Harry Shokler Art

This vintage 1950s-1960s oil painting titled 'Old Airfield in Capitola, California' beautifully captures a serene Northern California landscape. The scene depicts a lush countryside with vibrant trees, a charming white house with a green roof, a red tractor...

Old Brownstones-- New York. c. 1985. Etching and drypoint. 8 7/ 8 x 12 1/3 (sheet 16 5/8 x 16 1/4). Fourth state. Printed on cream wove paper, on the full sheet with deckle edges. A rich impression in pristine condition, housed in an archival folder. This etching has never been matted. Provenance: the artist's estate. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Fourth state -- wheel changed to left' and 'Steves' in pencil. A dramatic view of a Manhattan neighborhood. Painter and printmaker Lawrence Nelson Wilbur...

screenprint printed in color ink on wove paper. New York City subway station interior. Anthony Velonis (1911 – 1997) was an American painter and designer born in New York City who helped introduce the public to silkscreen printing in the early 20th century. While employed under the federal Works Progress Administration, WPA during the Great Depression, Velonis brought the use of silkscreen printing as a fine art form, referred to as the "serigraph," into the mainstream. By his own request, he was not publicly credited for coining the term. He experimented and mastered techniques to print on a wide variety of materials, such as glass, plastics, and metal, thereby expanding the field. In the mid to late 20th century, the silkscreen technique became popular among other artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Velonis was born into a relatively poor background of a Greek immigrant family and grew up in the tenements of New York City. Early on, he took creative inspiration from figures in his life such as his grandfather, an immigrant from the mountains in Greece, who was "an ecclesiastical painter, on Byzantine style." Velonis attended James Monroe High School in The Bronx, where he took on minor artistic roles such as the illustration of his high school yearbook. He eventually received a scholarship to the NYU College of Fine Arts, into which he was both surprised and ecstatic to have been admitted. Around this time he took to painting, watercolor, and sculpture, as well as various other art forms, hoping to find a niche that fit. He attended NYU until 1929, when the Great Depression started in the United States after the stock market crash. Around the year 1932, Velonis became interested in silk screen, together with fellow artist Fritz Brosius, and decided to investigate the practice. Working in his brother's sign shop, Velonis was able to master the silkscreen process. He reminisced in an interview three decades later that doing so was "plenty of fun," and that a lot of technology can be discovered through hard work, more so if it is worked on "little by little." Velonis was hired by Mayor LaGuardia in 1934 to promote the work of New York's city government via posters publicizing city projects. One such project required him to go on a commercial fishing trip to locations including New Bedford and Nantucket for a fortnight, where he primarily took photographs and notes, and made sketches. Afterward, for a period of roughly six months, he was occupied with creating paintings from these records. During this trip, Velonis developed true respect and affinity for the fishermen with whom he traveled, "the relatively uneducated person," in his words. Following this, Velonis began work with the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), an offshoot of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), where he was assigned to serve the different city departments of New York. After the formation of the federal Works Progress Administration, which hired artists and sponsored projects in the arts, he also worked in theater. Velonis began working for the federal WPA in 1935. He kept this position until 1936 or 1938, at which point he began working in the graphic art division of the Federal Art Project, which he ultimately led. Under various elements of the WPA program, many young artists, writers and actors gained employment that helped them survive during the Depression, as well as contributing works that created an artistic legacy for the country. When interviewed in December 1994 by the Library of Congress about his time in the WPA, Velonis reflected that he had greatly enjoyed that period, saying that he liked the "excitement" and "meeting all the other artists with different points of view." He also said in a later interview that "the contact and the dialogue with all those artists and the work that took place was just invaluable." Among the young artists he hired was Edmond Casarella, who later developed an innovative technique using layered cardboard for woodcuts. Velonis introduced silkscreen printing to the Poster Division of the WPA. As he recalled in a 1965 interview: "I suggested that the Poster division would be a lot more productive and useful if they had an auxiliary screen printing project that worked along with them. And apparently this was very favorably received..." As a member of the Federal Art Project, a subdivision of the WPA, Velonis later approached the Public Use of Arts Committee (PUAC) for help in "propagandizing for art in the parks, in the subways, et cetera." Since the Federal Art Project could not be "self-promoting," an outside organization was required to advertise their art more extensively. During his employment with the Federal Art Project, Velonis created nine silkscreen posters for the federal government. Around 1937-1939 Velonis wrote a pamphlet titled "Technical Problems of the Artist: Technique of the Silkscreen Process," which was distributed to art centers run by the WPA around the country. It was considered very influential in encouraging artists to try this relatively inexpensive technique and stimulated printmaking across the country. In 1939, Velonis founded the Creative Printmakers Group, along with three others, including Hyman Warsager. They printed both their own works and those of other artists in their facility. This was considered the most important silkscreen shop of the period. The next year, Velonis founded the National Serigraph Society. It started out with relatively small commercial projects, such as "rather fancy" Christmas cards that were sold to many of the upscale Fifth Avenue shops...

Big Sur California Seascape Original Mid-Century Oil on Linen Exceptional Seascape ainting in Oil Impasto technique by Ralph Victor Murray (American, 1897-1991). Heavy brush work of the Big Sur Coast rocks and crashing waves. In a period rustic carved frame. Image 24"H x 30.88"W Frame 28.25"H x 35.25"W x 2"D, frame is rustic and has some edge wear included as-is. Ralph Victor Murray was born June 27, 1897 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He was raised in Fredericton and Campbellton. He was living in Campbellton in 1910 and witnessed the whole town burn to the ground. He studied at Rothesay Academy and left school at the age of 15 to help support his mother and sisters when his father passed away. He joined the Canadian Expeditionary Forces at age 18 and served during World War 1 in England until he was stricken with Diptheria and transferred to Halifax. He was walking to work on Dec. 16, 1917 when the great explosion of Halifax took place. After leaving the military, he traveled and worked in Canada and the United States until he ended up in San Francisco. While there he heard the California Highway Division was hiring, so he took the test and was hired as a surveyor. From 1923 to 1924 he surveyed Highway One (The Big Sur Highway) between Santa Maria and Carmel. He was retired from the State of California in 1940 and took up oil painting. In 1941 he won 2nd place in the Santa Cruz County Fair. He was mostly self taught, however he did take some private lessons from Burton Boundey and Abel Warshawsky. His work was landscapes and seascapes in oils. He was a lifetime member of the Carmel Art Association in Carmel, California. He frequently exhibited his work there from 1940-1960. His work was also exhibited in Wells Fargo Bank, Cal Am Water Co., Monterey Savings and Loan, Pacific Gas and Electric and numerous other businesses around the Monterey Peninsula. His work was shown in the "Monterey Peninsula Herald" and was also photographed for the L. A. Times for the July 20, 1958 insert. In the 1960's he gave private lessons to Helen Barker and Charles Lee. He also showed his work in the Helen Barker Gallery in Carmel, California. He was featured under People in the February, 1989 issue of Monterey Life. The California Art Review solicited information from him as well as California Artists. His friends and peers were such greats as Abel Warshawsky, Frank Meyers, Myron Oliver, Armin Hansen, Arthur Hill Gilbert, Burton Boundey and Leslie Emery...

Beautiful mid century plein air figural landscape of Laguna Niguel, California by an unknown artist (American, 20th Century). The morning sun gli...

Georgina Klitgaard Spanish Moss, Georgia Signed lower right Oil on artist's board 12 x 16 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to as...

Ora Coltman (American, 1858-1940) House in Hudson, OH Oil on canvas Signed lower left 22 x 26 inches 27.5 x 31.5 inches, framed 21 Aurora Street is locally known as the Isham-Beebe ...

The Biggest of All; Telephone and Telegraph Building. 1925. Etching. Wuerth 853. 9 7/8 x 11 7/8 (sheet 11 1/2 x 17 1/8). Edition probably 35. An atmospheric impression with plate tone, printed on antique laid paper...

Original “Wagon Lits” serigraph poster by the artist Valerio Adami. It was printed in France by GrafiCaza (Michel Caza), one of the finest serigraph companies on woven paper—in exce...

Meet the genuinely exciting modernist William Einstein, who is probably better known in Europe, where numerous publications on his work have been written, than in his native US! Eins...

Behold the original British Columbia United Air Lines vintage Travel Poster—a rare gem from the mid-century Modern era. This archival linen-backed beauty is in excellent condition an...

Under the Bridge. 1985. Etching and drypoint. 9 1/2 x 12 1/8 (sheet 20 1/16 x 22). Edition 27, #13. Printed on cream wove paper, on the full sheet with deckle edges. A rich impression in excellent condition, housed in an archival folder. The etching has never been matted. Titled and numbered in pencil. by the artist; signed and initialed in pencil by the artist's estate. Provenance: the artist's estate A dramatic view of the lower East Side in New York. Housed in an archival folder awaiting your choice of mat and frame. Painter and printmaker Lawrence Nelson Wilbur...