Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9

Raphael Soyer
Raphael Soyer "Woman With Her Suitcase" Litho, c. 1950

c. 1950

$500
£376.24
€434.96
CA$706.01
A$765.53
CHF 406.26
MX$9,428.43
NOK 5,035.28
SEK 4,752.15
DKK 3,246.66

About the Item

Raphael Soyer (Russian-American, 1899-1987) Woman With Her Suitcase, c. 1950 Lithograph Sight: 19 1/4 x 13 3/4 in. Framed: 27 x 21 1/4 x 1 in. Edition 63 of 150 Numbered lower left, signed lower right Russian-born artist Raphael Soyer is best known for his compassionate, naturalistic depictions of urban subjects. His sensitive, penetrating portrayals include a broad range of city dwellers: Bowery bums, dancers, seamstresses, shoppers, office workers and fellow artists. Historically, Soyer is associated with the social realist artists of the 1930s, whose art championed the cause of social justice. Born in Tombov, Russia in 1899, Soyer emigrated with his family to the United States in 1912. His siblings included a twin brother, Moses, and a brother, Isaac, who became successful artists. After settling with his family in New York City, the young Soyer pursued an art education at Cooper Union from 1914 to 1917, at the National Academy of Design from 1918 to 1922, and intermittently at the Art Students League. Soyer was referred to as an American Scene painter. He is identified as a Social Realist because of his interest in men and women viewed in contemporary settings which included the streets, subways, salons and artists' studios of New York City, although he avoided subjects that were particularly critical of society. He also wrote several books on his life and art. Soyer's earliest work was consciously primitive in manner. Until the late 1920s, he typically used frontal presentations, shallow pictorial space and figures rendered in caricature. Later, he developed a brushy, more gestural style that was tonal rather than coloristic. These early works are reminiscent of the paintings of Edgar Degas. Soyer's interest in depicting his urban environment was expressed early in his career in works such as Sixth Avenue (ca. 1930-1935, Wadsworth Atheneum). As the Depression continued, the artist turned more and more to subjects directly related to the prevailing economic difficulties. One result of the mass unemployment of the 1930s that caught Soyer's imagination was the new role of independent working women. Hemmed in by the crowd, the self-absorbed women in Office Girls (1936, Whitney Museum of American Art) are shown walking to or from work. Soyer's sympathetic study of unemployed men in Transients (1936, University of Texas) is an example of a less propagandistic social realist work. In addition to paintings, he executed a number of lithographs of Depression scenes. Soyer developed his subjects from New York City's poorer sections. Unlike the painters of the Ashean School 25 years earlier, Soyer and his contemporaries did not view the city as a picturesque spectacle. Instead, they dwelt on the grim realities of poverty and industrialization. Soyer's work, however, is less issue-oriented than that of fellow social realist artists Philip Evergood and Ben Shahn. After 1940, Soyer began to concentrate on the subject of women at work or posing in his studio. His technique grew more sketchy during the 1950s, but in his ambitious painting Homage To Eakins (1964-1965, National Portrait Gallery), he rendered the figures in a manner typical of his early work. Between 1953 and 1955, he edited Reality. He later wrote Painter's Pilgrimage (1962), Homage to Thomas Eakins (1966), Self-Revealment: A Memoir (1969) and Diary of an Artist (1977). In 1967, Soyer was given a retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and his paintings have been displayed at many museums and galleries. He has taught at the Art Students League, the New School and the National Academy of Design in New York City. Bio from Archives of AskArt
  • Creator:
    Raphael Soyer (1899-1987, American)
  • Creation Year:
    c. 1950
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 27 in (68.58 cm)Width: 21.25 in (53.98 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Not examined outside of the frame.
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: BM51stDibs: LU2211215382652

More From This Seller

View All
Seated Dancers Litho by Moses Soyer
By Moses Soyer
Located in New York, NY
Moses Soyer (New York/Russia, 1899-1974) Untitled (dancers), mid-20th century Lithograph Sight: 16 1/2 x 14 3/4 in. Framed: 26 x 23 1/2 x 1 in. Edition 76 of 100 Numbered lower left...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Original Stan Phillips Lithograph of Ballerinas, c. 1970
Located in New York, NY
Stan Phillips (American, 1923-2012) Jacob's Pillow, c. 1970 Lithograph 14 7/8 x 10 7/8 in. Signed and inscribed Phillips was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his young l...
Category

1970s American Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Mary Frank Original Charcoal and Pastel 1984 Figure Drawing
By Mary Frank
Located in New York, NY
Mary Frank (British/American, b. 1933) Chant, 1984 Charcoal and pastel on paper 41 3/4 x 29 3/4 in. Framed: 46 1/2 x 34 1/4x 2 in. Signed and dated lower right: Mary Frank 84 Midtown Payson Galleries Label Verso Mary Frank is known for creating stoneware sculptures that have the appearance of terra cotta fragments dug up at an archaeological site. Sometimes a half-finished relief head...
Category

1980s Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal, Pastel

Felice Casorati "The Embrace" Signed Lithograph
By Felice Casorati
Located in New York, NY
Felice Casorati (Italian, 1883-1963) The Embrace, 1946 Lithograph Sight: 15 1/2 x 11 1/4 in. Framed: 23 1/3 x 18 2/3 x 1 in. Signed lower left, numbered lower right Felice Casorati (December 4, 1883 – March 1, 1963) was an Italian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. The paintings for which he is most noted include figure compositions, portraits and still lifes, which are often distinguished by unusual perspective effects. Casorati was born in Novara. He showed an early passion for music, but abandoned his study of piano after a serious illness, and became interested in art. To please his mother he studied law at the University of Padua until 1906, but his ambition to be a painter was confirmed in 1907 when a painting of his was shown in the Venice Biennale*. The works he produced in the early years of his career were naturalistic in style, but after 1910 the influence of the symbolists* and particularly of Gustav Klimt turned him toward a more visionary approach. In 1915 he had a solo exhibition at the Rome Secession III, where he showed several paintings and the first of his sculptures in varnished terracotta*. His military service in World War I began that year and lasted until his discharge from the army after the death of his father in 1917. In 1918, "intrigued by the decadent atmosphere of Turin with its sinister views", he settled there with his mother and two sisters. His works of the next decade typify, in their emphasis on geometry and formal clarity, the "return to order" then prevalent in the arts as a reaction to the war. Although many critics found his work cold, cerebral, and academic, Casorati achieved international recognition as a leading figure in this movement. Casorati himself wrote, in 1931: "In taking up, against me, the old polemic of classicism and romanticism, people rail against intellectualized and scholastic order, accuse my art of being insincere, and wilfully academic—in a word, of being neoclassical. ... since my art is born, so to speak, from within, and never has its source in changing "impressions", it is quite natural that ... static forms, and not the fluid images of passion, should be reflected in my works". Briefly arrested in 1923 for his involvement with an anti-Fascist group, Casorati subsequently avoided antagonizing the regime. Beginning in 1923, he opened his studio to the young art students of Turin, and to emerging Italian artists such as Quinto Martini and painters of the Gruppo dei Sei (Group of Six). In 1925, one of his students was Daphne Mabel Maugham, later his wife. One of his later students was the Italian painter Enrico Accatino...
Category

1940s Modern Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Girl Eating an Apple, Modernist Style, Agnes Mills WPA Artist
Located in New York, NY
Agnes Mills (American, -2008) Untitled (Girl Eating an Apple), c. Late 20th - Early 21st Century Watercolor (?) and pastel on canvas 30 1/8 x 23 3/4 in. Framed: 37 3/4 x 31 5/8 x 1 ...
Category

Late 20th Century Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Pastel, Watercolor

Portrait of a 1920s Woman by Mystery American Artist
Located in New York, NY
Charcoal and pastel on paper Sight: 16 1/2 x 11 1/2 in. Framed: 24 1/2 x 20 1/4 x 1 2/3 in. Signed lower right Inscribed verso
Category

Early 20th Century American Impressionist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Charcoal

You May Also Like

Two Women and Child, Lithograph by Raphael Soyer
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Raphael Soyer Title: Two Women and Child Year: circa 1950 Medium: Lithograph on paper, signed in pencil l.r. Image Size: 11 x 9.5 in. (27.94 x 24.13 cm) Frame Size: 20 x 17.5...
Category

1940s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

YOUNG WOMAN WITH LONG HAIR Signed Lithograph, Realist Portrait Drawing
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Union City, NJ
Young Woman With Long Hair is an original hand drawn (not digitally or photo reproduced) limited edition lithograph by the artist Raphael Soyer - Russian/American Social Realism Pain...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

STANDING SEAMSTRESS, Signed Lithograph Female Portrait Sewing Machine Dress Form
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Union City, NJ
STANDING SEAMSTRESS is an original hand drawn (not digitally or photo reproduced) limited edition lithograph by the artist Raphael Soyer - Russian/American Social Realism Painter, 18...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Mother, Lithograph by Raphael Soyer
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Long Island City, NY
Raphael Soyer, Russian/American (1899 - 1987) - Mother. Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil, Edition: 43/150, Image Size: 17.75 x 12 inches, Size: 26 x 20 in. (66.04 x...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Prints and Multiples

Materials

Lithograph

AFTER THE BATH Signed Lithograph, Interior Scene, Nude Woman, Realist Drawing
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Union City, NJ
AFTER THE BATH is an original hand drawn (not digitally or photo reproduced) limited edition lithograph by the artist Raphael Soyer - Russian/American Social Realism Painter, 1899-19...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph

SEATED WOMAN NEAR A BED Signed Lithograph, Seated Female Portrait Interior Scene
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Union City, NJ
SEATED WOMAN NEAR A BED is an original hand drawn (not digitally or photo reproduced) limited edition lithograph by the artist Raphael Soyer - Russian/American Social Realism Painter...
Category

1970s Realist Portrait Prints

Materials

Lithograph