Vanessa Stafford Paintings

A charming and stylized depiction of a day at the Central Park Zoo. with World War Two uniformed visitors front and center. Sea lions put on a show in front o...

"Moorish Soldier Holding a Rifle" Manuel Garcia Hispaleto (Spanish, 1836-1898) Watercolor on paper Signed lower left "MGHispaleto" Original wood frame with gilded stucco 18 3/4 x 12 1/2 (33 1/2 x 26 frame) inches Manuel García Hispaleto, originally Manuel García y Martínez (22 November 1836, Seville -26 December 1898, Madrid) was a Spanish painter known for portraits and costumbrista (genre) scenes. His brother, Rafael García...

A masterful example of John Whorf at the height of his powers, this large and luminous watercolor depicts three fishermen on a calm, silver-blue lake or bay, their figures rendered w...

Post War Bay Area Figurative - Original Watercolor Painting "Beach Day" Vibrant watercolor of three figures on the beach by Turkish-American artist Ömer Şahingil (Turkish/American,...

Abstract Expressionist Portrait -- The Red Headed Woman by Chicano Artist Ricardo de Silva This striking abstract expressionist portrait is by Latino artist Ricardo (Richard) de Sil...

Lovely and authentic all original mid 19th century pair of small Chinese Pith Paintings; under glass and double matted in a single plain narrow black straight reeded trimmed wooden f...

Amílcar Rivera M. is a multidisciplinary artist who graduated from the Faculty of Arts at Universidad Veracruzana in Mexico and now lives and creates in Vilnius, Lithuania. His inter...

Figures by River Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) signed original watercolor painting on thick artist paper, unframed size: 10 x...

This circa 1855 Chinese hand painted pith painting portrays a Chinese tradition of a celebratory warrior dance to display fighting dominance; the two parties being a typical warrior ...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) Lobstermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts, circa 1943 Watercolor on paper Sight 17 1/2 x 23 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Private Collection, Las Vegas, Nevada In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Difficult to find set of six diminutive mid 19th century Qing Dynasty hand painted Chinese Pith watercolor paintings; prepared for the tourist trade; depicting mores and customs of C...

Fine quality three character mid 19th century (circa 1850) watercolor on pith paper; a Chinese painting; depicting an Emperor with. perhaps, a concubine by his side and a page or eun...