Post-War Art

This mid-20th-century nocturne by Swedish artist Lennart Jacobson depicts an elevated urban view, perhaps in Stockholm. The title ‘April Evening’ suggests a tranquil landscape bathe...

THOMAS HART BENTON (American, 1889-1975) "Instruction", 1940 Lithograph on paper 10-1/4 x 12-1/4 inches (26.0 x 31.1 cm) (image) Ed. 250 Signed in lower right margin: Benton Published by Associated American Artists, New York LITERATURE: Fath 41, The Lithographs of Thomas Hart Benton, Austin, and London, 1969 and 1979, no. 41, p. 102, illus. p. 103. The artwork is in excellent condition. Named after his great-uncle, a five-term senator, Thomas Hart Benton was born on April 15, 1889, in Neosho, Missouri. His father, Maecenus Eason Benton, was a lawyer and a United States representative from 1896 to 1904, so the young Benton spent his early years in both Washington, DC, and southwest Missouri. Benton dropped out of high school at 17 and started working as a cartoonist for the Joplin American newspaper. His mother, Elizabeth Wise Benton, was supportive of his artistic ambitions, but Benton’s father enrolled him in the Western Military Academy in Alton, Illinois, in 1906 before agreeing to allow him to attend the Art Institute of Chicago in 1907. The following year Benton traveled to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian. There he met California artist Stanton Macdonald-Wright (American, 1890 - 1973) and began to experiment with Macdonald-Wright’s synchromist style of abstract painting. In 1911 he returned to the United States and settled in New York. He taught briefly at the Chelsea Neighborhood Association, where he met his future wife, Rita Piacenza, one of his students. During World War I Benton served at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, where he made illustrations for a catalog of ships and military equipment. After the war Benton went back to New York, and in 1922 he married Piacenza. The couple was married for 53 years and had two children. They regularly spent summers on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Benton’s work until the early 1920s was generally modernist and often abstract. In 1924, however, Benton traveled to Missouri to see his sick father. Returning to his home state inspired him to reclaim his midwestern roots and break with modernism, focusing instead on American rural subjects such as life in steel mills, logging camps, coal mines, and cotton fields. Because of his leftist political leanings he championed working class people and represented them as heroes in his paintings and murals. Benton began to paint in a naturalistic style that was influenced by the Spanish master El Greco (Greek, 1541 - 1614), and he became known as the most innovative practitioner of mural painting in a decade of great importance for this medium in America. He completed monumental mural...

ARTIST: Appears Unsigned (mid 20th Century) British TITLE: “Portrait Of A Lady Dressed In Green Shirt" SIGNED: appears unsigned MEDIUM: oil on canvas SIZE: cm x cm inc frame CO...

Mid Century Parisian Cityscape, street view, by noted Spanish artist Alejo Vidal-Quadras. The painting is signed and dated bottom right and is presented in a period wood frame. An original exhibition label with the title is front, bottom centre. There are also various other exhibition labels to the rear panel including one for the Mirador Galerie d'Art, 17 Place Vendome Paris. A really spectacular street view of a typical Parisian building, apartments and shops, with all its various residents. Full of colour and character capturing everyday Parisian life in the 1940's but full of wit and charm. The painting is full of the artist's observations, each time one takes a look another charming detail is revealed, the shop sign, the dog, the washing...... Vidal-Quadras painted this work upon his return to Paris from South America in 1947 and it may have been part of his highly successful exhibition in 1949 which launched his European career and led to such international reknown. It was also apparently shown in 1953 at a Spanish American exhibition. This is an important painting in the oeuvre of the artist. Alejo Vidal-Quadras Veiga was born on April 12, 1919, in the upper bourgeoisie of Barcelona, Spain. Alejo and his elder brother Francisco Javier Vidal-Quadras Veiga receive a highly disciplined education. In 1924 their parents Javier Vidal-Quadras y Villavecchia and Pilar Veiga de la Cuesta, move with them to France. Alejo is eleven years old when they return to Spain. At school, Alejo is recognized for his artistic talents. During his classes he draws caricatures of his teachers. On his mother’s advice he joins the painting classes of José Maria Vidal-Quadras, his uncle and a portraitist of great Catalan families. Alejo is an immediate stand out, his spectacular progress marks him as a true artist. Felipe Bertran Güell, a relative of the Vidal-Quadras, commissions from the young man a series of pen and...

Visage noir, Edition, Picasso, 1940's, Design, Interior, Portrait, Character Visage noir Ed. 100 pcs 1948 White earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, knife engraved under glaze D...

Visage noir, Pablo Picasso, Edition, 1940's, Earthenware, Portrait, Ceramic Visage noir Ed. 100 pcs 1948 White earthenware clay, decoration in engobes, knife engraved under glaze D....

Oil on artist board paying by K. John Hansen. Signed lower right. Condition: Good. Framed in contemporary gold leaf frame 16 by 20 inches overall.

An abstract painting by Hans Hofmann. "The Chair" is an oil on panel, abstract painting executed in bright yellows, lime green, blues, violets and oranges b...

"Cote D'Azur" is an original color lithograph of the French Riviera created by the artist TAL for the Societe Nationale des Chemis de fer Francais, the French National Rail...

"Lourdes (Societe Nationale des Chemis de fer Francais)" is a signed original color lithograph by Herve Baille. It depicts a ray of bright light hitting a castle in the val...

Reclining nude graphite pencil drawing by Javier Vilató (Spain, 1921-2000). Signed and dated "10-1949" lower left corner. Presented with an archival mat and backing. Art has undergo...