Skip to main content

Nell Blaine Art

American, 1922-1996
Nell Blaine, painter of still lifes and landscapes in brilliant colors, created abstract work that gives the appearance of being done in a carefree, totally lighthearted manner but in fact is the result of years of disciplined study. It is also an effect achieved after rehabilitation from polio, which nearly took her life. Suffering a paralyzed right hand, she taught herself to paint with her left hand, and she devoted much time to applying colors, some times as many as fifty varieties. She attributed her fascination with color with its discovery when she was two years old and corrective eye surgery allowed her to see color for the first time. Blaine was raised in the Richmond, Virginia, where she grew to hate the prevalent racial discrimination and left home at an early age. In high school, she was skilled enough to begin selling her artwork, which was mostly posters and portraits. She attended the Richmond School of Art, now Virginia Commonwealth University, between 1939 and 1942 but left its classical realist curriculum when one of the instructors introduced her to modern art. She used money she had earned from commercial art and went to New York and studied with Hans Hofmann, teacher of Abstract Expressionism. Shortly after, she married a jazz musician and immersed herself in the world of jazz, beating drums and improvising expressive dances, and associating with Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, and Beat Generation writer Jack Kerouac. Her paintings of that time reflect her strong developing sense of relationship between jazz and abstract art. In 1944 at age twenty two, she became the youngest member of the American Abstract Artists and exhibited hard-edged geometric paintings, mostly black and white with accents of bright colors. She joined a cooperative of abstract artists and worked so hard at organizing shows that some referred to it as the Blaine Street Gallery. She was a strong personality who had special influence on Larry Rivers and Jane Freilicher and appeared to thrive in the New York art scene of the 1940s. However, she decided that her lifestyle was unhealthy, and she left the city, had a period of seclusion, and then went to France where she admired the work of Gustave Courbet, Jean Antoine Watteau, Eugene Delacroix, and Nicholas Poussin and took up figurative art in an abstract style. She became known as a "painterly realist," and added landscapes and interiors to her subject matter. She earned fellowships to Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony and began spending at least half the year in Gloucester, Massachusetts. She also traveled in Mexico. In 1959 on the island of Mykonos, Greece, she had polio. Her New York art friends in an exhibition of seventy-one artists raised money for extensive treatment at Mount Sinai Hospital. After recovery, she settled in a studio on Riverside Drive, spent her summers in Gloucester, and painted from her wheelchair. She died in 1996.
to
2
1
1
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
4
2
1
3
1
3
1
2
2
2
1
1
5
10,253
2,810
2,500
1,410
2
4
Artist: Nell Blaine
Summer, Quaker Hill oil painting by Nell Blaine
Summer, Quaker Hill oil painting by Nell Blaine

Summer, Quaker Hill oil painting by Nell Blaine

By Nell Blaine

Located in Hudson, NY

This work by Nell Blaine was exhibited at the Poindexter Gallery, as well as the Tibor de Nagy Gallery, both in New York City. It is signed lower left, and signed, titled, and dated ...

Category

1960s American Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Nell Blair Walden Blaine "Standing Figure" Pastel Drawing, circa 1967
Nell Blair Walden Blaine "Standing Figure" Pastel Drawing, circa 1967

Nell Blair Walden Blaine "Standing Figure" Pastel Drawing, circa 1967

By Nell Blaine

Located in San Francisco, CA

Nell Blair Walden Blaine (1922-1996) "Standing Figure" pastel drawing circa 1967 A Fine original pastel portrait of a standing nude figure by listed artist Nell Blaine. Dimensions ...

Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Pastel

Daureen, II
Daureen, II

Daureen, II

By Nell Blaine

Located in Fairlawn, OH

Daureen, II Etching, 1969 Signed in pencil lower right Edition: 28 (17/28) Condition: Excellent Two hinges from previous matting Blaine studied etching at Atelier 17 in New York and considered one of their distinguished alums. "Blaine was foremost an abstract painter, first a student of Theresa Pollak...

Category

1960s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Etching

Touch of Fall watercolor and pastel painting by Nell Blaine
Touch of Fall watercolor and pastel painting by Nell Blaine

Touch of Fall watercolor and pastel painting by Nell Blaine

By Nell Blaine

Located in Hudson, NY

Signed "Nell Blaine" upper left in pencil. Signed, titled, dated verso on sheet. Signed, titled, dated verso on backing panel. The artist. Exhibited at Fischbach Gallery, NYC, in 1994 (Gallery label verso, and wall label affixed verso). Purchased by private collectors c.1994. By descent. Tibor de Nagy Gallery, NYC (the artist's estate representative), exhibited 2020 (label verso). Exhibited at Fischbach Gallery, NYC, in 1994 (Gallery label verso, and wall label affixed verso). Tibor de Nagy Gallery, NYC (the artist's estate representative), exhibited 2020 (label verso). From her November 15, 1996 NYT obituary: Nell Blaine, a widely respected New York landscape painter and watercolorist, died yesterday at Mount Sinai Hospital. She was 74 and had homes in Manhattan and Gloucester, Mass. Ms. Blaine, who had been hospitalized since July, had been confined to a wheelchair since 1959, when she contracted polio. Ms. Blaine was born in Richmond, Va., in 1922, and first studied at the Richmond School of Art, now part of Virginia Commonwealth University. She moved to New York in 1942 to study painting with Hans Hofmann and later studied etching and engraving at Atelier 17 with Stanley William Hayter. During her first years in New York, her work, which had previously been tightly realist, turned abstract, inspired by Mondrian, Leger and Jean Helion. At one time she was the youngest member of the American Abstract Artists. She was also a founding member of the Jane Street Gallery, one of Manhattan's earliest artists' cooperatives, and had her first solo show there in 1945. Just as Ms. Blaine was becoming known as a promising abstract painter, and gaining the admiration of such critics as Clement Greenberg, she started to shift back to representation. Inspired in part by a trip with Larry Rivers in 1950 to Paris, where she was especially impressed by the work of Vuillard and Bonnard, she immersed herself in the tradition of 19th-century European painting. From the mid-1950's, she cultivated an increasingly painterly and colorful style, usually working directly from nature, or still life, with particular emphasis on the forms and hues of flowers. Her work retained a sense of all-over structure and pulsating energy that she nonetheless credited to abstract art. ''It all goes back to Mondrian,'' she would say. In the 1950's, Ms. Blaine was prominent among a circle of New York artists and poets that included John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Koch, Mr. Rivers, Jane Freilicher, Leland Bell, Louisa Matthiasdottir, Robert De Niro Sr. and Rudy Burckhardt. She had her first solo show of representational work at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in 1953 and was represented by the Poindexter Gallery until it closed in 1978, and, in recent years, by the Fischbach Gallery. During the 1950's she supported herself as a commercial artist, designing brochures for art galleries. In 1955, she designed the original logo, column heads and layout for The Village Voice. In 1957, Ms. Blaine was featured in Life magazine as one of five leading young female artists in America. In 1959, after several months of traveling and painting in Greece, she contracted severe bulbar polio on the island of Mykonos. ''To Nell Blaine,'' an exhibition organized at Poindexter to raise money for her hospital bills, included the work of 79 artists, including Saul Steinberg, Robert Motherwell, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, Mr. Rivers, Ms. Freilicher and Robert Rauschenberg. After eight months in a New York hospital, including five months in an iron lung...

Category

1990s Abstract Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Watercolor

Related Items
Querelle d'amoureux. (Quarreling). 1
Querelle d'amoureux. (Quarreling). 1

James TissotQuerelle d'amoureux. (Quarreling). 1, 1881

$2,800Sale Price|20% Off

H 7.82 in W 8.5 in D 0.5 in

Querelle d'amoureux. (Quarreling). 1

By James Tissot

Located in Plano, TX

En plein soleil. (In the Sunlight). 1881. Etching and drypoint. Tissot 54, Béraldi 45, Wentworth 54. 7 13/16 x 11 1/2 (sheet 11 1/4 x 15). Edition about 100. Mat line and two hinge s...

Category

19th Century Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

Almond Blossom Watercolor on Board, Kashmir Landscape, Signed, 1960
Almond Blossom Watercolor on Board, Kashmir Landscape, Signed, 1960

Almond Blossom Watercolor on Board, Kashmir Landscape, Signed, 1960

Located in Norfolk, GB

Dina Nath Walli (1908–2006) Almond Blossom, Kashmir Watercolour on Board c 1960 Framed size: 42.8cm x 52.8cm Image size: 27.5cm x 38cm Signed and dated 1970 on the verso, gifted fro...

Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Board, Watercolor

“Fall Landscape”
“Fall Landscape”

Arthur Mitchell“Fall Landscape”, Circa 1890

$2,720Sale Price|20% Off

H 16.25 in W 12.25 in D 1.75 in

“Fall Landscape”

Located in Southampton, NY

Original oil on canvas board painting of a fall landscape by the American artist, Arthur Mitchell. Signed lower left by the artist. Circa 1890. Condition is very good. The paintin...

Category

1890s American Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Oil, Board, Canvas

L'Avant-Foyer de l'Opera /// French Impressionist Etching Figurative Lady Man
L'Avant-Foyer de l'Opera /// French Impressionist Etching Figurative Lady Man

L'Avant-Foyer de l'Opera /// French Impressionist Etching Figurative Lady Man

By Tony Minartz

Located in Saint Augustine, FL

Artist: Tony Minartz (French, 1873-1944) Title: "L'Avant-Foyer de l'Opera" Portfolio: Revue de l'Art Ancien & Moderne *Issued unsigned Year: 1903 Medium: Original Etching on cream laid paper Limited edition: Unknown Printer: Unknown Publisher: Revue de l'Art Ancien & Moderne, Paris, France Framing: Recently framed in a traditional gold and black moulding with 100% cotton rag matting Framed size: 18.63" x 16.38" Sheet size: 12" x 9" Image size: 9" x 7.25" Condition: In excellent condition Notes: Printed in one color: bistre. This review was founded in 1897 in the continuity of the review Les Beaux-Arts published between 1861 and 1865; Jules Comte, the founder, entitled his first issue Les Beaux-Arts - Revue nouvelle then changed the title to La Revue de l'art ancien et moderne. Jules Comte directed the review until his death in 1912. Raymond Woog took over , who was provisional director until the start of the war in July 1914. In 1919, André Dezarrois took over this review and was its director until December 1937, date of last issue (published in January 1938). In the meantime, it publishes the Bulletin of ancient and modern art, which has gained a certain notoriety in the community. Biography: Tony Minartz, pseudonym of Antoine Guillaume, born 8 April 1873 to Cannes and died in that city on 13 December 1944 Is a painter, draftsman , illustrator and engraver French. Painter autodidact , Tony Minartz starts to become known in 1896 by exhibiting paintings at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts , and then decorates the Pompadour theater of painted panels for fashion shows " Grand Guignol ", directed by L. Darthenay. In 1903, Henri Béraldi , with whom he worked, praised him in The Journal of ancient and modern art, writing that "it was thirty years ago," and he has received advice from Paul Renouard to be formed the technique of etching ; Béraldi adds that his favorite subjects are "Paris at night Paris at night, always." Minartz also gives them some high-remarkable in The Journal of ancient and modern art until 1910: balls, cafe concerts, Parisian in their most beautiful dresses, but also music-halls, music halls, restaurants, large and small theaters, are the preferred settings of his compositions. Its fertile period seems to end in 1914. In addition to the National Salon, Minartz exhibited in Paris at the gallery Bartholomew (1903), the Independent Living (1905, 1906) and the gallery Devambez (1909) and received the Academic Palms . He occasionally collaborates with periodic illustrated as The Almanac Sports (Ollendorff, 1899), or satirical as Gil Blas...

Category

Early 1900s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Etching, Laid Paper, Intaglio

A girl II - XXI century, Contemporary Realistic Figurative Mixed Media Drawing
A girl II - XXI century, Contemporary Realistic Figurative Mixed Media Drawing

A girl II - XXI century, Contemporary Realistic Figurative Mixed Media Drawing

By Andrzej Szypluk

Located in Warsaw, PL

Contemporary realistic figurative mixed media drawing PROVENANCE Exhibited at Katarzyna Napiorkowska Gallery. The Gallery is a primary representative for this artist. The Gallery o...

Category

Early 2000s Realist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Chalk, Pastel, Pencil, Cardboard

“Le Chapeau Epingle”
“Le Chapeau Epingle”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir“Le Chapeau Epingle”, 1884

$1,560Sale Price|20% Off

H 4.75 in W 3.25 in D 1 in

“Le Chapeau Epingle”

By Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Located in Southampton, NY

Original etching and drypoint on wove paper. This is the third version and the second edition printed in 1921 of Le Chapeau Epingle. Condition is very good...

Category

1880s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Archival Paper, Etching

Sumac, colorful Abstract Impressionist landscape gouache
Sumac, colorful Abstract Impressionist landscape gouache

Sumac, colorful Abstract Impressionist landscape gouache

By Sandy Litchfield

Located in New York, NY

Sandy Litchfield found peace and inspiration in regular solitary walks through nature throughout the pandemic. Her most recent body of work diaristically documents her constitutional...

Category

2010s Abstract Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Paper, Gouache

"Idaho Road" - Original Oil Landscape Painting on Paper and Cradled Board
"Idaho Road" - Original Oil Landscape Painting on Paper and Cradled Board

"Idaho Road" - Original Oil Landscape Painting on Paper and Cradled Board

By Samantha Buller

Located in Denver, CO

About the Artist: Samantha Buller currently lives in Sonoma County after painting and teaching in Kansas for the past two years. She received her BFA in Painting from the Academy of ...

Category

2010s American Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Oil, Paper, Board

Tender words - XX Century, Mixed Media Figurative Painting, Nude, Couple
Tender words - XX Century, Mixed Media Figurative Painting, Nude, Couple

Tender words - XX Century, Mixed Media Figurative Painting, Nude, Couple

By Katarzyna Wazyk

Located in Warsaw, PL

Gabryela Wasowicz is a Polish painter born in 1947. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts of Warsaw and then at the Gerrit Rietveld Akademie in Amsterdam. Once she graduated in 197...

Category

1980s Contemporary Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Paper, Pastel, Watercolor, Gouache

Une Femme Assise by Lucien Pissarro - Etching
Une Femme Assise by Lucien Pissarro - Etching

Une Femme Assise by Lucien Pissarro - Etching

By Lucien Pissarro

Located in London, GB

Une Femme Assise by Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944) Etching 23 x 13 cm (9 x 5 ¹/₈ inches) Stamped lower right, L.P. and numbered lower left, 10/20 Provenance: John Bensusan Butt Private...

Category

1890s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Etching

Antique American Impressionist Forest Landscape Signed Framed Oil Painting
Antique American Impressionist Forest Landscape Signed Framed Oil Painting

Antique American Impressionist Forest Landscape Signed Framed Oil Painting

Located in Buffalo, NY

Vintage American impressionist landscape painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Handsomely framed in a giltwood molding. Excellent con...

Category

1920s American Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Oil, Board

Vachère au Bord de l'Eau
Vachère au Bord de l'Eau

Camille PissarroVachère au Bord de l'Eau, 1890

$1,463Sale Price|24% Off

H 7.75 in W 5.25 in

Vachère au Bord de l'Eau

By Camille Pissarro

Located in Santa Monica, CA

CAMILLE PISSARRO (French 1830-1903) VACHERE au BORD de l’EAU 1890 (Delteil 93 viii/viii) Etching, unsigned as published in “Gazette des Beaux Arts”, Paris, 1890. On laid paper Very...

Category

1890s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Drypoint, Etching

Previously Available Items
"Tree at the Edge of the Field, Springs" Nell Blaine, 1967 Abstracted Landscape
"Tree at the Edge of the Field, Springs" Nell Blaine, 1967 Abstracted Landscape

"Tree at the Edge of the Field, Springs" Nell Blaine, 1967 Abstracted Landscape

By Nell Blaine

Located in New York, NY

Nell Blaine Tree at the Edge of the Field, Springs, 1967 Signed and dated lower left Watercolor on paper 14 1/2 x 20 inches Nell Blaine was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1922. She ...

Category

1960s Modern Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Beach at Malcesine
Beach at Malcesine

Beach at Malcesine

By Nell Blaine

Located in Los Angeles, CA

Nell Blaine, painter of still lifes and landscapes in brilliant colors, created abstract work that gives the appearance of being done in a carefree, totally lighthearted manner but i...

Category

1980s American Modern Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Pastel, Watercolor

1994 Nell Blaine 'Jestina's Reds' Contemporary USA Lithograph

1994 Nell Blaine 'Jestina's Reds' Contemporary USA Lithograph

By Nell Blaine

Located in Brooklyn, NY

Paper Size: 30.75 x 29 inches ( 78.105 x 73.66 cm ) Image Size: 24 x 23 inches ( 60.96 x 58.42 cm ) Framed: No Condition: B-: Good Condition, Signs of Handling and Age Addition...

Category

1990s Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Lithograph

Jestina's Reds
Jestina's Reds

Jestina's Reds

By Nell Blaine

Located in Long Island City, NY

Nell Blaine was inspired by the flower arrangements of her longtime aide, Jestina Forrester for this lithograph. Nell suffered from polio which required her to have full-time help, a...

Category

1990s Impressionist Nell Blaine Art

Materials

Lithograph

Nell Blaine art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Nell Blaine art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Nell Blaine in crayon, paint, pastel and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Nell Blaine art, so small editions measuring 10 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of James March Phillips, Constantin Alajalov, and Walter Tittle. Nell Blaine art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $100 and tops out at $9,250, while the average work can sell for $2,400.

Artists Similar to Nell Blaine