1940s Art

Bricklayers at Rest is an artwork realized after the Italian artist  Renato Guttuso  (Bagheria, 1911 – Rome, 1987) in 1945. Phototype print. Good ...

'Nude Posing on the Sofa', oil on canvas, by Louis Latapie (circa 1940s). From a long line of renowned paintings whose subject is reclining nudes, this ext...

Portrait of a Man Smoking a Pipe in Oil on Masonite Detailed portrait of a man with a pipe by Heinz Robert Schubert (German, 1912-2001 approx.). A man wearing a short-brimmed hat is...

Lisa with Turban, NY 1940 (Printer later)Silver Gelatin print Printed later 1984 Sheet size: 14 H x 11 W in. Image size: 11.5 H x 9 W in. Engraved signature on front Hand written, ti...

"Accidente" - 1943 Linocut on Paper "Accidente" from the portfolio "25 Prints of Leopoldo Méndez", depicts a figure, upside down, appearing to fall downward from a ladder. Another f...

Jacobson (20th Century) Portrait Vase, 1949 Ceramic Signed and dated on bottom 13 x 6 x 6 inches

Divertimento I (Picasso) Graphite, color wash and oil paint on coated glossy paper, c. 1940 Signed C. Metcalf lower left (see photo) Inscribed Matisse, Picasso, C. Metcalf lower left...

Marie Laurencin Young Girl with Pearl Necklace, 1945 Original etching On Japan paper, 32,5 x 25 cm (c. 12,7 x 9,8 inch) REFERENCE : Catalogue raisonné Daniel Marchesseau #236 Exce...

Work on watercolor paper Golden wooden frame with glass pane 48 x 57 x 2.7 cm

A beautiful signed and dated 1947 oil on canvas portrait of a beloved spaniel, by Belgian painter Aline Von Aken. Lovely quality and condition portrait of the handsome canine. Signe...

6035 Antique portrait watercolor of my Italian Nonna 1940's In an elaborate wood frame Image size 10x7.5" Signed lower right

Very well executed watercolor on paper by Ruth Adele Mysel of a beautiful showgirl. Signed lower right. Circa 1940 to 1950. Ruth Adele Mysel was raised in Boston and attended the Ne...

Bronze sculpture with wooden base. Signed and dated under the base. Certificate of authenticity signed by the artist,

A beautiful signed and dated 1943 French impressionist oil on panel self portrait by Charles Picart le Doux, who was friends with Picasso, Pissarro and many other Paris based artists...

Ian Hugo, 'Early Marshes', from the portfolio 'Ten Engravings'. engraving, 1943, edition 50. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '37/50' in pencil. A fine impression, with delicate overall plate tone, on cream wove paper, the full sheet with margins (2 5/8 to 7 inches), in excellent condition. With the blind stamp 'madeleine-claude jobrack EDITIONS', in the bottom right margin. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 5 x 5 7/8 inches (127 x 149 mm); sheet size 15 x 11 inches (381 x 279 mm). Ian Hugo originally created "Ten Engravings" in 1945 and the portfolio included a foreword by his partner and collaborator, Anais Nin. In 1978, Hugo republished the portfolio with Madeleine-Claude Jobrack, an American master printmaker who studied under Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17, Paris, and with Johnny Friedlaender. When Jobrack returned to the States she managed the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Studio in New York before opening her own printing studio, Madeleine-Claude Jobrak Editions. “The sign of the true artist is one who creates a complete universe, invents new plants, new animals, new figures to transfer to us a new vision of the universe in which dream and reality fuse. Ian Hugo's plants have eyes, the birds have the delicacy of dragonflies, their feathers have the shape of fans. Humor is apparent in every gesture. He uses a fine spider web to give a feeling of flight, speed, lightness. The body of a woman reveals the structure of a leaf, a plant. Wings are moving in a world unified by mythological themes. This is an animated world, humorous and levitating, elusive and decorative, which by its unique forms and shapes gives us the sensation of a rebirth, a liberation from the usual, the familiar, a visit to a new planet.” —Anais Nin, from the forward to the portfolio ‘Ten Engravings’ ABOUT THE ARTIST Ian Hugo was born Hugh Parker Guiler in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1898. His childhood was spent in Puerto Rico—a "tropical paradise," the memory of which stayed with him and surfaced in both his engravings and his films. He attended school in Scotland and graduated from Columbia University where he studied economics and literature. Hugo was working with the National City Bank when he met and married author Anais Nin in 1923. The couple moved to Paris the following year, where Nin's diary and Guiler's artistic aspirations flowered. Guiler feared his business associates would not understand his interests in art and music, let alone those of his wife, so he began a second, creative life as Ian Hugo. Ian and Anais moved to New York in 1939. The following year he took up engraving and etching, working at Stanley William Hayter’s experimental printmaking workshop Atelier 17, established at the New School for Social Research. Hugo began producing surreal images often used to illustrate Nin's books. For Nin, his unwavering love and financial support were indispensable—Hugo was the "fixed center, core... my home, my refuge" (Sept. 16, 1937, Nearer the Moon, The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1937-!939). Fictionalized portraits of Higo and Nin appear in Philip Kaufman's 1990 film drama of a literary love triangle, Henry & June. Inspired by comments that viewers saw motion in his engravings, Hugo took up filmmaking. He asked the avant-garde filmmaker Sasha Hammid for instruction but was told, "Use the camera yourself, make your own mistakes, make your own style." Hugo embarked on an exploration of the film medium as a vehicle to delve into his dreams, his unconscious, and his memories. Without a specific plan, He would collect resonant images, then reorder or superimpose them, seeking a sense of self-connection through the poetic juxtapositions he created. These intuitive explorations resembled the mystical evocations of his engravings, which he described in 1946 as "hieroglyphs of a language in which our unconscious is trying to convey important, urgent messages." In the underwater world of his film ‘Bells of Atlantis,’ the light originates from the world above the surface; it is otherworldly, out of place, yet essential. In ‘Jazz of Lights,’ the street lights of Times Square become in Nin's words, "an ephemeral flow of sensations." This flow that she also calls "phantasmagorical" had a crucial impact on Stan Brakhage, who said that without Jazz of Lights (1954), "there would have been no Anticipation of the Night" his autobiographical film which ushered in a new era of experimental modernist filmmaking. Hugo lived the last two decades of his life in a New York apartment high above street level. In the evenings, surrounded by an electrically illuminated man...

This is a World War II drawing of the Missouri artist Joe Jones (1909-1963) by the New York artist Edward Laning (1906-1981). A typed note reads “Drawn in th...

Paris: Street Cafe Society by Henri Miloch (1898-1979) signed lower right watercolour and gouache painting on artist's paper, unframed Sheet:: 9.75 x 12.5...

Muriel Finley, one of the ‘Goldwyn Girls’ in Hollywood who starred with Danny Kaye in ‘The Kid from Brooklyn’. Original Publication: Picture Post – 4232 – I...

3966 Antique Amsterdam canal scene set in a vintage wood frame Image size 11.5x8.5"

Erotic print is a beautiful black and white linocut on paper, realized in 1945 by the Italian artist, Mino Maccari. Hand-signed with the pseudonym "Jean Barbe" and numbered in penci...

Atul Bose - Fakir-1 & 3 Pencil on Paper 6 x 6 inches & 6.6 x 6 inches (Set of 2 Works) (Unframed & Delivered) In this evocative sketch, Atul captures the weathered face and humble p...

Dorothy Rivo Untitled (Boats and Peaks) Acrylic on panel Framed dimensions: 22 in. H × 28 in. W Contemporary black frame In Untitled (Boats and Peaks), Dorothy Rivo renders a mariti...

Sir Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) is considered one of the most important society photographers of the 20th century. His brilliant portraits of world-famous personalities from the worlds ...

JOHN TURNER (1908 - 1939 per the FDR Presidential Library Collection) PITCHING HAY no 2, c. 1940 Etching and Carborundum. Signed and numbered 10/25 in pencil. 8 1/2 x 12 inches. Sheet 10 x 13 1/2. Annotated at lower sheet edge "Carbograph and etching". This print was done for the WPA / Federal Art Project. The editions for the WPA/FAP prints were generally 25 as in this example. It is illustrated in the Newark Museum WPA collection. Their copy has the Pennsylvania WPA label and with a stamped date of March 11. 1940. Also listed in the General Services Administration catalog of WPA prints...

Arnold Beauvais (1886-1984) Arnold Victor Beauvais was born in Lewisham on 13 April 1886, son of a French father, the artist Charles Henri Beauvais, and an English mother, Anne, née Corfield. He trained in his father's commercial art studio during the day, working on lithographic printing and poster design, and took night classes at the Bolt Court Art School in Fleet Street. In 1903 his father returned to his home town of Marseille and set up a commercial art studio. Arnold studied in Paris for sixteen months before joining his father in Marseille. Charles died...

William Ross Abrams, 'The Green Sugarbowl', color woodcut, 1949, edition 24. Signed, titled, dated, and annotated 'Artist’s proof' in pencil. A fin...

This work is part of our exhibition - American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s A Valley Streetscape at Night, 1948, oil on masonite, signed and dated lower right, 18 x 24 inches; literature: King, Chloe, The Paintings of Edgard O. Kiechle – Unearthed After 60 Years, Ventura Blvd, January/February, 2023, pp. 46 – 53 (illustrated) Edgar Kiechle...

Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita (1886-1968) "the most Japanese of the painters of Paris". Bowl cut and round glasses on his nose, he was one of the great actors of the Roaring Twenties (ea...

Karl Eugene Fortess, 'Tanks & Trees', lithograph, c. 1940, edition 100. Signed, titled, and numbered '100/P' in pencil. Inscribed 'For Usui - K.' in the bottom left margin. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/2 to 2 1/2 inches); a slight crease across the top right sheet corner, well away from the image; otherwise in excellent condition. Image size 13 1/8 x 10 inches; sheet size 17 3/8 x 13 3/16 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Provenance: Estate of Francis Pratt. Francis and her husband Bumpei Usui...

American Still life of Sea Shells A totally unique scene of seashells and objects painted Late 20th Century by an American Painter. Original driftwood influenced frame and in com...

Rémy Duval, 'Parisian Balcony', photogravure, 1946. A fine, richly-inked impression in warm black ink, on cream wove B.F.K. Rives paper; the sheet with deck...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Paper Size: 15 x 22 inches, with centerfold, as issued. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Catalogue raisonné references: Arntz, Wilhelm F., ...

Henri Matisse (After), French (1869-1954) Le Tobogan (Toboggan) Portfolio: Jazz Year: Of Original: 1947 Year Printed: 1983 Medium: Lithograph Image Size: 11.5 x 10.5 inches Size: 15...

Ira Moskowitz, 'Navajo Courtship Dance (Squaw Dance)', lithograph, 1946, edition 30, Czestochowski 161. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the stone, lower left. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (7/16 to 2 3/4 inches). Pale mat line, otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 11 13/16 x 14 13/16 inches (300 x 376 mm); sheet size 13 1/16 x 20 1/8 inches (332 x 511 mm). ABOUT THE ARTIST Ira Moskowitz was born in Galicia, Poland, in 1912, emigrating with his family to New York in 1927. He enrolled at the Art Student's League and studied there from 1928-31. In 1935, Moskowitz traveled to Paris and then lived until 1937 in what is now Israel. He returned to the United States in 1938 to marry artist Anna Barry in New York. The couple soon visited Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico, returning for extended periods until 1944, when they moved there permanently, staying until 1949. During this especially productive New Mexico period, Moskowitz received a Guggenheim fellowship. His work was inspired by the New Mexico landscape and the state’s three cultures (American Southwest, Native American, and Mexican). He focused on Pueblo and Navajo life, producing an extensive oeuvre of authentic American Indian imagery. He and Anna also visited and sketched across the border in Old Mexico. While in the Southwest, Moskowitz flourished as a printmaker while continuing to produce oils and watercolors. Over 100 of Moskowitz’s works depicting Native American ceremonies were used to illustrate the book American Indian Ceremonial Dances by John Collier, Crown Publishers, New York, 1972. After leaving the Southwest, printmaking remained an essential medium for the artist while his focus changed to subject matter celebrating Judaic religious life and customs. These works were well received early on, and Moskowitz was content to stay with them the rest of his life. From 1963 until 1966, Moskowitz lived in Paris, returning to New York City in 1967, where he made his permanent home until he died in 2001. Shortly before his death, Zaplin-Lampert Gallery of Santa Fe staged an exhibition of the artist's works, December 2000 - January 2001. Other one-person shows included the 8th Street Playhouse, New York, 1934; Houston Museum, 1941; and the San Antonio Museum, 1941. The artist’s work was included in exhibitions at the Art Students League, Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Print Club, College Art Association (promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching), and the International Exhibition of Graphic Arts (shown at MOMA, 1955). Moskowitz’s lithographs of...

Lithograph on vélin papier pur chiffon paper. Paper Size: 10 x 7.375 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the album, Les chants de Maldoror, illustrat...

Expressive watercolor figurative of fisherman pulling in the nets by Walter P. Taylor (American, 20th Century). Signed "W.P. Taylor U.S.N.R.'45 (for United States Naval Reserve)" low...

Amalia Polleri, 'Untitled (Sleeping Children)', Conté crayon on cream wove drawing paper, signed and dated '43 in ink beneath the image, lower right; with 1/4 margins all around. Arc...

3876 English Country church landscape on canvas in a vintage wood frame

Two Maidens by a Stream after Narcissus Diaz de La Pena Original l Oil on Linen Idyllic painting of two girls walking along a path towards a stream in the Barbizon style of Narcisse ...

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...

This black and white action shot features the beautiful Elizabeth Taylor spinning on a grass lawn smiling as her skirt lifts in the air. Elizabeth Taylor was an English-American ac...

San Gabriel Mountain Landscape in Black and White - Graphite Pencil on Paper Detailed mountain landscape by Ralph Holmes (American, 1876-1963). Signed lower right corner "Ralph Hol...

Here for your consideration is a wonderful original etching on archival paper by the well known American artist, Ralph Fabri. Strong impression; signed in pencil by the artist lower right margin. Titled and dated bottom left of the sheet “1947-Americana”. Condition of the etching is excellent. Top corner of sheet and bottom right corner of sheet have tiny creases. Not visible, under the mat. Sheet size is 12 by 15 inches. Image size is 8 by 9.75 inches. Matted but not framed. Provenance: A Long Island, New York collector. Painter and printmaker, commercial artist, writer, and teacher, Ralph Fabri was born Fabri Reszo in Hungary in 1894. He was educated in Budapest, first studying architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology from 1912 to 1914. He then enrolled in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, from which he graduated in 1918 with a Professor's Diploma (M.A.) "for teaching drawing, painting and geometry – including descriptive and projective geometry – in schools of higher education." Fabri arrived in New York City in 1921 and soon adopted the anglicized version of his name, Ralph Fabri. He began doing commercial design work and during the academic year of 1923/24 was enrolled as an evening student at the National Academy of Design. After becoming an American citizen in 1927, he traveled extensively in Europe. Upon returning to New York that same year, Fabri decided his financial situation was stable enough to allow him to focus his attention on fine art. During the Great Depression, Fabri's already inadequate portrait commissions and art sales further declined and he returned to commercial work. He established a workshop known as the Ralph Fabri Studios, that designed theatrical and movie sets, window displays, and retail interiors. But Fabri found the workshop dirty and distasteful, and eventually was able to concentrate on advertising work which could be done from home. The largest clients for his pen and ink drawings were The Stamp and Album Co. of America, Inc. (for which he designed covers for stamp albums and produced illustrations for envelopes housing sets of stamps sold to collectors), Geographica Map Co., and Joseph H. Cohen & Sons (for whom he designed and illustrated mail order catalogs). Another source of income during this period was the design and construction of an addition to "Iroki," Theodore Dreiser...

Oil on canvas painting by the Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed and dated top right, 1942. Condition: Good. Old relined canvas.. Provenance: Estate of The artis...

Carl Frederick Gaertner (American, 1898-1952) Flower Garden, Cape Cod, c. 1940s Gouache on illustration board 17.5 x 29 inches 27 x 39 inches, as framed Carl Gaertner was one of the greatest painters to emerge from the Cleveland School...

Signature: Signed Lower Right Framed Dimensions: 32.00" x 28.00" Cover of The Saturday Evening Post Magazine, March 16, 1940

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...

Nude figure study of a female model by an unknown artist (American, 20th Century). Circa 1940. Unsigned. Unframed. Image size: 25"H x 19"W.

This striking circa 1940 travel poster by British illustrator Samuel M. Brown showcases the M.V. Britannic, one of the Cunard Line’s most advanced motor vessels of its time. Designed...

Jacques Villon Surrealist Mountain, 1946 Original etching Printed signature in the plate On BFK Rives vellum, 25 x 32,5 cm (c. 9,8 x 12,7 inch) Edition limited to 300 copies (unnumb...

Henri Matisse (After), French (1869-1954) Le cheval, l'écuyère et le clown (Horse, Rider and Clown) Portfolio: Jazz Year: Of Original: 1947 Year Printed: 1983 Medium: Lithograph Siz...

"Paris" is an original lithograph poster by Paul Colin. This was the first official poster from Paris after World War II and depicts three doves flying above the Arc de Triomphe, Not...

Woodcut on vélin Utopian paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition. Notes: From the folio, Gauguin, A portfolio of 12 color woodblocks, Paul Gauguin, French, 1848-1903 from the collection of the Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston, 1946. Rendered by Albert Carman (1899-1949); published the Museum Of Fine Arts, Boston and The Studio Publications, Inc., New York and London; printed by Holme Press Inc., New York, in an edition of MMMD. Excerpted from the folio, Paul Gauguin and Emil Bernard at Pont-Aven, Brittany, in 1888, each made a bas-relief, wooden panel to decorate a piece of furniture for a friend. In order to keep a record of their designs, a few inked impressions were made on paper. The illustration at left is a reproduction of a print which is possibly one of the above mentioned. It is further possible that this experiment later gave Gauguin the idea of making woodcuts. Just as his work in painting expressed a revolt against the overemphasis on factual representation of the nineteenth century in favor of decorative pattern and color, so also his woodcuts leaned strongly to the same side of the balance. Ten of the cuts reproduced (all excepting Soyez Amoureuses and Changement de Residence), which constitute the whole of his best known series, were made at Pont-Aven beginning in the fall of 1894, after Gauguin's return from his first trip to Tahiti and after he broke his ankle. They were at first roughly cut with a common carpenter's gouge, and the flat surfaces sandpapered and engraved with a sharp in-strument, perhaps an engraver's burin. A few trial proofs were printed in black ink only. Then the hollows were deepened with a woodcutter's gouge and highlights were added. An edition of thirty to fifty impressions of each subject, with the addition of color blocks (one, two or three), was made by Louis Roy...

Robert Vale Faro, 'Dialogue Erudite', color lithograph, 1945, edition 16. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '98' and '4/16' in pen. A fine, richly-inked impression with fresh colors, on heavy, off-white wove paper; full margins (1/2 to 1 1/4 inch), in excellent condition. Image size 20 1/2 x 14 3/8 inches; sheet size 22 1/2 x 17 inches. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Vale Faro (1902-1988) was a 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...

Very impressive early American modernist flower still life oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvas. Image size, 12H by 16L. Exceptional...

Alberto Giacometti, Swiss (1901 - 1966) - Histoire de rats (Alexandre Kojeve II), Year: 1947 (Printed 1995), Medium: Etching on Arches, Image Size: 5.5 x 3.5 inches, Size: 8 x 6.5 i...

Alberto Giacometti, Swiss (1901 - 1966) - Histoire de rats (Diane Bataille III), Year: 1947 (Printed 1995), Medium: Etching on Arches, Image Size: 5.5 x 3.5 inches, Size: 8 x 6.5 in...

Alberto Giacometti, Swiss (1901 - 1966) - Histoire de rats (Diane Bataille), Year: 1947 (Printed 1995), Medium: Etching on Arches, Image Size: 5.5 x 3.5 inches, Size: 8 x 6.5 in. (2...

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...

Lithograph and stencil on vélin paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good Condition. Notes: From the folio, Picasso: Fifteen Drawings, 1946. Published by Pantheon Books, Inc., New York; rendered and printed by Albert Carman, City Island...