Jean Chapin Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

A charming rural scene painted in the style of Thomas Girtin with good strong colours. Circle of Thomas Girtin Sheep in a hilly pasture with a farmhouse Signed with initials and dated "AP (18)05' Watercolour, with attractive washline mount 6¾ x 9¾ inches with frame 14 x 17 inches including frame Thomas Girtin was born in London in 1775, the same year as J.M.W. Turner, and died in 1802, at the age of twenty-seven. The art of watercolour was transformed during Girtin's brief life. This was especially marked in landscape watercolours, which grew in scale and ambition. Led by Girtin and Turner, watercolourists abandoned careful stained drawings for a more dramatic style of painting that captured moods and a range of light and weather effects. Not everyone welcomed the rapid technical changes, especially as revolution and war threatened the established political order. For a brief period, however, watercolour painting was the epitome of modern art, and the landscapes of Girtin and Turner were welcomed as a national triumph. Girtin was apprenticed at the age of 14, in the year of the French Revolution, and by the age of 19 he was exhibiting at London's Royal Academy, and producing watercolour landscapes for private patrons. However, unlike Turner, Girtin remained something of an outsider to the art establishment: he did not study at the Academy's schools, and was rumoured to have radical, or even revolutionary sympathies. He also tried to break away from the traditional reliance on the patronage of the wealthy, partly by trying to sell his work on the open market, and partly through two larger projects aimed at a mass audience: a group of twenty printed Views of Paris and an enormous 360 degree panorama of London...

This appears to be dated 1927. It came in with a piece dated 1929. A very early, rare work. Framed 22.5 x 18. Image 14.5 x 9 A great New York city street scene with an El train (elevated subway line) and architectural renderings of buildings. This is a wonderful piece by one of America's most treasured artists, Chaim Gross. Throughout his lifetime Gross has gone through tragedy and a real test of faith however, he has the unique ability to focus and direct his expression to the most joyful and beautiful works of art, such as the present lot. For more than sixty years Chaim Gross's art has expressed optimistic, affirming themes. His acrobats, cyclists, and mothers and children convey joyfulness, exuberance, love, and intimacy. This aspect of his work remained consistent with his Hasidic heritage, which teaches that "only in his childlike happiness is man nearest to God." He often used his creative abilities to explore and experiment with media. In his artwork he retains an optimistic philosophy, even when facing somber issues such as war, depression, and the Holocaust. Chaim Gross (March 17, 1904 – May 5, 1991) was an American sculptor and educator. Gross was born to a Jewish family in Austrian Galicia, in the village of Wolowa (now known as Mezhgorye, Ukraine), in the Carpathian Mountains. In 1911, his family moved to Kolomyia (which was annexed into the Ukrainian USSR in 1939 and became part of newly independent Ukraine in 1991). When World War I ended, Gross and brother Avrom-Leib went to Budapest to join their older siblings Sarah and Pinkas. Gross applied to and was accepted by the art academy in Budapest and studied under the painter Béla Uitz, though within a year a new regime under Miklos Horthy took over and attempted to expel all Jews and foreigners from the country. After being deported from Hungary, Gross began art studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, Austria shortly before immigrating to the United States in 1921. Gross's studies continued in the United States at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, where he studied with Elie Nadelman and others, and at the Art Students League of New York, with Robert Laurent. He also attended the Educational Alliance Art School, studying under Abbo Ostrowsky, at the same time as Moses Soyer and Peter Blume. In 1926 Gross began teaching at The Educational Alliance, and continued teaching there for the next 50 years. Louise Nevelson was among his students at the Alliance (in 1934), during the time she was transitioning from painting to sculpture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he exhibited at the Salons of America exhibitions at the Anderson Galleries and, beginning in 1928, at the Whitney Studio Club. In 1929, Gross experimented with printmaking, and created an important group of 15 linocuts and lithographs of landscapes, New York City streets and parks, women in interiors, the circus, and vaudeville. The entire suite is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Gross returned to the medium of printmaking in the 1960s, and produced approximately 200 works in the medium over the next two decades. In March 1932 Gross had his first solo exhibition at Gallery 144 in New York City. For a short time they represented Gross, as well as his friends Milton Avery, Moses Soyer, Ahron Ben-Shmuel and others. Gross was primarily a practitioner of the direct carving method, with the majority of his work being carved from wood. Other direct carvers in early 20th-century American art include William Zorach, Jose de Creeft, and Robert Laurent. Works by Chaim Gross can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the United States, with substantial holdings (27 sculptures) at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. A key work from this era, now at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, is the 1932 birds-eye maple Acrobatic Performers, which is also only one and one quarter inch thick. In 1933 Gross joined the government's PWAP (Public Works of Art Project), which transitioned into the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which Gross worked for later in the 1930s. Under these programs Gross taught and demonstrated art, made sculptures that were placed in schools and public colleges, made work for Federal buildings including the Federal Trade Commission Building, and for the France Overseas and Finnish Buildings at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Gross was also recognized during these years with a silver medal at the Exposition universelle de 1937 in Paris, and in 1942, with a purchase prize at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Artists for Victory" exhibition for his wood sculpture of famed circus performer Lillian Leitzel. In 1949 Gross sketched Chaim Weizmann, President of Israel, at several functions in New York City where Weizmann was speaking, Gross completed the bust in bronze later that year. Gross returned to Israel for three months in 1951 (the second of many trips there in the postwar years) to paint a series of 40 watercolors of life in various cities. This series was exhibited at the Jewish Museum (Manhattan) in 1953. In the 1950s Gross began to make more bronze sculptures alongside his wood and stone pieces, and in 1957 and 1959 he traveled to Rome to work with famed bronze foundries including the Nicci foundry. At the end of the decade Gross was working primarily in bronze which allowed him to create open forms, large-scale works and of course, multiple casts. Gross's large-scale bronze The Family, donated to New York City in 1991 in honor of Mayor Ed Koch, and installed at the Bleecker Street Park at 11th street, is now a fixture of Greenwich Village. In 1959, a survey of Gross's sculpture in wood, stone, and bronze was featured in the exhibit Four American Expressionists curated by Lloyd Goodrich at the Whitney Museum of American Art, with work by Abraham Rattner, Doris Caesar, and Karl Knaths. In 1976, a selection from Gross's important collection of historic African sculpture, formed since the late 1930s, was exhibited at the Worcester Art Museum in the show The Sculptor's Eye: The African Art Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Chaim Gross. Gross was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member, and became a full Academician in 1981. In 1984, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, with Jacob Lawrence and Lukas Foss. In the fall of 1991, Allen Ginsberg gave an important tribute to Gross at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which is published in their Proceedings. In 1994, Forum Gallery, which now represents the Chaim Gross estate, held a memorial exhibition featuring a sixty-year survey of Gross's work. Gross was a professor of printmaking and sculpture at both the Educational Alliance and the New School for Social Research in New York City, as well as at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, the MoMA art school, the Art Student's League and the New Art School (which Gross ran briefly with Alexander Dobkin...

If you are interested in African American Art and in Women in the Arts, I will certainly not need to introduce Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1988). Often associated with the Harlem Renaiss...

A delightful composition by this master watercolourist. William Payne (1760-1830) Figures and cattle by a river Watercolour 7¾ inches, circular, unframed 15 x 14½ inches with the fr...

A very atmospheric watercolour capturing the light and shimmer of a Venetian canal. One of two views of Venice by the artist that I am offering - please see my other listing. Dennis Page (born 1926) Venice Balcony Signed Watercolour 8½ x 12 inches including the frame 16¾ x 21 inches with the frame Painter, mainly in watercolour who was born in Hampstead, London. He studied art at Harrow and the Central School of Arts & Crafts, where his tutors included Mervyn Peake...

Adolphe Appian (1818-1898) Les Bords de l'Ain (Shores of Ain), signed lower left charcoal and white chalk on paper 36 x 45 cm In quite good condition : foxings in the upper part (...

André MANTELET MARTEL (1876-1953) View Of The Pantheon, Descartes street, Paris Ve area, 1926 Charcoal on paper Signed, dated and located lower left 60 x 44 cm Provenance; former Jac...

Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Fisherman's Island, Boothbay, Maine, c. 1925 Watercolor on paper Signed lower left 15 x 20 inches 20.75 x 25.75 inches, framed Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox...

A charming scene of a figure by a loch with a ruined castle and homestead in the background by one of Queen Victoria's favourite artists. William Leighton Leitch (1804-1883) Figure ...

A lovely vibrant watercolour capturing a shimmering English river John Newberry (born 1934) Stream at Wytham, Oxford Signed Watercolour 4¼ x 5¾ inches unframed 9 x 11 inches with fr...

Black and White realistic charcoal landscape drawing of a large tree in the wind Sue Bryan, "Beneath The Dripping Trees" created in 2020 22" X 30" unframed, charcoal graphite on primed arches paper 33 x 39 inches with a white frame, white 8-ply mat and non-glare glass Signed, lower right Excellent condition, Ready to hang as is This contemporary charcoal landscape drawing on arches paper was completed in 2020 by Sue Bryan. Born in Ireland, the artist uses landscapes from her childhood as inspiration for her current work primarily consisting of beautifully detailed charcoal drawings of trees and wooded landscapes. The artist captures exquisite detail and luminous light with the mere use of black and white charcoal and carbon pencil. The artist creates this tree through a blend of light and shadow that demonstrates the artist's masterful technique. Dark leaves and winding branches in black charcoal contrast elegantly against a light filled sky. The landscape drawing is complemented by a white frame measuring 33 x 39 inches. There is sturdy wire installed on the back for easy hanging. Artist Statement: "My work is drawing based. As a native of Ireland, the landscape there has certainly shaped and influenced my own history. Many of my drawings are of places that have a deep personal association for me; an endeavor perhaps to stay connected to my roots. My aim is not only to convey a sense of place and belonging, but also an attempt to capture the ineffable, to evoke a feeling or a memory, to invite the viewer to look beyond and beneath what they see. My process is one of building up tones and textures using a combination of charcoal, carbon and graphite, all of which yield a wonderful range of blacks and grays that vary in density and transparency as much as in tonality. Much of drawing’s appeal to me lies in its very constraint, in its simplification, in the reduction of nature’s macrocosm to the coal-black char of organic matter. For me, the act of drawing is an end in itself." About the work: A native of Ireland, Sue Bryan explores the memories of youth rooted in her homeland's landscape. Employing charcoal on both paper and panel, these moody and misty studies reminds us that the water-locked terrain is not always sunny and green. Exquisite detail found in each tree branch or mass of tall grasses lining the horizon dominates the foreground. Light emulates from the background attempting to penetrate the density of opaque cloud cover. Bryan's small scale drawings convey an intimate and highly personal sense of place and belonging. SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2019 'A Quiet Respite", Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2018 'DRAWN',5th Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing, Manifest Gallery, OH 2018 'On Paper - An Exhibition of Drawings', Florence Academy of Art, NJ 2018 'MONOCHROME', Bo.Lee Gallery, London 2017 'Arboreal', Manifest Gallery, OH 2017 'Hudson Valley Landscapes', Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2017 'Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London, October 2017 'A Long Way from Home', Bo.Lee Gallery, London 2017 187th Annual Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland 2017 'Palette', Abend Gallery, Denver, CO 2017 'Summer Exhibit', Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, New York 2017 'Exquisite Abandon : Contemporary Miniature Works', Laguna College of Art & Design 2017 8th Annual Drawing Discourse, University of North Carolina Ashville 2017 'Small is Beautiful', Le Salon Vert, Geneva Switzerland 2016 'Smart Dust', Group Show, Sla307, 307 West 30th Street, New York, NY 2016 'Inside Outside', Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2016 7th Annual Drawing Discourse, S Tucker Cooke Gallery, University of North Carolina Asheville 2016 186th Annual Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland 2016 DRAWN, 3rd Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing, Manifest Gallery, OH 2016 'Summer Group Invitational', George Billis Gallery, NYC 2015 'Radical Inventions', Carrie Haddad Gallery, Hudson, NY 2015 'Strange Paradise', First Street Gallery's National Juried Exhibition, Juror Steven Harvey 2015 185th Annual Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland 2015 'DRAWN' 2nd Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing, Manifest Gallery 2015 7th Annual Juried Exhibition, Prince Street Gallery, NYC, Juror Robert Berlind 2015 Bradley International Print & Drawing Exhibition, Heuser Art Center, IL, Juror Beth Grabowski 2015 'Interactive Lines' Small Group Invitational, Cabarrus Arts Council, Condor, NC 2014 ‘Regarding the Sublime’, Small Group Invitational, North Park University, IL 2014 27th Northern National Art Competition, Nicolet College Art Gallery 2014 184th Annual Exhibition, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland 2014 'DRAWN’ 1st Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing, Manifest Gallery 2014 POP-UP : On and Off the Wall, Series 2, Invited Artist, First Street Gallery, NYC 2014 5th Drawing Discourse, University of North Carolina, Asheville, Juror Tim Lowly 2013 VISTA [landscape in contemporary art], National Juried Show, Manifest Gallery 2013 Marks, A National Juried Drawing Exhibition, Madelon Powers Art Gallery, East Stroudsburg University, PA 2013 American Art Today : Figures, The Bascom, A Center for Visual Art, Juror Jonathan Stuhlman 2013 First Street Gallery's National Juried Exhibition, Juror Donald Kuspit 2013 4th Annual Drawing Discourse, S Tucker Cooke Gallery, University of North Carolina, Asheville, Juror Susan Hauptman 2012 Fort Wayne Museum of Art Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Juror Frank Bernarducci 2012 25th Northern National Art Competition, Nicolet College Art Gallery, Juror Sarah McKenzie 2011 Salmagundi Annual Non-Member Open Exhibition, Salmagundi Club, NYC 2011 33rd Bradley International Print & Drawing Exhibition, Juror Robert E...

'Small Boat and Bather in Dinard', gouache and charcoal on art paper, by French artist, Jean Pons (1961). Painted in a naïve style, the piece dep...