1940s Art

Circa 1940. Published by Les Editions Deyrolle. Teaching Charts. Printed by E Kapp. Folded over, several areas of paper loss, including the lower right hand corner. Needs to be rest...

6117 Rome flower market Image size 16x11.5"

James Brooks (1906-1992). Plantlike, c.1945. Oil on canvas measures 18 x 24 inches; 24 x 30 inches in a painted wood frame of the period. Signed "J. David Brooks" lower right, Signed...

Nathan Hoffman Brighton Beach, July 31, 1946 Signed, dated, and estate stamped on the reverse Oil on artist's board 10 x 13 1/2 inches Provenance: Esta...

ANTON SCHUTZ MANHATTAN c 1940 Etching, signed in pencil, edition 100, no. 15/100. On thin simili-japan paper. Very slight toning around plate mark. Remnants of old tape on verso, s...

About this work: “Untitled (Manhattan Street), 1942” by Samuel Koch (Polish/American, 1887-1963). A fantastic and rare example of Koch’s charming views of New York. A milliner by tr...

This original 1940s grayscale watercolor by Charles Ragland Bunnell depicts a semi-abstracted view of the Golden Cycle Mill in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rendered in subtle gradations of black and gray, the composition reflects the influence of WPA-era Modernism, combining industrial subject matter with expressive abstraction. The work is a notable example of mid-20th-century American Regionalism, capturing both a sense of place and a forward-looking artistic vision. Bunnell’s restrained palette and simplified architectural forms transform the industrial landscape into a dynamic modern composition, emphasizing structure, rhythm, and atmosphere. The subject references the Golden Cycle Mining and Reduction Company, a major contributor to Colorado’s early 20th-century mining industry, located in what is now Old Colorado City. Through this modernist lens, the painting documents an important chapter of Western industrial history. The watercolor measures 8 1/8 x 9 5/8 inches (sight size) and is presented in a custom black frame measuring 18 x 19 ½ x 1 ⅜ inches, making it a refined, display-ready piece for collectors of American Modern art, WPA works, and industrial landscapes. Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897–1968) was a pioneering Colorado modernist, New Deal art...

Antique American school seascape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Unframed. Image size, 20L x 16H.

This exquisite etching by Marie Laurencin (1883–1956), titled Trois jeunes filles (Three Young Girls), from the album Antares, eaux-fortes originales de Marie Laurencin (Antares, Ori...

Medium: original lithograph. Printed in Paris by Mourlot and published by Pierre à Feu and Maeght Editeur for the Marcel Duchamp / André Breton project Surréalisme en 1947. Issued in...

Rafael de Soto - Village street - Oil on canvas Oil measurements 41x33 cm. Without frame.

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

This exquisite lithograph after Edgar Degas (1834–1917), titled Seated dancer, removing her slipper, originates from the 1945 folio Degas, Ten Ballet Sketches. Published by The Studio Publications, Inc., New York, rendered and printed by Albert Carman, City Island, 1945, this work reflects Degas’s sensitive mastery of line, movement, and intimate observation, capturing the grace, poise, and psychological immediacy that define his iconic ballet imagery. In Seated dancer, removing her slipper, Degas reveals gesture and inner emotion through economical contour and lyrical nuance. Executed as a lithograph and pochoir on velin paper, this work measures 17 x 13 inches (43.18 x 33.02 cm). Signed in the plate and unnumbered as issued. Rendered and printed by Albert Carman, City Island, one of the notable American ateliers specializing in fine art lithography during the mid-20th century. Artwork Details: Artist: After Edgar Degas (1834–1917) Title: Seated dancer, removing her slipper, from Degas, Ten Ballet Sketches, 1945 Medium: Lithograph and pochoir on velin paper Dimensions: 17 x 13 inches (43.18 x 33.02 cm) Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered as issued Date: 1945 Publisher: The Studio Publications, Inc., New York Printer: Albert Carman, City Island, 1945 Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the 1945 folio Degas, Ten Ballet Sketches, published by The Studio Publications, Inc., New York Notes: Excerpted from the album, Born in Paris in 1834, Edgar Degas lived, and surely loved the life of that city during most of his years. These continued somewhat sadly beyond those of most of his friends— into the debacle of the first World War, during which he died in 1917. Judging by the frequency with which he used them as models, he must have had an especial admiration for the ballet girls who followed a profession that at the time brought none of the glory and prosperity which attend it today. New aspects of the human body, revealed in movement, fascinated him. But his occupation with the simply anatomical side of his subjects never resulted in a cold interpretation. On the contrary there is a warmth and sympathy that pervades all of his work. The drawings here represent the painter in one important phase of his multi-sensitive view of life; and permit an insight which a more ambitious work might not do-into the operation of the creative process, the artist's transformation of reality as it passes through the mesh of his sensibilities. The Edition of this Portfolio is limited to MMMD examples. Rendered by Albert Carman. About the Publication: Degas, Ten Ballet Sketches, published in 1945 by The Studio Publications, Inc., New York, stands as one of the most elegant and scholarly mid-century American fine art folios devoted to the ballet imagery of Edgar Degas. Conceived as a high-quality interpretive portfolio, the album presents a series of lithograph-and-pochoir renderings based on Degas’s original drawings, executed with exceptional attention to tonal subtlety, contour fidelity, and the emotional interiority that defines the artist’s draftsmanship. Rendered and printed by Albert Carman on City Island, the publication embodies an American postwar effort to restore and celebrate European masterworks through meticulous handcraft and artisanal color application, honoring Degas’s distinctive line and the atmospheric delicacy of his studio-based studies. Produced in a substantial edition of MMMD examples, the portfolio offered audiences rare access to Degas’s private working drawings—images rarely seen outside institutional collections—while exemplifying the technical refinement and interpretive care characteristic of Carman’s workshop. Today, Degas, Ten Ballet Sketches remains a sought-after historical publication, valued for its craft, fidelity to Degas’s aesthetic, and its role in preserving and disseminating the artist’s intimate ballet imagery in a beautifully executed mid-century fine art format. About the Artist: Edgar Degas (1834–1917) was a French painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor whose groundbreaking fusion of classical draftsmanship, modern experimentation, and psychological depth helped define the trajectory of Western art, positioning him as one of the most influential figures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; renowned for his depictions of ballet dancers, racehorses, theater scenes, cafe life, domestic interiors, milliners, laundresses, and women at their toilette, Degas reimagined observational realism through radical compositional innovation—employing extreme cropping, asymmetrical framing, oblique viewpoints, and dramatic lighting that anticipated photographic and cinematic language long before these technologies shaped visual culture, and although associated with Impressionism, he rejected plein-air spontaneity in favor of studio-based discipline rooted in the linear precision of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, the expressive chromaticism of Eugene Delacroix, and the modernity of Edouard Manet while also drawing inspiration from Japanese ukiyo-e prints, classical sculpture, and early photography; his independent artistic philosophy resonated with and helped shape the innovations of Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Wassily Kandinsky, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray, whose explorations of movement, form, dream logic, abstraction, and conceptualism all find antecedents in Degas’s investigations into seriality, temporality, and the fragmented figure, and his pioneering use of pastel, monotype, and wax sculpture fundamentally transformed each medium, influencing artists from Henri Matisse, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Giacomo Manzu to Paula Rego, contemporary realists, experimental photographers, and choreographers; his works are held in nearly every major museum collection worldwide—including the Musee dOrsay, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Courtauld Institute, and the National Gallery, London—affirming his central place in the history of art, and the highest auction record for Degas was achieved at Sothebys London on February 3, 2015, when Danseuses en Bleu sold for 37,033,000 GBP, cementing his status as one of the most sought-after and enduringly significant artists of the Western canon. Edgar Degas lithograph...

Walter Sinz (American, 1881-1966) When the Lights Go On Again, 1943 Cast Stone 10 x 4.5 x 8 inches Walter A. Sinz was an American sculptor born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 13, 1881. ...

Matiz managed to create intimate portraits, in which Frida seemed happy to surrender to her lens. The result was dynamic portraits of Khalo, a wonderful example of both the photograp...

Medium: lithograph (after the original Edouard Vuillard lithograph). Printed on Renage wove paper in 1948 by the atelier Mourlot and published in an edition of 2500. Image size: 11 1...

Taos Pueblo Screen print in colors, c. 1945 Signed and titled in pencil by the artist Printed in Taos Taos is the oldest continually inhabited city/village in North America. How old ...

Road Less Traveled Hawaii Surrealist Mid Century Figurative Abstract Landscape Symbolistic and romantic Surrealist 1940s figurative abstract landscape with a figure journeying down a path in an idyllic landscape by Marguerite Louis Blasingame circa 1940-45. Signed Blasingame lower right corner; from a collection of her work. Unframed. Condition: Excellent; professionally cleaned and UV varnished. Image, 30"H x 20"W. Marguerite and her husband Frank Blasingame...

This exquisite lithograph by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), titled Visage (Face), from the album Picasso Lithographe I, 1919-1947 (Picasso Lithographer I, 1919-1947), originates from the...

Medium: lithograph (after the original Edouard Vuillard lithograph). Printed on Renage wove paper in 1948 by the atelier Mourlot and published in an edition of 2500. Image size: 14 1...

This exquisite halftone print after Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), titled Night, New York, originates from the 1947 folio Stieglitz Memorial Portfolio, 1864–1946. Published by Twice a...

Pablo PICASSO Carmen, The Man in the Square, 1949 Original burin engraving (Atelier Lacourière, Paris) Unsigned On Montval wove paper 33 x 26 cm (12.9 x 10.2 in) REFERENCES : - Cat...

6015 Impressionist gouache on board of a farmer plowing his field Set in a 19th century frame Image 10x11.5"

Vintage American impressionist seascape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 22 by 28 inches overall. Handsomely fram...

Antique American school abstract expressionist painting. Oil on board. Signed. In excellent original condition. Nicely framed in a period wood molding. Excellent condition, read...

This exquisite zincograph by Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), titled Trois baigneurs (Three Bathers), from the album Le Chevre-Feuille (The Honeysuckle), originates from the 1943 edition p...

5131 Vintage framed oil painting of grist mill in a snow filled landscape Signed B.Burt Image size 19.5x23.5

Original horizontal “Resilio Scotchspun” vintage fashion poster. Archival linen backed and presents in excellent condition. “A Bonnie Heila...

Hollywood, 1941, oil on board, 18 x 24 inches, signed and dated lower right, illegible writing verso About the Painting From a distance, Beckwith deftly captures the spectacle of a Hollywood premiere. But we have not been invited to the party. Our view is from the shadows of a less glamorous neighborhood with a shaggy, unkept palm tree and rundown buildings in the shadows. We look down through the darkness past a packed parking lot to the bright lights of two iconic Hollywood landmarks, the Pantages Theater and the Broadway Building. Completed in 1930, the Pantages was built as an exuberant Art Deco movie palace, while the Broadway Building housed an upscale department store which catered to entertainment industry elites who were less impacted by the Great Depression than the common man, since movies had become the mainstay of popular culture entertainment during the 1930s with large numbers of Americans looking to immerse themselves in Hollywood escapism. Here, in a rare Los Angeles urban image, Beckwith combines that Hollywood fantasy with the more sobering foreground images which could have been pulled from the L.A. Noire fiction of Raymond Chandler...

This original lithograph is hand signed in pencil by the artist "Picasso" at the lower right margin. It is also hand signed in pencil 2 from the edition of 50, at the lower left marg...

Pablo PICASSO Carmen, The Peaceful Face, 1949 Original burin engraving (Atelier Lacourière, Paris) Unsigned On Montval wove paper 33 x 26 cm (12.9 x 10.2 in) REFERENCES : - Catalo...

This exquisite engraving after Marie Laurencin (1883-1956), titled Sans titre (Untitled), from the folio Dialogue sur la Danse (Dialogue on the Dance), originates from the 1949 editi...

Mexican Modernist Oil Painting - Double Sided Abstract Figures and Buildings Dynamic abstract pieces by Ernesto Butterlin, aka Linares, (Mexican, German b. 1917 d. 1964.) The front ...

This exquisite lithograph by Georges Rouault (1871–1958), titled Jentie Bernard (Jentie Bernard), from the album Georges Rouault, Divertissement, originates from the 1943 edition pub...

Backstage At La Scala (1948) Limited Estate Stamped (Photo By Slim Aarons) A chorus girl reads a movie magazine in a dressing room at La Scala opera house, Milan, November 1948....

3703 Oil on artist board Set in a vintage wood frame Image size 13x9.5"

Wonderful mid-century impressionistic landscape of Ogden, Utah mountain foothills by Grace H. Peterson (American, 20th Century), 1944. Signed and dated...

NYC Watercolor Drawing American Modern 20th Century Modernism Mid-Century WPA. David Fredenthal (1914-1958) "View of New York from New Jersey,"7 x 10 inches. Watercolor on Paper, c. 1948. Signed lower right. David Fredenthal (1914 - 1958) was one ot America's most respected watercolor artists. He was famous for his bold, intensely vigorous and complex paintings and drawings that expressed his deep feeling for excitement with life and living. He was a draftsman with seemingly a special gift for catching anything, physically and emotionally on the spot, and he never went anywhere without three or four loaded pens and a sketchbook in his pocket. As part of the WPA project he executed a number of murals including the Sports Pavilion on the Heinz Building of the New York World's Fair 1939. Some of his fresco and mural techniques were inspired by his friendship with Diego Rivera who had admired and encouraged him in the early 1930's. After he won a traveling scholarship to Europe from The Museum of Modern Art at age 19, he was the recipient of two Guggenheim grants in Painting. He had his first solo exhibition at the Downtown Gallery in New York in 1937 at age 23, and many others after that including the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1947. Because of Fredenthal's prodigious drawing gifts, he was chosen by Erskine Caldwell to illustrate his novel "Tobacco Road...

This exquisite halftone print after Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), titled Equivalent, Series 107, originates from the 1947 folio Stieglitz Memorial Portfolio, 1864–1946. Published by ...

Alexandre de Spengler (1893–1973) was a Swiss painter and engraver active in Geneva and Paris. He is known for his land and seascapes, as well as...

This exquisite lithograph by Georges Rouault (1871–1958), titled Arlequin (Harlequin), from the album Georges Rouault, Divertissement, originates from the 1943 edition published by E...

Vintage French impressionist Paris street scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 20 by 24 inches painting alone. ...

A captivating, 1940s Modern painting of a seated nude on a garden bench by famed Chicago artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). A sensitive, skilled portrait of a young female mode...

The artwork is double matted with an antique style contemporary gold leaf gallery frame in fine condition. Overall framed measurements are 24 by 31 inches. Provenance: A Sarasota, Florida collector. Guy de Neyrac was born in France in 1900 and is widely known for his impressionistic watercolor and pen drawings of Paris...

'Young Man in a Yellow Brocade Waistcoat' by David Monies, 1849. Paris, Munich, Danish Royal Academy ----- Monogrammed lower right, 'DM' for David Monies (Danish, 1812-1894) and dat...

Ruth Ford - American actress and model - Original Photography by Cecil Beaton Photo taken in 1940s Sir Cecil Beaton (1904-1980) is considered one of the mo...

Original Greta Garbo vintage movie-star personality poster. Archival linen backed in B condition, ready to frame. There is some minor damage in the lower left corner (shown) and on t...

Romantic still-life of a beautiful porcelain lady and her two dogs - perhaps Borzoi - set among a display of fresh cut lilies by listed artist Nell Walker Warner (American, 1891-1970). Signed "Nell Walker Warner" lower left. Displayed in a giltwood frame with linen liner. Image, 30"H x 36"L. Nell Walker Warner was born in Richardson County, Nebraska on April 1, 1891. She was educated in Colorado Springs, Colorado and graduated from the Lexington College in Missouri in 1910. She moved to California in 1916 where she studied and graduated from the Los Angeles School of Art and Design. After her marriage to Dr. Bion Smith Warner in 1920, the couple settled in La Canada. During the 1920's, Nell was the curator of the Tuesday Afternoon Club in Los Angeles and further studied with Nicolai Fechin, Paul Lauritz and Fritz Werner. Her floral paintings are radiant; an article in the Christian Science Monitor stated, ''California flowers...

This exquisite lithograph after Henri Matisse (1869–1954), titled Serie L, var. 19 (Series L, Variation 19), from the album Henri Matisse, Dessins, Themes et Variations (Drawings, Th...

Louis Conrad Rosenberg, 'Bowling Green, New York', etching, 1940. Signed in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, with all the fine lines printing c...

In the golden age of air travel, Air France soared to new heights as a symbol of elegance and adventure. The airline's promotional efforts were often complemented by captivating trav...

Title of the Artwork: Hunting Still Life Artist: Josep Serrasanta (1916-1998) Technique: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 39.37 x 31.89 in Date: 1949 Artistic Movement: Romantic Realism wit...

This stunning, large British Impressionist 1940's landscape oil painting is by noted Nottingham artist Arthur Spooner. It was exhibited at the Royal Society of British Artists in 194...

Charles Quest, 'Underwater', 1948, chiaroscuro wood engraving, edition 12. Signed, titled, dated and numbered '3/12' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, in dark brown and warm black, on off-white wove paper, with full margins (5/8 to 1 1/2 inch), in excellent condition. Scarce. 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...

Robert Vale Faro, 'Petrouchka's Predicament', color lithograph, 1946, edition 20. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '115' and '14/20' in pen. A fine, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, off-white wove paper; full margins (1 1/4 to 2 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 21 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches; sheet size 24 3/4 x 16 1/4 inches. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. 'Petrouchka', a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and choreography by Michel Fokine, is based on the legend of Russian folklore. 'Petrouchka', a puppet made of straw with a bag of sawdust as his body, comes to life and has the capacity to love, a story conceptually resembling that of Pinocchio. 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...

Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 9 by 17 inches overall. Handsomely framed in giltwo...

Antique American modernist interior scene oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.

'Market Day in Piazza Grande, Locarno, Switzerland', oil on board, by unknown artist (1947-48). Locarno is an utterly charming Italian-speaking resort located on the northern shore o...

Lumber Workers (Cuidad del Carmen, State of Campeche) Color lithograph on wove paper, c. 1945 Signed lower right in pencil From: Mexican Art - A Portfolio of Mexican People and Place...

This exquisite heliogravure after Henri Matisse (1869–1954), titled A la memoire d'Auguste Lumiere (In Memory of Auguste Lumiere), from Verve, Revue Artistique et Litteraire, Vol. IV...