Mary Spain Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Drawings of skulls are often called vanitas, which often contain collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality and to repent. This still life vanitas drawing is matted with a heavy white mat and framed in a bronze toned wooden frame measuring 15.75 x 16.25 inches. John Hrehov Skull and Ornament colored pencil on paper 7h x 8w in 17.78h x 20.32w cm JHR006 John Hrehov Education 1985 MFA-Painting, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1981 BFA-Painting, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH. Solo Exhibitions 2017 John Hrehov, Paintings and Drawings. Tom Thomas...

Joseph Stella was a visionary artist who painted what he saw, an idiosyncratic and individual experience of his time and place. Stella arrived in New York in 1896, part of a wave of Italian immigrants from poverty-stricken Southern Italy. But Stella was not a child of poverty. His father was a notary and respected citizen in Muro Locano, a small town in the southern Appenines. The five Stella brothers were all properly educated in Naples. Stella’s older brother, Antonio, was the first of the family to come to America. Antonio Stella trained as a physician in Italy, and was a successful and respected doctor in the Italian community centered in Greenwich Village. He sponsored and supported his younger brother, Joseph, first sending him to medical school in New York, then to study pharmacology, and then sustaining him through the early days of his artistic career. Antonio Stella specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis and was active in social reform circles. His connections were instrumental in Joseph Stella’s early commissions for illustrations in reform journals. Joseph Stella, from the beginning, was an outsider. He was of the Italian-American community, but did not share its overwhelming poverty and general lack of education. He went back to Italy on several occasions, but was no longer an Italian. His art incorporated many influences. At various times his work echoed the concerns and techniques of the so-called Ashcan School, of New York Dada, of Futurism and, of Cubism, among others. These are all legitimate influences, but Stella never totally committed himself to any group. He was a convivial, but ultimately solitary figure, with a lifelong mistrust of any authority external to his own personal mandate. He was in Europe during the time that Alfred Stieglitz established his 291 Gallery. When Stella returned he joined the international coterie of artists who gathered at the West Side apartment of the art patron Conrad Arensberg. It was here that Stella became close friends with Marcel Duchamp. Stella was nineteen when he arrived in America and studied in the early years of the century at the Art Students League, and with William Merritt Chase, under whose tutelage he received rigorous training as a draftsman. His love of line, and his mastery of its techniques, is apparent early in his career in the illustrations he made for various social reform journals. Stella, whose later work as a colorist is breathtakingly lush, never felt obliged to choose between line and color. He drew throughout his career, and unlike other modernists, whose work evolved inexorably to more and more abstract form, Stella freely reverted to earlier realist modes of representation whenever it suited him. This was because, in fact, his “realist” work was not “true to nature,” but true to Stella’s own unique interpretation. Stella began to draw flowers, vegetables, butterflies, and birds in 1919, after he had finished the Brooklyn Bridge series of paintings, which are probably his best-known works. These drawings of flora and fauna were initially coincidental with his fantastical, nostalgic and spiritual vision of his native Italy which he called Tree of My Life (Mr. and Mrs. Barney A. Ebsworth Foundation and Windsor, Inc., St. Louis, illus. in Barbara Haskell, Joseph Stella, exh. cat. [New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994], p. 111 no. 133). Two Wood Ducks...

Hachiya Persimmons & Fan, Modern Still Life with Red-Orange and Blue Lovely modern still-life of a fan and persimmons by Santa Cruz, California artist Anita Heckman (American, b.20th Century). This 1987 mixed media work on paper depicts three vivid Hachiya persimmons on a windowsill beside an elegant paper fan with a tassel. A decorative window drape...

Design-quality illustration of a Philco Ford Television set by Edward T. Liljenwall (American, 1943-2010). The TV is expertly rendered against an olive green gradient background, wit...

This artwork blends acrylic, pencil and color pencils in a loose style keeping it both expressive and refined. The art floats above the matte and is beautifully framed in a dark grey...

This striking colored pencil drawing by David Morrison showcases his unrivaled mastery of the medium. Rendered with extraordinary precision, this larger-than-life section of pomegran...

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré Un Enfant Vu Assis Sur Ballpoint Pens, Crayons And Colored Pencil On Cardboard 7.5 x 5.5 March 11, 1948, he experienced ...

Design-quality illustrations of Intelledex machinery by Edward T. Liljenwall (American, 1943-2010). The machine is expertly rendered, with smooth shading and specific details. Highli...

This artwork blends acrylic, pencil and color pencils in a loose style keeping it both expressive and refined. The art floats above the matte and is beautifully framed in a dark grey...

Small artwork is intimate and can personalize a space. This classic sling back shoe is perfect for the shoe lover. The artwork blends acrylic, pencil and colour pencils in both an ex...

Small artwork is intimate and can personalize spaces. This classic pink and black pump is an artwork blending acrylic, pencil and color pencils in a loose style keeping it both expre...

Frédéric Bruly Bouabré Des Enfants De Races Couler Ancenciel Ballpoint Pens, Crayons And Colored Pencil On Cardboard 5.5 x 7.5 March 11, 1948, ...