Toby Topek Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

This intricate ink drawing by John Bauer, measuring approximately 8 x 5 cm and presented in an oval format, encapsulates a profound expression in its modest size. It features a minus...

Gustav Melcher (German, 1898-?) Segelschiffe vor Venedig - Sailing ships off Venice • India ink, water colour wash • Visible image ca. 11.5 x 18 cm • Glased Frame ca. 20 x 25 cm • Verso various inscriptions • Signed lower right Gustav Melcher was a German painter and a pioneer in film, film criticism and film theory and created this clever little picture of the skyline of Venice with various vessels. Going by the various inscriptions an the backing paper, this drawing was made in 1918 when Gustav was twenty years old and passed on three years later to Gertrud Melcher on the 1. 2. 1921. I have no reasons to doubt this information. The small drawing is still in its unopened frame, so maybe there is more information to be discovered , however this will be the privilege of the next owner. The picture also has retained its original antique frame – note that it has lost over the years various sections of the gesso decoration. The very precisely executed drawing is most enjoyable to look at and doing so, remember you are looking through the eyes of a young man, who saw this foreign sea cape over a century ago. Thank you for your interest and please note, that I offer free worldwide shipping on all my items. Gustav Melcher began his studies at the Düsseldorfer Kunstakademie under Peter Janssen and Eduard von Gebhardt. Originaly he was interested in figurative and portrait painting, but after time he decided to pursue the depiction of land- and marinescapes. Durin his studies the young artist undertook trips to visit England, Scotland, Belgium and France and he joined the artist society Malkasten. It was in those days he would hold speeches to his colleges about this new invention called ‘Kintopp’ – Melcher was a great advocate of the moving pictures...

Léonie Contat (Swiss, * 12.9.1878 Montreux, † 27.7.1969 Köniz) Bou Saada, Algeria • Watercolour on Paper, mounted behind glased frame, ca. 42.5 x 50.5 cm •...

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition cyanotype. "Azure Clouds" is an cyanotype of the semi-abstract patterns of clouds in the sky, showing shad...

Alfred Paul Emil Etienne Dumont (Swiss, * 13. Juni 1828 in Baulmes; † 7th August 1894 in Geneva) Vue de Cerlier au lac de Bienne avec Île Saint-Pierre (Figures at an open fire, wit...

This is an exclusive handprinted limited edition cyanotype of a beautiful "Blue Upright Desert Cactus". Details: + Title: Blue Upright Desert Cactus + Year: 2022 + Edition Size: 100...

Lovely 19th century watercolor painting with an angler in a mountain stream landscape painting, this is signed William Bradley with a place and date on the lower left hand corner. Mists fall over the central mountain rising above the stream with rocks and boulders. A mountain ridge is on the left, and trees above boulders on the right. William radley Lamond was a self taught artist flourishing from mid to late 19th century. This would be a later work by this artist. The attribution is based on the period, the style the landscape subject and signature. The painting is presented in an attractive new wooden frame with fresh glass...

Ludovico Zambeletti (Italian, 1881 - 1966) Barche da pesca - Fishing boats • Water colour on paper, visible image ca. 9 x 13.5 cm • Glased frame ca. 18 x 25 cm • Signed bottom right Ludovico Zambeletti was born on the 19th of April, 1881 into a wealthy industrialist Milanese family. He was classically educated in the arts, enrolled into the Studio all’Academia di Brera and then studied under Cessare Tallone, Guiseppe Mentessi, Vespassiano Bignami and Camillo Rapetti...

Lighthearted Illustration of Outdoor Pursuits This one being cross country hiking signed "W. Steig" Provenance: from Mrs. Joseph B. Ryan, Commissioned by Joe Ryan for the bar at his ski resort, Mount Tremblant Lodge, in 1938. Mont Tremblant, P.Q., Canada Watercolor and ink on illustration board, sights sizes 8 1/2 x 16 1/2 in., framed. In 1938 Joe Ryan, described as a millionaire from Philadelphia, bushwhacked his way to the summit of Mont Tremblant and was inspired to create a world class ski resort at the site. In 1939 he opened the Mont Tremblant Lodge, which remains part of the Pedestrian Village today. This original illustration is on Whatman Illustration board. the board measures 14 X 22 inches. label from McClees Galleries, Philadelphia, on the frame backing paper. William Steig, 1907 – 2003 was an American cartoonist, sculptor, and, in his later life, an illustrator and writer of children's books. Best known for the picture books Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, Abel's Island, and Doctor De Soto, he was also the creator of Shrek!, which inspired the film series of the same name. He was the U.S. nominee for both of the biennial, international Hans Christian Andersen Awards, as a children's book illustrator in 1982 and a writer in 1988. Steig was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1907, and grew up in the Bronx. His parents were Polish-Jewish immigrants from Austria, both socialists. His father, Joseph Steig, was a house painter, and his mother, Laura Ebel Steig, was a seamstress who encouraged his artistic leanings. As a child, he dabbled in painting and was an avid reader of literature. Among other works, he was said to have been especially fascinated by Pinocchio.He graduated from Townsend Harris High School at 15 but never completed college, though he attended three, spending two years at City College of New York, three years at the National Academy of Design and a mere five days at the Yale School of Fine Arts before dropping out of each. Hailed as the "King of Cartoons" Steig began drawing illustrations and cartoons for The New Yorker in 1930, producing more than 2,600 drawings and 117 covers for the magazine. Steig, later, when he was 61, began writing children's books. In 1968, he wrote his first children's book. He excelled here as well, and his third book, Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (1969), won the Caldecott Medal. He went on to write more than 30 children's books, including the Doctor DeSoto series, and he continued to write into his nineties. Among his other well-known works, the picture book Shrek! (1990) formed the basis for the DreamWorks Animation film Shrek (2001). After the release of Shrek 2 in 2004, Steig became the first sole-creator of an animated movie franchise that went on to generate over $1 billion from theatrical and ancillary markets after only one sequel. Along with Maurice Sendak, Saul Steinberg, Ludwig Bemelmans and Laurent de Brunhofff his is one of those rare cartoonist whose works form part of our collective cultural heritage. In 1984, Steig's film adaptation of Doctor DeSoto directed by Michael Sporn was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. As one of the most admired cartoonists of all time, Steig spent seven decades drawing for the New Yorker magazine. He touched generations of readers with his tongue–in–cheek pen–and–ink drawings, which often expressed states of mind like shame, embarrassment or anger. Later in life, Steig turned to children's books, working as both a writer and illustrator. Steig's children's books were also wildly popular because of the crazy, complicated language he used—words like lunatic, palsied, sequestration, and cleave. Kids love the sound of those words even if they do not quite understand the meaning. Steig's descriptions were also clever. He once described a beached whale as "breaded with sand." Throughout the course of his career, Steig compiled his cartoons and drawings into books. Some of them were published first in the New Yorker. Others were deemed too dark to be printed there. Most of these collections centered on the cold, dark psychoanalytical truth about relationships. They featured husbands and wives fighting and parents snapping at their kids. His first adult book, Man About Town, was published in 1932, followed by About People, published in 1939, which focused on social outsiders. Sick of Each Other, published in 2000, included a drawing depicting a wife holding her husband at gunpoint, saying, "Say you adore me." According to the Los Angeles Times, fellow New Yorker artist Edward Sorel...

Peter Caledon Cameron (American, born Scotland, 1852-c. 1920) Absecon Island, New Jersey, 1894 Watercolor on paper, 17 1/2 x 27 inches (sight) FRAMED: 26 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches Signed and dated at lower left: "ABSECON.ISLAND./ N.J-U.S.A Cameron/1894" N.J-U.S.A Cameron/1894" Born in Perth, Scotland, Peter Caledon Cameron won awards for drawing and penmanship at a Glasgow public school. He claimed that at the age of fourteen his watercolors were already "in demand," and that before turning twenty he had "crossed every ocean in the world, sketching and painting as he went." He attended the Government School of Design in London and was certified as an art master in 1883. Cameron immigrated to the United States that year, settled in Philadelphia, and commenced work on large history paintings such as Niagara in Winter (unlocated) and Vesuvius in Grand Eruption (unlocated) that he exhibited in various northern cities. He exhibited one painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1902. Nothing is known of his activities later in life. In a lengthy inscription that accompanies this watercolor, Cameron noted that Absecon was "a piece of the best sand-dune region characteristic of the whole coast of New Jersey State from Sandy Hook point in the North to Cape May Point in the extreme south." This was one among a number of studies the artist made for a large oil painting titled "Captain Kidd Burying His Treasure" (unlocated). The famous Scottish privateer Captain William Kidd...

Evening Mist II pastel on paper 6 x 6inches 12 x 12 inches 2023

Horizon pastel on paper 6 x 6inches 12 x 12 inches 2023