Amos Sewell Art

"Paper Making" WPA Industrial Mid-Century American Scene Social Realism Workers Douglas Crockwell (1904-1968) "Paper Making" 19 x 39 inches Oil on board, c. 1936 Signed verso Framed: 28 x 47 Provenance: Estate of the Artist BIO Spencer Douglass Crockwell was born into a comfortable middle class household on April 29, 1904 in Columbus, Ohio. His father, Charles Roland Crockwell, was a mining engineer; his mother, Cora, was the daughter of an Iowa attorney. He became a commercial artist and experimental filmmaker who spent a good part of his career creating illustrations and advertisements for the Saturday Evening Post. In 1907 the Crockwell family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he graduated from high school and then attended from Washington University. Initially he studied engineering, but soon switched to business. While still an undergraduate, Crockwell took courses at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and quickly realized that he wanted to be an artist. After graduating from Washington University in 1926, Crockwell continued to study at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts until 1929. The following year he relocated to Chicago and continued his studies at the American Academy of Art. In 1930 and 1931 he studied in Europe on a Traveling Fellowship. In 1932 Douglass Crockwell moved to Glens Falls, New York, which was to be his home for the remainder of his life. The following year he married Margaret Braman. They had three children, a son Douglass and two daughters, Johanna and Margaret. During the depression he created murals and posters for the Works Progress Administration including Post Office murals in White River junction, Vermont; Endicott, New York; and Macon, Mississippi. In 1934 he painted Paper Workers, Finch Pruyn & Co. (the leading Glens Falls, New York company) for the WPA. In the 1930s Crockwell developed an interest in experimental animated films that occupied him for the rest of his life. In 1936 and 1937, he collaborated with David Smith, a sculptor, to create surrealist films. Because of his interest in experimental films, his output of paintings was limited to just twenty to forty illustrations a year during this time. Crockwell painted his first of many Saturday Evening Post cover in 1933. He also worked for Life, Look, and Esquire, and numerous national advertisers including Friskies dog food, Welch’s Grape Juice, Republic Steel...

Only Ballantine Ale Brews "Brewer's Gold," ad illustration appeared in the major magazines of the day. A magic moment is caught at a peak point of drama. It's the instant of friends having fun. A cold beer from the fridge is offered and it's is acknowledged with a head nod. The woman in the foreground covers her giggling face reacting to a funny comment. The decisive moment is preserved. Sounds like a critique of an art photograph? No, it's an illustrator. This ingenious Infiniti "S" composition simultaneously represents the best of photography and painting. Cartier-Bresson could have captured the precise moment. While Nicolas Poussin could have rendered the complex figural composition. Add to it , a painting technique and color scheme with the quick drama of a post-impressionist. We have a great work of art by an overlooked American illustrator/artist/painter, Mike Ludlow...

The work is mostly black and white to indicate that this is a night scene. On closer inspection, you will see areas of magenta and ivory throughout The publisher's label on verso ide...

Chess Players WPA Depression Era Mid-20th Century American Scene Realism Modern. Signed upper right and verso 8 x 10 inches oil on board. BIO The son of a men's haberdasher, Mervin ...

This intimate studio interior from 1930 belongs to the more psychologically engaging side of Carlo Hornung Jensen’s oeuvre. A seated woman has paused beside her easel and turned towa...

An exceptional 17th-century Old Master figure study executed in black chalk and heightened with white on grey-brown toned paper. Titled "Young Man with a Sword and Cloak", this drawi...

Darling gouache and pencil sketch of a feminine stage costume complete with matching bonnet for a Paris theater by Willie & Co., circa 1930. Original artwork on paper displayed on a...

Fabulous illustration depicts a costume for Mae West in Broadway production of Diamond Lil, 1951.. Gouache on illustration board, image measures 10.5 x 16.5 inches; 15 x 22 inches ...

Michael Tole says of his work… This work draws a connection between the didactic moralizing tendencies of Neo Classicism (represented in the style of the painting) and Modernism (represented in the architectural setting). Though modern art eschews the naturalistic imagery used by Neo Classicists, both movements pursued a self-important, austere, self-consciously masculine aesthetic that they saw as synonymous with virtue. Set in the MoMA courtyard, a passel of men lounge about, regarding a golden statue which looks terribly out of place in this modernist vitrine. The uncomfortable architectural setting, prisonlike and cold, provides a foil for the odalisque-like young men sprawled on hard stone benches and paying homage to the central idol. In my current work, The Revisionist Histories, I am writing letters to art history, literature, and mythology in an attempt to reflect the social changes that have reshaped our society over the past century.  As part of this agenda, I explore the evolution of gender norms, power dynamics, and representation within Western visual culture and what this implies for the negotiation between pleasure, justice, and our culturally specific discourse on beauty.    The seed for The Revisionist Histories was sewn when I caught a glimpse of my preteen daughters watching music videos on their iPad as I chopped veggies for dinner.  Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpses of music videos featuring Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, and Doja Cat gyrating across the tiny screen.  A better parent might have snatched the iPad away, but I was overcome with hallucinatory visions of this pop diva...

For those who appreciate good academic painting and drawing, study Pearl Frush. She gets it right. In the present work, Frush paints a perfect face. Not just anatomically, but also i...

Sex and violence take center stage in this mid-1960s men's magazine interior story illustration. This action-packed narrative of a G.I. close-up gun battle incorporates five peak m...

Hand signed lower right Rare Pre World War II (Pre Holocaust) Judaica Art. European Judaic art from this period is exceedingly rare. Péczely Antal Anton 1891 - 1963 Known for his Je...

Swiss artist Edith Konrad paints figurative abstract compositions with mixed media on canvas. She layers her expression of her emotional response to the subjects with dynamic texture...

Gazing at Lebanese American artist Sally K's floral portrait is consuming and empowering. Inspired by strong, feminine women, she creates pop-realistic paintin...

ARIEH ALLWEIL [ARIE ALWEIL] 1901-1967 Galicia 1901-1967 Safed, Israel (Ukrainian/Polish/Israeli) Pastel or Gouache on paper Hand signed lower right Dimensions: framed 20.5 X 23.5. im...