Impressionist Art

Figurative illustration of people arriving at a church by Charles Kinghan (American, 1895-1984). The church is rendered with exquisite detail, typical ...

Gerald Coulson was an English painter in the mid to latter part of the 20th century. Gerald Coulson has been painting professionally for over 47 years ...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 27 x 33 Frame Size: 35 x 41 Medium: Oil On Canvas Late 1940s-Early 1950s "Bluebonnet Time" Texas Hill Country Landscape Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican-American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910 near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions. While a few of his early works have a soft, tonalist quality, with subtle gradations of sunset colors, most were painted in a style that fits well within the currents of the late American Impressionist style, with solid drawing and a warm, chromatic palette. Like Robert Wood's works of the 1930s, the paintings Salinas produced as a young man were usually well composed and detailed views of the spring wildflowers in full bloom in the Texas countryside. In contrast to Wood's work, however, early Salinas compositions were usually pure landscapes without the pioneer farms or dilapidated fences that Wood often used to add visual interest to his wildflower scenes, and he also painted scenes of San Antonio itself as his mentor Jose Arpa had done. To residents of the Hill Country, Salinas was especially adept at accurately capturing the palette of the region and its unique atmosphere. In 1939 Salinas began working with Dewey Bradford (1896-1985), one of the great characters of Texas art. Bradford was a second-generation dealer whose family operated the Bradford Paint Company in Austin, where they sold art supplies, framed artwork, restored paintings and exhibited paintings by Texas artists. Salinas was struggling when he met Bradford, but the older man took the young artist under his wing and began to sell his work reliably, even though the prices that people would pay for a painting were still low due to the lingering effects of the Great Depression. Bradford was a born salesman with a gift for storytelling, and truth be told, a bit of embroidery. The relationship between Bradford and Salinas was often rocky, but it was to last the rest of the artist's life and give him a modest sense of loyalty and security, things which are all too rare in the art world. While Bradford could be critical of his work, Salinas knew that he had a dealer who encouraged him, believed in him and was not shy about singing his praises to anyone who entered Bradford's store on Guadalupe Street. During the early years of World War II Salinas met a pretty Mexican woman from Guadalajara named Maria Bonillas, who was working as a secretary for the Mexican National Railways office in San Antonio. While he was walking downtown with a painting of a bullfighter under his arm, he started a conversation with the young woman, and things progressed rapidly. The couple were married on February 15, 1942 and settled into life in bi-lingual San Antonio and they eventually purchased a tidy stone home on Buena Vista street that had a detached studio in back. By the time the United States entered World War II, Salinas was starting to make a decent living selling his art and beginning to garner recognition across Texas. However, in 1943, like millions of other young men, he was drafted into the service of his country. Fortunately, as an older Army draftee with special talents, after his training he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, right in San Antonio, allowing him to remain at home while still completing his obligation to "Uncle Sam." Because of his artistic abilities, Salinas was asked to do paintings for the Army as well as a mural for the Officer's Club, which has been re-discovered in recent years. In his spare time he kept working on landscapes and when the war ended in 1945, he was not faced with the same rocky transition from military to civilian life as many veterans. That same year, Salinas became a father as he and Maria celebrated the birth of his only child, Christina Maria Salinas. Like most landscape artists of the era, Salinas was an avid Plein-air painter, and he took his easel and paint box with him on trips throughout Texas and into Mexico. He and his wife traveled deep into her native country, where the artist painted the majestic volcanic peaks of Iztaccihuatl (known as the "Sleeping Woman" because of its unique shape) and Popocatepetl (called the "smoking mountain" because the volcano is still active), south of Mexico City. Salinas also painted studies of rustic villages and their residents. While his most popular paintings were always the scenes of the Texas Bluebonnets and other wildflowers that bloom all over the Hill Country in the spring, he also painted scenes of the twisted Texas oak trees of central Texas, the more arid landscapes of the Texas panhandle and West Texas, and the historic Texas missions; he even sold rapidly executed scenes of bullfights and cockfights for Mexican-American collectors. By the late 1940s, the American economy was finally growing again and wealthier Texans began to collect Salinas paintings, purchasing them from galleries in San Antonio and Dallas and at Dewey Bradford's County Store Gallery in Austin. Salinas also sold work to the Atlanta dealer Dr. Carlton Palmer, who represented Robert W. Wood for many years. In 1948 Palmer sold two large Salinas paintings to the Citizen National Bank in Abilene, Texas. Because Austin was the state capitol, Bradford counted many of the state's elite among his patrons, and due to his interest in history and literature, he played a large role in the cultural history of central Texas. Bradford introduced a number of the major Texas political figures to Salinas' work, including Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973), who was then in the House of Representatives and on his way to winning a controversial election that vaulted him in the United States Senate. Johnson became an enthusiastic collector, as did his political mentor, the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882-1961). Johnson decorated his Washington offices with Salinas paintings and he brought a number of them home to his vast LBJ Ranch, near Johnson City, Texas. In spite of his important patrons, Salinas went through a fallow and difficult period in the late 1950s. He had a volatile temperament, which made relationships difficult, and it took great patience for his wife to help him manage his career. As Salinas entered middle age his work began to sell steadily, but except for tourists who purchased his paintings in San Antonio, he was known primarily only to Texas art collectors. All that changed in 1961 with the election of John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) to the Presidency of the United States and his running mate Lyndon Johnson to the Vice Presidency. Johnson was an expansive, larger-than-life character and his status as a long, tall Texan in a cowboy hat was a large part of his imposing political image. During his storied career in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson (1912-2007) spent their time in Washington in a modest house on the edge of Rock Creek Park, but this home would not do for a Vice President. So, in 1961, the Johnsons purchased a French chateau-styled home in the Spring Valley section of the Capitol. Obtained from the famed socialite and ambassador Perle Mesta (1889-1975), the house came with a fine collection of French furniture and tapestries, and the designer Genevieve Hendricks was hired to meld the French look with objects from the Johnsons' overseas travels and paintings of the flora and fauna of their native Texas. Featured prominently in the foyer were the paintings of Porfirio Salinas. Because of the Johnsons' patronage, his work was mentioned in Time Magazine and other national publications. Lady Bird Johnson loved her landscapes of the Texas Hill Country and told reporters that, "I want to see them when ever I open the door, to remind me where I come from." After President Kennedy's death thrust Lyndon Johnson into the Presidency, he brought his Salinas paintings into the historic halls of the White House, further enhaning the Texas painter's national reputation. At the time of the President Kennedy's assassination, Salinas had completed a scene of a horse drinking titled "Rocky Creek" that was to have been presented to Kennedy during his ill-fated visit to Dallas. Instead, in an effort to memorialize the fallen President, Salinas painted a symbolic work of a lone horse depicted against foreboding clouds. During his tenure in the White House, President Johnson presented a Salinas landscape as a state gift to the President of Mexico, Gustavo Diaz Ordaz (1911-1979). During the 1960s, Salinas paintings sold briskly and, thanks to Presidential patronage, for escalating prices. In an interview with a writer from the New York Times, President Johnson enthused about the work of "his favorite artist" and said that, "his work reminds me of the country around the ranch." Salinas was invited to the LBJ Ranch frequently during the Johnson administration and his paintings were hung throughout the ranch, in the President's offices and even in the private quarters of the White House. The connection to President Johnson was a great boon to sales of Salinas paintings, and in 1964, when the demand was at its height, Texas Governor John Connelly (1917-1993) was told that all Salinas'work was sold and that he would have to wait for a painting. In 1960, a half century after his birth, Salinas was honored by his home town of Bastrop, a celebration that touched the modest artist. In 1962 Salinas was given a solo exhibition at the Witte Museum in San Antonio that featured more than twenty of his works. By the early 1960s, sales of reproductions of the artist's landscapes by the New York Graphic Society and other publishers grew rapidly, enlarging his audience throughout the United States. In 1967, Dewey Bradford helped to organize the production of a book of Texas stories titled "Bluebonnets and Cactus" (Austin: Pemberton Press: 1967), which was profusely illustrated with paintings by Salinas. His works were still popular when Salinas died after a brief illness in April of 1973, just a few months after former President Johnson's passing. He was memorialized in the City of Austin by Porfirio Salinas Day, which honored him for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas together with his paintings." Bastrop, Texas, the city of the artist's birth, has been holding a Salinas Art Exhibition annually since 1981. He painted hundreds of scenes of the wildflowers, including the various varieties of Blue Lupin, the state flower, as well as other flowering flora. These show the influence of his artistic mentors Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa Y Perea. Salinas also painted a number of scenes of Prickly Pear Cactus that show the influence of the English painter Dawson Dawson-Watson (1864-1939), who painted many such works during his tenure in Texas. He painted the more arid Texas landscape infrequently and these works are very rare today and sought after by collectors from the Texas Panhandle and West Texas. Salinas also painted many river landscapes along the Guadalupe, Rio Frio, the San Antonio and the Rio Grande. On trips to his wife's homeland of Mexico, he painted a number of scenes of the volcanic peaks as well as scenes of peasant villages and villagers. Figurative paintings are rare among Salinas' works and these scenes of bullfights, fandangos and cock fights are probably the least sought after of his paintings. There are also a small number of modest marines, painted on trips to the Texas and California coast. Salinas paintings are highly prized by collectors of early Texas art, with the paintings of wildflowers in greatest demand. Works by Porfirio Salinas can be found in a number of public collections, including the Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas; the Texas State Capitol; the Texas Governor's Mansion; the Lyndon Baines Johnson Ranch; the Sam Rayburn Library and Museum in Bonham, Texas; Amarillo High School; the Witte Museum in San Antonio; the historic Joan and Price Daniel House in San Antonio; the Stark Museum in Orange, Texas; the R.W. Norton Art Gallery in Shreveport, Louisiana; the Sangre de Cristo Arts Center in Pueblo, Colorado; Texas A & M University and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Salinas has been featured in a number of reference works as well as anthologies devoted to American Western Art...

The Old Harbor by Georges Bordonave (French contemporary) signed with initials oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 15 x 21.75 inches condition: very good provenance: from a larg...

Very finely painted late 19th or early 20th century portrait painting. Oil on canvas. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a giltwood molding. Excellent conditio...

Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 8 x 10 Frame Size: 15.75 x 17.75 Medium: Oil "Bluebonnet Hills" Pedro Lazcano (1909-1970) I was always curious about Pedro La...

Nicely painted mid century impressionist oil painting by Kamil Kubik (1930 - 2011). Oil on board. Housed in a nice period impressionist frame. Signed.

1930s French Impressionist Barbizon School oil on panel view of a river gorge by Georges Guerin (1910-1984). The painting is signed bottom right and also signed top left to the back of the board. The painting is also titled and dated to the back of the board, 'Gorges de la Bourne, Pont en Royans, Aout 1937.' A very charming view of a river passing through a gorge and leading to a sunlit and colourful rocky cliff face. Guerin has achieved a wonderful play between light and shade, bright and sombre colours making it at once classical in interpretation and yet also modern and abstract. His technique of thick impasto technique worked with a brush is especially successful and gives the paintings surface a charming quality. Guerin is noted for his landscapes as well as for his Paris street scenes and views of the Brittany coast. The Gorges de la Bourne or Bourne Gorge is a canyon at the bottom of which flows the River Bourne. It connects Pont-en-Royans to Villard-de-Lans in...

Village Bridge scene by Ronald Birch, British circa 1970's watercolour on art paper, unframed overall paper measures: 14.75 x 19 inches *FREE SHIPPING ...

Antique American impressionist flower garden landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.

Highly impasto still life of brightly colored flowers in a vase by Doreen Gadsby (Australian, b. 1926). Signed "Gadsby" in lower right corner. Presented in a green wood frame. Image size: 44.25"H x 22.13"W Doreen Gadsby (Australian, b. 1928) was born to a farming family in Lismore, Australia, and later studied at East Sydney Technical College (now the National Art School) in Darlinghurst during World War II. As a young mother of four, she joined the same art club as Lloyd Rees and a 17-year-old Brett Whiteley...

"Bridge Over the Neckar, Town of Heidelberg" - Original Oil Painting on Canvas A beautiful German landscape, by American painter, Betty Brenner (1922-2016), captures the Karl Theodor Bridge and its reflection. Commonly known as the Old Bridge (Alte Brücke), it is an arch bridge in Heidelberg that crosses the Neckar river. It connects the Old City with the eastern part of the Neuenheim district of the city on the opposite bank. The current bridge, made of Neckar sandstone and the ninth built on the site, was constructed in 1788 by Elector Charles Theodore, and is one of the best-known landmarks and tourist destinations in Heidelberg. Brenner, Betty (American, 1922-2016) - Raised in Washington, Brenner attended Cornish School...

Title: French Coastal Oil Painting of Low Tide Shore Fishing with Sailboats and Figures By Fanch Lel Signed: Yes Size: 13.25 x 16.25 inches (height x width) Oil painting on board, un...

Nicely painted Italian seascape painting. Oil on board. Nicely framed. Signed.

Wilhelm Feldmann (1859 Lüneburg - 1932 Lübeck), Impressionist autumn landscape with lake, around 1905. Pastel on cardboard, 46 cm x 31 cm (inside dimension), 52 cm x 37 cm (frame), s...

A wonderful Impressionist winter pastoral scene of colorful quaint homes by the river. Willet has portrayed this piece in a most intimate, yet energetic way, and has packed much feel...

A very beautiful early 20th century impressionist oil on board still life depicting colourful anemones in a blue vase by Victor Simonin. This important and very fine work was exhib...

Gorgeous figurative landscape of a Carmel roadside grocer by Edda Maxwell Heath (American, 1874 - 1972). Signed and dated lower left corner. Presented in giltwood frame. Image, 20"H ...

Gorgeous turn of the 20th Century Mount Shasta landscape by Anna Carver Bingham (American, 1849 - 1924), 1901. Several deer gather around calm waters that...

Painting size w/o frame: 14”x16” Painting size with frame: 18”x20” Gianni Cilfone (1908–1992) captures the serene stillness of a snow-covered countryside.His brushwork brings a sens...

Very finely painted American impressionist fall landscape of Mt Denali in Alaska by Paul Lauritz (1889 - 1975). Oil on canvas. Excellent color and composition. Housed in a period...

Signed figurative oil on canvas circa 1915 by French neo-impressionist painter Achille Lauge. The piece depicts a view of a farmer sowing seeds in field on a bright spring day. Sign...

Floral Still Life signed and dated 94' by Fanch Lel (French b. 1930) Size: 11 x 9 inches Oil painting on board, unframed Condition: The painting is in good condition, with minor sign...

Gorgeous early 20th Century still life with classic autumnal fruit persimmons and a brown jug by A. Thompson (American 19th/20th Century), circa 1900. Signe...

English Farmhouse in Countryside Miniature Oil Painting by 20th Century Artist Art measures 6 x 2.5 inches Frame measures 12 x 8 inches Framed, Mounted, Signed, Unique Original ...

This artwork "California Coast" 1978 is an oil painting on hard board by noted California artist Robert Wee, 1927-2021. It is signed at the lower right corn...

Signed lower left, 'Nell Walker Warner' (American, 1891-1970) and painted circa 1925. Born in Nebraska, Nell Walker Warner graduated from Lexington, Missouri, Women's College in 191...

Charming Village Scene French, early 20th century watercolor on artist paper, framed in antique gilt frame framed: 14.5 x 12 inches artist paper : 9 x 6.5 inches Provenance: private ...

Serene depiction of an Ohlone Mother and Child walking a forest path by Anton Dahl (Swedish-American). Ohlone Mother and child are walking through the North...

Antique American impressionist oil painting portrait. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed.

Painterly, colorful impressionist painting of a tree lined path on a sunny hillside overlooking Monhegan Island, with distinctive residences for artists and visitors, in this beautiful Art Colony by Margaret Cox Herrick (American, 1865-1950). Signed by the artist lower right, "M. C. Herrick." Oil on canvas. Linen wrapped wood liner. Gilt wood frame. Image, 16"H x 14"W. Born in San Francisco, CA on June 24, 1865, the daughter of artist Wm F. Herrick. Margaret studied at the local School of Design under Virgil Williams, Emil Carlsen, and Arthur Mathews...

In this gilt wood framed oil on canvas waterscape, American Impressionist artist Harry Hoffman depicts the last moments of a morning sunrise over a river in predominant hues of lavender, purple, pink and blue. The sky is reflected in the water below with a sandy brown beach and large green tree in the foreground. Harry Leslie Hoffman was born in Cressona, a small community in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill Valley. His mother was an amateur artist who encouraged her son to pursue a career in the arts. In 1893, Hoffman entered the School of Art at Yale University and studied with John Ferguson Weir, the son of Robert Walter Weir. After graduation in 1897, Hoffman moved to New York to continue his studies at the Art Students League. He also traveled to Paris and took classes at the Académie Julien. In the summer of 1902, Hoffman attended the Lyme Summer School of Art, in the town of Old Lyme on the Connecticut coast. The school was headed by Frank Vincent Dumond and was located in a boarding house owned by Florence Griswold. The school eventually grew into an artists’ colony and a center for American Impressionism. When Hoffman first arrived as a student, he was not permitted to stay in the house which was designated for the professional artists only. However, his outgoing personality soon won him many friends at the colony. In 1905, Hoffman settled in Old Lyme and worked as a full member of the artist colony. He was particularly influenced by Willard Leroy Metcalf, an Impressionist also working in Old Lyme. Fellow artists later fondly recalled Hoffman’s antics at the Griswold house, which included playing the flute and banjo, tap-dancing, singing humorous songs, and performing magic tricks. In 1910, Hoffman married another Old Lyme artist named Beatrice Pope, and the couple had one child in 1921. Hoffman and his wife often escaped New England during the harsh winter months. In the winters of 1914 and 1915 he traveled to Savannah, Georgia with fellow Old Lyme artist William Chadwick...

Artist/ School: French School, early 20th century Title: Hendon Fields Medium: oil painting on board, unframed and inscribed verso painting: 5.25 x 8.25inches Provenance: privat...

Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) San Antonio Artist Image Size: 30 x 40 Frame Size: 39 x 49 Medium: Oil on Canvas Dated 1957 "Bluebonnet Creek" Texas Hill Country Biography Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) Porfirio Salinas was a self-taught artist who painted landscapes of Central Texas with an emphasis on the vast bluebonnet fields that grow there in the springtime. Born in 1910 in Bastrop, Texas, he attended public schools in San Antonio. He also observed works in progress by the director of the San Antonio Art School, Jose Arpa, as well as landscape painter, Robert Wood. Wood is said to have paid Salinas five dollars a picture to paint bluebonnets because "he hated to paint bluebonnets". Salinas served in the military from 1943 to 1945. Although he was assigned to Fort Sam Houston, he was allowed to live at home. At the fort, Colonel Telesphor Gottchalk assigned him to paint murals for the officer's lounge and various other projects, and Salinas continued to be able to paint during his entire conscripted period. Even before he achieved notoriety among galleries, dealers, and museums, Salinas was widely followed and appreciated by many Texans, including former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who may be considered responsible for launching Salinas popularity beyond the boundaries of Texas. In 1973, Texas capital, Austin, honored Salinas for having "done much to bring the culture of Mexico and Texas closer together with his paintings". Salinas died in April 1973 in San Antonio, Texas. From the years of the Great Depression through President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society of the 1960s, Texan Porfirio Salinas (1910-1973) remained one of the Lone Star State's most popular artists. Today, his works remain popular with Texas collectors and those who love landscapes of the beautiful "Hill Country" that lies in the center of the state. One of the first Mexican American painters to become widely recognized for his art, Salinas was a favorite of President Lyndon Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird Johnson, as well as of Sam Rayburn, the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Texas Governor John Connelly. In fact, President Johnson was so enamored with his Salinas paintings that the artist will forever be associated with America's first Texas-born President. Works by Porfirio Salinas are in a number of museum collections, grace the halls of the Texas State Capitol and the Governor's Mansion in Austin, and are included in virtually every major private collection of Early Texas Art. Porfirio Salinas was born on November 6, 1910, near the small town of Bastrop, Texas, about thirty miles from Austin. His father, Porfirio G. Salinas (1881-1967), and his mother, Clara G. Chavez, struggled to make a hardscrabble living as tenant farmers, but eventually were forced to give up farming. The family moved to San Antonio, where Salinas' father was able to get a job working as a laborer for the railroad, but the scenic area around Bastrop, with its pine trees and the wide expanse of the Rio Grande River, would forever remain a touchstone for the artist. For the rest of his life, Salinas and his brothers went back frequently to visit their grandmother in her little farmhouse. When in Bastrop, Porfirio painted on the banks of the Rio Grande or in the groves of pine trees. The Salinas family was close-knit and Porfirio was the middle child of five children, so he had an older brother and sister as well as a younger brother and sister. His mother was a native of Mexico, so throughout his childhood the family made the long drive to Mexico to visit Clara Salinas' family. As a child growing up in the bi-lingual section of San Antonio, Salinas drew and painted incessantly and by the time he was ten, he was already producing work that was mature enough to sell to his schoolteachers. Many years later in an article in the New York Times he was described as a "boy whose textbooks were seldom opened and whose sketchbook was never closed." Instead of studying, the young artist spent his spare time watching artists paint in and around San Antonio. As an aspiring painter, Salinas was fortunate to grow up in the historic city, which had the most active art scene in Texas. It was his exposure to older, professional painters that encouraged the precocious young painter to leave school early in order to help his family and pursue a career as a professional artist, despite his father's inability to see art as a career with any future for his son. When Salinas was about fifteen he came to know the artist Robert W. Wood (1889-1979). He met Wood while he was employed in an art supply store and he soon began to work as an assistant to the English-born painter, who had moved from Portland to San Antonio in 1924. Although the diminutive Englishman was already an established professional artist, he did not have a great deal of formal art training and so he was then studying with the academically trained Spanish painter Jose Arpa (1858-1952) in order to augment his knowledge and give his work a more polished look. Salinas was an eager young man, and while working in Wood's downtown San Antonio studio he learned to stretch canvases, frame paintings and to sketch in larger compositions from small plein-air studies for the English artist. He began to accompany Wood and Arpa to the hills outside San Antonio, where they painted small Plein-air studies of fields of blue lupin - the state flower, the famous "Bluebonnets" of Texas - in the springtime and scenes of the gnarled Red Oaks as they changed color in the fall. He was soon assisting Wood in the tedious work of painting the tiny blue flowers that collectors wanted to see in the landscapes they purchased of central Texas. According to a 1972 newspaper story, "Legend has it that one day in the 1920s artist Robert Wood decided he could not bear to paint another bluebonnet in one of his landscapes. He hired young Porfirio Salinas to paint them in for him at five dollars a painting." Whether this story is accurate or apocryphal isn't clear, but the ambitious and independent young Salinas wasn't destined to be anyone's assistant for very long. The formative event of Porfirio Salinas' teenage years was the Texas Wildflower Competitive Exhibitions, a Roaring-Twenties dream of the eccentric oilman Edgar B. Davis (1873-1951). These competitive shows of paintings of wildflowers and Texas life were mounted in San Antonio from 1927 to 1929. Held at the newly opened Witte Museum each spring, the exhibition featured large cash prizes donated by the philanthropic Davis, which were an inducement for artists to travel from all over the United States to paint in the Hill Country of Texas. The "Davis Competitions," as they were known, helped to cement San Antonio's reputation as an art center, a legacy that remains with the "River City" today. The shows generated a great deal of excitement in the area, helping to make celebrities of the some of the artists who had already settled there and encouraging others to make San Antonio their home. Over the three years that the wildflower competitions were held, more than 300 paintings were exhibited, and many thousands of viewers saw the paintings at the Witte Museum and on tours throughout the state and in New York. Each year Davis would generously purchase the winning paintings and then donate them to the San Antonio Art League. Young Porfirio Salinas would have been able to not only watch his two mentors - Robert W. Wood and Jose Arpa - paint the works that they entered in the Davis Competitions, he would have been able to see Arpa take several of the major prizes, receiving the judge's accolades for "Verbena," "Cactus Flower" and "Picking Cotton," works that are still on view at the San Antonio Art League Museum today. Unfortunately, Davis eventually put his donations to work in other charitable endeavors, bringing to an end the wildflower events, but only after they inspired Salinas and other young painters and had helped to make wildflower paintings the most sought-after subject for traditionalist Texas collectors. In 1930, when he was only twenty, Salinas hung out a shingle and began to paint professionally, augmenting the sales of his easel paintings with what little business he could garner by painting signs for local concerns. It was a struggle for the young artist to make a living, as the effects of the Great Depression were settling in. His early works are very similar to those of Robert Wood's, both in subject matter and treatment. Salinas did small paintings of Bluebonnets for the tourists who visited San Antonio to see the famous Alamo as well as paintings of the Texas missions...

Very finely painted winter impressionist landscape by Allen Dean Cochran (1888 - 1971). Oil on canvas. Housed in a spectacular, period, gold giltwood frame. Signed.

Artist: Henry Sené (French, 1889-1961) Title: By the River Date: 1916 Medium: Oil on thick paper Dimensions: 14 x 9 cm l 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. Frame: 20 x 15 cm l 7 7/8 x 5 9/10 in. Sign...

St. Tropez French, circa 1973 indistinctly signed oil on canvas, unframed Canvas : 21.5 x 26 inches Provenance: private collection, Nice, France Condition: very good condition Descr...

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Impressive early American impressionist landscape painting. Oil on board. Housed in a period impressionist giltwood frame. Excellent condition.

A beautiful mid 20th century Italian oil on board depicting market day in an old town. Superbly painted work with lovely impasto brushwork. Indis...

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Artist/ School: French School, 20th century Title: The Golden Sunlit Pathway Medium: oil painting on canvas, unframed canvas: 21.5 x 18 inches Provenance: private collection, Fr...

Luminoso quadro con fiori azzurri in un prato primaverile 1978 GLEB SAVINOV (Charkev, 1915 – San Pietroburgo, 2000) Le opere di Gleb Savinov si trovano in varie collezioni private ...

A very beautiful 1930's impressionist oil on board depicting the beach at Locmariaquer in Brittany, France by the important Dutch painter Willem van Hasselt. The work has exceptiona...

The Late HM Queen Elizabeth II Edne G. Simpson, British 20th century signed oil on canvas, unframed painting: 24 x 20 inches provenance: private col...

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Laimonis Bubieris (1934-2012), Two flowering trees, cardboard/oil, 25x36.5 cm

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Up for sale is an original antique oil painting on canvas by Famous German - American Artist Fedor Encke, depicting a portrait of a Gentlemen dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and...

Early American impressionist landscape painting. Framed. Possibly signed verso. Oil on board.

Antique American impressionist seascape beach scene oil painting. Oil on board. No signature found. Framed. Image size, 18L x 14H.

Title: French Village Church Tower Oil Painting with Dramatic Sky and Earthy Palette By Fanch Lel Size: 15 x 18 inches (height x width) Oil painting on board, unframed Condition: The...

Signed lower right indistinctly, ( A.B. Delarova? ) and dated, '68''. Inscribed verso, 'Manila, Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception viewed from General Luna Street'. A deftly-painted, tonalist oil painting showing of this elegant section of Manila with the silhouette of the dome of the cathedral as viewed from the far end General Luna Street. This minor basilica (Catedral Metropolitana de la Inmaculada Concepción), also known as Manila Cathedral, is located in Intramuros, the historic walled city located in the heart of today's modern city of Manila. It is dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary...

Title: French Impressionist Oil Painting of Honfleur Harbor Scene By Fanch Lel (French b. 1930) Size: 5.75 x 7.75 inches (height x width) Signed: Yes Oil painting on board, unframed ...

Reflections of Venetian Splendor by Georges Bordonave (French contemporary) signed oil painting on canvas, unframed dated 1984 canvas: 21.5 x 26 inches condition: very good provenanc...

An exquisite oil painting by renown artist Antoine Blanchards depicting the French street scene Les Grands Boulevards et La Porte Saint Denis. Th...