David Rathman Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

The Old Town, Nice France Tony Minartz (French 1873 - 1994) watercolor on artist paper, unframed painting : 17 x 12.75 inches Provenance: private collection in the South of France Co...

Paris Night 2 is a unique drawing by French contemporary artist Guillaume Chansarel. The drawing is made with ink and acrylic on kraft paper, dimensions are 28 × 36 cm (11 × 14.2 in)...

French Landscape by Bernard Labbe (French mid 20th century) original gouache on board unframed size: 9.5 x 13 inches condition: very good and ready to be enjoyed provenance: the art...

Forest is an original drawing in mixed media on paper realized by Simon Goldberg (1913-1985). Hand-signed on the lower left. The state of preservation is very good. Sheet dimension...

The Hunting Party Attributed to Dirk Maes (1659-1717) Dutch. Figures in a Classical Landscape, Watercolour and wash on paper, Mounted, unframed image 6.75" x 9.75" (17.1 x 24.7cm)...

Detailed European Landscape in Watercolor and Gouache on Paper This finely detailed watercolor painting captures a serene countryside setting with an old stone church, a rustic hous...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) Lobstermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts, circa 1943 Watercolor on paper Sight 17 1/2 x 23 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Private Collection, Las Vegas, Nevada In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

A charming and stylized depiction of a day at the Central Park Zoo. with World War Two uniformed visitors front and center. Sea lions put on a show in front o...

Ink wash with watercolor in sepia and black, and blue, on buff wove watercolor paper, 14 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches (360 x 260 mm). 1/4" of the lower right corner is lost, minor crack (doe...

French Landscape by Bernard Labbe (French mid 20th century) original gouache on card size: 19 x 10.5 inches condition: very good and ready to be enjoyed provenance: the artists atel...

A most attractive watercolor by one of the forefathers of British watercolour painting. John White Abbott (1763-1851) Abraham and Isaac in an extensive landscape Pen, ink and wash 7...

Fishing Boats Along The Coast Watercolor painting depicting two fishing boats and fishermen along the oceanside by Robert Wayne Daley (American, 1922-1999). Rocks make up a pathway along the beach, while fishermen pull boats along the shore. Blue skies, with the ocean and hilltops making up the near distance. Signed "Robert W Daley...