Reid MASSELINK Paintings

This large painting is a ca. 1960 copy of a famous Rockwell Kent painting that was executed in Vermont in 1921. The work is oil on canvas and well represents the original image, tho...

This colorful late spring scene is most likely around Erie, Pennsylvania. Artist and teacher Joseph M. Plavcan generally painted around the area in which he lived for over 50 years. Joseph Michael Plavcan was born near Pittsburg, in Braddock. He attended the Pennsylvania Academy in 1926, studying with renowned New Hope artist Daniel Garber. Through a scholarship, he went to Europe to study. He returned to Erie in 1932 and became an art instructor, teaching for the next 38 years. Plavcan went far beyond teaching trade school requirements and instilled a true sense of sophisticated artistry in his students. During his artistic career, he exhibited often in Philadelphia, Washington, New York and Chicago. This painting, oil on canvas, demonstrates Plavcan’s style, utilizing figurative abstraction with a modernist color palette. The paint is not over applied and areas are treated with smooth broad brush strokes. The hint of late blooming leaves are dashes of paint applied in a fast yet confident manner. Plavcan’s sense of light, demonstrated in the distant church tower is spot on. While not signed, there are two official estate stamps on the reverse that attest to the authenticity of Plavcan’s work. The piece measures 16” x 20” and appears to be canvas applied to a back board. This was likely done by the former retailer, Hudson House Galleries in Hagerstown, Maryland. That shop was a fine regional art gallery and antiques shop for decades until its closure about five years ago. The painting is nicely framed in a modernist gold wood frame with a subtle pink liner. The overall framed dimensions are about 20” x 24”. The painting is in very good condition, bright and crisp. There is a very minor vertical crease above the peak of the house that is truly barely noticeable from any distance. Other than that, all is fine with the work and its frame. This strong, colorful work by Joseph Plavcan...

This is a very stylized Southwest landscape that appears to document a small church that existed at one time, perhaps in the Palm Springs or Santa Fe area. It is very reminiscent of...

American painter and illustrator Amos Carter Brinton was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1888. He went on to have a successful career in illustrations, mainly maritime themed. Fishi...

Mario Larrinaga was born in Baja California in 1895 and moved with his brother to Los Angeles in 1909. He had no formal training in art, but had natural talent that was noticed by local movie studios. He was hired by Universal Studios as a designer, art director and creator of background scenes. He produced some of the background effects for King Kong in 1933. After a career in set design and illustration he focused on painting for pleasure in California, Mexico and Hawaii. He belonged to local art clubs and exhibited his works often. This stylized modernist work was likely created around 1960. It is oil on wood panel and of a horizontal format, 18” x 36”. It portrays a procession of seemingly Hawaiian natives...

Born in 1916 in Lima, Ohio to a Mennonite family, John Landis Lehman was educated locally. He moved to Chicago in 1942 and enrolled at the Art Institute. By 1954 he had moved to Penn...

El Centro, is a relatively new area in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This picture depicts The Convention Center seen here in the shadow of a Caribbean sunset. Unusual, rare pigments used i...

"London," an original oil on canvas by Denis Paul Noyer, is a piece for the true collector. Noyer's capture of the architectural details of the surrounding buildings projects from th...

A modernist coastal/dock scene by Edward Christiana. This painting is hand-signed "Edward Chrstiana '52" lower right. Exhibited: 1946 Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; 9th Annual Exhibition 2004 Jameson Gallery, Portland, Maine; Edward Christiana (1912-1992) More about this artist: Edward Christiana was born in White Plains, New York in 1912. After high school the artist enrolled at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, graduating in 1933. After returning to the Mohawk Valley and obtaining work he enrolled in the School of Related Arts and Sciences at Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. In 1940, noted WPA artist William Palmer came to MWPAI to establish the School of Art, forerunner of the current Pratt at MWPAI. Mr.Christiana became involved with the School almost immediately and studied from 1941 until 1943 under Mr. Palmer, at which point he became an instructor himself and remained in this capacity until 1982. It was apparent at a very early stage in the development of Ed Christiana as an artist that he had a tremendous facility in the difficult medium of watercolor. By 1945, he had exhibited with the American Watercolor Society and did so again in 1947, 1949, and 1950. Mr. Christiana was even awarded the coveted William Church Osborne Purchase Prize in 1949 and 1950. He had his first one-man show at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in 1946, and would be so honored twice more; in 1954, and culminating with a major retrospective in 1989. By 1949 he was elected to the American Watercolor Society. He was represented in a group show at the Kraushaar Galleries in New York in 1951 and in another major one-man show at the Albany Institute of History and Art in 1956 where he received a purchase prize in oil. Strangely, after all of his early success in watercolor, he abandoned the medium in the early 50's to concentrate on oil painting. For over two decades he painted primarily in oil ranging from cubist inspired studies to his Marsden Hartley-inspired paintings of Mount Katahdin in the 1970's. By the mid 70's he had returned to watercolor. He was once quoted as saying "those who are familiar with my old paintings will be aware, I am sure, that in fact, they were not so far removed from watercolor, my technique in oils deriving positively from the aqueous medium." In the 1970's his watercolor style changed from the more wet and spontaneous style of the 40's to a dryer, slightly more controlled style, where the artist would often paint on dry paper, without wetting it prior to the application of paint. In the early 80's he returned to a wetter style, even more spontaneous than his method in the 40's. This culminated in his abstract work of the late 80's inspired partly by John Marin. Also, like Marin, Christiana painted representational work alongside very abstract work during the same period. Fellow artist Easton Pribble once said of Ed Christiana "If there were to be an honorary title -Painter Laureate- of the Mohawk Valley, Edward Christiana would certainly be the prime qualifier for that distinction." Christiana is known for his landscape views of the Mohawk Valley, her wild natural beauty as well as the architectural beauty of her towns and cities. He has also painted extensively in the Adirondacks as well as New Hampshire, Vermont, and especially Maine, which can almost be considered the artist's second home. He loved to paint the pastures, valleys, rivers, and waterfalls of the area as well as children playing on the grounds of his beloved Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute and the neighborhoods surrounding it in Utica, New York. Edward Christiana painted almost right until his death in 1992. He was and still is a beloved man. No one I have talked to has had an unkind word to say about Ed Christiana, either as a teacher, artist, or friend. He was a prolific artist and was known to hand paint Christmas and Birthday cards...

Exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1947) and the University of Illinois Exhibition of Contemporary Painting (1948), this painting by Philip Evergood exemplifies the ...

Painting size 12 ½" x 14 ½", framed 18" x 20 ¼" x 2" Signed "Friedman" lower right Inscribed verso: "Title: Autumn Day Drive. Associated impressions of two drives Hudson River and F...

This work epitomizes Prestopino's interest in social realism which captures a quiet interlude in the everyday life of an "everyman." It also provides a contrast for our expectations as we view a tough, blue collar worker, with no one watching, as he sings a melody to the birds. In an original frame measuring 49" x 39" x 3.25" Provenance: Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery (label verso from 13 w. 113th street, where the gallery was located from 1926 until 1939) Private collection, NYC, c. 1935 By descent About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel...