1940s Art
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Period: 1940s
Recognized Seller Listings
Abstraction
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Abstraction
Graphite on paper, c. 1945
Signed on image left of center
Condition: Excellent
Sheet/Image size: 9 7/8 x 14 1/8 inches
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
...
Category
Abstract 1940s Art
Materials
Paper, Graphite
INSTRUCTION
Located in Santa Monica, CA
THOMAS HART BENTON (1889-1975)
INSTRUCTION 1940 (Fath 41)
Lithograph, signed edition of 250 as published by Associated American Artists.
10 ¼” x 12 ¼”. Full margins, deckle edges....
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine
By Ansel Adams
Located in Palm Desert, CA
"Winter Sunrise, Sierra Nevada from Lone Pine" is a photography by famed and landmark photographer Ansel Adams. The photograph is signed on verso with artist's stamp, "Photograph by Ansel Adams Winter...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Silver Gelatin
THE EVANGELIST
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JOHN STOCKTON DE MARTELLY (American 1903 - 1980)
THE EVANGELIST, 1941 (Zink 19)
Lithograph, signed, dated and numbered 80/100 in pencil below image. Signature and date in lighter pencil. Image. Very Good Condition. image, 13 1/2 x 9 3/4". Full sheet with deckle edges, 16 x 11 3/4". The Evangelist apparently represents de Martelly's New Hampshire neighbor Lizzy Osgood. De Martelly worked in an American Regionalist Style, often depicting his New Hampshire neighbors. He was associated with Thomas Hart Benton at the Kansas City Art Institute. Most of de Martelly's regionalist prints were published by Associated American Artists in editions of 250. This lithograph is scarcer in an edition of only 100. He became an art professor at Michigan State University. After the 1940's de Martelly abandoned his Regionalist style for abstraction.
Roger Genser...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Les Fleurs Du Mal. By Charles Baudelaire.
Located in New York, NY
MATISSE, Henri. Les Fleurs Du Mal. By Charles Baudelaire. Illustrated with an original etching on Chine, 33 original photo-lithographs, 69 original woodcuts (including initials, c...
Category
Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Paper
Dropping In
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Dropping In
Drypoint, c. 1940
Signed lower right (see photo)
Titled lower left
Condition: Excellent
Brown paper tape around the sheet edges from
the printing and air dryi...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint
Untitled (Three Ducks Taking to Flight)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Three Ducks Taking to Flight)
Drypoint, c. 1940
Signed lower right
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Winchell Heirs by descent
Condition: Excellent
Ima...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint
Champion Fertilizer
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Date: 1940
Medium: Oil on Canvas
Signature: Signed Lower Right
Dimensions: 26.00" x 26.00"
Fertilizer advertisement, image of a man, girl, boy and dog.
This illustration was also a...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Old Man Reading by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Work on paper
Located in London, GB
*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 20% VAT ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE
Old Man Reading by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961)
Coloured crayon and pencil...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Color Pencil, Pencil, Paper
Spanish Beauty (Portrait of the Artist's Wife)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Spanish Beauty (Portrait of the Artist's Wife)
Oil on canvas, c. 1940's
Signed upper right "A.G. Warshawsky" (see photo)
According to the daughter-in-law of the artist, this painting...
Category
Abstract Impressionist 1940s Art
Materials
Oil
Reclining Female Nude
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Reclining Female Nude
Charcoal and colored chalks with white highlights on tan laid paper, c. 1948
Signed and monogrammed by the artist lower right
(see photo)
A masterpiece dr...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Chalk
Roboa Sleeping (The Artist's Wife) by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Drawing
Located in London, GB
Roboa Sleeping (The Artist's Wife) by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961)
Charcoal on paper
20.4 x 31.2 cm (8 x 12 ¼ inches)
Signed lower centre, manzana. Pissarro
This work is acc...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Charcoal, Paper
La Maison, Normandie by Paulémile Pissarro - Drawing of a countryside house
Located in London, GB
La Maison, Normandie by Paulémile Pissarro (1884-1972)
Pencil on paper
24 x 32 cm (9 ¹/₂ x 12 ⁵/₈ inches)
Signed lower left, Paulémile- Pissarro
This work is accompanied by a certif...
Category
Impressionist 1940s Art
Materials
Pencil, Paper
'Mokihana (Hawaii)' — 1940s Polynesian Portrait
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
John Melville Kelly, 'Mokihana (Hawaii)', drypoint, 1946. Signed, titled, and annotated 'No 5' in pencil. A superb, finely nuanced impression, in dark brown ink, on cream wove Japan ...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint
'Taos Placita' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Gustave Baumann, 'Taos Placita', color woodcut, 1947, edition 125. Baumann 132. Signed, titled, and numbered '20-125' in pencil; with the artist’s Hand-in-Heart chop. A superb, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on fibrous oatmeal wove paper; the full sheet with margins (2 to 3 1/8 inches); slight rippling at the left sheet edge, in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 9 5/8 x 11 1/4 inches (244 x 286 mm); sheet size 13 1/4 x 17 inches (337 x 432 mm).
Collections: New Mexico Museum of Art, Phoenix Art Museum, Wichita Art Museum.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gustave Baumann (1881-1971) was a renowned printmaker and a leading figure of the American color woodcut revival whose exquisite craftsmanship and vibrant imagery captured the essence of the Southwest.
"A brilliant printmaker, Baumann brought to the medium a full mastery of the craft of woodworking that he acquired from his father, a German cabinetmaker. This craftsmanship was coupled with a strong artistic training that resulted in the handsome objects we see in the exhibition today. After discovering New Mexico in 1918, Baumann began to explore in his woodblock prints of this period the light. color, and architectural forms of that landscape. His prints of this period are among the most beautiful and poetic images of the American West."
—Lewis I. Sharp, Director, Denver Art Museum
Baumann, the son of a craftsman, immigrated to the United States from Germany with his family when he was ten, settling in Chicago. From 1897 to 1904, he studied in the evenings at the Art Institute of Chicago, working in a commercial printmaking shop during the day. In 1905, he returned to Germany to attend the Kunstwerbe Schule in Munich, where he decided on a career in printmaking. He returned to Chicago in 1906 and worked for a few years as a graphic designer of labels.
Baumann made his first prints in 1909 and exhibited them at the Art Institute of Chicago the following year. In 1910, he moved to the artists’ colony in Nashville, Indiana, where he explored the creative and commercial possibilities of a career as a printmaker. In 1915, he exhibited his color woodcuts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, winning the gold medal.
Among Baumann’s ongoing commercial activities was his work for the Packard Motor Car Company from 1914 to 1920 where he produced designs, illustrations, and color woodcuts until 1923.
In 1919, Baumann’s printmaking work dominated the important exhibition of American color woodcuts at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Twenty-six of his prints were included, far more than the works of any other artist. A set of his blocks, a preparatory drawing, and seven progressive proofs complemented the exhibition. That same year, Baumann worked in New York and, over the summer, in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His airy images of Cape Cod employed soft, pastel colors and occasionally showed the influence of the white-line woodcut technique.
Many of his Chicago artist friends had traveled to the southwest, and Baumann became intrigued by their paintings, souvenirs, and stories of an exotic place named Taos, New Mexico. In the summer of 1918, he spent the summer in Taos sketching and painting before visiting Santa Fe. Paul Walter, the director of the Museum of New Mexico, offered him a studio in the museum's basement. Inspired by the rugged beauty of the Southwest—the vibrant colors and dramatic landscapes of the region became a central theme in his work, influencing his artistic style and subject matter for the remainder of his career. Later in the decade, he traveled to the West Coast and made prints of California landscape.
Baumann's prints became synonymous with the Southwest, capturing the spirit of its place in America's identity with a unique sense of authenticity and reverence. His iconic images of desert vistas, pueblo villages, and indigenous cultures served as visual tributes to the region's rich cultural heritage, earning him a dedicated following among collectors and curators alike.
A true craftsman and artist, Baumann completed every step of the printmaking process himself, cutting each block, mixing the inks, and printing every impression on the handmade paper he selected. His dedication to true craftsmanship and his commitment to preserving the integrity of his artistic vision earned him widespread acclaim and recognition within the art world. About the vibrant colors he produced, Baumann stated, “A knowledge of color needs to be acquired since they don’t all behave the same way when ground or mixed...careful chemistry goes into the making of colors, with meticulous testing for permanence. While complicated formulae evolve new colors, those derived from Earth and metal bases are still the most reliable.”
In the 1930s, Baumann became interested in puppet theater. He designed and carved his own marionettes and established a little traveling company. From 1943 to 1945, the artist carved an altarpiece for the Episcopal Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe. In 1952, a retrospective exhibition of his prints was mounted at the New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts. Throughout his prolific career, Baumann executed nearly four hundred color woodcuts.
Baumann’s woodcuts...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Woodcut
Le Turban by Henri Matisse - Portrait, Ink Drawing
Located in London, GB
*PLEASE NOTE UK BUYERS WILL ONLY PAY 5% VAT ON THIS PURCHASE.
Le Turban by Henri Matisse (1869-1954)
Pen and India ink on paper
51.5 x 39 cm (20 ¹/₄ x 15 ³/₈ inches)
Signed and date...
Category
Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Paper, India Ink, Pen
La Chaumière et le ruisseau à Cantepie by Paulémile Pissarro - Oil painting
Located in London, GB
La Chaumière et le ruisseau à Cantepie by Paulémile Pissarro (1884-1972)
Oil on canvas
51 x 65 cm (20 ¹/₈ x 25 ⁵/₈ inches)
Signed lower right, Paulémile- Pissarro.
Signed and titled ...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Oil, Canvas
Théière et Citron by Georges Braque - Still life painting
Located in London, GB
Théière et Citron by Georges Braque (1882-1963)
Oil on panel
22.5 x 25 cm (8 ⅞ x 9 ⅞ inches)
Signed lower left, G. Braque
Executed in 1947
Provenance: Perls Galleries, New York
Fuji...
Category
Cubist 1940s Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
'African Idol' — 1930s American Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Robert Vale Faro, untitled (African Idol), serigraph, c. 1940, edition 6. Signed in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on buff wove paper; the full sheet with margins(5/8 ...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Screen
'Gloucester Harbor 2' — Mid-Century East Coast Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Lawrence Nelson Wilbur, 'Gloucester Harbor', drypoint, 1940. Signed, dated, and titled in pencil. Signed in the plate, lower right. Annotated 'PERSONAL...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint
Tête de faune, Picasso, 1940's, Multiples, Face, Ceramic, Design, Plate
Located in Geneva, CH
Tête de faune
Ed. 29/300 pcs
1948
White earthenware, partially polychromed and glazed
39 x 32 x 4.5 cm
Numbered and stamped on the back : Madoura Plein Feu, Edition Picasso, 29/300
P...
Category
Post-Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Ceramic, Earthenware
THE MOTHER OF US ALL
Located in Portland, ME
Thomson, Virgil (American, 1896-1989. THE MOTHER OF US ALL. Music Press, NY, 1947. Quarto, cloth, 157pp. The limited edition of 55 copies on special paper, signed on the colophon pag...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Silver Gelatin
Reclining Nude — Mid-Century Modernism, African American Artist
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Robert Blackburn, Untitled (Reclining Nude), brush and ink, c. 1948, unsigned. A fine, spontaneous work, on cream wove paper. Slight toning to the sheet edges; otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 18 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches (476 x 597 mm).
Provenance: Adrienne E. Wheeler Collection, acquired from the artist.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Robert Blackburn (1920 - 2003) participated in the rich mix of art programs and creative groups available in Harlem as he grew up, including Charles Alston's Harlem Arts Workshop, the Harlem YMCA, and later the Harlem Artist's Guild. In 1937 he joined the WPA at the Harlem Community Art Center, the largest New York center for instruction in the arts. There he was exposed to Harlem's most prominent artists, Aaron Douglas, William Henry Johnson...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Ink
Porcupine
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Porcupine
Engraving, 1949
Signed and dated lower right (see photo)
Titled and numbered lower left (see photo)
Created while the artist was completing the MFA in Printmaking at the Un...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Engraving
Transcendental Image (Sun God)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Transcendental Image (Sun God)
Encaustic on paper, 1944
Signed and dated lower right: Bisttram 44
Sheet size: 11 1/8 x 8 1/2 inches
Condition: Excellent
Provenance: Warren Shaull
"Em...
Category
Abstract 1940s Art
Materials
Encaustic
Crucifixion
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Crucifixion
Engraving, etching, and ground printed in colors, 1947
Signed, titled and numbered in pencil (see photos)
From the second printing by Jon Clemens, master printer in the 1990's
Done while the artist was at the Iowa Print Group, MFA Program, University of Iowa .
Condition: excellent
Image/Plate size: 15 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches
Provenance: Estate of the artist
Printmaker, painter, and sculptor Ray H...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Engraving
Gypsy Rose Lee
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Gypsy Rose Lee
Vintage sliver print, c. 1940's
Unsigned
Provenance: Gift of Gypsy Rose Lee
Julio de Diego (her husband)
One of a s...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Silver Gelatin
The Dugout, Post Cover
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed by Artist Lower Left
The present work was published on the cover of the September 4th, 1948 edition of The Saturday Evening Post. An accompanying “Keeping Posted” article abo...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Gouache, Oil
Untitled Abstraction
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Abstraction
Graphite on paper. c. 1946
Unsigned
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Inherited by his neighbor/caregiver
Condition: Staining at corners
...
Category
Abstract 1940s Art
Materials
Graphite
untitled (Maine Autumn Landscape across the narrows from Mt. Desert)
By Greta Allen
Located in Fairlawn, OH
untitled (Maine Autumn Landscape across the narrows from Mt. Desert)
Watercolor, 1945-1955
Signed by the artist lower left in pencil (see photo)
Provenance: Estate of the artist
Cond...
Category
American Impressionist 1940s Art
Materials
Watercolor
Moroccan Woman with Girl by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Work on paper
Located in London, GB
Moroccan Woman with Girl, Pastel with Gold and Silver on Paper
Pastel with gold and silver on paper
47 x 62cm (18 ½ x 24 ⅜ inches)
Signed lower right, Manzana Pissarro
Painted circa ...
Category
Art Deco 1940s Art
Materials
Paper, Pastel
MEMENTO VIVARE, NOTRE DAME, EVREUX
Located in Portland, ME
Arms, John Taylor (American, 1887-1953). MEMENTO VIVARE, NOTRE DAME, EVREUX. Fletcher 407. Etching, 1947. Number 47 of the French Church Series. This is Proof No. ii of four Trial Pr...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Etching
Nadia au visage rond
Located in London, GB
Henri Matisse
Nadia au visage rond
1948
Aquatint on Marais wove paper, Edition of 25
Paper Size: 60.2 x 46.4 cms (23 3/4 x 18 1/4 ins)
Image Size: 44.4 x 34.7 cms (17 1/2 x 13 5/8 in...
Category
Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Aquatint
WARNING! Register*Vote, INFLATION means DEPRESSION
By Ben Shahn
Located in Fairlawn, OH
WARNING! Register*Vote, INFLATION means DEPRESSION
Photo lithograph, 1946
Signed in the image lower left
Published by CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) before their merger w...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Offset
West Gouldsboro (Looking Across Mt. Desert Narrows)
By Greta Allen
Located in Fairlawn, OH
West Gouldsboro (Looking Across Mt. Desert Narrows)
Watercolor on paper, c. 1945-1955
Unsigned
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 9 7/8 x 12 1/2 inches
Regarding the Maine subject matter of her watercolors, we know that Allen taught art in West Gouldsboro, ME, located near Arcadia National Forest. This watercolor was most probably done in that vicinity.
A local Maine newsletter mentions “the artist Greta Allen’s house” as artist residing in West Gouldsboro, Maine in a house formerly owned by James Hill. West Gouldsboro is located just east of the Mt. Desert Narrows, across Frenchman Bay from Mt. Desert Island and Arcadia National Park.
Please see attached images for detailed information about the artist's life and time in Maine.
Greta Allen, who is sometimes listed under her married name Dietz, was born in Boston in 1881. At the Massachusetts Normal Art School she took elementary lessons from Joseph R. DeCamp, then Frank Benson was her teacher at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Although her work seems to be only in private collections today, Allen exhibited at the Boston Art Club, at the Copley Society...
Category
American Impressionist 1940s Art
Materials
Watercolor
IL A ETE MALTRAITE ET OPPRIME ET IL N'A PA
Located in Portland, ME
Rouault, Georges (French, 1871-1958). IL A ETE MALTRAITE ET OPPRIME ET IL N'A PAS OUVERT LA BOUCHE " (He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth). Aquatint, ...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint, Aquatint
Trying To Make Baby Smile, Saturday Evening Post Cover
By Jack Welch
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed Lower Left by Artist
Born in small town Texas, Welch first learned his trade through the W. L. Evans correspondence course in cartooning, which led him to a short-lived stint at Southern Methodist University illustrating yearbooks. This work launched him as a newspaper artist, and eventually earning a position as an advertising agency sketch man...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Oil
'River View' — 1940s American Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Edward Landon 'River View, color serigraph, 1942, edition 50, Ryan 159. Signed in pencil in the image, lower right. Titled, dated, and annotated '9 COLORS – 50 PRINTS' in the screen,...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Screen
'Nocturnal Adversary' — 1940s Surrealist Abstraction
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Edward Landon 'Nocturnal Adversary', color serigraph, 1946, edition 50, Ryan 137. Signed in pencil in the image, lower right. Titled, dated, and annotated '6 COLORS EDITION 50' in th...
Category
Surrealist 1940s Art
Materials
Screen
Studies of the Head of a Young Girl by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Drawing
Located in London, GB
Studies of the Head of a Young Girl by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961)
Charcoal and colour crayon on paper
26.3 x 20.3 cm (10 ⅜ x 8 inches)
Signed lower right, manzana. Pissarro...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Color Pencil, Paper, Charcoal
Study of a Moroccan Woman by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Drawing
Located in London, GB
Study of a Moroccan Woman by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961)
Coloured crayon and pencil on paper
26.3 x 20.5 cm (10 ³/₈ x 8 ¹/₈ inches)
Signed lower left, manzana. Pissarro.
Th...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Paper, Pencil, Color Pencil
'Composition # 4' — Mid-Century Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Thomas Robertson, 'Composition #4,' color serigraph, edition 47, c. 1940. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Ed/47' in pencil. A superb, painterly impression, with fresh colors, on buff wove paper, the full sheet with margins (1 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size: 10 9/16 x 8 1/2 inches (268 x 216 mm); sheet size 13 x 12 1/2 inches (330 x 318 mm).
An impression of this work is represented in the collection of the National Gallery of Art.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Thomas Arthur Robertson (1911-1976) was the son of an attorney. Although his father, a co-owner of the Arkansas Law School, insisted that his son study there, after graduating, Robertson enrolled at the Adrian Brewer...
Category
Abstract 1940s Art
Materials
Screen
Animal Icon
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Animal Icon
Pigment on cloth, c. 1940
Diameter 10"
Condition: Cracking to pigment in upper left (see photos)
Provenance: Cleveland Museum of Art (57.517)
De-Accessed 2013
Made i...
Category
Rajput 1940s Art
Materials
Pigment
Circus Family
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed Lower Right by Artist
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Oil
Beware of False Prophets
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed and dated 'EVERETT SHINN 1945' bottom center left
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Watercolor
WE’RE OVER THR MOUNTAIN (Wir sind überm Berg)
Located in Santa Monica, CA
ANDREAS PAUL WEBER (German 1893 – 1980)
WE’RE OVER THR MOUNTAIN (Wir sind überm Berg) (A68, D2718)
Lithograph over tinted ground, signed in pencil and in monogram in the stone. Im...
Category
Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
'The East River', Brooklyn Bridge — Mid-Century Realism, New York City
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Lawrence Nelson Wilbur (1897-1988), 'The East River', drypoint, edition 65, 1946. Signed, titled, and annotated 'A. Jones Proof 1946' in pencil. Signed and dated in the plate, lower ...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Drypoint
The Golden Gate
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Golden Gate
Lithograph on wove paper watermarked GC, 1940
Signed in pencil by the artist (see photo)
Publisher: Associated American Artists
Edition: 189, unnumbered
The image depicts The Golden Gate Bridge which connects San Francisco and Marin County, California
References And Exhibitions:
Illustrated: Adams, The Sensuous Life of Adolf Dehn, Fig. 13.17, page 324
Reference: L & O 325
AAA Index 391
Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968
Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art.
In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art.
If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques.
Early Years, 1895-1922
For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood.
After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet).
Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason.
Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag.
The Years in Europe: 1922-1929
In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work.
Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.”
A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...
Category
American Realist 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Portia Novella Le Brun or “Stephanie”
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Portia Novella Le Brun or “Stephanie”
Oil pastel on paper, 1941
Preliminary study for this work on the reverse (see last illustration)
Signed in ink lower left
Provenance: William Pe...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Oil Pastel
'Navajo Trading Post' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Ira Moskowitz, 'Navajo Trading Post', lithograph, 1946, edition 30, Czestochowski 161. Signed and dated in the stone, lower left. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/2 to 3 1/8 inches). Pale mat line, otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 11 11/16 x 15 1/2 inches (297 x 395 mm); sheet size 16 5/16 x 191/8 inches (414 x 486 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 American Indian...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
'Eyes for the Night' — Mid-century Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Benton Spruance, 'Eyes for the Night', lithograph, 1947, edition 35, Fine and Looney 260. Signed, dated, titled, and annotated 'Ed 35' in pencil. A fine impression, on heavy, cream ...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Norma Shoulders, Henrietta, OK by John Stryker, Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
By John Stryker
Located in Dallas, TX
Norma Shoulders, Henrietta, OK by John Stryker is a 10 x 8 inch vintage silver gelatin print. This photograph is signed in ink on print recto, and titled in pencil on print verso.
John Stryker was born in Rockford, Illinois, September 1, 1883. He is most remembered for his body of photographs he took of the "Olympic of Western sport"*- the Rodeo. During his lifetime he crossed America, working rodeos as an announcer, a producer, promoter and sometimes a rider. He invented the chute that the animals come out of and he developed new ways of photographing action during an event.
Dramatic shots were taken from the ground, propping his camera on the toe of his right boot right next to a bucking bronco.
Some historians believe that John Stryker was directly responsible for the growth and sophistication of the sport.
His negatives are in the collection of the University of Texas at Permian Basin, Odessa. His photographs have been exhibited during his lifetime at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming, and the Amon Carter Museum in Ft. Worth, Texas. His photographs have been published widely including Life, Look, The Cattleman, The Western Horseman, and The Quarter Horse Journal. In 1977, The Rodeo of John Addison Stryker...
Category
Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Silver Gelatin
'Navajo Medicine Ceremony of the Night Chant' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Ira Moskowitz, 'The Three Gods of Healing (Navajo Medicine Ceremony of the Night Chant)', lithograph, 1945, edition 30, Czestochowski 148. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (2 1/4 to 2 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 12 1/4 x 15 13/16 inches (311 x 402 mm); sheet size 17 1/8 x 20 7/8 inches (435 x 530 mm).
ABOUT THIS WORK
The nine-night ceremony known as the Night Chant or Nightway is believed to date from around 1000 B.C.E. when it was first performed by the Indians who lived in Canyon de Chelly (now eastern Arizona). It is considered the most sacred of all Navajo ceremonies and one of the most difficult and demanding to learn, as it encompasses hundreds of songs, dozens of prayers, and several highly complex sand paintings. And yet the demand for Night Chants is so great that as many as fifty such ceremonies might be held during a single winter season, which lasts eighteen to twenty weeks.
The Night Chant is designed both to cure people who are ill and to restore the order and balance of human and non-human relationships within the Navajo universe. Led by a trained medicine man who has served a long apprenticeship and learned the intricate and detailed practices that are essential to the chant, the ceremony itself is capable of scaring off sickness and ugliness through techniques that shock or arouse. Once the disorder has been removed, order and balance are restored through song, prayer, sand painting, and other aspects of the ceremony.
The medicine men who supervise the Night Chant ensure that everything—each dot and line in every sand painting, each verse in every song, each feather on each mask is arranged precisely, or it will not bring about the desired result. There are probably as many active Night Chant medicine men today as at any time in Navajo history due to the general increase in the Navajo population, the popularity of the ceremony, and the central role it plays in Navajo life and health.
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...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Girls on a Boardwalk
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Signed and dated twice lower right: Reginald Marsh 46 / Reginald Marsh 1946
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Watercolor, Pencil
VENUS I by Auguste Herbin - Abstract, geometric painting
Located in London, GB
VENUS I by Auguste Herbin (1882-1960)
Oil on canvas
100 x 81 cm (39 ³/₈ x 31 ⁷/₈ inches)
Signed and dated lower left, herbin 1945
Provenance: Private collection, Stockholm
Galerie d...
Category
Abstract Geometric 1940s Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Divertimento I (Picasso)
By Conger A. Metcalf
Located in Fairlawn, OH
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 by the artist (see photo)
Condition: Irregular sheet margins
Framed in a carved corner, gilt decorated frame with foliate corners. Very complimentary to the work!!! ( See photo)
Oil paint transfer on verso
Three small bits of masking tape along the upper margin from previous framing
Colors fresh, appears to be no fading
Photos available upon request
Sheet/Image size: 13 x 9 1/4 inches
Provenance: Private Collection, Ohio
Exhibited: Childs Gallery, Boston, 2013-2023 (see label)
Conger Metcalf (1914–1998) was an American painter.
"He was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and died in Boston, Massachusetts. Metcalf began his art studies in 1932 at the Iowa Stone City Art Colony, headed by American Regionalist painter Grant Wood. Metcalf continued his studies at Coe College in Cedar Rapids with Stone City co-founder Marvin Cone...
Category
American Modern 1940s Art
Materials
Oil
'Navajo Reservation Landscape' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Ira Moskowitz, 'Navajo Reservation Landscape', lithograph, 1945, edition c. 30. 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 (1 3/8 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 12 3/4 x 15 3/4 inches (324 x 400 mm); sheet size: 15 1/2 x 19 inches (394 x 482 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 American Indian...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Lithograph
Le Due Fait de la Peinture by Georges Manzana Pissarro - Colourful drawing
Located in London, GB
*UK BUYERS WILL PAY AN ADDITIONAL 20% VAT ON TOP OF THE ABOVE PRICE
Le Due Fait de la Peinture by Georges Manzana Pissarro (1871-1961)
27.5 x 18.3 cm (10 ⁷/₈ x 7 ¹/₄ inches)
Graphit...
Category
1940s Art
Materials
Paper, Color Pencil, Graphite