David Cook Galleries

Barns in Soquel, California, vintage circa 1950s original signed oil painting on canvas board by Jon Blanchette (1908-1987). Barn and outbuildings with large trees in a California la...

Original landscape painting, 'Old airfield in Capitola, California', vintage 1950s-1960s Northern California landscape painting with trees, white house with green roof, red tractor...

Vintage 1960s original California landscape painting of coastal Mendocino in Northern California, titled 'Mendocino Hippies'. A camp with tents under a grove of trees. Colors includ...

Semi-abstract figurative oil painting by Denver modernist Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Titled 'Zeus, Venus, and Hera', painted in 1982 . Cubist, stylized figures depicting gods and goddesses from ancient mythology. Central to the painting is a male figure depicting Zeus, the Greek god of the sky, shown in the nude in rich shades of brown with a beard and bright blue eyes. His arms are wrapped around Venus, the Roman goddess of love, and Hera, the Greek Goddess of marriage and women. The trio is seated on a blue green chair...

The Three Fates Confused, a vintage 1970s figural abstraction oil painting by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Semi-abstract composition depic...

California coastal painting by early 20th century artist, Charles Partridge Adams circa 1925. Watercolor on paper, not signed, attributed ...

Abstract acrylic and fabric collage on canvas in purple, red, green, brown and black, signed by Margo Hoff (1910-2008) painted 1974. Unframed, wrapped canvas measuring 54 x 60 x 3⁄4 ...

Original mid-century modern style abstract oil painting by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). "Pods" is an abstract composition in earthy tones of green, brown,...

Margo Hoff (1910-2008) original signed painting "Dark Divers" circa 1985, mixed media on canvas (acrylic, crayon, paper collage on stretched canvas) - 20th century Chicago woman artist. Wrapped canvas has finished edges and is ready for hanging. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Margo Hoff Painting is clean and in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. A prolific artist, Margo Hoff’s exquisite style evolved throughout her career yet was always rooted in the events, people, and places in her life. The human experience was her sole focus, expressed through her eyes alone. Born in 1910 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hoff began creating white-clay animals at a young age, giving them to her friends and family. At eleven she contracted typhoid fever and was bedridden for a summer. During her convalescence, she drew and made cutouts, and it was during this time that her bold, artistic imagination came alive. She began formal art training in high school and continued her education at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa. In 1933 she moved to Chicago and attended the National Academy of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Between 1933 and 1960—her Chicago years—Hoff’s works was deeply rooted in a figurative, regionalist style. She often used elements of magical realism, and many of her paintings have dreamlike qualities. As a child she learned about color by grinding down rocks, plants, and berries. Her color pallet during the Chicago years is indicative of her early-life color experimentation as she consistently used warm, earth tones in her work. Hoff was a born adventurer and traveled extensively. She lived, worked, taught, and painted in Europe, Mexico, Lebanon, Uganda, Brazil, and China. She also showed at the Denver Art Museum’s Annual Western Exhibitions in 1952-54, 56, and 57. In 1957 she showed along side Colorado modernist Vance Kirkland at the Denver Art Museum’s exhibition, Man's Conquest of Space. What was once a focus on the representational, her work began to change after 1957 when she saw Sputnik in its orbit around Earth. At that moment, feet firmly placed on the ground, she was able to imagine herself in space, looking down from the cosmos, and what she saw was an abstracted world. She then had the opportunity to peer into an electron microscope where once again she was looking down into what seemed to be a realm of pure abstraction. These two events profoundly changed her perspective and she began to move from figural painting to abstract, geometric collage. In 1960, Hoff moved to New York City and she began creating collages. Placing the canvas on the ground, and working from all sides, she used strips of painted paper and tissue—and later painted pieces of canvas—glued onto the canvas surface, building layer upon layer, shape against shape, “action of color next to stillness of color.” She believed these simplified, abstracted forms held the spirit of the subject in the same way poetry reduces words to their essence. These pieces range from aerial cityscapes, to dancers in motions, to flora...

Original 1961 mid-century modern abstract painting by New Mexico Transcendentalist, Emil Bisttram (1895-1976). Abstract floating shapes painted in shades of purple, blue, gray, white and black. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 33 x 37 x 1 ¾ inches. Image size is 32 ½ x 36 ¼ inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Emil Bisttram grew up in the tenements of New York City after his family emigrated from Hungary when he was a young boy. Bisttram studied at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design, and at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art. During his training, Emil studied under Ivan Olinsky, Leon Kroll, Howard Giles, and Jay Hambidge. Bisttram later taught at the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, Parson's School of Design, and at the Master Institute of the Roerich Museum in New York. Bisttram opened the nation's first freelance advertising art agency by the age of twenty-one. However, he soon abandoned the business in pursuit of a career in Fine Art. In 1930, the artist made his first visit to Taos, New Mexico, where he reportedly found himself "blocked" by the open spaces, intense light, and color that define the region. In 1931, he traveled to Mexico where he studied mural painting with Diego Rivera on a Guggenheim Fellowship. While Emil was in Mexico, his wife lived in Taos where the couple established permanent residence upon his return. In Taos, Bisttram opened the area's first commercial art gallery, the Heptagon Gallery. He also founded the avante-garde Taos School of Art, later known as the Bisttram School of Fine Art. In 1934, Bisttram was among artists selected to paint murals for the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). While commissioned by the W.P.A., Bisttram worked on murals in the County Courthouse in Taos and he completed a mural in the Justice Department Building in Washington, D.C. Although he continued with representational painting, much of Bisttram's work in the late 1930's became increasingly abstract. Along with Raymond Jonson and seven other artists, Bisttram founded the Transcendental Painting Group...

Goddess of Fertility, vintage 1960s original oil painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993), semi abstract with somewhat cubist nude female and male figure in an interior scene with flow...

Original vintage 1985 abstract oil painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) with geometric imagery in colors of coral/pink, black, brown, green, blue, golden yellow, orange, purple and...

Mid-century modern abstract 3-D painting by Denver modernist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992), circa 1950, the shaped 3-dimensional canvas is painted with black on black with acrylic paint. Created to be hung as a mobile, the work is finished on both sides. Measures 22 3⁄4 inches in diameter x 9 inches in depth. About the Artist: Born New Jersey 1913 Died Central City, CO 1992 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934. In 1937, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York – his first solo show. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States doing regional paintings. During the war in 1941, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission based in Eritrea, Africa before the Allied invasion. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer in the District of Columbia. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Airfield in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. He settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. In 1950, Di Benedetto teamed up with Frank Vavra...

1985 original signed oil painting titled 'The Four Winter Months' by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993) with four abstract/stylized figures painted with colors of red, black, green, gray, blue, and orange. Referential abstraction painted in oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, titled verso. Presented in a vintage frame, outer dimensions measure 24 ½ x 30 ½ x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 23 ¾ x 30 inches. Provenance: Estate of the artist, Edward Marecak About the Artist: Born Ohio 1919 Died Colorado 1993 Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. His junior and senior high projects earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy...

"Homesteaders" is an original oil on board painting by artist Harold Vincent Skene (1883-1978) painted in 1960. The painting depicts two figures plowing a field with a pair of oxen, ...

The Grand Canyon in Arizona from Hermit Rim by Thomas Moran. Early 20th century vintage color lithograph printed in 1912, signed and dated within plate lower left, titled lower cent...

Abstract painted metal sculpture by Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995). Painted in the three primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. Sculpture measures 16 ½ x 7 x 11 inches. About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez...

Woodblock on colored paper by Margo Hoff (1910-2008) titled 'Observers' of a black and red abstract scene with seventeen figures whose arms are in various positions, looking out at t...

"Florentine Night" is an oil on canvas painting by Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995) circa 1951 signed and titled on back of canvas. Signed and titled by the artist verso. Abstract painting in bright blue, purple, green, yellow, and orange. Presented in the original artist frame measuring 28 x 33 inches, image size is 24 x 30 inches. Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez...

Original oil and metal foil on board abstract painting by George Cecil Carter (1908-1987) circa 1950s. Signed by the artist in the lower right corner, titled and dated verso. Painted in shades of dark blue, gray, white, orange, and purple. Presented in an original George Nix frame measuring 30 ¾ x 36 ¾ inches. Image size measures 23 ¼ x 29 ¼ inches. About the Artist: Born 1908, Woodward, Oklahoma Died 1987, Canon City, Colorado George Cecil Carter was born in Oklahoma in 1908 and became a noted Colorado abstract expressionist, despite having no formal training. He worked as a coal miner, gold miner, and machinist at Schneebeck’s Industries in Colorado Springs for twenty years During that time, Carter worked on his art and was was mentored by Broadmoor Academy painter, Charles Bunnell. Carter worked out of Colorado Springs and Canon City, Colorado. He exhibited nationally, including Texas and Illinois. Among his contemporaries are Al Wynne, Mary Chenoweth...

Original vintage abstract metalwork sculpture by artist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992). Measures 13 ¼ x 11 ¼ x 7 ½ inches. About the Artist: Born New Jersey 1913 Died Central City, CO 1992 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934. In 1937, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York – his first solo show. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States doing regional paintings. During the war in 1941, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission based in Eritrea, Africa before the Allied invasion. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer in the District of Columbia. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Airfield in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. He settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. In 1950, Di Benedetto teamed up with Frank Vavra...

'Parcheesi', vintage 1990 semi abstract oil painting on canvas by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993) of a stylized Parcheesi board ...

Original acrylic on canvas painting signed by artist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992) from 1964. Painting features an abstract composition depicting a large circle encompassing smaller circles in blue, green, white, and black. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner of the canvas. Image size measures 50 x 49 3⁄4 inches. Framed image size measures 50 3⁄4 x 50 1⁄2 x 1 1⁄4 inches. About the Artist: Born New Jersey 1913 Died Central City, CO 1992 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked to study at the Cooper Union Art School in New York City (1930-34) from which he graduated with a certificate in freehand drawing. He won a scholarship to the Boston Museum Art School where he studied for three years, beginning in 1934. In 1937, he entered his first juried exhibition at the Montclair Museum in New Jersey, winning first prize and first honorable mention. In December 1938, the Royal Netherlands Steamship Line sent him on a two-month ethnological study trip to Haiti, his first exposure to a different environment outside the United States. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York – his first solo show. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States doing regional paintings. During the war in 1941, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission based in Eritrea, Africa before the Allied invasion. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer in the District of Columbia. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Airfield in Denver where he served until his discharge in 1946. Like many other servicemen stationed at the time in Colorado, Di Benedetto chose to remain in Colorado, impressed by the state’s physical grandeur and healthful climate. He settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. In 1950, Di Benedetto teamed up with Frank Vavra...

'Indian with Bow in Fox Costume' is a vintage 1934 WPA era modernist color serigraph/silkscreen print by New Mexico artist, Hilaire Hiler (1898-1966) depicting a Native American figure with stylized feather headdress and Bow in black and red with white. Pencil signed by the artist in the lower right margin. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials and UV protectant glass, outer dimensions measure 17 ½ x 15 x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 10 x 7 inches (sight). Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Hilaire Hiler was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and was raised in Providence, Rhode Island. Hiler took art classes as a child at the Rhode Island School of Design. When he was older, Hiler studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art, Wharton School of Finance and Commerce, and William Server's studio. He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Denver, Golden State University, and National College in Ontario, Canada. He continued on to France, studying at the University of Paris in 1919. Hiler lived in Paris from 1919-1934, supporting himself as a jazz musician and a piano player for The Jockey Club. Hiler moved back to America in 1934, settling in San Francisco. He was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) to paint murals in the Aquatic Park...

American modern 1945 winter landscape painting by Edgar Britton (1901-1982) with a tree driving among snowy mountains and trees (likely Colorado). Signed and dated by the artist in t...

Mid-century modern abstract acrylic on paper painting by Taos artist Beatrice Mandelman (1912-1998). Features red, yellow and blue in bright hues surrounded with black lines. Image size measures 9 1⁄2 x 12 3⁄4 inches. Framed image size measures 16 1⁄2 x 19 1⁄4 x 1 1⁄4 inches. Includes a letter of authenticity from the artist estate. Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born New Jersey, 1912 Died Taos, NM, 1998 The daughter of Austrian and German Jews, Beatrice Mandelman was introduced to abstract art as a young girl. At age twelve, she began her art studies by taking evening classes at the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art. After college at Rutgers University, she continued her formal training at the Art Student’s League in New York, working with the lithographer George Pickens...

Lithograph titled "Mining Town" by Otis Dozier (1904-1987) from 1940. Modernist scene of a mountain mining town with several buildings at the base of the mountain. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 25 ½ x 18 ⅜ x ¼ inches. Image sight size is 16 ¼ x 9 ½ inches. Print is clean and in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Private Collection, Denver, Colorado Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born in Forney, Texas, Otis Marion Dozier was raised on a farm in Mesquite, Texas. Dozier was a muralist, potter, lithographer, sculptor, and painter. Dozier was a member of a group of Texas regionalist artists known as the "Dallas Nine." His surroundings in Texas became the focus of much of his art. Dozier’s first artistic training took place in the early 1920’s when his family moved to Dallas. He studied under Vivian Aunspaugh, Cora Edge, and Frank Reaugh...

Original American Modernist watercolor on paper mounted on cardboard by William Bertrum Sharp (1924-1984). An abstract composition of blue, grey, yellow, pink, and orange. Presented ...

Original vintage 1941 Colorado landscape painting with autumn leaves and Pikes Peak blanketed in snow by Charles Bunnell (1897-1968). Inscribed verso, "To Laura, November 22, 1941", egg tempera on board. Signed by the artist in the lower left corner and titled verso. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 15 ½ x 19 ¼ x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 7 ¾ x 11 inches About the Artist: Artist and teacher, Charles ("Charlie") Bunnell worked in a variety of styles throughout his career because as an artist he believed, "I’ve got to paint a thousand different ways. I don’t paint any one way." At different times he did representational landscapes while concurrently involved with semi- or completely abstract imagery. He was one of a relatively small number of artists in Colorado successfully incorporating into their work the new trends emanating from New York and Europe after World War II. During his lifetime he generally did not attract a great deal of critical attention from museums, critics and academia. However, he personally experienced a highpoint in his career when Katherine Kuh, curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, personally chose one of his paintings - Why? - for its large exhibition of several hundred examples of abstract and surrealist art held in 1947-48, subsequently including it among the fifty pieces selected for a traveling show to ten other American museums. An only child, Bunnell developed his love of art at a young age through frequent drawing and political cartooning. In high school he was interested in baseball and golf and also was the tennis champion for Westport High School in Kansas City. Following graduation, his father moved the family to Denver, Colorado, in 1916 for a better-paying bookkeeping job, before relocating the following year to Colorado Springs to work for local businessman, Edmond C. van Diest, President of the Western Public Service Company and the Colorado Concrete Company. Bunnell would spend almost all of his adult life in Colorado Springs. In 1918 he enlisted in the United States Army, serving in the 62nd Infantry Regiment through the end of World War I. Returning home with a 10% disability, he joined the Zebulon Pike Post No. 1 of the Disabled American Veterans Association and in 1921 used the benefits from his disability to attend a class in commercial art design conducted under a government program in Colorado Springs. The following year he transferred to the Broadmoor Art Academy (founded in 1919) where he studied with William Potter and in 1923 with Birger Sandzén. Sandzén’s influence is reflected in Bunnell’s untitled Colorado landscape (1925) with a bright blue-rose palette. For several years thereafter Bunnell worked independently until returning to the Broadmoor Art Academy to study in 1927-28 with Ernest Lawson, who previously taught at the Kansas City Art Institute where Bunnell himself later taught in the summers of 1929-1930 and in 1940-41. Lawson, a landscapist and colorist, was known for his early twentieth-century connection with "The Eight" in New York, a group of forward-looking painters including Robert Henri and John Sloan whose subject matter combined a modernist style with urban-based realism. Bunnell, who won first-place awards in Lawson’s landscapes classes at the Academy, was promoted to his assistant instructor for the figure classes in the 1928-29 winter term. Lawson, who painted in what New York critic James Huneker termed a "crushed jewel" technique, enjoyed additional recognition as a member of the Committee on Foreign Exhibits that helped organize the landmark New York Armory Exhibition in 1913 in which Lawson showed and which introduced European avant-garde art to the American public. As noted in his 1964 interview for the Archives of American Art in Washington, DC, Bunnell learned the most about his teacher’s use of color by talking with him about it over Scotch as his assistant instructor. "Believe me," Bunnell later said, "[Ernie] knew color, one of the few Americans that did." His association with Lawson resulted in local scenes of Pikes Peak, Eleven Mile Canyon, the Gold Cycle Mine near Colorado City and other similar sites, employing built up pigments that allowed the surfaces of his canvases to shimmer with color and light. (Eleven Mile Canyon was shown in the annual juried show at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh in 1928, an early recognition of his talent outside of Colorado.) At the same time, he animated his scenes of Colorado Springs locales by defining the image shapes with color and line as demonstrated in Contrasts (1929). Included in the Midwestern Artists’ Exhibition in Kansas City in 1929, it earned him the gold medal of the Kansas City Art Institute, auguring his career as a professional artist. In the 1930s Bunnell used the oil, watercolor and lithography media to create a mini-genre of Colorado’s old mining towns and mills, subject matter spurned by many local artists at the time in favor of grand mountain scenery. In contrast to his earlier images, these newer ones - both daytime and nocturnal -- such as Blue Bird Mine essentially are form studies. The conical, square and rectangular shapes of the buildings and other structures are placed in the stark, undulating terrain of the mountains and valleys devoid of any vegetation or human presence. In the mid-1930s he also used the same approach in his monochromatic lithographs titled Evolution, Late Evening, K.C. (Kansas City) and The Mill, continuing it into the next decade with his oil painting, Pikes Peak (1942). During the early 1930s he studied for a time with Boardman Robinson, director of the Broadmoor Art Academy and its successor institution, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1930 to 1947. In 1934 Robinson gave him the mural commission under the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) for West Junior High School in Colorado Springs, his first involvement in one of several New Deal art...

Original framed oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Autumn Harvest" from 1987. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Presented in a custom framed, outer dimensions measure 20 x 29 x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 19 x 28 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak Painting is clean and in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...

"Untitled (Sueno del Caballo/Cranium or Expressive Cranium)", is a oil on board by Jose Garcia Narezo (1922-1994) of a horse skull and cloth in a wi...

'Windmill on the Plains' is watercolor and ink on paper painting by Jenne Magafan. Depicting a large windmill on a 1940s Colorado farm scene with sheds and a fencing in the backgroun...

"High Rolls, New Mexico", is a oil on canvas by Andreas Storrs Andersen (1908-1974) of a wooden church along a dirt road in the mountains with clouds in the background. Painted in a ...

Watercolor, ink, and charcoal on paper titled 'Walpi #9 (Hopi Village on First Mesa, Arizona)' by Bert Van Bork (1928-2014). Painted in saturated shades ...

Original vintage painting of a Lightning Storm, Southwestern Mountain Landcape. Oil painting on textured board by Morton Lawrence Schneider (1919-2000). This large scale semi abstrac...

Diana and the Three Fates, vintage 1970s semi abstract oil painting on board by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Female nude figure of the the Roman virgin goddess, Diana, the protector of childbirth reclining with vases of flowers and the Three Fates looking on. Semi abstract, cubist style painting in bright colors of pink, fuchsia, green, yellow, orange, blue, brown, purple and red. Unframed, custom framing is available. In situ photos are frame mocks ups, the piece is currently unframed. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier ouevre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee, and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...

Oil on board painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "The Argument" from 1968. Semi-abstract oil painting depicting two figures in colors of greens, pinks, blues, and blacks. Presented framed, outer dimensions measure 49 ½ x 33 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 48 x 32 inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...

Untitled abstract oil on canvas painting by Henriette "Yetti" Stolz. Portraying an abstracted bird in earth tone colors of brown, green, and orange. Presented in a vintage frame meas...

Canvas collage, acrylic and crayon on canvas by 20th Century artist Margo Hoff (1910-2008) titled 'Lighted Street' depicting and abstract image of a street at night with glowing stre...

Crayon and acrylic paint mixed media painting by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993). Abstract geometric painting done in rich colors of dark purple, blue, and black. Presented ...

'Gem Mining Company', lithograph by Arnold Ronnebeck from 1932. Colorado mining scene with several mining buildings amongst the mountains. Presented in...

"The Chicken", is ink on paper by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from the 1940's of an abstract depiction of a chicken in black and red. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 23 ¾ x 19 ¾ inches. Image size measures 15 ¾ x 11 ½ inches. Drawing is clean and in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier ouevre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee, and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish, foreshadowed the output of his entire Colorado-based career, distinguished by a dramatic use of color, intricacy of execution and attention to detail contributing to their visual impact. He once observed, "Each time I start a new painting I always fool myself by saying this time keep it simple and not get entangled with such complex patterns, color and design; but I always find myself getting more involved with richness, color and subject matter." An idiosyncratic artist proficient in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and casein, he did not draw upon Colorado subject matter for his work, unlike many of his fellow painters in the state. Instead he used Midwest landscape imagery, bringing to life in it witches and spirits adapted from the Slovakian folk tales he heard growing up in Ohio. A number of his paintings depict winter witches derived from the Slovak custom in the Tatra Mountains of burning an effigy of the winter witch in the early spring to banish the memory of a hard winter. The folk tale element imparts a dream-like quality to many of his paintings. A devote of Greek mythology, he placed the figures of Circe, Persephone, Sybil, Hera and others in modern settings. The goddess in Persephone Brings a Pumpkin to her Mother, attired as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter, heralds the advent of fall with the pumpkin before departing to spend the winter season in the underworld. Train to Olympus, the meeting place of the gods in ancient Greece, juxtaposes ancient mythology with modernity creating a combination of whimsy and thought-provoking consideration for the viewer. Voyage to Troy #1 alludes to the ancient city that was the site of the Trojan Wars, but has a contemporary, autobiographical component referencing the harbor of the Aleutian Islands recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. In the 1980s Marecak used the goddess Hera in his painting, Hera Contemplates Aspects of the Art Nouveau, to comment on art movements in the latter half of the twentieth century Marecak’s love of classical music and opera, which he shared with his wife and to which he often listened while painting in his Denver basement studio, is reflected in Homage of Offenbach, an abstract work translating the composer’s musical colors into colorful palette. Pace, Pace, Mio Dio, the title of his earliest surrealist painting, is a soprano aria from Verdi’s opera, La Forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny or Fate, a favorite Marecak subject). His Queen of the Night relates to a character from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute. In addition to paintings and works on paper, he produced hooked rugs, textiles and ceramics. He likewise produced designs for ceramics, tableware and furniture created by his wife Donna, an accomplished Colorado ceramist. Both of them generally eschewed exhibitions and galleries, preferring to quietly do their work while remaining outside of the mainstream. He initially exhibited at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1948 receiving a purchase award. The following year he had his first one-person show of paintings and lithographs at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs. In the 1950s and early 1960s he participated in group exhibitions at the Print Club (Philadelphia); Amarillo Public Library (Texas); annual Blossom Festival Show (Canon City, Colorado); Adele Simpson’s "Art of Living" in New York; Denver Art Museum; and the Fox Rubenstein-Serkey Gallery (Denver); but he did not have another one-person show until 1966 at the Denver home of his friends, John and Gerda Scott. They arranged for his first one-person show outside of Colorado held two years later at the Martin Lowitz Gallery in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, California. That same year his work was featured at the Zantman Galleries in Carmel, California. Thereafter he became an infrequent exhibitor after the 1970s so that his work was rarely seen outside his basement studio. In 1980 he, his wife and Mark Zamantakis exhibited at Denver’s Jewish Community Center, and four years later he had a one-person show at the Studio Gallery in Denver. In 1992 he was included in a group show at the Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery in Denver, and a year later received a large, posthumous retrospective at the Emmanuel...

"A Small City Park", acrylic and watercolor on paper by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) of an abstract park broken into four quadrants, separated by brown and white striped borders with different shaped ponds. Inspired by City Park in Denver, Colorado where the artist frequented. Presented framed with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 21 ¾ x 18 ¾ inches. Image size measures 12 x 15 inches. Painting is clean and in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier ouevre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee, and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish, foreshadowed the output of his entire Colorado-based career, distinguished by a dramatic use of color, intricacy of execution and attention to detail contributing to their visual impact. He once observed, "Each time I start a new painting I always fool myself by saying this time keep it simple and not get entangled with such complex patterns, color and design; but I always find myself getting more involved with richness, color and subject matter." An idiosyncratic artist proficient in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and casein, he did not draw upon Colorado subject matter for his work, unlike many of his fellow painters in the state. Instead he used Midwest landscape imagery, bringing to life in it witches and spirits adapted from the Slovakian folk tales he heard growing up in Ohio. A number of his paintings depict winter witches derived from the Slovak custom in the Tatra Mountains of burning an effigy of the winter witch in the early spring to banish the memory of a hard winter. The folk tale element imparts a dream-like quality to many of his paintings. A devote of Greek mythology, he placed the figures of Circe, Persephone, Sybil, Hera and others in modern settings. The goddess in Persephone Brings a Pumpkin to her Mother, attired as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter, heralds the advent of fall with the pumpkin before departing to spend the winter season in the underworld. Train to Olympus, the meeting place of the gods in ancient Greece, juxtaposes ancient mythology with modernity creating a combination of whimsy and thought-provoking consideration for the viewer. Voyage to Troy #1 alludes to the ancient city that was the site of the Trojan Wars, but has a contemporary, autobiographical component referencing the harbor of the Aleutian Islands recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. In the 1980s Marecak used the goddess Hera in his painting, Hera Contemplates Aspects of the Art Nouveau, to comment on art movements in the latter half of the twentieth century Marecak’s love of classical music and opera, which he shared with his wife and to which he often listened while painting in his Denver basement studio, is reflected in Homage of Offenbach, an abstract work translating the composer’s musical colors into colorful palette. Pace, Pace, Mio Dio, the title of his earliest surrealist painting, is a soprano aria from Verdi’s opera, La Forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny or Fate, a favorite Marecak subject). His Queen of the Night relates to a character from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute. In addition to paintings and works on paper, he produced hooked rugs, textiles and ceramics. He likewise produced designs for ceramics, tableware and furniture created by his wife Donna, an accomplished Colorado ceramist. Both of them generally eschewed exhibitions and galleries, preferring to quietly do their work while remaining outside of the mainstream. He initially exhibited at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1948 receiving a purchase award. The following year he had his first one-person show of paintings and lithographs at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs. In the 1950s and early 1960s he participated in group exhibitions at the Print Club (Philadelphia); Amarillo Public Library (Texas); annual Blossom Festival Show (Canon City, Colorado); Adele Simpson’s "Art of Living" in New York; Denver Art Museum; and the Fox Rubenstein-Serkey Gallery (Denver); but he did not have another one-person show until 1966 at the Denver home of his friends, John and Gerda Scott. They arranged for his first one-person show outside of Colorado held two years later at the Martin Lowitz Gallery in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, California. That same year his work was featured at the Zantman Galleries in Carmel, California. Thereafter he became an infrequent exhibitor after the 1970s so that his work was rarely seen outside his basement studio. In 1980 he, his wife and Mark Zamantakis exhibited at Denver’s Jewish Community Center, and four years later he had a one-person show at the Studio Gallery in Denver. In 1992 he was included in a group show at the Rule Modern and Contemporary Gallery in Denver, and a year later received a large, posthumous retrospective at the Emmanuel...

'X Marks the Spot' is an acrylic and pastel on paper by Denver artist Edward Marecak from the 1960s. Abstract mixed media painting painted in colors of black, white, and purple. Pres...

'Façade' is an ink and acrylic painting by Denver artist Edward Marecak circa 1960s. Abstract mixed media painting completed in colors of black, pink, gray, and white. Presented in a...

Oil on board painting by Paul Kauvar Smith (1893-1977) of a still life of flowers on a table in an interior scene with a mirror in the background. American Modernist still life painting with zinnias and abstract paintings in an artists studio. Presented framed, outer dimensions measure 27 ⅝ x 31 ¾ x 1 ⅛ inches. Image size is 19 ½ x 23 ½ inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Private collection, Denver, Colorado Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: In 1915, Paul Kauver Smith studied commercial art and design at the St. Louis School of Fine Art for two years. His studies were interrupted by World War I during which he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army. After the war he returned to the School of Fine Art and also studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis with Fred G. Carpenter, himself a student of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Colarossi Academy in Paris. Carpenter was known as a marvelous colorist who "thought every inch of a painting should be fascinating…and should be as interesting close up as from a distance." His approach is reflected in many of Smith’s paintings, both representational and abstract in style, done later in Colorado. In 1921, Smith relocated to Denver where he studied for two years at the Denver Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, formerly located in Brinton Terrace on 18th Street in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. His teacher was John E. Thompson, another important influence as a pioneer of modernism in Denver. The Academy hired Smith as an instructor in 1923 and that same year the Denver Art Museum included his work for the first time in its 29th annual juried exhibition. He later had two solo shows at the museum, which added his work to its Anne Evans Collection. In 1959 the museum reproduced Houses at Victor, for its Western Heritage Exhibition catalog. During the year of 1928 he witnessed the Articles of Incorporation of the Denver Artists Guild, comprising most of the city’s professional artists. He also belonged to the American Artists Professional League, also organized in 1928 by fifteen members of the Salmagundi Club in New York to protect artists’ interest and promote traditional American art. He was one of some two dozen Colorado artists designated to participate in the Public Works of Art Program (PWAP, 1933-34), the first federally-sponsored program for artists during the Great Depression. Around 1928 Smith became the "Hermit of Stuart Street," and remained a life-long bachelor. One painting, View from My Window, depicts his immediate neighborhood. Living for more than thirty years at 1039 Stuart Street in West Denver, he gave up creature comforts that most people take for granted to have the freedom to devote his life to the pursuit of art. In the first twenty-five years of his career, his paintings focused on the Colorado landscape and its mining towns with their decaying buildings as relics of the past. His piece, Miner’s House at Victor, Colorado illustrates the description of his work in this genre as described by Denver artist and art writer, Arneill Downs, "The jewel-like shapes and colors the artist uses gives the most decrepit objects style. The decaying buildings of ghost towns, grouped together on canvas, glow like a patchwork quilt." Smith described his technique as "I start lean and finish fat." He worked first with turpentine as a medium and ended up with pure pigment put on with a palette knife. In addition to Colorado scenes...

Mid 20th Century oil on artist board of a white house near Watsonville, California. 1950s landscape painting with house and trees. Presented in a...

Oil on board painting by George Vander Sluis (1915-1984) titled Storm Over Victor (Colorado Mountain Town) from 1946. WPA Era Mountain Landscape wi...

Depression era watercolor painting by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968) titled "The Way War First Comes" from 1940 of an outdoor village scene. Presented in a custom black frame wi...

Oil on board. Surrealist/Modernist painting with a female nude reaching into a wood burning stove, hilly landscape with barn, houses, still life with a bowl of fruit, stormy sky and a small male figure. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 29 ¼ x 35 x ¾ inches. Image size is 24 ¼ x 30 inches. Provenance: Private Collection, Colorado About the Artist: The daughter of a classically-trained pianist mother and a concert violinist father, she had an intellectually stimulating upbringing enhanced by Christian Science values. After graduation from high school in Hannibal, Missouri, she enrolled in the College of Education at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1919. Soon, however, she gave up the idea of becoming a teacher and entered at the John Herron Art Institute (whose collections are now part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art). The Institute’s early faculty included artists from the Hoosier Group trained at the Royal Academy in Munich, Germany, who educated artists in the realist tradition. True’s teacher and mentor, William Forsyth, gave her an excellent foundation in drawing and the technical aspects of painting and composition. When the failure of her father’s business in the early 1920s forced her to start earning a living, the Herron Institute hired her as an instructor for its art school, allowing her to support herself while she finished her studies. Following graduation from the Institute in 1925, she received a one-year scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Her former teacher William Forsyth wrote in his recommendation: "I can say without exaggeration that she was one of the best pupils I ever had during the twenty-five years I was a teacher at the John Herron Art School." At the Academy, she studied with Daniel Garber, an impressionist landscape painter associated with the New Hope art colony, and Hugh Breckenridge noted for his bold palette and expressionistic use of color, as well as the abstract work he started doing by 1922. She also studied briefly in the art department at Columbia University, perhaps in1928 when she produced some of her New York street scenes. From Pennsylvania, she returned to Indiana teaching for several years at Shortridge High School in Indianapolis. She also began showing her work at several area venues, including the Herron Institute, the Artists of Indiana, and the Hoosier Salon held early on in Chicago. Among the Salon’s exhibitors were Gustave Baumann, Victor Higgins, and Olive Rush, who either were Indiana natives or whose careers included connections with the state. By the 1920s all three of them had become associated with the Santa Fe and Taos art colonies. In the summer of 1928 True experienced both New Mexico communities and Southwest culture firsthand with Francis Hoar and her husband Clement Trucksess, her friends from the Herron Institute. They had relocated to Boulder in 1927 and were teaching at the University of Colorado. She recorded in her journal her initial reaction to the New Mexico landscape: "Might I preserve on canvas my thrill and deep feeling of the grand things of nature I have beheld today….There’s a wideness in God’s country that expresses peace to me." Inspired by her trip, True created a group of watercolors for her solo exhibition in 1928 at the Lieber Gallery in Indianapolis. They marked a transition from the realist style she learned at the Herron Institute to the more modernist, semi-abstract one she soon adopted. In the summer of 1929, she accepted an instructor’s position on the faculty of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Colorado (CU) in Boulder. She after that joined the Art Association of Boulder founded in 1923 by Mrs. Jean Sherwood, an art patron and club woman who relocated from Chicago to teach at the Boulder Chautauqua. Sherwood helped convince Dean Fred B...

Mountain Landscape, Near Colorado Springs, Colorado is a vertical oil on board painting by Mary Cane Robinson. Presented in a custom frame, outer dime...

Oil painting on foam core titled "Adam and Eve" by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from 1983. Portrays two semi-abstract figures with shapes in the background, painted in colors of pink, blue, yellow, and brown. Presented in a custom wooden frame, outer dimensions measure 30 ⅞ x 48 ⅞ x 2 ⅝ inches. Image size 30 x 48 inches. Painting is in good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. His junior and senior high projects earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy...

Large format oil painting on canvas of City Park in Denver, Colorado by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak. Semi-abstract park scene with various types of trees, figures, ...

Oil on board painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Masks" from the 1980s. Mosaic style oil painting in vibrant colors of red, blue, green, yellow, and orange. Presented in a...

Brushed crayon over acrylic on paper by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled Untitled #26. Geometric abstract mixed media painting in colors of black, purple, and blue. Presented in a ...

Ink and acrylic on paper abstract drawing by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled Untitled #21 in colors of light blue, dark blue, black and white. Presented in a custom frame with all ...

Vintage 1950s original signed abstract painting of New York City by Charles Ragland Bunnell from 1951, cityscape mid century modern skyline. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 21 ⅜ x 26 ⅜ x 2 inches. Image size is 19 x 24 inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the artist: Charles Bunnell developed a love for art at a very young age. As a child in Kansas City, Missouri, he spent much of his time drawing. When he was unable to find paper he drew on walls and in the margins of textbooks for which he was often fined. Around 1915, Bunnell moved with his family to Colorado Springs, Colorado. He served in World War I and later used his GI Training to study at the Broadmoor Art Academy (later renamed the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center) during 1922 and 1923. In 1922, he married fellow student, Laura Palmer...

"Still Life and Round Lace Table" is an original acrylic and pastel on paper by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) circa 1960s. Signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Abstracted sti...

Oil on panel painting by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled The Keepers of the Chalice from 1987. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 36 ¼ x 48 ¼ x 1 ⅛ inches....

Block print on linen by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled Shapes. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 29 x 19 ¼ x 1 ⅛ inches. Image size...