Maya SOKOVICH Art

A fantastic modern portrait of a young boy. This work is signed what appears to be Paul Sellers and dated 1937, but we have not found information on the artist. The work dated 1936...

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

Hazel Guggenheim King-Farlow McKinley (American, London, New Orleans, 1903-1995), "Paris Rooftops" c. 1930 Oil paint on wood panel Attributed, dated and titled verso (I am not sure in whose hand not signed by the artist herself). Dimensions H.- 18 in., W.- 15 in., Framed- H.- 26 1/2 in., W.- 23 in. Provenance: From an estate New Orleans, Louisiana. Hazel Guggenheim King-Farlow McKinley (born Barbara Hazel Guggenheim; April 30, 1903 – June 10, 1995) was an American painter, art collector, and art benefactor. Hazel Guggenheim was born in New York City to Benjamin Guggenheim and Fleurette (Seligman) Guggenheim. The marriage united two wealthy German-Jewish families. Born into the well-known Guggenheim family, a niece of Solomon Guggenheim who founded the Guggenheim Museum, she grew up in New York, alongside her sisters Benita Guggenheim and Marguerite Peggy Guggenheim who would become the influential gallery proprietor, art collector, museum founder, and midwife to the Abstract Expressionism art movement. Her father Benjamin gave up much of his financial interest in the family's mining business to start his own business in Paris. With his business failing, in 1912 he set out to return to the United States in time for McKinley's ninth birthday on the Titanic. Following the shipwreck, he drowned aged 46; his body was not recovered. McKinley inherited $450,000. She later inherited money on the deaths of her mother, and of her older sister, Benita, who died in childbirth. The loss of her father haunted McKinley for the rest of her life, and in 1969 she recorded "In Memoriam, Titanic Lifeboat Blues." McKinley began painting as a teenager and was a prolific artist throughout her life. When she fled New York for Paris at age 19 she studied at the Sorbonne and became part of 1920's bohemian Paris, France, where she was taught by key modernism artists of the time. Her primary mediums were ink, water color, tempera, and crayon. Some of her work is hand signed and some is not. In 1928 her sister Peggy moved to London and mar­ried the British writer John Holmes. In 1931, McKinley married the Englishman Denys King-Farlow. They settled in Sussex, UK, and had two children, John King-Farlow, who became a philosopher and poet, and Barbara Benita King-Farlow, who became an artist in her own right. In 1938 Peggy opened Guggenheim Jeune, a London gallery of mod­ern art, starring Wassily Kandinsky, Henry Moore, Salvador dali, Constantin Brancusi, Max Ernst, Pablo Pic­asso and Jean Miro with whom they socialized. Whilst living in the south of England with Denys King-Farlow in the 1930s, McKinley was influenced by a group of avant-garde artists, and had her first solo exhibition in London in April 1937 at the Coolings Gallery. She received instruction from British artists Rowland Suddaby, Raymond Coxon, and Edna Ginesi, becoming associated with the London Group and the Euston Road School. She painted primarily in watercolor. Her work included still-life, portraits, townscapes and landscapes. Although her first work was done in a "slightly plain palette," her later work in the 1930s brightened, sometimes falling within the realm of fauvism. "Under the influence of the Surrealist artists, Hazel's paintings after the 1930's became freer, though her work was far more whimsical and humorous than many artists more closely associated with the surrealism movement." In 1939 McKinley fled Europe due to the impending war and returned to the US, living mostly in California. She took brief art lessons from her sister Peggy's one-time husband Max Ernst and much later attended several summer schools taught by muralist and renowned teacher Xavier Gonzalez. In her life in the United States and abroad, McKinley met many prominent artists of the Paris, London, and New York art scenes including Jackson Pollock. McKinley continued to paint, and ran a small gallery of her own in the late 1950s and early 1960s in West Cornwall, Connecticut. One show at her gallery featured the works of British and Irish painters including Rowland Suddaby, Frank Beteson, Tom Nisbett, and Patrick Swift. McKinley showed two of her own works in the same exhibit, a watercolor painted at Positano, Italy and one painted at the Tuileries, Paris. Another featured work was a surrealistic water color portrait of McKinley by London artist Mervyn Peake. McKinley exhibited her work both in Europe and the United States throughout her long career, mostly at smaller venues. An incomplete listing of her exhibits and museum acquisitions of her work include: Berkshire Museum, the Galerie Raymond Duncan in Paris, Stendahl Galleries, the Jake Zeitlin Gallery, the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, the Artists' Own Gallery in London, the Manchester City Art Gallery, and Santa Fe Art Museum. McKinley's work was only once included in a show by her sister Peggy. In 1943 McKinley was selected to exhibit a painting in Peggy's infamous show Exhibition by 31 Women in her New York gallery Art of This Century. The exhibition was radical at the time for being one of the first all-woman exhibitions, as well as showing only abstract or Surrealist works. The Exhibition by 31 Women was conceived by Peggy Guggenheim in collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, who is usually credited with suggesting the idea. The participating artists were selected by a jury that included André Breton, Max Ernst Duchamp, and Guggenheim. Advice was sought from Alfred H. Barr Jr., first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, who provided Guggenheim with five names, of which three were included in the exhibition, Suzy Frelinghuysen, Irene Rice Pereira, and Esphyr Slobodkina. Those already known to Guggenheim through their partners included Xenia Cage, wife of the composer John Cage, Frida Kahlo, wife of Diego Rivera, who was noted for his frescoes, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, wife of the sculptor, Hans Jean Arp, and Jacqueline Lamba, ex-wife of the surrealist André Breton. Guggenheim’s sister, Hazel Guggenheim McKinley and her daughter, Pegeen Vail Guggenheim exhibited. Also in the exhibition was the burlesque dancer, Gypsy Rose Lee, another friend of Guggenheim, who was possibly included more to help publicise the event than for her artistic skills. Other artists were friends of Guggenheim or of Max Ernst. One, Dorothea Tanning, was Ernst's lover, leading Guggenheim to say: "I realized that I should have only had thirty women in the show". Only one artist is known to have refused the invitation to submit works, Georgia O'Keeffe, who reportedly responded that she wished to be identified as a painter, and not singled out because of her gender. In the late 1950s, McKinley moved back to Europe for a while, before returning to the United States in 1969. She lived in New Orleans until her death in 1995. On her death, her only living son, John King-Farlow, wrote a poem in his mother's honor, entitled "Eulogy For My Mother (Hazel Guggenheim McKinley, Artist)." A short obituary distributed by the Associated Press noted she was a member of the illustrious New York Guggenheim family, that she was determined to make a name for herself as an artist, that her art works were shown in museums in the United States and Europe, and were in the collections of such celebrities as Greer Garson, Benny Goodman, and Jason Robards. In 1998 after her death, one of her paintings was exhibited in Peggy Guggenheim's Venice home museum the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Guggenheim’s work in various media and her connections to influential artists and collectors provide glimpses into the complex tapestry of the art world in the first half of the 20th century. In her later life she settled in New Orleans, where she continued painting, exhibiting, and studying art into her eighties at Newcomb College, New Orleans. She was part of a regional art scene that included Ida Kohlmeyer, George Rodrigue, Noel Rockmore and Hunt Slonem. Towards the end of her life while confined to bed, her last works were colored pen drawings and sketches. McKinley collected major contemporary artworks and she donated many of these works to public institutions. She donated over 15 works to Wakefield Art Gallery, UK, in the 1930s, and in 1938 presented the painting Cossacks...

Farm Tragedy (Untitled), c. 1930s, mixed media on plaster on panel, unsigned, 22 1/8 x 32 inches; label verso reads: "New York Artists Equity Association, New York, NY," provenance i...

This mural study is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s San Pedro Post Office: History of Writing Mural South, Preliminary Mural Maquette right panel...

H 30.25 x W 26.75 x D 2 in. (framed) Signed lower right: “DYF” Dyf Archives ID No. 2063 Provenance Christie’s East, New York, Modern Paintings, Drawings & Sculptures, November 10, 1992, lot 60 as Nu à sa toilette. Private collection Private collection, New York (Purchased from above) This item is in our New York City warehouse and can be viewed by appointment. Marcel Dyf’s 1950 oil painting...

Industrial Working Man Social Realism Mid-20 Century Modern American Scene Art Edith Kramer (1916-2014) "Man on Lathe II" Oil on linen, 1949 23 x 22 inches Signed and dated in blac...

Costume is an original painting in mixed media, tempera and watercolor on paper, realized by the Greek-French artist Alkis Matheos. Very good conditions. Signed by artist's stamp....

"Chess" Mid-20th Century American Scene Social Realism Modern Art John Grabach (1886-1981) Chess Oil on canvas 30 x 36 inches Signed John R. Grabach ANA lower center Framed 35 x 41...

Moshe Katz (Romanian Israeli), 1937- an Israeli citizen, studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Art in Jerusalem, as well as at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. Although not an expo...

Guy Pene du Bois (1884-1958) "Two Figures in a Courtroom" 16 x 22 inches Oil on paper mounted to, c. 1945 Framed: 25 x 31 inches Provenance: James Graham & Sons Gallery Guy Pene du Bois' "Two Figures in Courtroom" is a WPA era American scene oil painting created in a realistic style. Modernism at its best The work is framed by Heydenryk. Pène du Bois descended from French immigrants who settled in Louisiana in 1738 and was raised in a Creole household. He was born in 1884 in Brooklyn, NY and first studied with William Merritt Chase at the New York School of Art and later continued his training with Robert Henri. Pène du Bois was greatly impressed with Henri's credo that "real life" was subject matter for art and throughout his life a realist philosophy informed his art as well as his parallel career, art criticism. In 1905, Pène du Bois made his first visit to Paris where he painted scenes of fashionable people in cafes rendered in the dark tonalities and impasto associated with the Ashcan School. By 1920, he had achieved his mature style, which was characterized by stylized, rounded, almost sculptural figures painted with invisible brushstrokes. The subjects of his paintings were often members of society whom he gently satirized. In 1924, Pène du Bois and his wife, Floy, left for France where they would remain until 1930. Returning to America showcases pictures the artist produced after this very productive period abroad. After five years of living in France, Pène du Bois was able to observe American life with fresh eyes. His work becomes more psychologically intense and less satirical. In Girl at Table a slender, blond is shown gazing at a small statue that she holds at arm's distance. The meaning is elusive, but a powerful sense of longing is evoked. Similarly, paintings such as Dramatic Moment and Jane are taut with unresolved dialogue. Both pictures depict mysterious interiors in which a lone woman anxiously awaits the denouement of a suspenseful scene. Other pictures, for example, Chess Tables, Washington Square and Bar, New Orleans, recall Pene du Bois's Ashcan origins in their depiction of urban entertainment. During this period, landscape becomes an important subject for Pène du Bois. Girl Sketching...

Little portrait by Arturo Noci realized in 1909 probably in US. Oil on board. Bronze frame Signed and dated by the artist at bottom right. Very good conditions.