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American Modern Art

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Style: American Modern
Period: 1940s
Crown of Roses — Mid-century Modern
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Mary Van Blarcom, 'Crown of Roses', color serigraph, c. 1945, edition not stated but small. Signed in pencil beneath the image, lower left. Titled in pencil, bottom left sheet corner. A rich painterly impression, with fresh colors, on cream laid paper, with full margins (3/8 to 7/8 inch), in excellent condition. Image size 8 13/16 x 12 11/16 inches; sheet size 9 1/2 x 8 5/16 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Painter, printmaker, and craftsperson, Mary Van Blarcom was born in Newark, New Jersey, and studied at Wellesley College. She was a member of the National Serigraph Society, where she served on the board of trustees from 1945 through 1952 and was 1st vice-president from 1949-51. She was also a member of the National Association of Women Artists, the Artists Equity Association, the American Color Print Society, the New Jersey Artists Association (Director), and Artists of Today. Van Blarcom exhibited actively throughout the 1940s at many prominent art organizations, including Montclair Art Museum, 1941-45 and 1947-51 (prize, 1948); Society of Independent Artists, 1942-44; Artists of Today, 1942-46; Elisabeth Ney Museum, 1943; Northwest Printmakers, 1944, 1946-49; Laguna Beach Art Association, 1945-47, 1949; National Association of Women Artists, 1945-50, (prize, 1946); Library of Congress, 1946-47; Museum of Modern Art Traveling Exhibition, 1945-47; Carnegie Institute, 1947; Serigraph Gallery, 1946, 1951 (solo); American Color Print Society, 1947-52; Newark Museum, 1947-48, 1951; California State Library, 1947, 1949; National Serigraph Society, 1949 (prize), 1950 (prize); University of Chile, 1950; New Jersey State Museum, 1950; Philadelphia Art Alliance, 1951; and the Main Gallery, NY, 1952. Van Blarcom’s work is in the collections of the Newark Public Library, U.S. Library of Congress; the American Association of University Women; New York Public Library; Tel-Aviv Museum, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, Princeton Print Club...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Screen

STRIDENT MAN Carved Wood Sculpture Hollywood WPA Modernist Puppet Mid-Century
Located in New York, NY
This 18 x 9 x 4 inch carved wood sculpture is unsigned and comes directly from the artist's family. Louis 'Lou' Bunin (28 March 1904 – 17 February 1994) was an American puppeteer, artist, and pioneer of stop-motion animation in the latter half of the twentieth century. While working as a mural artist under Diego Rivera in Mexico City in 1926, Bunin created political puppet shows using marionettes...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Wood

Early Modern American Portrait, Pennsylvania/Massachusetts, Frank Anderson Trapp
Located in Baltimore, MD
This is a very stylized and powerful portrait by the noted artist Frank Anderson Trapp. It is dated 1940, and is very much in the modern style of French painters Ferdinand Leger and...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Drypoint

'Taos Placita' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Gustave Baumann, 'Taos Placita', color woodcut, 1947, edition 125. Signed, titled, and numbered '20-125' in pencil; with the artist’s Hand-in-Heart chop. A superb, richly-inked impre...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Woodcut

Standing Nude
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Female Nude Study Charcoal with white highlights on laid watermarked paper, 1948 Signed and monogrammed in pencil by the artist lower left dated verso: 6 Aug 1948 on reverse...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Charcoal

Surrealist Still Life with Apples, Mid 20th Century Cleveland School Artist
Located in Beachwood, OH
Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Still Life with Apples, 1940 Oil on canvas Signed and dated upper right 18 x 24 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of na...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil

Modernist Judaica Jewish Ink Drawing Painting "New Immigrant" Off the Boat WPA
Located in Surfside, FL
An ink drawing Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. It depicts a portrait of an old Jewish man. Coming over from Europe on a ship crossing. The work is signed "Ben-Zion". Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. In 1920 he settled in America, where he found little interest in his writing. He began teaching Hebrew to support himself and then in the early 1930s returned to painting. He used his art to comment on the rise of fascism in Europe, events he felt could not be adequately explored with words. Largely self-taught, Ben-Zion visited the museums of New York City to learn his new trade. His first painting on a large scale, Friday Evening (1933, Jewish Museum, New York), depicts a Sabbath dinner table as recalled from his family home. Ben-Zion supported himself by working odd jobs until the establishment of the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project. Under the auspices of the wpa, Ben-Zion thrived and galleries began to show his work. In 1936, after his first one-man show at the Artists' Gallery in New York Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Screen

Woman with Lowered Head
Located in New York, NY
Joseph Goethe was one of our finest American modernist carvers in wood. He loved to use exotic and or beautiful woods to inspire his compositions which ranged from figurative, to an...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Mahogany

Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism
Located in New York, NY
Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism Henry Schnakenberg (1982 - 1970) Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape 11 1/2 x 15 1/2 sight Oil on Canvas Signed lower left 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches, Framed Bio In many cases, American artists visited the Armory Show in New York in 1913, and returned to their studios to react to or against what they saw. However, for Henry Ernest Schnakenberg it was much more life altering. Prior to visiting this important exhibition of American and European modernist art...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Still Life
Located in Chicago, IL
A large and wonderful Modernist still life of a cast iron pot, squash and ladle by artist Flora Schofield. Framed to 24" x 26". A painter, print maker and sculptor, Flora Schofield (Schoenfield), was born in Lanark, Illinois. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and taught Saturday classes there until 1904. Schoenfield also studied with Charles Hawthorne, B.J.O Nordfeldt and William Zorach in Provincetown, Massachusetts. She studied with Albert Gleizes, Fernand Leger and Natalia Goncharova in Paris, France. In 1923, Schofield’s abstractions caused a split at the venerable Chicago Society of Artists. When her artwork was was accepted by the jury, the notable Impressionist painter Pauline Palmer and the notable Modernist painter Carl Hoeckner got into a row that ended-up splitting the group. The Impressionists then broke away into their own organization called the ”Association of Chicago Painters and Sculptors”. Paintings by Flora Schofield have been exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; the Salon d’Automne and Salon de Independants, Paris; the Salons of America; the Society of Independent Artists, New York; the Wichita Museum of Art, Wichita; Gallery Carmine, Paris; the National Arts Club Galleries, New York; Marshall Fields Galleries...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Ink

Mural Study
Located in Chicago, IL
A colorful, period mural study of an interior by artist Edgar Ewing.
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Paper, Gouache

Original "The 3rd Man" 1949 original first printing vintage movie poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original “The 3rd Man”, 1949, linen-backed vintage one-sheet movie poster "The 3rd Man". NSS: # 49/452. Excellent condition with restored original fold marks. Linen backed and...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

Original "Save Waste Fats for Explosives" vintage poster 1943
Located in Spokane, WA
Original: "Save waste fats for explosives. Take them to your meat dealer" vintage poster—original World War II Acid-free, archival linen-backed, ready-to-frame. The Original "Save...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

Original "Fire Away! Buy Extra Bonds, 5th War Loan" vintage submarine poster.
Located in Spokane, WA
Original World War 2 Fire Away! Buy Extra Bonds. Linen backed. Color poster of two sailors on a Navy ship at sea. One sailor uses a searchlight, and the other is looking through binoculars. The sailors wear blue jackets and knitted "watch caps". A U.S. flag can be seen on the ship deck below. "In memory, U.S.S. Dorado"--At the upper left corner of the picture. Logo near the bottom of the poster: "5th 'V' War Loan". Artist George Schrieber (1904-1977) designed this war bond poster after the U.S.S. Dorado, a Gato-class submarine, was sunk off the coast of Cuba by a German land mine. Georges Schreiber (1904-1977) commemorates the sinking of the USS Dorado submarine in this 1944 War Bonds poster entitled Fire Away for the Fifth War Loan. Schreiber sailed aboard the ship in the summer of 1943 and had a personal connection to the tragedy. USS Dorado (SS-248) was a Gato-class submarine. Her keel was laid down on 27 August 1942 by the Electric Boat Company of Groton, Connecticut and was commissioned on 28 August 1943 under the command of Lieutenant Commander Earle Caffrey Schneider. The USS Dorado sailed for the Panama Canal for use in the East Asia war effort. The submarine was sunk off the coast of Cuba due to a minefield left by a German-Nazi U Boat. This is an Original Vintage Poster; it is not a reproduction. "U.S. Government Printing Office: 1944-O-581636". "WFD 908-A" USS Eldorado (AGC-11) was named after a mountain range in Nevada. The ship was designed as an amphibious force flagship, a floating command post...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

Original "Think American" USA World War II vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original poster: For a Country Where We Are Still Masters of Our Own Destinies, Let's Be Truly Thankful. Silk-screened patriotism. This is a poster meant to appeal to the American f...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Screen

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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Engraving

Original Cultivez des Oleagineux French mid-century vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original 'La France Manque d’Huile, cultivez des Oleagineux' vintage French poster. Linen backed in excellent condition, ready to frame. FREE Continential USA shipping. Transpor...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Engraving

Capri, sunset
Located in New York, NY
A dynamic and stunning watercolor, saturated in color and invigorated by strong brushstrokes. Albert Wein's artistic prowess in painting is a testament to his deep-seated academic tr...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Watercolor

Paradise Lost Collection
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This collection of drawings is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. 1. Paradise Lost (But His Doom) Crayon on paper, 17 ½ x 12 ½ inches (image), 22 x 15 inc...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Crayon, Paper

Original 'Help RCA help USA, You and I Beat the Promise" vintage WWII poster
Located in Spokane, WA
‘Help RCA Help USA, Beat the Promise, You and I Beat the Promise,’ original WWII antique vintage military poster. In the foreground are two clasped hand...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Tip of Manhattan
By Nat Lowell
Located in Chicago, IL
An etching of a view of the Manhattan skyline by artist Nat Lowell. Signed and titled in pencil, ca. 1940.
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Etching

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Abandoned Wharf
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This drawing is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Crayon on paper, 20 x 12 (image), 22 x 14 inches (sheet), Signed lower right, Matted, but not framed Ex...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Paper, Crayon

Freedom From Want - The Four Freedoms
Located in New York, NY
NORMAN ROCKWELL (1894-1978) - The Freedom from want - [from the series THE FOUR FREEDOMS.] 1943. 40x28 1/4inches, 101 1/2x71 3/4 cm. World War II poster U.S. Government Printing Of...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Paper

Original Avenge December 7th vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Avenge December 7th vintage poster. Linen backed; excellent condition. Artist: Bernard Perlin. Office of War Information, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office: 1942-O-491978 Dramatic original World War II poster depicting a sailor with his fist raised, standing above a scene of an exploding battleship, with the words “Avenge December 7” in red across the middle of the poster. The striking image on OWI “Poster No. 15,” memorializing the events of December 7, 1941, was created by artist Bernard Perlin. U. S. Government Printing Office. Year: 1942 As a Life Magazine war art correspondent living in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, Perlin continued to document social change uniquely. An American painter primarily known for creating many American posters during WWII and for magic realism...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Screen

UN Poster Design American Scene Mid 20th Century Modernism WPA World Peace
Located in New York, NY
UN Poster Design American Scene Mid 20th Century Modernism WPA World Peace Jo Cain (1904 – 2003) We Are All Members of the Human Race: UN Poster Proposal 21 x...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Egg Tempera, Board

Still Life
By Stanley Bielecky
Located in Chicago, IL
A Cubist black & white graphite drawing of fruit by artist Illinois and Michigan artist Stanley Bielecky.
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Graphite

En Route to VT, Hotel Room
Located in Chicago, IL
A small, female nude painting, titled "En Route to VT, Hotel Room" by artist Harold Haydon. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada in 1909. Haydon came to...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Drypoint

Kossack
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This sculpture is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Kossack, c. late 1930s, polychromed cedar and walnut relief sculpture, carved signature under ...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Wood

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Judaica Rabbi Portrait Oil Painting American WPA Abstract Expressionist Artist
Located in Surfside, FL
Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1912, abstract expressionist painter Morris Shulman studied at the National Academy of Design, Art Students League and Hans Hofmann School of Art in New ...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Encaustic, Oil, Board

'Taos - Relic of the Insurrection of 1845' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Ira Moskowitz, 'Relic of the Insurrection of 1845' also 'Taos Pueblo with Ruin)', lithograph, 1944, edition 30, Czestochowski 121. 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 (1 3/8 to 1 15/16 inches). Very pale light toning within a previous mat opening, otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 11 5/8 x 15 1/2 inches (296 x 394 mm); sheet size 15 1/8 x 19 inches (384 x 483 mm). ABOUT THE IMAGE The Taos Revolt was a populist insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. The rebels killed provisional governor Charles Bent and several other Americans. In two short campaigns, United States troops and militia crushed the rebellion of the Hispano and Pueblo people. The New Mexicans, seeking better representation, regrouped and fought three more engagements, but after being defeated, they abandoned open warfare. The hatred of New Mexicans for the occupying American army, combined with the rebelliousness of Taos residents against imposed outside authority, were causes of the revolt. In the uprising's aftermath, the Americans executed at least 28 rebels. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1850 guaranteed the property rights of New Mexico's Hispanic and American Indian residents. 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 American Modern 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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil Pastel

'Judges' from 'In Praise of Folly' — 1940s Graphic Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Lynd Ward, 'Judges' from the series 'Moriae Encomium (In Praise of Folly),' mezzotint, 1943, no edition, proofs only. Signed, dated, and titled in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 2 inches) in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 7 13/16 x 4 7/8 inches (198 x 124 mm); sheet size 10 3/4 x 8 1/8 inches (273 x 206 mm). Created by the artist for 'Erasmus's Moriae Encomium,' or 'In Praise of Folly,' published by the Limited Editions Club, 1943. A rare, signed, proof impression apart from the Limited Editions Club publication. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lynd Ward is acknowledged as one of America’s foremost wood engravers and book illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. His innovative use of narrative printmaking as a stand-alone storytelling vehicle was uniquely successful in reaching a broad audience. The powerful psychological intensity of his work, celebrated for its dynamic design, technical precision, and compelling dramatic content, finds resonance in the literature of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Like these classic American writers, Ward was concerned with the themes of man’s inner struggles and the role of the subconscious in determining his destiny. An artist of social conscience during the Great Depression and World War II, he infused his graphic images with his unique brand of social realism, deftly portraying the problems that challenged the ideals of American society. The son of a Methodist preacher, Lynd Ward, moved from Chicago to Massachusetts at an early age. He graduated from the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, in 1926, where he studied illustration and graphic arts. He married May Yonge McNeer in 1936 and left for Europe for their honeymoon in Eastern Europe. After four months, they settled in Leipzig, where Ward studied at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking. Inspired by Belgian expressionist artist Frans Masereel's graphic novel ‘The Sun,’ and another graphic novel by the German artist Otto Nückel, ‘Destiny,’ he determined to create his own "wordless" novel. Upon his return to America, Ward completed his first book, ‘God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts,’ published in 1929. ‘Gods’ Man’ was a great success for its author and publisher and was reprinted four times in 1930, including a British edition. This book and several which followed it, ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930, ‘Wild Pilgrimage,’ 1932, ‘Prelude to a Million Years,’ 1933, ‘Song Without Words,' 1936, ‘Vertigo,’ 1937; and ‘Last Unfinished Wordless Novel’ (created in the 1960s and published in 2001) were comprised solely of Ward's wood engravings. Ward designed each graphic image to occupy an entire page, the sequence of which conveys the story's narrative. In 1937, Ward was named Director of the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In the following years, Ward went on to illustrate more than one hundred books (some of which he wrote), including classics for the Limited Editions Club Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ Faulkner’s ‘A Green Bough,’ and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ and several children’s books. He also produced single-subject wood engravings, paintings, and drawings. His print ‘Sanctuary,’ 1939, was shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and ‘Clouded Over,’ 1948, received the 1948 Library of Congress Award and was included in ‘American Prize Prints of the 20th Century’ by Albert Reese. He received the National Academy of Design Print Award (1949), the New York Times Best Illustrated Award (1973), and the Regina Award (Catholic Library Association, 1975). ‘The Biggest Bear,’ a children’s book with illustrations by Ward, was the recipient of the esteemed 1952 Caldecott Medal of the American Library Association. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Ward was a member and board member of the National Academy of Design and the Artists’ League of America. He served several terms as president of the Society of American Graphic Artists and was a member of the American Artists Congress and the Society of Illustrators. Ward exhibited at the American Artists Congress; the National Academy of Design; the John Herron Art Institute; and the Library of Congress. He had a one-person show at Associated American Artists, NY, on the publication of his monograph 'Storyteller Without Words,' 1974; AAA mounted a memorial exhibition in 1986. The May 1976 issue of 'Bibliognost,' a book collector’s publication, was dedicated to Ward. ‘Lynd Ward, His Bookplate Designs,’ an article by Dan Burne Jones, was published in the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers Yearbook, 1981/82. In 2001, sixteen years after his death, Rutgers University Libraries published ’Lynd Ward’s Last Unfinished Wordless Novel.’ The blocks were intended to be part of a novel in woodcuts, the first since Vertigo, but Ward did not live to complete the project. Master printer and book designer Barbara Henry collated and printed the twenty-six finished blocks out of the forty-four initially planned for the still unnamed narrative. In 2010 the Library of America honored Ward’s achievements with the meticulous production of a collection of Ward’s woodcut novels—the first time the Library had gone wordless. The publication replicated his original editions with a single full-size image printed on the right page of each double-page spread. In his introduction to the books, renowned cartoonist/illustrator Art...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Mezzotint

Gateside Conversation, 1940s Original Signed Lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Denver, CO
'Gateside Conversation' is an original signed lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) from 1946. Singed by the artist in the lower right margin and titled verso. Portrays a figu...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

Modernist Judaica Oil Painting "Old Jew" Jewish Rabbi at Prayer
Located in Surfside, FL
An oil on board Judaic painting by modern artist Ben-Zion Weinman. It depicts a portrait in profile of an old Jew. The work is signed "Ben-Zion". Born in 1897, Ben-Zion Weinman celebrated his European Jewish heritage in his visual works as a sculptor, painter, and printmaker. Influenced by Spinoza, Knut Hamsun, and Wladyslaw Reymont, as well as Hebrew literature, Ben-Zion wrote poetry and essays that, like his visual work, attempt to reveal the deep “connection between man and the divine, and between man and earth.” An emigrant from the Ukraine, he came to the US in 1920. He wrote fairy tales and poems in Hebrew under the name Benzion Weinman, but when he began painting he dropped his last name and hyphenated his first, saying an artist needed only one name. Ben-Zion was a founding member of “The Ten: An Independent Group” The Ten” a 1930’s avant...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Board

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 Oil paint transfer on verso Three small bits of msking 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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil

'Navajo Courtship Dance' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
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...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

'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

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Untitled (Artist with Cows)
Located in Chicago, IL
A unique, humorous and colorful landscape painting by Harold Haydon depicting the artist painting alongside cows. The painting dates from 1941. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fo...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Original 'Apollo Stumpen' vintage Swiss cigar poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Swiss poster: Apollo Stumpen Cigars. Johannes Handschin created this Swiss poster. Swiss size of 35" x 49". Professional acid-free archival linen backed, ready to frame. The colors are vibrant and intense. Great colors. Rare original Swiss (Switzerland) vintage poster. This is the rarer large format, the rarest version of the poster. The small format is 20 x 27, about 1/2 the size. There is a flaw in the lower section of the man’s covering, the lower left of his chin. Shown in images. Switzerland was known for some of the better printing of their posters and the use of more expensive inks, thus richer colors in the posters that survive today. This art deco-style cigar poster...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

'Navajo Horse Race' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Ira Moskowitz, 'Navajo Horse Race', lithograph, 1946, edition 30, Czestochowski 204. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the stone, lower le...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Coney Island" Brooklyn NYC Amusement Park Mid-century American Scene WPA Modern
Located in New York, NY
"Coney Island" Brooklyn NYC Amusement Park Mid-century American Scene WPA Modern Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962), “Coney Island" 35 x 27 inches Oil on board Signed lower left Origin...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Untitled, Still Life of Shell
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled, Still Life of Shell Graphite on paper, 1945-1951 Signed lower right in pencil "Bisttram" (see photo) Condition: Excellent Sheet size: 9.63 x 7 .5 inches EMIL BISTTRAM (189...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Graphite

Untitled (The White Horse)
Located in Chicago, IL
A landscape painting featuring a white horse, dating from 1941, by artist Harold Haydon. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada in 1909. Haydon came to Ch...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Corralled Horse (Artists Proof), 1940s Framed American Modernist Horse Etching
Located in Denver, CO
"Corralled Horse", is an etching on paper by western artist Ethel Magafan (1916-1993) of a single dark horse standing outside in a wooden fenced corral. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 19 x 23 inches. Image size is 10 x 14 inches. This is marked as an Artist Proof Piece is in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Artist, Ethel Magafan Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Ethel Magafan Born 1916 Died 1993 The daughter of a Greek immigrant father and a Polish immigrant mother who met and married in Chicago, Ethel Magafan, her identical twin sister Jenne and their elder sister Sophie grew up in Colorado to which their father relocated the family in 1919. They initially lived in Colorado Springs where he worked as a waiter at the Antlers Hotel before moving to Denver in 1930 to be head waiter at the Albany Hotel. Two years later during the Great Depression Ethel and Jenne experienced at sixteen the tragic loss of their father who had encouraged their artistic aspirations. He was proud when Ethel, a student at Morey Junior High School, won top prizes in student poster contests sponsored by the Denver Chamber of Commerce and the Denver Post. At East High School in Denver she and Jenne contributed their art talents to the school’s and by their senior year were co-art editors of the Angelus, the 1933 yearbook. At East they studied art with Helen Perry, herself a student of André Lhote in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago. Her decision to abandon an arts career to teach high school students served as an important example to Ethel and Jenne, who early on had decided to become artists. In a city-wide Denver competition for high school art students Ethel won an eighteenweek art course in 1932-33 to study at the Kirkland School of Art which artist Vance Kirkland had recently established in the Mile High City. Perry encouraged the Magafan twins’ talent, exposing them to the work of Matisse, Picasso and Cézanne and introducing them to local artists and architects like Frank Mechau and Jacques Benedict whom she invited to speak in her high school art classes. She paid the modest tuition for Ethel and Jenne to study composition, color, mural designing and painting at Mechau’s School of Art in downtown Denver in 1933-34. In the summer of 1934 and for a time in 1936 they apprenticed with him at his studio in Redstone, Colorado. When they returned to Denver in 1934 with no family breadwinner to support them, their mother insisted that they have real jobs so they worked as fashion artists in a Denver department store. When Jenne won the Carter Memorial Art Scholarship ($90.00) two years later, she shared it with Ethel so that both of them could enroll in the Broadmoor Art Academy (now the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) where they studied with Mechau. When the scholarship money ran out after two months, he hired them as his assistants. Along with Edward (Eduardo) Chavez and Polly Duncan, they helped him with his federal government mural commissions. At the Fine Arts Center Ethel also studied with Boardman Robinson and Peppino Mangravite, who hired her and Jenne in 1939 to assist him in his New York studio with two murals commissioned for the post office in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Like their Denver high school art teacher, Robinson also stressed the need to draw from nature in order to "feel" the mountains, which later become the dominant subject matter of Ethel’s mature work after World War II. Mechau trained her and her sister in the complex process of mural painting while they studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, teaching them the compositional techniques of the European Renaissance masters. This also involved library research for historical accuracy, small scale drawing, and Page 2 of 4 the hand-making of paints and other supplies. Ethel recalled that their teacher "was a lovely man but he was a hard worker. He drove us. There was no fooling around." Her apprenticeship with Mechau prepared her to win four national government competitions, beginning at age twenty-two, for large murals in U.S. post offices: Threshing – Auburn, Nebraska (1938), Cotton Pickers – Wynne, Arkansas (1940), Prairie Fire – Madill, Oklahoma (1940), and The Horse Corral – South Denver, Colorado (1942). In preparation for their commissions Ethel and her sister made trips around the country to pending mural locations, driving their beat-up station wagon, dressed in jeans and cowboy boots with art supplies and dogs in tow. She and Jenne combined their talents in the mural, Mountains in Snow, for the Department of Health and Human Services Building in Washington, DC (1942). A year later Ethel executed her own mural, Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1814, for the Recorder of Deeds Building, also in Washington, DC. Her first mural commission, Indian Dance, done in 1937 under the Treasury Department Art Project for the Senate Chamber in the United States Capitol, has since disappeared. Ethel and her sister lived and worked in Colorado Springs until 1941 when their residence became determined by the wartime military postings of Jenne’s husband, Edward Chavez. They moved briefly to Los Angeles (1941-42) and then to Cheyenne, Wyoming, while he was stationed at Fort Warren, and then back to Los Angeles for two years in 1943. While in California, Ethel and Jenne executed a floral mural for the Sun Room of the Beverly Hills Hotel and also painted scenes of the ocean which they exhibited at the Raymond and Raymond Galleries in Beverly Hills. While in Los Angeles they met novelist Irving Stone, author of Lust for Life, who told them about Woodstock, as did artists Arnold Blanch and Doris Lee (both of whom previously taught at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center school. In summer of 1945 Ethel, her sister and brother-in-law drove their station wagon across the country to Woodstock which became their permanent home. A year later Ethel married artist and musician, Bruce Currie, whom she met in Woodstock. In 1948 with the help of the GI Bill they purchased an old barn there that also housed their individual studios located at opposite ends of the house. The spatial arrangement mirrors the advice she gave her daughter, Jenne, also an artist: "Make sure you end up with a man who respects your work…The worst thing for an artist is to be in competition with her husband." In 1951 Ethel won a Fulbright Scholarship to Greece where she and her husband spent 1951-52. In addition to extensively traveling, sketching and painting the local landscape, she reconnected with her late father’s family in the area of Messinia on the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. At the same time, her sister Jenne accompanied Chavez on his Fulbright Scholarship to Italy where they spent a productive year painting and visiting museums. Shortly after returning home, Jenne’s career was cut tragically short when she died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age thirty-six. It deeply affected Ethel whose own work took on a somber quality for several years conveyed by a darkish palette, as seen in her tempera painting, Aftermath (circa 1952). In the 1940s Ethel and her sister successfully made the important transition from government patronage to careers as independent artists. Ethel became distinguished for her modernist landscapes. Even though Ethel became a permanent Woodstock resident after World War II, from her childhood in Colorado she retained her love of the Rocky Mountains, her "earliest source of my lifelong passion for mountain landscape." She and her husband began returning to Colorado for annual summer camping trips on which they later were joined by their daughter, Jenne. Ethel did many sketches and drawings of places she found which had special meaning for her. They enabled her to recall their vital qualities which she later painted in her Woodstock studio, conveying her feeling about places remembered. She also produced a number of watercolors and prints of the Colorado landscape that constituted a departure from the American Scene style of her earlier paintings. Her postwar creative output collectively belongs to the category of landscape abstractionists as described by author Sheldon Cheney, although to a greater or lesser degree her work references Colorado’s mountainous terrain. She introduced a palette of stronger pastels in her paintings such as two temperas, Evening Mountains from the 1950s and Springtime in the Mountains from the early 1960s. In 1968 she was elected an Academician by the National Academy of Design in New York. Two years later, based on results of her many summer trips to Colorado, the U.S. Department of the Interior invited her to make on-the-spot sketches of the western United States, helping to document the water resources development and conservation efforts by the Department of the Interior. Her sketches were exhibited at the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and then sent on a national tour by the Smithsonian Institution. Similarly, her previous work as a muralist earned her a final commission at age sixty-three for a 12 by 20 foot Civil War image, Grant in the Wilderness, installed in 1979 in the Chancellorsville Visitors Center at the Fredericksburg National Military Park in Virginia. In the 1970s, too, she taught as Artist-in-Residence at Syracuse University and at the University of Georgia in Athens. Her many awards include, among others, the Stacey Scholarship (1947); Tiffany Fellowship (1949); Fulbright Grant (1951-52, in Greece with her husband); Tiffany Fellowship (1949); Benjamin Altman Landscape Prize, National Academy of Design (1955); Medal of Honor, Audubon, Artists (1962); Henry Ward Granger Fund Purchase Award, National Academy of Design (1964); Childe Hassam Fund Purchase Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters (1970); Silver Medal, Audubon Artists (1983); Champion International Corporation Award, Silvermine Guild, New Canaan, Connecticut (1984); John Taylor Award, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1985); Harrison Cady...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Etching, Paper

Sea of Mist, Vermont
Located in Chicago, IL
A soft and moody landscape of Vermont by artist Harold's Haydon dating from 1948. Harold Emerson Haydon was born in Fort William, Ontario, Canada in 1909. Haydon came to Chicago w...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Original "Keep 'em Flying!" vintage poster, 1941
By Cecil Calvert Beall
Located in Spokane, WA
Keep 'em Flying!, artist: C. C. Beall: original linen-backed, excellent condition, World War Two vintage poster. The poster of Uncle Sam is constructed with several vignettes of workers, soldiers, scientists, the U. S. flag, and more. I have provided several details of this fabulous and uniquely designed vintage poster. The 1941 U.S. World War II (WWII) Home Front poster ("Keep 'em flying-Airplanes-flags-Machines-production-Nothing lags. Put your shoulder To the wheel; Courage staunch With nerves of steel. Greet each day, Or pledge a toast-"Keep 'em flying" is our boast. Here's a slogan For us all-An answer to Our country's call. Keep 'em flying; Keep 'em clear. The time is ripe, The time is HERE To pull together-One bold front-Each one prepared To do his stunt. Workers and The men who hire-Housewives-children-All aspire To help and work With little pause-One mind, one heart, One goal, one cause. So-'KEEP 'EM FLYING!' - Jack Childs"; "Presented by the United States Army Recruiting Service") featuring collage art of soldiers and other personnel overlaid with an image of Uncle Sam by Cecil Calvert Beall. Incredible design with the military, red cross nurse, American Flag, chemist, pilots, farmer, steel worker, and Navy guns...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

Original 'Quality Workmanship, A Sound Foundation...' vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original vintage poster: Quality Workmanship A sound Foundation on which to build one's future Cooperative Thoughtful Skilful Dependable Careful This lithograph was printed in 1940 by Elliott Service in NYC. Very good condition with only a minor tear on the bottom, which was laid down during linen-backing. Similar in design to Mather’s Work Incentive posters...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Lithograph

Original 'U. S. Savings Bonds, NOw Back Your Future' vintage poster 1946
Located in Spokane, WA
Original 'U. S. SAVINGS BONDS will help you get there! NOW Back Your future. Linen-backed, excellent condition. Archival linen backed with original government-issued fold ma...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Offset

'Dogs of War' from 'In Praise of Folly' — 1940s Graphic Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Lynd Ward, 'Dogs of War' from the series 'Moriae Encomium (The Praise of Folly),' mezzotint, 1943, no edition, proofs only. Signed in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 3/8 to 1 7/8 inches) in excellent condition. A proof impression apart from the Limited Editions Club impressions. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Scarce. Image size 7 3/4 x 4 13/16 inches (197 x 122 mm); sheet size 10 11/16 x 8 1/16 inches (271 x 204 mm). Created by the artist for 'Erasmus's Moriae Encomium,' or 'In Praise of Folly,' published by the Limited Editions Club, 1943. A rare, signed, proof impression apart from the Limited Editions Club publication. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lynd Ward is acknowledged as one of America’s foremost wood engravers and book illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. His innovative use of narrative printmaking as a stand-alone storytelling vehicle was uniquely successful in reaching a broad audience. The powerful psychological intensity of his work, celebrated for its dynamic design, technical precision, and compelling dramatic content, finds resonance in the literature of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Like these classic American writers, Ward was concerned with the themes of man’s inner struggles and the role of the subconscious in determining his destiny. An artist of social conscience during the Great Depression and World War II, he infused his graphic images with his unique brand of social realism, deftly portraying the problems that challenged the ideals of American society. The son of a Methodist preacher, Lynd Ward, moved from Chicago to Massachusetts at an early age. He graduated from the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, in 1926, where he studied illustration and graphic arts. He married May Yonge McNeer in 1936 and left for Europe for their honeymoon in Eastern Europe. After four months, they settled in Leipzig, where Ward studied at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking. Inspired by Belgian expressionist artist Frans Masereel's graphic novel ‘The Sun,’ and another graphic novel by the German artist Otto Nückel, ‘Destiny,’ he determined to create his own "wordless" novel. Upon his return to America, Ward completed his first book, ‘God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts,’ published in 1929. ‘Gods’ Man’ was a great success for its author and publisher and was reprinted four times in 1930, including a British edition. This book and several which followed it, ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930, ‘Wild Pilgrimage,’ 1932, ‘Prelude to a Million Years,’ 1933, ‘Song Without Words,' 1936, ‘Vertigo,’ 1937; and ‘Last Unfinished Wordless Novel’ (created in the 1960s and published in 2001) were comprised solely of Ward's wood engravings. Ward designed each graphic image to occupy an entire page, the sequence of which conveys the story's narrative. In 1937, Ward was named Director of the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In the following years, Ward went on to illustrate more than one hundred books (some of which he wrote), including classics for the Limited Editions Club Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ Faulkner’s ‘A Green Bough,’ and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ and several children’s books. He also produced single-subject wood engravings, paintings, and drawings. His print ‘Sanctuary,’ 1939, was shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and ‘Clouded Over,’ 1948, received the 1948 Library of Congress Award and was included in ‘American Prize Prints of the 20th Century’ by Albert Reese. He received the National Academy of Design Print Award (1949), the New York Times Best Illustrated Award (1973), and the Regina Award (Catholic Library Association, 1975). ‘The Biggest Bear,’ a children’s book with illustrations by Ward, was the recipient of the esteemed 1952 Caldecott Medal of the American Library Association. An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Ward was a member and board member of the National Academy of Design and the Artists’ League of America. He served several terms as president of the Society of American Graphic Artists and was a member of the American Artists Congress and the Society of Illustrators. Ward exhibited at the American Artists Congress; the National Academy of Design; the John Herron Art Institute; and the Library of Congress. He had a one-person show at Associated American Artists, NY, on the publication of his monograph 'Storyteller Without Words,' 1974; AAA mounted a memorial exhibition in 1986. The May 1976 issue of 'Bibliognost,' a book collector’s publication, was dedicated to Ward. ‘Lynd Ward, His Bookplate Designs,’ an article by Dan Burne Jones, was published in the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers Yearbook, 1981/82. In 2001, sixteen years after his death, Rutgers University Libraries published ’Lynd Ward’s Last Unfinished Wordless Novel.’ The blocks were intended to be part of a novel in woodcuts, the first since Vertigo, but Ward did not live to complete the project. Master printer and book designer Barbara Henry collated and printed the twenty-six finished blocks out of the forty-four initially planned for the still unnamed narrative. In 2010 the Library of America honored Ward’s achievements with the meticulous production of a collection of Ward’s woodcut novels—the first time the Library had gone wordless. The publication replicated his original editions with a single full-size image printed on the right page of each double-page spread. In his introduction to the books, renowned cartoonist/illustrator Art...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Mezzotint

Vintage Southwest (California?) Impressionist Painting, Lily S. Converse ca 1940
Located in Baltimore, MD
This is a very stylized Southwest landscape that appears to document a small church that existed at one time, perhaps in the Palm Springs or Santa Fe area. It is very reminiscent of...
Category

1940s American Modern Art

Materials

Oil

American Modern art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic American Modern art available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add art created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple, red and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Slim Aarons, Destro, Howard Schatz, and John Taylor Arms. Frequently made by artists working with Paint, and Oil Paint and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large American Modern art, so small editions measuring 0.25 inches across are also available.

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