Skip to main content

August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

German, 1886-1970
Wilhelm August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity (...) and was committed to social and political issues. The Berliner-of-choice defied stubbornly the summary classification. Dressler acted truthfully to his origin, temperament and insight as an individual who presents his bond as obligation, who takes his program as template and his slogan as abomination. Only few painters of his generation restrain so inconspicuously from the revolutionary storm and new trends that found its most effective expression in Expressionism of ” the Bridge” group and in the mystical works of the ‘Blue Rider’. Dressler’s self-imposed isolation is based neither on his capriciousness nor is it intentional – it is simply one of the inner necessities of his artistic existence. One does not do justice to his work, if one tries to interpret only the visible facts, the artistic or the technical qualities in Dressler’s works. This painter lived his destiny with a stubbornly determined consequence of his fate: the pictures are nothing else than the graphic metaphors of the ‘introverted gaze’. He experienced grief and loneliness already during his youth. Dressler learns early about the shadow side of human existence – it becomes the basis of the way he perceived the world. ” I cannot separate myself from what has established me ” – there was a very immediate connection and solidarity between the painter and his personal experiences (l’art pour l’art attitude). Thus Dressler identifies himself with those embodiments of petty-bourgeois narrowness, with those disappointed and abandoned, with those who appreciate simple joys of life and those with quiet hopes. In his works the figurative language wins through its ability to depict and objectify feelings without words. Dressler does not paint to be modern or original. His way of perception is essential in a solid sense; he focuses on things, elements, and events that reflect a piece of life. The closeness to the object and the attachment to the figure remain unchanged in Dressler’s oeuvre. One is tempted, looking at his works of five decades, to speak rather than about development but more of unfolding. The thematic inventory is from the beginning artist’s credo and basic motive: the form is added as the answer of the painter. It is Dressler’s personal preference not to correct reality nor to imitate it – his realism brings form and content, sensation and insight to life in a forceless manner. Dressler feels, thinks and arguments his works on a more general level; his work is not an illustration of social misery or individual depravity. This “realist of the sharper tone” painterly transcends the limitations of genre and folklore; his “petty-bourgeois everyday life” is neither enclosed in the poor man’s pathos nor in the oh-human ecstasy. “Who controls the keyboard of nature”, proclaims Dressler, “can play in their own ways”. Source: Delp’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung München, August Willhelm Dressler, Munich 1970.
(Biography provided by Galerie Lehner)
to
6
1
3
5
1
1
2
1
2
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
6
4
4
3
2
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
6
1
1
16
930
650
639
610
6
5
3
3
2
Artist: August Wilhelm Dressler
Stilllife
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity. He is one of the lesser-known artists of the Weimar era, but he too, like his famous contemporaries Georg Grosz, John H...
Category

20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Oil, Paint, Canvas

Landschaft bei Naunhof
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity. He is one of the lesser-known artists of the Weimar era, but he too, like his famous contemporaries Georg Grosz, John H...
Category

20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Paint, Oil, Canvas

Säugling / Infant
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity. He is one of the lesser-known artists of the Weimar era, but he too, like his famous contemporaries Georg Grosz, John H...
Category

20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Paint, Oil

Angel Bride
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity. He is one of the lesser-known artists of the Weimar era, but he too, like his famous contemporaries Georg Grosz, John H...
Category

20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Glass, Paint

Florentine Woman
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Dressler is one of the painters of the New Objectivity. He is one of the lesser-known artists of the Weimar era, but he too, like his famous contemporaries Georg Grosz, John H...
Category

1930s Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Oil, Panel

Behind the Curtain
By August Wilhelm Dressler
Located in Wien, 9
August Wilhelm Dressler, Behind the Curtain, 1940, Oil on Wood Panel, 60 x 50 cm. Signed lower left.
Category

1940s Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Wood Panel, Oil

Related Items
Figurative landscape oil painting- Sunny Afternoon
Located in Beijing, CN
Dai Xiangwen was born in Hunan in 1991 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Jianghan University, He is a member of China Artists Association, China Designers Association, a painter of Li Keran...
Category

2010s Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Robert von Steiger (1856-1941) Portrait Dutch Officer A. v. Steiger 1884 Holland
Located in Meinisberg, CH
Johann Ludwig Robert von Steiger (Swiss, * 8th of January, 1856, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; † 1st of June, 1941, Buenos Aires, Argentina) Portrait of Karl Alfred Arthur von Steiger Lie...
Category

1880s Victorian August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Wood Panel, Oil

"Winter" American Modernism WPA Regionalism Landscape Mid-Century Magic Realism
By Dale Nichols
Located in New York, NY
"Winter" American Modernism WPA Regionalism Landscape Mid-Century Magic Realism. 30 x 40 inches. Oil on canvas, c. 1960s, Signed lower right. As we list the painting now, the work is currently being cleaned, restored and a hand carved frame is being built. Additional photos will be uploaded as soon as possible. Our gallery, Helicline Fine Art, just launched our new digital exhibition: American Art: The WPA and Beyond. Three dozen paintings, works on paper and sculptures which are available here on 1stDibs. In person viewings can be arranged by appointment at our midtown Manhattan gallery. Provenance: "Winter" was originally purchased by Stanley Byer. Mr. Byer owned homes in Key West, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He purchased the painting from Dunning Auction in 1984 in Elgin, Illinois. Mr. Byer was related to Abraham Weiss from Florida. Saul Babbin, now deceased was a cousin of Mr. Weiss. I purchased the painting from Joy Babbin, Mr. Babbin's wife, now living in from New Mexico. Dale Nichols (1905 – 1995) Artist, printmaker, illustrator, watercolorist, designer, writer and lecturer, Nichols did paintings that reflected his rural background of Nebraska where he was born in David City, a small town. Although he did much sketching outdoors, most of his paintings were completed in his studio and often included "numerology, magic squares...
Category

1960s American Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Little Girls and Their New Friends Genre Scene 19th century Oil Painting on Wood
Located in Stockholm, SE
Very touching scene with two little girls. Two sisters are thrilled to meet their new pets that their parents have bought. The sincerity and immediacy of children's feelings depicted...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Oil, Wood Panel

Portrait Sleeping Girl by Danish German Genre Painting Master 19th century
Located in Stockholm, SE
Johann August Frederik Carl‏ Lorange (1833 - 1875) was highly skilled Danish artist of German roots. Not much known on his biography, unfortunately, but most of his works were produc...
Category

19th Century Realist August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Wood Panel, Oil, Wood

Trees at Bloom
By Clarence Holbrook Carter
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Trees at Bloom, 1939, oil on canvas, 32 x 24 inches, signed lower right About the Painting Trees at Bloom was painted when Clarence Holbrook Carter lived in Pittsburgh and served as an instructor in the Department of Painting and Design at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie-Mellon University), a position he held from 1938 through 1944. It depicts a thick forest at the base of distance hills just outside the city. During his tenure in Pittsburgh, Carter was deeply influenced by not only the industrial might of the steel mills and iron forges of the city, but also the beauty of the surrounding landscape. As Frank Anderson Trapp noted in his book on the artist, for Carter “the terrain itself had its own special vitality, with its craggy, wooded hills threaded with ravine and watercourses . . . . the signs of industrial blight that were unalleviated in some parts of the country were there relieved by the geological variety of the parent landscape, and by the irrepressible presence of its natural growth, which softened the whole.” Trapp continues, “in his scenes of rural situations, Carter had a special gift for rendering those elements convincingly.” With the profusion of flowering trees which diffuse the light and the red cardinals darting from one branch to another, Trees at Bloom portrays the “irrepressible presence of nature” that Trapp describes. About the Artist Together with Charles Burchfield, Clarence Holbrook Carter was Ohio’s premiere American Scene painter and later an innovative magic realist. The son of a no-nonsense public-school administrator, Carter was born in 1904 outside of Portsmouth, Ohio, a small town in the heart of the Ohio River...
Category

1930s American Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Demogogue
Located in Los Angeles, CA
The Demagogue or Tale in a Tub, 1952, oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches, signed, titled, and dated verso About the Painting The Demagogue is an iconic Bendor Mark painting from the prime of his post-war period. Beginning early in his career, Mark was fascinated with depictions of the human figure and their capacity to tell stories of the world around him. Mark was a keen observer of his times and in The Demagogue we see Mark’s portrayal of a faithless politician holding up a “V” for victory sign as he appeals to the wanton desires and prejudices of the masses. Below the demagogue is a swirl of humanity representing the common man who is being pushed down by the powerful, while the robed figure of liberty with her scales of justice held high is brushed aside. Behind the demagogue, Mark places two other powerful supporting institutions which were often co-opted by the world’s dictators, the Church and the Military. Mark was an internationalist, so it is difficult to know exactly which demagogue inspired him to create this work, but in 1952 there were many to choose from. Whether depicting Argentina’s Peron (the demagogue and the women to the right resemble Juan and Eva Peron), Spain’s Franco or the United States’ homegrown fear mongers like Joseph McCarthy, Mark tells a universal story that unfolded in dramatic fashion during the post-war period as nations and their peoples grappled with authoritarianism and anti-democratic impulses. Stylistically, The Demagogue draws on the elements which make Mark’s work from this period immediately recognizable, a saturated palette, a closely packed and frenetic composition, exaggerated figuration and stylized facial features. But, above all, we see Mark’s ability to tell the stories of the rich and powerful and their ability to oppress. Like Mark’s work in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art (The Hourglass - 1950-51) and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Execution – 1940), The Demagogue pulls no punches, as the artist lays bare the threats to freedom and basic human rights. About the Artist Bendor Mark was an American modernist and social realist painter. Born as Bernard Marcus on June 5, 1912, in Brooklyn, New York, Mark trained at The Cooper Union during the 1920s where he studied with William Brantley van Ingen and became a prize-winning artist with a focus on painting the human figure. After his time at Cooper, Mark continued to live in New York and worked as a commercial artist and textile designer in addition to his pursuit of a career in painting. Like many Depression Era artists, Mark engaged with social progressives and in 1934, he joined the Artist’s Union which had the goal of advancing artists’ position as “worker.” Mark’s painting, Restaurant, which is now in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, appeared in the February 1936 edition of the Union’s publication, Art Front, as part of a review of an exhibition at ACA Gallery in New York. Mark worked on the Federal Art Project and by the mid- to late-1930s, began a series of paintings exploring the working conditions and hazards of the mining industry. Mark believed that miners were “in the forefront of the struggle for emancipation” and that the mere “struggle for existence is like moving mountains.” He became passionate about the Spanish Civil War and painted sympathetic images in support of the Spanish Republic. Mark was a premature anti-fascist and throughout his career painted works critical of dictators and other oppressors. During the late 1930s, Mark entered mural competitions with designs influenced by the Mexican muralists, taught adult art education in Queens, New York, and was an instructor at the WPA’s Queensboro Art Center. He was so committed to socially progressive art that by 1934, he had changed his name to Bendor Mark, in part, to distinguish his social realist paintings from his earlier work. During World War II, Mark worked as an artist for military contractors. After the war, he was employed as a graphic artist and in the printing industry before moving to Southern California in 1948, where he returned to a fine art practice the following year with politically and socially charged images which reflected his view of the shortcomings of the post-War period, the continued threat of fascism, and the international tensions of the Cold War. As the mood of the country shifted towards the right during the McCarthy Era and the art world’s attention focused on abstraction at the expense of figuration, Mark’s career as a painter suffered. From the 1950s through the 1980s, Mark continued to depict the events that shaped the world around him, often employing a highly stylized approach characterized by dynamic multi-figure compositions, a subtle muted palette, and exaggerated expressive features. A review of Mark’s oeuvre suggests that few people escaped Mark’s attention. He painted presidents, prime ministers, royalty, evangelists, musicians, and dictators (and their henchman), along with miners, farm workers, the urban poor, protesters, the unemployed and dispossessed. He laid bare the arrogance, cruelty, and hypocrisy of the world’s elites. Mark noted, “A work of art cannot be fully appreciated or wholly understood without considering the socio-political and cultural ambience that gave it birth.” He continued, “I have the ability to foresee the direction of social and political events while they are actually taking place.” He was not himself a direct political activist, however. Although Mark commented, “It’s a misconception to separate art from the social aspect of life,” he viewed artists as being neutral. According to Mark, “An apolitical attitude reflects the fact that the artist is passive. . . An artist never affects society; he merely reflects it.” In addition to the Mexican Muralists, Mark was influenced by the old masters Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Masaccio, as well as the more modern master, Van Gogh. Mark’s writings directly acknowledge these influences and archival material from his estate includes magazine articles, pamphlets and transparencies related to these artists. Mark also collected materials related to several of his social realist contemporaries, including Reginald Marsh, Ben Shahn, Leonard Baskin, and Raphael Soyer, who was Mark’s good friend. For years, Soyer sent Mark holiday cards and Soyer inscribed a message of friendship on a self-portrait he gifted to Mark in the 1970s, all of which are still held in the collection of Mark’s family. From the late 1920s through the mid-1950s, Mark’s work was well received. His paintings won prizes and were accepted into major juried exhibitions including at the Brooklyn Museum, the New York World’s Fair and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He gained national recognition for paintings depicting the oppressed and the common worker. Despite the decline in popularity of representational art during the 1950s and 1960s, Mark stayed true to his interest in depicting the human figure and by the last two decades of his life, his work underwent a reassessment as curators included Mark’s paintings in exhibitions showcasing the role of labor in art during the Depression Era. This recognition continued in recent years when Mark was honored by having his work included in the Whitney Museum of American Art’s ground-breaking exhibition, Vida Americana, which explored the pioneering role that the Mexican muralists played in the development of modern American art during the inter-war period. The influence of Rivera, Siqueiros and Orozco on Mark is unmistakable and his paintings from the 1950s (and beyond) sit comfortably in dialogue with other Los Angeles artists who continued to paint in the social realist tradition long after the mainstream art world had moved toward abstraction. Mark’s concern for underserved Brown and Black communities was shared with artists such as Charles White and his ally, Edward Biberman...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Demogogue
H 24 in W 20 in D 2 in
"War Brides, Wash Sq NYC" American Scene WWII Modernism WPA Mid-Century Oil
By Georgina Klitgaard
Located in New York, NY
"War Brides, Wash Sq NYC" American Scene WWII Modernism WPA Mid-Century Oil. 30 x 40 inches. Oil on canvas, c. 1942. Signed lower right. Titled on the stretcher. Housed in a sensational Heydenryk frame. Our gallery, Helicline Fine Art...
Category

1940s American Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mid Century Italian Still Life Tablescape, Oil on Canvas, The Lanterns.
Located in Cotignac, FR
Mid Century Italian still life tablescape by Italian artist Fulvio Pendini. The painting is signed bottom right and is presented in a period gilt wood and cloth frame under glass. Th...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

20th century oil painting entitled The Unknown Corner
Located in London, GB
Collections: Robert Isaacson; James Draper, New York, 2014. Exhibited: Cambridge, The Fitzwilliam Museum, Beggarstaffs: William Nicholson and James Pr...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

American School Modernist Framed Pink Kitchen Still Life Abstract Oil Painting
Located in Buffalo, NY
Antique American modernist signed abstract still life oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed.
Category

1950s Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

The Yacht KITSKAD Off Catalina Island
By J. Duncan Gleason
Located in Costa Mesa, CA
Duncan Gleason lived in New York and other places for work or studies but it was really Southern California where he felt most at home, and looking at his body of work, that love of ...
Category

1950s Modern August Wilhelm Dressler Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

August Wilhelm Dressler paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic August Wilhelm Dressler paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by August Wilhelm Dressler in paint, oil paint, canvas and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large August Wilhelm Dressler paintings, so small editions measuring 14 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Albert Bertalan, Philippe Alfieri, and Franz Bergmann. August Wilhelm Dressler paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,853 and tops out at $15,741, while the average work can sell for $11,840.

Recently Viewed

View All