Arthur Sarnoff Paintings

"Sock Hop" Mid-Century American Modernism WPA Female Artist 20th Century Realism. 30 x 24 inches. Oil on canvas. Signed on stretcher, c. 1940s. Frame is likely original to the painting. Realist painter-printmaker Kyra Markham...

Mural Study for "History of Water" American Scene Modernism Social Realism WPA Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975) "Water Story" (Study for The History of Water) Tempera and o...

"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...

"Dusk Forest Scene, Catskills," 1875 by Hudson River School painter Lockwood DeForest (American, 1850-1932) is oil on artists card-stock and measures 9.5 x 7 inches. The work is signed by DeForest, and dated May 13, 1875 at lower right. The work is framed in an elegant, period appropriate frame, and ready to hang. Lockwood DeForest was born in New York in 1850 to a prominent family. He grew up in Greenwich Village and on Long Island at the family summer estate in Cold Spring Harbor. As was customary for a cultivated family in the Gilded Age, the DeForests made frequent trips abroad. Excursions to the great museums, which were prominent on the DeForests agenda, deepened the young Lockwood's familiarity with European painting and sculpture. Though he had begun drawing and painting somewhat earlier, it was during a visit to Rome in 1868 that nineteen-year-old DeForest first began to study art seriously, taking painting lessons from the Italian landscapist Hermann David Salomon Corrodi (1844–1905). More importantly, on the same trip, Lockwood met one of America’s most celebrated painters, (and his maternal great- uncle by marriage) Frederic Edwin Church (1826–1900), who quickly became his mentor. DeForest accompanied Church on sketching trips around Italy and continued this practice when they both returned to America in 1869. Early on in his career, de Forest made a habit of recording the date and often the place of his oil sketches, as to create a visual diary of his travels. Lockwood’s profession as a landscape painter can be primarily attributed to Frederic E. Church and his belief in the young artist’s talent. DeForest often visited Church in the Hudson River community of Catskill where, in addition to sketching trips and afternoons of painting, he assisted with the architectural drawings and planning of Olana. In 1872, DeForest took a studio at the Tenth Street Studio Building in New York. During these formative years DeForest counted among his friend’s artists such as Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823–80), George Henry Yewell (1830–1923), John Frederick Kensett (1816–72), Jervis McEntee (1828–91), and Walter Launt Palmer (1854–1932). Over the next decade DeForest experienced success as a painter. He exhibited for the first time at the National Academy of Design in 1872, and made two more painting trips abroad, in 1875–76 and 1877–78, traveling to the major continental capitals but also the Middle East and North Africa. His trip to the Middle East and the library at Church’s home, Olana, established his interest in design during his mid-twenties. From about 1878 to 1902, landscape painting was overshadowed by his activities and preoccupation with East Indian architecture and décor, a style that became quite fashionable in late nineteenth century America. From 1879-1883, de Forest founded Associated Artists along with Louis Comfort Tiffany, Candace Wheeler...

Alfred Pollentine British, (1844-1910) The Grand Canal looking towards St Marks Square & the Doge’s Palace, Venice Oil on canvas, signed Image size: 19.25 inches x 29.25 inches Size including frame: 25.25 inches x 35.25 inches A wonderful view of the Grand Canal featuring the Doge’s Palace and St Mark’s Square, Venice by Alfred Pollentine. The scene shows the entrance to the Grand Canal with the Santa Maria Della Salute with its distinctive rotunda and the Dogana to the left. Ahead can be seen the bell tower of St Mark’s with the Doges palace to its right. Alfred William Pollentine was born in St Pancras, London on 26 August 1844, the son of William Pollentine, a carver gilder and picture dealer and Caroline Smith. After the death of his father in 1856, his mother married the artist Adam Barland...

Victorian Nineteenth Century Marine Oil Painting of Fishing Boats off the Coast in Choppy Seas at Sunrise. A Traditional British Marine Scene off the Coast depicting Fishing Boats ...

Miniature Painting of Victoria Embankment London & Houses of Parliament, Westminster in the Rain - a unique original from leading Contemporary Cityscape Artist, Angela Wakefield. Par...

Blue Sky, Sunshine on Manhattan Street - Figurative New York City Painting by Leading British Urban Landscape Artist, Angela Wakefield, with dramatic light and colours. Art measures...

Blacksmith (Untitled), 1936, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 28 x 30 inches Erle Loran was an influential American painter, art historian, and educator, renowned for h...

Miniature Painting of Radio City Music Hall, New York City - a unique original from leading British Cityscape Artist, Angela Wakefield. Art measures ...

Mid Century Modern Jazz Quartet Figurative -- "The Band Box" Signed A vivid, mid-century modernist interpretation of a jazz ensemble by Louis M. Centofanti (American, 1921-2018). "B...

Alfred Pollentine British, (1844-1910) The Dogana, Venice Oil on canvas, signed & further inscribed verso Image size: 15.5 inches x 23.5 inches Size including frame: 22.5 inches x 30.5 inches A lovely painting of the Grand Canal, Venice towards the Punta Della Dogana by Alfred Pollentine. The view shows the entrance to the Grand Canal with the Dogana and Santa Maria Della Salute on the right. Alfred William Pollentine was born in St Pancras, London on 26 August 1844, the son of William Pollentine, a carver gilder and picture dealer and Caroline Smith. After the death of his father in 1856, his mother married the artist Adam Barland...