Enid Smiley Art

Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape WPA Mid 20th Century Social Realism Modernism Henry Schnakenberg (1982 - 1970) Boys Swimming Industrial Landscape 11 1/2 x 15 1/2 sight Oil on Canvas Signed lower left 14 1/2 x 18 1/2 inches, Framed Bio In many cases, American artists visited the Armory Show in New York in 1913, and returned to their studios to react to or against what they saw. However, for Henry Ernest Schnakenberg it was much more life altering. Prior to visiting this important exhibition of American and European modernist art...

Artodyssey "Julita Malinowska's paintings belong to those, which once seen - are never forgotten. The open spaces, sometimes cool and bright, at other times heavily saturated with co...

William Lester Stevens Winter Landscape Signed lower right Oil on canvas 32 x 36 inches Born on June 15, 1888, in Rockport, Massachusetts, Stevens displayed his artistic abilities ...

An exceptional, large, early work by American artist Dorothy Eisner (1906-1984). This painting was recently exhibited at Gracie Mansion in 2019 as part of “She Persists” - a show de...

Summer Resort in Michigan is an exceptional work painted by the Chicago Modernist, William Schwartz. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago shortly ...

A Laborer Resting, 1930, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower center, 36 x 30 inches, inscribed verso “July – 1930 / Title – A Laborer Resting / Artist – Robert Gilbert / Price - $2...

James Goodwin McManus High Noon, circa 1935 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches Provenance Private Collection Ric Serrenho, North Granby, Connecticut (acquired from the above in 2004) James McManus...

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...

Ernest Fiene Tugboat in New York Harbor Signed lower right Oil on canvas 24 1/2 x 34 1/2 inches Ernest Fiene was born in Elberfeld, Germany in 1894. As a teenager, Fiene immigrated...

"Concert" Early 20th Century WPA Modernism American City Landscape Scene Ashcan The size of the canvas 28 3/4 x 43 1/4 inches. The painting comes directly from the artist's estate. It is signed lower right as well as signed, titled and dated verso. We have available more than two dozen paintings and works on paper from the 1930s - 80s that come directly from the Loew estate. BIO Michael Loew (1907 – 1985) was the son of a New York City baker. After high school, he was an apprentice to a stained-glass maker, and from 1926-1929, he studied at the Art Students League. In 1929, he traveled to Paris, North Africa, Germany, and Italy with a group of artists. When he returned to New York City in 1931, the Great Depression hit Loew unexpectedly, and for the next two years he paid his apartment rent with his paintings. In 1935, he found work with the WPA where he painted murals and partnered up with longtime friend Willem de Kooning in 1939 on a mural for the Hall of Pharmacy at the New York World’s Fair. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives. In the mid-30’s he painted in Mexico and the Yucatán documenting the construction of a U.S. Naval airbase on Tinian Island. It was from this airbase that the Enola...

Coney Island Fire Eaters American Scene Modernism WPA Social Realism Mid-Century Frederick "Fritz" Frey Rockwell (1917-1977) Coney Island Fire Eaters 25 x 30 inches Oil on Canvas Si...

Lively Paris street. 1973. Oil on canvas. 54 x 73cm Hiro Yamagata was born near Kyoto, Japan, went to Paris to study art, and considers himself an American artist. In his Los Angeles studio, Yamagata paints minutely detailed scenes of Paris streets, cafes and parks. He captures the essence of the naif style by presenting life in simple terms, and the world in the happiest light. His creative synthesis of photorealist and neo-folk techniques has won countless admirers and collectors. Yamagata's vision is unequivocally cheerful and his imagery is endlessly inventive. He works from a palette of over 100 shades of acrylic paints, and renders in exacting detail with brushes with as small as two hairs. Serigraphs of some of Yamagata's most popular paintings...