Ben Hancocks Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Mid-Century Modern abstracted landscape watercolor painting by American artist Toma Tovanovich (1931- 2016). Tovanovich's work is found in many public and private collections all...

Colorful abstract work by Bay Area artist Kelvin Curry (American, 20th Century). Signed "Kelvin Curry" lower left. Unframed. Image size, 15"H x 11.25"W. Born in Oakland, California ...

"Untitled" 2019, 28" x 22" horizontal drawing on paper by Argentine-born artist Karina Gentinetta (featured in Elle Decor, the New York Times, Tradi...

Title : First Floor Biogram Materials : Acrylic, gouache, oil pastel, marker, charcoal, graphite, and conté crayon on paper Date : 2018 Dimensions : 24 x 18 x .1 in. Description : ...

"Untitled" 2019, 25" x 31" horizontal drawing on paper by Argentine-born artist Karina Gentinetta (featured in Elle Decor, the New York Times, Tradi...

"Free flow movement" is an improvised gestural drawing conveys an impulse born in the space of sensations. Artwork is done in ink and ocher pastel on thick white paper. "Every time ...

Mercedes Carles Matter (1913 - 2001) Untitled, circa 1937 Pastel on paper 16 x 13 1/2 inches Estate stamped on the reverse Provenance: Estate of the artist Spanierman Gallery, New York Private Collection, Pennsylvania circa 2013 Private Collection, New York, 2021 Mercedes Matter was born in New York in 1913. Her father, the American modernist Arthur B. Carles, had studied with Matisse. Her mother, Mercedes de Cordoba, was a model for Edward Steichen. Ms. Matter grew up in Philadelphia, New York and Europe. She began painting under her father's supervision at age 6, and studied art at Bennett College in Millbrook, N.Y., and then in New York City with Maurice Sterne, Alexander Archipenko and Hans Hofmann. In the late 1930's, she was an original member of the American Abstract Artists organization and worked for the federal Works Progress Administration, assisting Fernand Léger on his mural for the French Line passenger ship company. Léger introduced her to Herbert Matter, the Swiss graphic designer and photographer, whom she married in 1939. The Matters were active in the emerging New York art scene and also traveled frequently to Europe. Their closest friends included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, Alexander Calder and Willem de Kooning. They were also close to Alberto Giacometti, who was an important artistic role model for Mrs. Matter and a frequent photographic subject for her husband. Beginning in 1953, Mrs. Matter taught at the Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), Pratt Institute and New York University. Based on her teaching experiences she wrote an article for Art News in 1963 titled ''What's Wrong with U.S. Art Schools?'' In it, she lamented the phasing out of the extended studio classes required to initiate ''that painfully slow education of the senses,'' which she considered an artist's life work. The article prompted a group of Pratt students to ask her to form a school based on her ideas, which led, in 1964, to the founding of the New York Studio School. Originally in a loft on Broadway, the school gained almost immediate support from the Kaplan Fund, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the Ford Foundation. It granted no degrees, had only studio classes and emphasized drawing from life. Its teachers, chosen by the students, included the artists Guston, Bradley Walker Tomlin, Charles Cajori, Louis Finkelstein...

Jacques Yankel, pseudonym of Jakob Kikoine, born on April 14 , 1920 in Paris, is a French painter and sculptor. He is the son of the painter Michel Kikoine. Born in Boucicaut hospital, Jacques lived as a child in the artists' colony La Ruche in Paris. He grew up to the age of ten at La Ruche, the workshop created for artists by the sculptor Alfred Boucher, in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. Around him live also other artists, including the inseparable Pincus Krémègne and Chaïm Soutine, arrived from Vilnius in Russia where they met. It is an extraordinary intellectual and artistic universe where the genius of the artists and their great poverty rub shoulders in a Paris which hosts this Expressionist school which will become "the School of Paris". Chagall, Modigliani, Fernand Léger, Alexander Archipenko, Max Jacob and others. When he had just started studying at the École des Arts Appliqués in Paris, he was forced to flee to Southern France with his family to escape the Nazis. During the Second World War, he held temporary jobs in printing and engraving workshops, notably at the Draeger printing press in Toulouse, where events led him to take refuge with his family. From 1940 to 1945, he pursued very advanced studies of geology at the Faculty of Sciences, specializing in micro-geology. He graduated in 1943. In 1947, he participates episodically as an amateur painter in the Chariot group, with the artists Jean Hugon, Michel Goedgebuer, Robert Pagès, Christian Schmidt, Andre-Francois Vernette, Jean Teulieres. The group is active until 1954. In 1949, he was hired by the Colonial Office for the geological map of Gao - Timbuktu - Tabankort in French West Africa . From this episode, he will keep a certain taste for African art of which he will become a collector. The following year, he unexpectedly met Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre in Gao. The latter encourages him to return to painting. He won the Neuman First Prize, which he shared with Reginald Pollack and a Fénéon Prize Scholarship. Among his friends are Clavé, Cottavoz, Pelayo, Hanna Ben-dov, Pollack, Jean Jansem, Roger Lersey. In 1953, accompanied by Orlando...

"Joyful Impulse" is an improvised impulsive drawing conveys an impulse born in the space of sensations. Artwork is done in ink and ocher pastel on thick white paper. "Every time ...

"Combing Sound" is an improvised gestural drawing conveys an impulse born in the space of sensations. Artwork is done in ink and ocher pastel on thick white paper. "Every time I draw such abstract lines, a flow of energy moves my hand. I paint very fast to give the spontaneous flow as much space as possible. I never know what the result will be. The process of spontaneous drawing is a kind of magic that turns an invisible impulse into a reflection on paper. I feel the vibration in and around my palms and enjoy this dance of vibrations every time I paint. Each drawing is unique and one of a kind." Sve Gri...

Two Faces (Purple and Magenta) in Pastel on Paper Brightly colored faces by Bay Area artist, Kelvin Curry (American, 20th Century). Two faces are shown in profile, looking to the le...

Framed 33 X 45.5 image is 29 X 41.5 Hand signed lower left Signed and titled verso Sylvia Carewe (1906-1981) was an American woman artist, painter, writer and poet. Born in New York City to Russian immigrant parents, Louis and Esther Kerewsky, she changed her surname to "Carewe" in 1930. Carewe attended Columbia University and studied further with Yasuo Kuniyoshi at Atelier 17 in New York, with Hans Hoffman in New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts, and at the New School for Social Research. During World War II Carewe worked as an advertising copywriter and artist for agencies in New York. She became a prolific abstract artist in a range of media, including tapestry designs for the Aubusson tapestry carpet company in France, felt banners, collage reliefs, and what she termed "blown paintings," which were assemblages (predominantly of children's toy components) overlaid with spray paint. One of the most common subjects in her semi abstract paintings was New York City at night. She also worked in traditional artistic media, including watercolors, oils, lithographs and pastels. In October 1944, she married Marvin Small (formerly Smalheiser, executive for Carter's Little Liver Pills). They had one child, John Marvin, in June 1947. Carewe had her first one-woman show in Poughkeepsie in 1947, after which she opened in New York City at the ACA Gallery in 1948. She had some twenty other American solo shows and her works hung in many exhibits across the United States as well as in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum, Musée de l'Arte Moderne, Paris, Brandeis University, the Butler Art Institute, Howard University, the Tel Aviv Museum and the National Museum in Djakarta, Indonesia. Her work has been described by French critics as "violent, colorful art, in hard contrasts, not exempt from cold lyricism." ["Les Girls...