Adaa Art Dealers Association Of America

It is infrequent, to say the least, that a diagnosis of tuberculosis proves fortuitous, but that was the event, in 1921, that set Paul Starrett Sample on the road to becoming a professional artist. (The best source for an overview of Sample’s life and oeuvre remains Paul Sample: Painter of the American Scene, exhib. cat., [Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, 1988] with a detailed and definitive chronology by Sample scholar, Paula F. Glick, and an essay by Robert L. McGrath. It is the source for this essay unless otherwise indicated.) Sample, born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1896 to a construction engineer and his wife, spent his childhood moving with his family to the various locations that his father’s work took them. By 1911, the family had landed in Glencoe, Illinois, settling long enough for Paul to graduate from New Trier High School in 1916. Sample enrolled at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where his interests were anything but academic. His enthusiasms included the football and basketball teams, boxing, pledging at a fraternity, and learning to play the saxophone. After the United States entered World War I, Sample, to his family’s dismay, signed on for the Naval Reserve, leading directly to a hiatus from Dartmouth. In 1918 and 1919, Sample served in the U.S. Merchant Marine where he earned a third mate’s license and seriously contemplated life as a sailor. Acceding to parental pressure, he returned to Dartmouth, graduating in 1921. Sample’s undergraduate life revolved around sports and a jazz band he formed with his brother, Donald, two years younger and also a Dartmouth student. In November 1933, Sample summarized his life in a letter he wrote introducing himself to Frederick Newlin Price, founder of Ferargil Galleries, who would become his New York art dealer. The artist characterized his undergraduate years as spent “wasting my time intensively.” He told Price that that “I took an art appreciation course and slept thru it every day” (Ferargil Galleries Records, circa 1900–63, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, available on line). In 1920, Donald Sample contracted tuberculosis. He went for treatment to the world-famous Trudeau Sanitorium at Saranac Lake, in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains for the prescribed regimen of rest, healthful food, and fresh air. Visiting his brother in 1921, Paul also contracted the disease. Tuberculosis is highly contagious, and had no certain cure before the development of streptomycin in 1946. Even for patients who appeared to have recovered, there was a significant rate of recurrence. Thus, in his letter to Price, Sample avoided the stigma conjured by naming the disease, but wrote “I had a relapse with a bad lung and spent the next four years hospitalized in Saranac Lake.” The stringent physical restrictions imposed by adherence to “the cure” required Sample to cultivate an alternate set of interests. He read voraciously and, at the suggestion of his physician, contacted the husband of a fellow patient for instruction in art. That artist, then living in Saranac, was Jonas Lie (1880–1940), a prominent Norwegian-American painter and an associate academician at the National Academy of Design. Lie had gained renown for his dramatic 1913 series of paintings documenting the construction of the Panama Canal (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; United States Military Academy, West Point, New York). Primarily a landscape artist, Lie had a particular affinity for scenes with water. His paintings, impressionistic, atmospheric, and brushy, never strayed from a realistic rendering of his subject. Sample regarded Lie as a mentor and retained a lifelong reverence for his teacher. Sample’s early paintings very much reflect Lie’s influence. ` In 1925, “cured,” Sample left Saranac Lake for what proved to be a brief stay in New York City, where his veteran’s benefits financed a commercial art course. The family, however, had moved to California, in the futile hope that the climate would benefit Donald. Sample joined them and after Donald’s death, remained in California, taking classes at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. In Sample’s account to Price, “I couldn’t stomach the practice of painting a lot of High Sierras and desert flowers which seemed to be the only kind of pictures that were sold here so I got a job teaching drawing and painting at the art school of the University of Southern California.” Initially hired as a part-time instructor, Sample progressed to full-time status and ultimately, by the mid-1930s, to the post of Chairman of the Fine Art Department. Sample, however, did not want to wind up as a professor. “Teaching is all right in small doses,” he wrote, “but I have a horror of drifting into being a college professor and nothing more.” At the same time as he taught, Sample began to exhibit his work in a variety of venues at first locally, then nationally. Though he confessed himself “a terrible salesman,” and though occupied with continued learning and teaching, Sample was nonetheless, ambitious. In 1927, he wrote in his diary, “I am eventually going to be a painter and a damned good one. And what is more, I am going to make money at it” (as quoted by Glick, p. 15). In 1928, Sample felt sufficiently solvent to marry his long-time love, Sylvia Howland, who had also been a patient at Saranac Lake. The Howland family were rooted New Englanders and in summertime the Samples regularly traveled East for family reunion vacations. While the 1930s brought serious hardship to many artists, for Paul Sample it was a decade of success. Buttressed by the financial safety net of his teacher’s salary, he painted realist depictions of the American scene. While his work addressed depression-era conditions with a sympathetic eye, Sample avoided the anger and tinge of bitterness that characterized much contemporary realist art. Beginning in 1930, Sample began to exhibit regularly in juried exhibitions at important national venues, garnering prizes along the way. In 1930, Inner Harbor won an honorable mention in the Annual Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago. That same year Sample was also represented in a show at the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo and at the Biennial Exhibition of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In 1931, Dairy Ranch won the second Hallgarten Prize at the Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, in New York. Sample also made his first appearances at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, and The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In 1936, Miner’s Resting won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy’s Annual Exhibition. Always interested in watercolor, in 1936, Sample began to send works on paper to exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, New York. While participating in juried exhibitions, Sample also cultivated commercial possibilities. His first New York art dealer was the prestigious Macbeth Gallery in New York, which included his work in a November 1931 exhibition. In 1934, Sample joined the Ferargil Galleries in New York, after Fred Price arranged the sale of Sample’s Church Supper to the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1937, The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased Sample’s Janitor’s Holiday from the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design, a notable honor. As prestigious as this exhibition schedule may have been, by far Sample’s most visible presence in the 1930s and 1940s was the result of his relationship with Henry Luce’s burgeoning publishing empire, Time, Inc. Sample’s first contribution to a Luce publication appears to have been another San Pedro...

Late 19th century very unique English side chair in solid oak with carved back in floral motif. Two long vertical open slats (one to each side of the back) add to the unique design o...

American hardwood fire surround is nicely carved, with floral decor, raised relief and a pair of fluted ionic columns on each side beneath the mantel. The finish has been "marbelized...

Image size: 24 x 12 inches Edition of 30

2009, color woodblock print on Hahnemuhle paper, 31 1/4 x 30 1/2 inches, edition of 30

Sammallahti describes himself as a nomad who enjoys the nature of the great north: the darkness, the cold, and the sea. Sammallahti is a master craftsman, carefully toning his prints...

The mark on the underneath (see image) indicates that this spittoon is of Japanese Imari porcelain, manufactured circa 1880, and made specifically for the American market for the preponderance of bars and saloons at that time. These were popular from 1865 to the turn of the century; this is a particularly fancy and elaborate example. Note the copious and highly detailed and beautiful floral decoration to the inside of the upper portion of the spittoon; pretty fancy for something meant for spit and saliva! Fantastic and all original condition with no cracks, no chips and very bright paint in sharp colors of blue rust and pink, and meticulously painted in a floral pattern. Several of these would have been “stationed” in strategic places within a saloon. This is a wonderful piece of porcelain, and quality item of saloon and Western United States history...

mounted to 15 x 18 matte signed, titled and dated in pencil on mount

fine quality circa 1900 carved and hand painted canoe, indigenous to the Pacific Northwest Indians and attributed to the Nootka (Nuu Chah Nult...

ceramic vessel with semi-matte silver plated brass and matte acrylic crown

This listing includes framing ($1,750 value) and a 14-day return policy. Shipping will be charged at cost with a white glove delivery service. Also available for local pick up at our New York City gallery. The Way of Ishq (2019) by Karen Knorr. Archival pigment print Image size: 48 x 60 inches Frame Size: 52 x 64 inches framed Edition 2 of 5 Signed, with certificate of authenticity Artist Biography - While Knorr’s images take some of their inspiration from the Indian tradition of personifying animals in literature and art, there is another almost subconscious strain to her work. Going back to the time of cave painting we see that these early visual artists not only recorded their lives and surroundings, but used art to express themselves. The depiction of animals in symbolic and powerful ways and the urge to create these images with the best tools at hand is a line stretching from these unnamed cave painters to Karen Knorr. Playfully combining technologies and genres, Knorr mixes digital...

Human and Animal Locomotion. Plate 49. "Walking and turning around rapidly, a satchel in one hand, cane in the other." 14 x 20 inch original collot...

Charming child's diminutive needlepoint on linen, American sampler, measuring 10" x 10"; incorporating the proverbial 26 letters of the alphabet and t...

Ink, colored marker on paper

Marker on paper

Charming American Sampler by "Clara R. Nolan"; well made, bright and colorful, with an intricate needlepoint floral rose petal border in colors of red...

Publisher: Leo Castelli Gallery, New York Signed in pencil, lower margin

Lane Timothy was born and raised in the small town of Missoula, Montana where at a very young age he discovered a love of art. Lane sold his first paintin...

There is a quiet sophistication in Milt Kobayashi’s painted canvases, summoning a pensive, ethereal feeling in the viewer. Kobayashi’s subjects are people from another time and place...

30 x 40 inch type-c print. Edition 25. Signed, titled, dated and editioned on frame label. Other sizes available - please inquire. For more than thirty years, David Graham, has produced photographic images infused with both compassion and humor, as he has documented the homes we have built, our lives both public and private, and a purely American expression of “freedom.” Graham was born in Abington, Pennsylvania, in 1952. He received a BA from The University of the Arts, and his MFA from the Tyler School of Art, both in Philadelphia. He studied under Ray K. Metzker and Will Larson, and was mentored by Emmet...

Listing includes free shipping in the US and Europe, framing with UV plexi and a 14-day return policy. Equivalent to a ~$550 or 10% discount. Ships from our New York gallery. Christopher Anderson...

Hand held 19th century fan, circa 1880 is of European manufacture; probably French, and has seven hand painted floral bouquet designs in pretty color...

Listings includes free express shipping for unframed print to the continental US and a 14-day return policy. Local pick up available from our Los Angeles gallery. Framing is +$250. Lloyd Ziff Robert Mapplethorpe and Pattie Smith. Brooklyn, 1968 14 x 11 inch gelatin silver print Edition of 10 Signed on and editioned on the front. Artist Biography - Lloyd Ziff is best known as the award-winning art director of several national magazines, including Vanity Fair, House & Garden, Condé Nast Traveler, and Rolling Stone. However, throughout his life photography has been his great passion. From the early 1960s onwards Ziff was rarely without a camera and among the many subjects he photographed were the young Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith. As Ziff recalls: “My last semester at Pratt Institute I happened to take a photography course although my major was graphic design. The magic of the dark room seduced me and I soon was shooting black and white photographs of Brooklyn, New York City, and of my friends. Robert and I were both in the class of 1967, and although we weren’t particularly close, I believe we recognized in each other something we probably couldn’t put into words at the time. In 1968 Robert was living with Patti in a little apartment near mine in Clinton Hill...

15 x 15 archival pigment print (image size 14 x 14 inches), edition 8. Signed, titled, dated and editioned on frame label provided. Framing also available at an additional cost. In ...

Peacock green cut-glass decanter English, circa 1840. Glass, blown and cut. Measures: 13 1/2 in. high. Condition: Perfect, except for minor flakes on the bottom of stopper.   

Listing includes framing with UV plexiglas, free shipping and a 14 day return policy. Lora Webb Nichols 15 x 12 inch gelatin silver print Image Size: 14 x 8.5 inches frame size: 22.5 x 17.5 x 2 inches Edition of 15 Lora Webb Nichols was born in 1883 and grew up in the small mining town of Encampment, Wyoming. At the age of 16 Lora received her first camera and from that moment and for the next few decades she produced work that is both stunning in its singular voice and revealing in the world it opens up for us. At first Nichols photographed her family, friends, and the landscape around Encampment, but when the town experienced a copper mining boom Nichols expanded her scope to become a photographer for hire shooting portraits and industrial photographs. When the boom collapsed, Nichols took the risk of opening her own business in Encampment - The Rocky Mountain Studio - which opened in 1925. The studio ran for ten years, accumulating 24,000 negatives that illustrate the lives and environment of the people living in and around the town while creating a distinctive and surprising body of work. If one was to attempt an analogy – Nichols’ pictures fit somewhere between Lartigue and Lange - joyful and generous while objectively intimate. In particular what seems to distinguish Nichols’ work is the way she sees the world from a female perspective. As Vince Aletti...

15 x 15 archival pigment print (image size 14 x 14 inches), edition 8. Signed, titled, dated and editioned on frame label provided. Framing also available at an additional cost. In ...

Nice mellow patina on this 18th century English mahogany tea caddy with three interior compartments. Two end sections have incised geometric carved lids. Tapered all around from top ...

Lightly worn and in very good condition, these lady's cowboy boots were manufactured by the world famous boot maker "Corral", located in Leon Guanajuato, Mexico; renowned for high quality exotic cowboy boots for women. Featured in "Cowgirl Magazine" Corral boots...

Lovely American Sampler with family register by "Julia Ellen Painter aged 9 Years Old" under the tutelage of "Sarah Potter Plymouth" with the date sti...

Pair of matching crystal perfume bottles resting in a fitted "jeweled" gold gilt casket; resting on a highly decorated mirrored tray. The maker is E. & J. Bass (marked "E. & J. B."); a manufacturer of luxury high quality items located in New York City from from 1890 to 1930. They went out of business when the Depression kicked in. They were known for their jeweled embellished ornamentation, such as this example; with this nicely appointed perfume vanity set...

Photograph, mounted on cardboard folded in the middle, 10 x 16 1/2“ (25,5 x 42 cm), Ed. 200, signed and numbered

Offset lithograph on perforated paper Edition of 200

"Knockout Champs" was manufactured by Louis Marx & Co. in New York, circa 1930. The toy is made of lithographed tin, the boxers are hand-painted celluloid, and the rope around the ri...

9-color silkscreen print on plexiglass, 5 x 12” (12,5 x 31cm) Printed by Atelier für Siebdruck, Lorenz Boegli, Zurich Ed. 45/XX, signed and numbered certificate

Oil on panel

Typical model dugout canoe carved by the Nootka or Makah Indian tribe of the Pacific Northwest Coastal region of Vancouver Island or the lower mainland of British Columbia. The India...

Art Deco ladies traveling necessaire ensemble consisting of 13 implements for grooming, contained in a hard cardboard green branch decorated traveling case. The grooming implements a...

This hard to find ensemble consists of a uniquely configured 18th century Georgian night cupboard circa 1770, and a six piece Victorian Mason's Ironstone toiletry set for washing and toiletry needs, circa 1835. The washstand conveniently accommodates all of the pieces from the Mason's set in their appropriate compartments as if it was specifically made for the grouping (see images). The Georgian mahogany washstand features the original slide up and adjustable mirror (tilts back and forth); two top fold out compartments, one to each side, to hold grooming articles (hand mirror, toothbrush, etc); a closed door cupboard to store a chamber pot with additional storage on shelf below for additional chamber pot; and a slide out drawer to keep toiletry necessities and medications. Shelf below has circular center with "fiddle" splayed stretchers to join the four legs, which end in brass castors. Original Georgian handles to the sides and drawer pulls completes the decoration. Condition is all original with original mahogany finish. There are some areas readily observable where the wood has separated "in the field" due to shrinkage (see images). Each side and the back of the cupboard reveals two cracks each to the panels ranging in length of 4" to 18" (the one in back). There is also a small 1" cross crack to the stretcher below and a 4" crack to the frame which holds the washstand (see image). The joints are fine and the cupboard is very sturdy. Washstand cupboards were utilitarian in nature and subject to much abuse; consequently not unusual to have some losses here and there, especially after 250 years. Georgian washstand...

10-color silkscreen print on Velin d'Arches Noir 250 gm2, 50 x 50 cm /19 11/16 x 19 11/16", printed by Atelier für Siebdruck Lorenz Boegli Edition of 35/XX/10 APs, signed and numbere...

Two-color silkscreen on Arches, 20 x 24” (50,7 x 60,4 cm), in wooden frame, 20 3/4 x 24 3/4” (54,4 x 64,5 cm), printed by Atelier für Siebdruck, Lorenz Boegli, Zurich, Ed. 60/XX, sig...

Listing includes framing with UV Plexi, free shipping to the continental US, and a 14-day return policy. This is also available for local pick up at our New York City location. Kr...

Brice Marden Distant Muses 2000 Screenprint 23 1/2 x 19 1/8 inches; 60 x 49 cm Edition of 300 Signed, dated, and numbered in graphite (lower recto) Frame available upon request Available from Matthew Marks...

1996, from a set of 5 color aquatints, 29 x 23 1/4 inches, edition of 25

These painting clocks are very rare, especially containing the music box. Of Austrian manufacture circa 1820-1830, this Biedermeier picture (painting) clock is a naive and charming oil painting on metal, which depicts nine people dressed in colorful period clothes at various activities; a woman with her child and carrying fruit in a basket atop her head, two young lovers, a man in a boat, another man walking with his dog, while still another gentleman leaves the town hall. A woman at the window...

SAPERE AUDE. Dare to be wise. Immanuel Kant’s directive is embodied in the work of David Ligare. For thirty-five years, Ligare has dedicated his work to Classicist ideals: Truth, Bea...

Charming pair of porcelain white seated Bulldogs holding a pair of puppies each from their mouth in a straw basket with a blue bow around their necks; mounted on a blue base. Conditi...

Hand made Folk Art American wire metal and painted wood birdcage, probably from Pennsylvania circa 1905. Having a rectangular body with a dome top; suitable for hanging, or surface decorative presentation, this birdcage is functional albeit it lacks a perch. The single door entry/exit is spring loaded, and there is a metal slide out removable tray at the bottom. The tole painting...

Kobe Toys are very mysterious and not much is known about them. They were created and hand made during the Meiji period in Japan, which covered the years 1868...

This is a very rare toy that I have not seen an example of before, and judging by it's action and appearance, I would venture to say it is post war, probably made in Japan for the American market (boy looks very American). I have called it "Smiling Boy Polishing Boots" which resembles the clockwork movement. To operate: hold the toy in the left hand with thumb on chest and then; wind up attached original key with the right hand several times; and release. With a smiling face, the boy will roll his head back and forth, while diligently shining his black boots, using an up and down motion with his right hand. The toy works quite well and will go on for some time. It is made up of several materials. The head, hands, and shoes are made of composition; it has a tin body; the clothes jersey, hat, and "falling" trousers" are made of fabric. The toy is in good original condition; some wear to boy's hat and jersey in back (see images), a slight "bend" to tinplate in the rear; but for the most part, the toy is very sturdy, works well, has a nice appearance, and wonderful charisma. This is a charming rare toy that operates as it should, and is a "must have" for collectors of post-war vintage wind up toys...

Made of soft, smooth, rayon and with an authentic sewn in on three sides "Diamond Head Sportswear" label, this vintage Hawaiian shirt is from t...

This is a hand carved wood prototype for a toy that would have been the model for a 19th century cast iron or tin horse drawn hansom cab. It precedes the mol...

Valerie B Hird NEW MEDIA, 2020 wood, screws, foamcore, paper, watercolor, ink, electrical wire, LEDs, batteries 28 x 14 x 6 1/2 in. 71.1 x 35.6 x 16.5 cm. When the handle is tur...

Jasper Johns Untitled 2010 Intaglio on Revere Standard White 19 x 21 1/2 inches 48 x 55 cm Edition of 50 Signed, dated, and numbered in graphite (lower recto) Frame available upon request Available from Matthew Marks Gallery...

Listing includes framing with UV plexi ($1,000 value), free shipping for the continental US and a 14 day return policy. Also available for local pick up at our New York City galler...

From a photography collection are two items included in this listing, for the collector of photographic memorabelia. In it's original tapered brown leather carry case is a miniature ...

LESLEY DILL SMALL POEM DRESS, 1993 lithograph on Hindi newsprint 10 x 3 x 2 in. 25.4 x 7.6 x 5.1 cm. edition of 10 image may be slightly different. Please request exact image if int...

Toy Noah’s Arks for children to play with were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th century, and Germany was very prolific in their production. This particular ark is all ori...

James Turrell Corrected RC Site Plan, 1988/92 Ink on printed paper 35 x 45

Terrell James The Body and Language, 2021 Oil on linen 42 x 42 in (106.7 x 106.7 cm)