition of 300 Very good co...

Rare Authentic original "Take me out to the ball game' vintage movie poster. NSS: 49/119. Linen backed. Frank Sinatra, Ester Williams, Gene Kelly. M.G.M's Gay Technicolor Musical! TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALL GAME Cast overview, first billed only: Frank Sinatra .... Dennis Ryan Esther Williams .... K.C. Higgins Gene Kelly .... Eddie O'Brien Betty Garrett .... Shirley Delwyn Edward Arnold .... Joe Lorgan Jules Munshin .... Nat Goldberg Richard Lane...

Nicely executed early 1900s American impressionist coastal seacape painting. Oil on canvas. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a period giltwood molding. Excel...

Latvia-born William Sanderson became a contributor to the New Yorker and New Masses magazines during the 1930s. He was drafted into the Army during World Wa...

Lithograph on vélin pur fil paper. Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the folio, Henri Matisse, Dessins, Thèmes et Variations, 19...

Up for sale is an interesting original vintage oil painting on canvas by Famous British Artist Ernest Burnett Hood, (1932 to 1988), depicting a portrait of a man in costume. Ernest...

Interested in “ordinary people" French photographer Willy Ronis was a postwar (WWII) photographer who roamed the streets whether In France or Italy, photographing people in love, at ...

William Wind McKim, 'Pups in the Pit', lithograph, 1967, edition c. 50. Signed and titled in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/8 to...

Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed lower right.

Constantin Kluge was a Russian-born French painter best known for his naturalistic scenes of Paris and French countryside. Kluge was born to a wealthy military family on January 29, ...

WILLY POGANY (1882 - 1955) TAMAS THE POWER OF BAD, c. 1940. Etching, signed and titled and numbered 50 in pencil. Image 12 x 9 inches. Sheet 14 7/8 x 10 3/4 inches. Generally goo...

This is a colorful oil painting by listed American artist Maurice Van Felix. It portrays a boat landing or lift along a harbor location. It must be Florida as there is a line of palm...

Nordfeldt's misty and moody monochromatic modernist landscape is reminiscent of Marsden Hartley. Signed lower right. The plaque reads B.J.O Nordfeldt "Moon in Mist - The painting l...

A classic black and white photograph from the late 1930s to early 1940s, Two Women on The Subway in New York City is by a master of ...

From Orson Welles' 1941 masterpiece, this vintage large format 10” by 8” negative is over 80 years old and still in perfect condition, having only just been found in an old filing ca...

Signed oil on canvas landscape circa 1940 by French post impressionist painter Raymond Thibesart. The piece depicts a lake on a grey misty day. There is a bare tree in the front of t...

Substantial and period mid-century still life of a bowl of bearded irises with a parrot figurine by noted California artist Nell Walker Warner (American, 1891-1970), c.1940's. A charming parrot statue...

Black and white studio capture of Marlene Dietrich posed in a fur coat. In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola Lola in Josef v...

Lithograph on vélin d'Arches paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the folio, Divertissement, 1943. Published by Tériade, éditeur, Éditions de la Revue Verve, Paris; printed by Draeger Frères, Paris, February 1943. Excerpted from the folio (translated from French), This Manuscript entirely painted by Georges Rouault was engraved by the Master Printers, Draeger Frères and finished printing by them in February 1943 under the direction of Tériade for the Éditions de la Revue Verve. It was taken from this volume: XL examples on papier de Chine ancien with suite, numbered from I to XL, MCC examples on vélin d'Arches made especially for this volume numbered from XLI to MCCXL and XXX examples on Arches marked from I to XXX. GEORGES ROUAULT (1871-1958) French painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and maker of stained glass who, drawing inspiration from French medieval masters, united religious and secular traditions divorced since the Renaissance. Rouault was born in a cellar in Paris during a bombardment of the city by the forces opposed to the Commune. His father was a cabinetmaker. A grandfather took an interest in art and owned a collection of Honoré Daumier’s lithographs...

Dynamic seascape along rocky Big Sur beach with surf by Willard Little (American, 20th century), circa 1940. Aqua blue water, both shallow and deep, reflects the golden sunlight. Are...

Initialed lower right, 'A.E.M' for Anna Elisabeth Munch (Danish, 1876-1960) and painted circa 1940. This notable Danish Modernist first studied with Karl Jensen (1889) and C. N. Overgaard (1891–1892). She later traveled and studied in Italy and, subsequently, at the Académie Julian under Jean Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. After her return to Denmark, Munch became a student of the Impressionist Julius Paulsen (1895-1897) and made her début at the 1898 Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition. Munch became the first Danish woman to receive commissions for large devotional altarpieces and her early subjects were often derived from Nordic and Christian mythology. These themes were also explored in the large fresco commissions she completed after studying fresco with Joakim Skovgaard (1909-10). Munch continued her studies in both France and Italy and also traveled extensively to Sweden and Norway. Together with the writer Sophie Breum, Munch built a house on the island of Funen at the artist's colony of Kerteminde. Munch illustrated several of Breum's books and, through her, was introduced to the women's movement. She furthered her art studies with Fritz Syberg...

Bright and colorful basket of flowers by Los Angeles, California artist Muriel Fleming Merritt (American, 1889-1976). Signed and dated 1946 lower right...

The King Of Jazz 1949 by Slim Aarons Slim Aarons Limited Estate Edition 1949: Photographers taking pictures of American jazz trumpeter and singer, Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971) as...