Tully Filmus Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

"Dragon," by Quang Ho, is a secondary market work with one previous owner. It is signed and dated (1988) on the lower left. The painting comes with it's original frame (measures 50 x...

"The Farewell By Ulysse Butin (1838-1883)" Ulysse Butin, born in Saint-Quentin, into a poor family, had to earn his living early. An apprentice designer in a muslin factory, he took ...

Eileen Lake Crayon on paper, early1930's Initialed in pencil lower right (see photo) Titled and annotated verso "Eileen Lake, early 1930s girlfriend" Note: Eileen Hall Lake was an American poet and Adolf Dehn's girlfriend in the early 1930s. Provenance: Estate of the artist By descent Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...

Work : Soft Pastel on archival and heavy paper for pastel drawing. The colors are fixed on the paper and the work has been treated with a UV-resistant varnish. Signed lower right. Un...

Marc Chagall 1887-1985 Russian Musiciens sur fond multicolore (Musicians on a multicolored background) Signed 'Chag' (on the sleeve of the right figure); stamped with the signature 'Marc Chagall' (lower right) Tempera, gouache, colored ink and India ink and pastel on paper “The fact that I made use of cows, milkmaids, roosters and provincial Russian architecture as my source forms is because they are part of the environment from which I spring and which undoubtedly left the deepest impression on my visual memory of the experiences I have." - Marc Chagall Marc Chagall’s 1981...

Nora Othic is considered one of the top regionalist painters in the Midwest. She builds on a legacy from her artistic predecessors such as Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and the WPA ...

The Skull-and-Crossbones flag flies atop this illustration of a Pirate Ship. Two palm trees flank it, and it floats in a cropped stylized sea. A single hatted figure is seen looking ...

American Impressionist

Medium: Pastel Signature: Unsigned Zoe Mozert created several pastel paintings for use in the 1946 movie, "Never Say Goodbye", starring Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker and Peggy Knudsen about a calendar artist trying to paint the perfect pin up. A Zoe Mozert pastel strikingly similar to this one prominently appears at the beginning of the movie. The model in this pastel is the actress from the movie, Peggy Knudsen. Zoe Mozert, born in Colorado Springs in 1907, was the most successful and well known female calendar artist of her time. She was born Alice Adelaide Moser, but when she was old enough, she changed her name to Zoe Mozert because she felt that she could never become famous with such a name. In 1941, Brown and Bigelow Calendar Company signed her to an exclusive calendar contract. During the war, her pin-up series for Brown and Bigelow called Victory Girls was published both in calendar and mutoscope card form. By 1950, she was considered among the "big four" at Brown and Bigelow, taking a place alongside Gil Elvgren, Rolf Armsgtrong, and Earl Moran. Often her own model, Mozert is noted for depicting realistic looking young women with individual features and personalities, while rejecting the sexy girl...

American Impressionist

Hugo Gellert (Hungarian-American, 1892-1985), Study for "The New Masses". Mary Ryan Gallery 4. Signed in ink lower left: "Hugo / Gellert"; inscribed in crayo...

Ballroom Dancers by Trudy Good. Original Charcoal & Pastel onto paper. Trudy Good is a British figurative painter who has exhibited in numerous plac...