Ifpda International Fine Print Dealers Association Animal Drawings and Watercolors

DIANA THORNE (1895-1963) ROUGHY’S CHRISTMAS c. 1936 Original pen & ink illustration on board. Signed in ink lower right. Image 19 1/4 x 14 ½”. Diana Thorne is well known for her depiction and illustrations of dogs. Her dog etchings are highly collectable. Please see the Diana Thorne etching listing below also on 1stdibs sold by this dealer LU411310493262 "At Your Service" The following biography is by Frank J. Leskovitz ©1995-2022 Diana Thorne was born Ann Woursell on October 7, 1895 in Odessa, Russia. (Some evidence indicates that she may have actually been born in 1894.) In her youth, Thorne spent time in Winnipeg, Canada and later on a farm in Calgary, Canada. She was to eventually become one of America's most recognized canine artists. Thorne began drawing all her favorite four-legged creatures as a young child. She was the oldest child in a Jewish family of four girls and two boys. Her siblings were Abraham, Paula, Judith, Samuel, and Katherine. Thorne's parents were Chaim and Rose Woursell. During this period, Jews in Russia were experiencing severe oppression and physical attacks. The situation seemed hopeless. Canada opened its doors to immigrants fleeing Russia, offering free homestead land in the West. The family left Canada for Germany around 1912 where Thorne took her first formal art studies at the Imperial Academy in Munich and Charlottenburg Technical College in Berlin. The First World War began two years later and Thorne and her family were subsequently detained by the German government. They managed to escape to England, where Thorne was said to have supported herself as a reporter, librarian, writer, bicycle shop owner, and typewriter repair person. At this time she began her first experiments in both illustration and etching and was said to have studied with artist William Strang. On September 27, 1920, Thorne and several of her family members arrived in the United States. Her first published etching, titled "Rollin' Home", was well received in 1926. From this point on, she became an established artist. Thorne began commercial artwork in New York City in 1929. In her private life, she was known as Mrs. Arthur North, claiming to reside at times in Boston, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or Connecticut. (The pseudonym Thorne originated from an anagram of the name North.) There is evidence that Arthur North was actually an alias of artist Carton Moore-Park (1877-1956). This ruse allowed Thorne and Moore-Park to present themselves as a married couple, even though Moore-Park was already married. Frequently, biographies of the artist are filled with inaccuracies supplied by Thorne herself, such as referring to her father as a Scotsman or claiming to be Canadian born, which served to conceal the true details of her past. The author-illustrator of more than forty books and illustrator of more than fifty, Thorne's main reason for success was a total dedication to her drawing and a deep love for her subject matter. A sportswoman and owner of dogs herself, Thorne illustrated (and often authored) children's books dealing with dogs and animal life. Thorne's longtime publisher was the Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, Ohio, once a leading publisher of children's literature and paper novelties. In her etchings of dogs, Thorne had the ability to show motion and action. A combination of whirling lines with solid lines and light and dark tones brings to the viewer's eyes the dog in motion. Thorne’s dog etchings are admired because they capture the humor and energy transpired by man and dog. In addition to dog etchings, she is also known for a series of socially sensitive etchings published in a 1928 portfolio, "The Human Comedy". Thorne also executed a series of popular sports etchings featuring topics such as skiing and boxing which were characterized by multiple images engraved on the same plate. Very much in demand as an animal portrait painter, Thorne illustrated some of the most famous dogs in America, including Franklin D. Roosevelt's Scottie "Fala" and Admiral Richard E. Byrd's "Igloo", the terrier who accompanied him on his famous Antarctic Expedition. Diana Thorne was most active between the 1920s and 1940s. Sadly, she was diagnosed as mentally ill and committed to New York City's Belleville Hospital in September 1962. Thorne died in July 196 Diana Thorne's work appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers including The American Magazine, The Literary Digest, Liberty, The Woman's Home Companion, The Household Magazine, Maclean's, Home Arts, Nature Magazine, National Home Monthly, This Week Magazine, The American Kennel Gazette, The New York Times, The Boston Post, and The New York Herald Tribune. Throughout the 1940s she was a regular contributer of artwork and written articles to the Christian Science Monitor. Thorne was widely known in New York and London for her artwork. Noted galleries such as Kennedy & Company and the Schwartz Galleries of New York City, the Gage Gallery of Cleveland, and the Hudson Galleries of Detroit carried many of her etchings, which were produced in editions ranging from fifty to one hundred signed impressions. Her print, "Pan of Puck Hill", was featured in England's Fine Prints of the Year and was also selected as one of the Graphic Arts Society's Fifty Best Prints of the Year by the Chicago Society of Etchers. Thorne received widespread acclaim for her unique etchings, sketches, watercolors, sculpture, lithography, and paintings, which were exhibited in the principal cities of the United States and England. She had her first New York City showing in April 1929 at the Schwartz Galleries in an exhibition titled, "Drypoints and Drawings by Diana Thorne". In 1930, her work was presented at three solo exhibitions. The first took place at the Vose Galleries of Boston. This was followed by additional exhibitions in New York City at Milch Galleries and the Fifty-Sixth Street...

Maruyama School. Akita puppy with bamboo. c. 1900. Ink, watercolor, and gold on silk mounted on mulberry paper. The two panels form a table screen. Each panel 22 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches. Signed and sealed, lower right. Extensive scattered foxing, commensurate with age. Akita. Ink, watercolor and gold on silk mounted on mulberry paper. Two panels forming a table screen. Each panel 22 3/4 x 13 3/4 inches. Signed and sealed, lower right. The 2 sections of the table screen will be sent in a 24 x 20-inch folder, ready to be framed. Maruyama-Shijo school, which developed in Kyoto in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, owes its name to the school’s founders: Maruyama Okyo...

Original gouache on paper. Dated and signed by the artist in ink.

Original graphite illustrations with watercolor on paper. France, 1919. Signed and dated by the artist in pencil. Joseph Hémard, 1880-1961, was a popular French illustrator known f...

Original pastel on velour paper. Signed by artist. American, circa 1940.

Ink on paper.

TAB XCVII [from Tomus II, Locupletissimi Rerum Natualium Thesauri Accurata Descriptio, et iconibus artificiosissimis expressio, per universam physices historiam]. Copper plate engrav...

Pith came into use for painting to satisfy the increasing demand for small, inexpensive and easily transported souvenirs, following the massive growth in the China Trade in the first...

Kako Morita: Japanese Fighting Rooster. c. 1889. Sumi ink and watercolor on mulberry paper. Rooster image: 8 7/8 x 7 1/2. Full sheet size: 9 3/4 x ...

Fitzgerald, James Edward (American, 1899-1971). BLACK-BACKED GULLS. Watercolor and ink on paper, 1950s. Unsigned. 22 x 30 1/2 inches. Provenance: estate of the artist to Gleason Fine Art...

Two Dogs in a Field. Watercolor Ca. 1930's. Signed in ink Ludwig Hohlwein - Munchen Provenance : Daughter of Graphic Designer Sascha Maurer Ludwig Hoh...

Coquette. c. 1957. Original Sumi-e (ink) and watercolor on paper. 13 x x 11 3/4 (sheet 23 x 18). Excellent condition. Signed "Yeisha" lower left. Commissioned for Cat, a portfolio containing lithographic reproductions of six pen & wash sketches: three by Le Ba Dang...