David Cook Galleries

Abstract yellow, green, blue and red oil on canvas painting titled 'Homage to Diebenkorn' signed by Wilma Fiori (1929-2019). Wrapped canvas with finished e...

Tempera on board painting titled 'The Carved Door' by Archie Musick, signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Depicts a semi-abstract landscape with flora and fauna. Presented...

Semi-Abstract figurative oil on burlap painting titled 'Sybil (The Prophetess)' by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) painted in 1976. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corne...

Gouache and watercolor on paper painting, painted in 1948 by Mary Chenoweth (1918-1999). Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Depicting an abstracted landscape o...

Abstract oil on canvas signed and titled 'Mesa Verde' by Wilma Fiori (1929-2019) painted November 17, 1988. Painted in bright yellows, gold, pink, red, and...

'Central City, Colorado' by Leonard Silverstein is an original gouache on paper from 1954. Hand signed, titled, and dated by the artist in the lower right...

Abstract acrylic painting in shades of red and orange painted in 1988 and signed by Margo Hoff (1910-2008). Wrapped canvas edges are ready for hanging, measuring 48 x 48 inches. Pr...

'Composition in Red and Blue' is a vintage abstract expressionist original oil painting on board by Charles Bunnell (1897-1968) from 1951. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower left corner. Abstract composition painted in shades of white, cream, blue, red, and tan. Presented in a vintage frame, outer dimensions measure 28 ½ x 22 ½ x 1 inches. Image size is 24 x 18 inches. 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. He studied with Ernest Lawson in 1927-1928 and, in the winter of 1928-1929, he served as Lawson’s assistant. In the late 1920’s, the Bunnell’s settled just west of Colorado Springs and 1928, they welcomed the first of their three children. Their one-acre homesite, which they referred to as “Old Home Place”, was situated between two sets of railroad tracks at the foot of Pike’s Peak. Charlie converted an old railroad boxcar into his studio, where he later gave lessons. Beginning in 1931, Bunnell spent a year and a half studying under Boardman Robinson. The two men clashed constantly due to a generation gap and markedly different philosophies. Robinson encouraged his students not to stray from realism and though Bunnell mastered Robinson’s preferred style of American Scene painting, he regularly irritated his professor with his abstract sketches. Bunnell taught at the Kansas City Art Institute during the summers of 1929, 1930, 1940, and 1941. Between 1934 and 1941, he painted and taught under federal projects which included assisting Frank Mechau on murals for the Colorado Springs Post Office. However, he did not take to mural making and, after criticism from Boardman Robinson about his use of “heavy daubs which have no place in mural work,” he abandoned mural-making altogether. By the late 1930’s, Bunnell’s work departed from the American Scene/Modernist style he was trained in towards abstraction. This is marked by his “Black and Blue” series, consisting of 83 abstracted ink and watercolors. Affected by the Second World War and the loss of his 10-year old son, Bunnell’s work of the early 1940’s took on a Transcendental and Surrealist tone. The works from this period are moody and readily reflect the political and personal turmoil experienced by the artist. In the late 1940’s, Bunnell began experimenting with Abstract Expressionism. He alone is credited with introducing Colorado Springs to the new style as it was excluded from the Fine Art Center’s curriculum by Boardman Robinson. Bunnell excelled in Abstract Expressionism and continued to evolve in the style through the 1950’s continuing to his death in 1968. He was recently recognized as a premier American Abstract Expressionist by his inclusion in the book American Abstract Expressionism of the 1950’s: An Illustrated Survey. Solo Exhibits: Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, 1930; Santa Fe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1947; University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 1948; University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky, 1949; Taos Gallery, Taos, New Mexico, 1951; Carl Barnett Galleries, Dallas, Texas, 1952; The Bodley Gallery, New York, 1955; Amarillo, Texas, 1955; Haigh Gallery, Denver, Colorado, 1955; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 1956; Dord Fitz Art Gallery, Amarillo, Texas, December 1956 – February 1957, 1959, 1969 (retrospective). Group Exhibits: Carnegie Institute, 1927-1928; Colorado State Fair, 1928 (1st prize); Artists Midwestern, Kansas City, Missouri, 1929 (Gold Medal); Art Institute of Chicago, 1947 (the exhibit traveled to ten major museums in the United States); “Artists West of the Mississippi”, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Colorado Springs, Colorado (7 times); Denver Art Museum Western Annual, Denver, Colorado (5 times); Mid-America Annual, Kansas City, Missouri, 1958; First Provincetown Festival, 1958; Southwestern Annual, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Winter 1957-1958; Central City, Colorado; Cañon City...

Original oil abstract geometric by female artist, Margo Hoff (1910-2008). Signed by the artist in the lower right corner. Colorful painting in shades of orange, pink, blue, and purpl...

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,...

Original vintage watercolor painting by twentieth century San Francisco woman artist, Hildegarde Haas (1926-2002). "Bach - English Suite No.2 in A Minor...

Vintage 20th century mid-century modern style abstract in red and white, "White Line - Red (Variation 2)" by Chicago artist, Margo Hoff (1910-2008). Serigraph, estate stamped verso. ...

Cast sculpture titled 'Rotation' by artist Eric James Bransby (1916-2020) depicting six dancers in motion and a flying cupid above them to the right. Sculpture measures 12 3/4 x 25 1/4 x 1/2 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Eric Bransby Sculpture is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born New York, 1916 Eric James Bransby was a muralist, painter, illustrator, and teacher. Bransby studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center in Colorado under Thomas Hart Benton, Jean Charlot, Boardman Robinson, and Josef Albers. He also studied at the Yale School of Fine Art. Bransby painted the Rockhurst Library Triptych Mural at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he was an associate professor of art. Bransby has also painted murals at Brigham Young University, the Air Force Academy, Colorado College, and the Air Defense Command. Bransby was a longtime resident of Colorado Springs and a member of the National Society of Mural Painters. In 1997, the University of Colorado awarded him a doctorate of humane letters, and the Colorado College Alumni Association honored him with a medal for lifetime achievement in 1998. Exhibited: Association of American Art, 1941; Kansas City AI, 1940; Joslyn Art Museum, 1940; Oakland Art Museum, 1940; Oklahoma Art Center, 1945 (solo); Denver Art Museum, 1951; Library of Congress, 1944, 1951; Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, 1951. Works held: Nelson Gallery, Kansas City, Mo.; Princeton University; Oklahoma Art Center; Brigham Young University; murals, Command and Genl. Staff Sch., USA, Ft. Leavenworth, Kans.; Colorado College; USAF, Colorado Springs, Colo.; Hq. NORAD, Colorado Springs; Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; Medical Center, Colorado Springs; University of Illinois. Further Reading: Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. I. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds., Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols. ©David Cook Galleries...

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...

Abstract figurative nude portrait of a female surrounded by birds and floral arrangements, oil on board by Martin Saldana (1874-1965) titled 'Nude Side View'. Presented in a custom frame measuring 28 ¾ x 21 inches; image size is 20 ¾ x 13 ¾ inches. Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born Mexico 1874 Died 1965 Born in 1874, Saldaña grew up at Rancho Neuvo in Mexico. In 1950, at the age of 76, he began attending children's art classes at the Denver Art Museum. For the next fitfteen years, Saldaña Imaginatively documented whimsical memories from his childhood in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, portraying ranch life, landscapes, and his great love of animals. The prolific artist painted every day, completing a new piece about every three days and amassing an impressive body of work for the former cook at the Denver landmark, the Brown Palace...

1960s original signed framed painting by Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993), "Warp and Woof" is a mid-century modern abstract painting of a textile on a loom with varying h...

Abstract black and white oil on canvas painting signed by Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995) from circa 1975. Composition in black, gray, and white. Image size is 24 x 48 inches, framed dimensions are 25 ½ x 49 ½ inches. Painting is in good condition - please contact for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez was an illustrator, muralist, genre and landscape painter, sculptor, and lithographer. He studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center with Boardman Robinson, Frank Mechau, Arnold Blanch, and Peppino Mangravite. Before serving in the army during WWII, Chavez painted many murals in the west. When he was demobilized from the army after WWII, he went to live in Woodstock, New York with his wife, artist Jenne Magafan. A new artistic climate developed in Woodstock after WWII. There was an influx of artists from the West and Midwest in Woodstock. Some of these artists were Bruce Currie, Fletcher Martin, Edward Millman, Mitchell Siporin...

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...

"Dawn of the Tigris" is an oil on canvas abstract painting by Gwendolyn Dufill Meux (1893-1973). Image measures 48 x 36 inches, presented in a custom frame measuring 49 ½ x 37 ½ inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Gwendolyn Meux Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born 1893 Died 1973 The daughter of Arthur Mews, Deputy Secretary of Newfoundland from 1898 to 1935, and Mabel Mews, she attended the Mount Ladies’ College, now Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, on a four-year Canadian government scholarship. While an instructor at the college from 1920 to 1922 she showed in the Spring Exhibition of the Art Association of Montreal in 1920 and the following year in its Thirty-Eighth Annual Exhibition. In the United States, she studied with Charles Hawthorne in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and with Kimon Nicholaides (author of The Natural Way to Draw) at the Art Students League in New York. In 1922-1925 Meux was an assistant professor of fine arts at the University of Oklahoma at Norman during which time she studied with Santa Fe artists Józef Bakoś and Frank Applegate in the summer of 1923. The following year she attended the University Camp summer painting workshop in Boulder, Colorado, where she met A. Gayle Waldrop, then an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Colorado (CU). In 1925 they were married in an outdoor wedding at the University Camp to which guests received invitations on aspen bark which she had beautifully lettered. Thereafter the university hired her as an art instructor, and she spent the balance of her life in Boulder. Meux quickly became involved in the Boulder art scene. She was a charter member and later one-time president of the Boulder Artists Guild. Established in 1926 by the Art Association of Boulder, the CU Art Department and local artists, the Guild was limited to active artists. It included most of the city’s professional artists before disbanding half a century later. The Art Association of Boulder was founded in 1923 by Jean Sherwood who relocated from Chicago to teach at the Boulder Chautauqua and helped convince Dean Fred B.R. Hellems at CU to set up the first art gallery on campus in the 1920s. The Association, lasting until 1939 and reconstituted in 1958, was open to individuals interested in promoting the arts through lecture programs, art classes, and exhibits. In 1931 Meux joined fellow CU Fine Arts faculty members Muriel Sibell Wolle, Frances Hoar (Trucksess), Frederick Clement Trucksess and Virginia True in The Prospectors, a Regionalist art collaborative stressing a strong sense of place and community. They formed the group in connection with a traveling exhibition of their work assembled for display at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, University of Kansas and the John Herron Institute (now the Indianapolis Museum of Art). Regional modernists influenced by the Western landscape, The Prospectors’ manifesto "claimed inspiration from the natural beauty of the mountains and plains of Boulder, as well as the ghosts of Indians, mountain men, and pioneers." Attempting to gain critical recognition for themselves and for Boulder, The Prospectors aggressively promoted their work through 1942, exhibiting at universities, museums, and galleries in twenty-four states and participating in various shows throughout the country such as the Prairie Watercolor Painters annuals in Kansas. In addition to The Prospectors, Meux was a long-time member of the Fortnightly Club of Boulder. The oldest women’s literary club in Colorado, the group was organized in 1884 by Mary Rippon, a "founding mother" of CU and its first female professor. Meeting to share information on a variety of topics, the Fortnightly Club limits its membership to thirty-five and is a mixture of "town and gown" – community members and women associated with CU. Meux was also active for many years in the University Faculty Women’s Club, serving as its president in 1941. She likewise belonged to the then-local chapter of the Artists Equity Association in Boulder. Its president in 1969, she became an honorary member in 1973. Inspired by the Colorado landscape, she worked in a variety of media: oil painting, watercolor, ink, crayon, lithography, and dry brush. An oil from the 1940s, White Church, Ward, depicts the central hillside portion of the former mining settlement founded eighty years earlier during the nineteenth-century Colorado Gold Rush. However, by the time she painted Ward the town was largely deserted with only 10-20 year-round residents. She constructed the scene with the modernists’ technique of juxtaposed angles, distorted shapes, and position. Of the structures highlighted with bright colors. For some resident Colorado artists of Meux’s generation, the state’s old mining towns offered an alternative to the overworked cowboy-and-Indian subject matter of the previous generation. Easily accessible and visible vestiges of Western mining history, those semi-ghost towns also provided a welcome break from the nineteenth-century panoramic landscape tradition. In a watercolor from the 1940s entitled Clean Up, Meux used a similarly strong palette to depict a genre scene. Probably based on her participation in a winter outing, it shows a group of hikers or skiers entering a mountain cabin to shake off the snow from their clothes. The subject stylistically belongs to American Regionalism that became ascendant during the Depression era in the 1930s and early 1940s, focusing on subjects close to home. Her Colorado work exemplifies the opinion of American modernist artist Albert Bloch, the only American artist to be affiliated with Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of early twentieth-century European modernists. "Her work," he wrote, "is marked by a vigorous and direct manner, the color is joyous and vibrant…[possessing] a keen sense of humor, and sometimes a biting irony." She also did portraits of some of her colleagues, including Muriel Sibell Wolle. She enjoyed hiking, climbing, cross-country skiing and camping as an active member of the Front Rangers, the Boulder chapter of the Colorado Mountain Club. She wrote and illustrated articles for its publication, Trail and Timberline, and for the Christian Science Monitor. Around 1940 she did an artistic rendering of the recreational opportunities in Boulder area of Colorado entitled, Mountain Playground of the University of Colorado: A Fantastical Map...

Vintage circa 1930s-1950s original oil painting of Boulder Canyon - a Colorado Landscape painting with mountains and Aspen trees with autumn/fall coloring. Presented in a custom gold frame, outer dimensions measure 25 ¼ x 21 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 22 ¼ x 18 ¼ inches. About the Artist: Born Illinois, 1884 Died Denver, Colorado 1969 An important figure in the development of Denver as an artistic city, Irene Fowler was a public school teacher and founding member of the Denver Artist’s Guild (now the Colorado Artist’s Guild) in addition to being a prolific artist. She exhibited in Denver at the Schlier Gallery (where she had a solo exhibition), at the Chappell House, the University Club...

Group of five abstract lithographs signed and individually titled by artist Dale Chisman from 1987. Titles are: At Midnight, I Breathed A Gentle Fragrance, If You Love for Beauty's S...

Abstract oil on canvas painting signed by artist Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995) titled 'Primordial Landscape'. Presented in a vintage frame measuring 19 x 21 ¼ inches, image size is 18 x 20 inches. Provenance: Estate of Steven P. Norton & Martin R. Harnick Primordial Landscape is mentioned on P. 166 in “A Contested Art, Modernism and Mestizaje in New Mexico” About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez was an illustrator, muralist, genre and landscape painter, sculptor, and lithographer. He studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center with Boardman Robinson, Frank Mechau, Arnold Blanch, and Peppino Mangravite. Before serving in the army during WWII, Chavez painted many murals in the west. When he was demobilized from the army after WWII, he went to live in Woodstock, New York with his wife, artist Jenne Magafan. A new artistic climate developed in Woodstock after WWII. There was an influx of artists from the West and Midwest in Woodstock. Some of these artists were Bruce Currie, Fletcher Martin, Edward Millman, Mitchell Siporin...

An original signed framed abstract expressionist painting by mid-century modern Chicago woman artist, Margo Hoff (1910-2008), "Stone Quarry" was created using acrylic, crayon and paper collage on board in shades of purple, blue, brown, white and black. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 48 ½ x 40 ½ x 1 ¾ inches. Image size is 48 x 40 inches. Provenance: Estate of the artist, Margo Hoff About the Artist: 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 soul 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, Beirut, 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...

Abstract expressionist watercolor painting of blue, black, orange, and green signed by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968). Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials an...

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 1939 oil painting by New Mexico modernist, Howard Schleeter (1903-1976), Madonna of the Picture includes a santo of the Virgin Mary, a still life of flowers in a vase and a crucifix. Presented in a custom hand-carved frame, outer dimensions measure 21 x 17 x 2 inches. Image size is 16 x 12 inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Provenance: Private Collection, California Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Howard Schleeter, the son of a commercial artist, studied formally at the Albright Art School in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. However, his studies at Albright were brief and the artist considered himself to be primarily self-taught. He later met Charles Lindbergh while working as an airplane mechanic. However, he soon chose to make his living entirely as an artist and, in 1929, he traveled to New Mexico. The following year he married and the couple made New Mexico their permanent home. Schleeter studied under Brooks Willis during the 1930's and worked in several mediums including gouache, watercolor, oil, scratchboard and engraving. The Great Depression took its toll on Schleeter who occasionally found work digging ditches to make ends meet. In 1936, his financial status greatly improved when he received the first of several commissions from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Though he worked primarily in abstraction, the five murals he completed for a WPA commission in the Melrose Public School library are realistic depictions of the West. He worked on several more New Deal commissions during the years of 1936 and 1942 in locations including Santa Fe, Clayton, and Washington D.C. During this time, Schleeter furthered his income by teaching at a Las Vegas, New Mexico, art gallery during 1938 and 1939. In 1945, the Encyclopedia Britannica referred to Schleeter as "an artist's artist." He also received local attention when he became one of the first artists chosen by Peter Hurd and Jane Mabry for his significant contributions to New Mexico's art. Schleeter taught at the University of New Mexico during 1950-1951 and 1954. Member: Art League of New Mexico Exhibited: Kansas Art Institute, 1936-1938; New Mexico State Fair, 1939 (prize); New Mexico Art League, 1939 (prize); Cedar City, New Mexico, 1941-1946; Philadelphia Artist Alliance, 1945 (solo); deYoung Memorial Museum, 1946; Art Institute of Chicago, 1947; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1951 (purchase prize), 1955 (purchase prize); Vienna, Austria, 1952; Guggenheim Museum, 1954; Karlsruhe Museum, Germany, 1955; Stanford University, 1955 (solo); New Mexico Highlands University, 1957 (purchase prize); Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1958; Swope Art Gallery Works Held: A&M College, New Mexico (mural); Art League of New Mexico; Cedar City Institute of Religion; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Miners Hospital, Raton, New Mexico (mural); Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Research Studio, Maitland, Florida; University of New Mexico Further Reading: Artists of 20th-Century New Mexico: the Museum of Fine Arts Collection, Museum of New Mexico Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 1992.; The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Taos and Santa Fe: the Artist's Environment, 1882-1942, Van Deren Coke, University of New Mexico Press for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, TX and the Art Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM: 1963.; Treasures on New Mexico Trails: Discover New Deal Art and Architecture: Kathryn A. Flynn ed., Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, NM: 1995.; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 1. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds.,Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols. ©David Cook...

Abstract acrylic on board painting by Margo Hoff (1910-2008) titled 'Jagged Sea'. Outer dimensions measure 37.5 x 41.5 x 2 inches. Image dimensions measure 36 x 40.25 x 1 inches. Provenance: Estate of the artist Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born Oklahoma 1910 Died New York 2008 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 work 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...

Blue On Blue #1, original vintage 1965 abstract painting by Denver artist, Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992). Acrylic paint in shades of blue on shaped 3 dimensional (3D) canvas with a circular form protruding from the center of square painting. Presented in a vintage/original frame, outer dimensions measure 26 ¾ x 26 ½ x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 26 x 26 x 3 ¼ inches. Exhibited: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1965 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting December 8, 1965 to January 30, 1966 The son of Italian immigrants from the Salerno province in southern Italy, as a teenager Di Benedetto worked as a truck driver in the mornings and a bartender in the afternoons 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, with Russian émigré painter, Alexandre Jacovleff, a member of Mir Isskustva (World of Art) in St. Petersburg before the Russian Revolution. In 1936 he painted a religious mural for St. Michael’s Grove in Paterson, New Jersey. The following year, 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. During what turned out to be an extended six-month stay, he studied and painted the life and religious customs of the island, resulting in a series of colorful, stylized paintings inspired by his immersion in the local culture. He also did scenes of Port-au-Prince and executed commissions received from prominent people in Haiti, including government officials. In 1940, his Haitian paintings were exhibited at the Montross Gallery in New York (his first solo show) and also reproduced in the January 1940 issue of Life Magazine. One of his Haitian paintings, Morning in Port-au-Prince, was owned by an American author, politician and U.S. ambassador, Clare Boothe Luce, while another image, Haiti Post Office, was acquired for the Encyclopedia Britannica Collection and later donated to Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. Before World War II, Di Benedetto traveled extensively around the United States in his car and trailer doing regional paintings. In 1941, he did what is considered the first authentic version of George Washington Crossing the Delaware, a contrast to the well-known painting on the same subject (1851) by German-born painter, Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze. During the war, Di Benedetto volunteered for a secret mission to Africa in 1941 before the Allied invasion, serving as director of camouflage, foreman of native laborers, and an interpreter while based in Eritrea. The following year he received a direct commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps in the First Photo Mapping Squadron, leading groups as a guide and interpreter and doing ground control. During his free time in Africa, he sketched and painted the local population and his fellow servicemen. Following Africa, he served as an orientation officer and aerial photographic officer for the 311th Photo Wing at Bolling Field, in the District of Columbia where he did a series of illustrated articles describing the natives in the different countries where the men of his organization were stationed during the war. In 1945 he was assigned to a mapping unit at Buckley Air Field 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. After the war, he lived briefly for about a year in Rangely, a small town in northwest Colorado where he traveled and sketched. But finding it a little too remote, he settled in the old mining town of Central City in 1947, his home base for the rest of his life. He spent his first six years there transforming the old Sauder-McShane Mercantile warehouse into a giant art studio. His initial acquaintance with the town’s mining town history in 1947 resulted in a drawing, Death of a Miner, showing a male figure buried under a pile of collapsed rock in a mining tunnel. In 1949 Di Benedetto and his wife, ceramist Lee Porzio, opened the Benpro Art School in his studio where he conducted summer art classes. The following year he teamed up with a Denver-based artist, Frank Vavra, to open the Denver Art Center at 924 Broadway. He and Vavra were founding members of the 15 Colorado Artists who seceded in 1948 from the Denver Artists Guild because they were dissatisfied with the older organization’s underlying conservatism and the disdain of some of its members for modern art. Welcoming anyone wanting to learn how to draw or paint, the Denver Art Center in downtown Denver only lasted about a year. Undeterred by its lack of success, Di Benedetto continued throughout his career to give workshops, classes, and lectures on art-related topics in Denver and elsewhere. Examples of topics ranged from subjects such as “African Art,” Chappell House, Denver (1945) and “University or Artistic Thought” sponsored by the Art for World Friendship Committee (1954). He also taught locally at the Jewish Community Center, Steele Community Center, International House, Southern Colorado State College-Pueblo, and lectured at the University of Denver. Beginning in 1969 he sponsored over one hundred youths at his studio in Central City to spend a summer learning about art. He also conducted classes for serious working artists. His efforts earned him an honorary doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1977. He likewise promoted contemporary Colorado artists’ work in the 1950s, heading a committee that presented one-person exhibitions in a small gallery at the Vogue Art Cinema on South Pearl Street in Denver. His interest in promoting the arts led to his participation in numerous organizations. In the 1960s he became concerned with environmental and urban art and was the president of Art for the Cities, a Denver-based nonprofit organization. He also was the chairman of and a participant in the first annual environmental art exhibit held at Denver’s American Medical Center. In 1968 Colorado Governor John Love appointed him to the Colorado Council on the Arts and Humanities in which he remained active until 1975. He served for two consecutive years as program coordinator for the Governor’s Conference on the Arts and Humanities. At the 1969 conference, Governor Love presented him an award for his contribution to the art and artists of Colorado. At the same time, he actively participated in the civic life of Central City. The town’s Police Magistrate (1955-56), he twice campaigned for mayor, first in 1966 and again in 1973, and ran for commissioner in 1979. He socialized with artists Ben Shahn, Herbert Bayer and Mark Rothko, as well as theatrical stars appearing at the Central City Opera House, including Helen Hayes, Mae West, and Gypsy Rose Lee. He invited them to carve their autographs on his kitchen table. Di Benedetto worked with equal facility in a variety of media: acrylic, oil paint, watercolor, charcoal, Conte crayon, graphic arts and metal (copper, iron). Up until the early 1950s, his output was dominated by representational figure work and expressionist Colorado landscapes that were not always immune from controversy. When Life Magazine included a reproduction of his Regionalist painting, Lovers in the Cornfield (1941) in its article, “Ten Years of American Art: Life Reviews the Record of a Lively, Important Decade” (November 26, 1946, issue), three counties in Massachusetts banned the publication. Just as immediately, the painting was exhibited in Denver. He said that he liked the West because the people, despite their lack of exposure to art, were individualistic and almost “anarchistic.” In the early 1950s he did woodcuts in a modernist style, including Remembrance, showing his two young daughters. Influenced by Abstract Expressionism at that time, he began considering the elimination of the image from his work. By the end of the decade, he had decided that “the circle – pure and simple was one of the most familiar symbols of mankind and that it metaphored into everything.” At the same time, he noted that “99% of the abstract painters shied away from using…[the circle]. When they didn’t, they slaughtered it, murdered it and buried it. So it became my motif.” For more than three decades he explored the circle in paint, sculpture and shaped canvas. Two examples of the last-named medium are his Red CQ and Black C-1, both from 1969. Because abstraction touched upon his deep feelings and spirituality, he felt he could make visible that part of life which “we feel but almost never see.” His fascination with the circle also relates to his belief that to affect the dialogue existing between object and maker, the artist must “create archetypal shapes [that have universal appeal], not symbols…to reflect simply the intrinsic beauty of the shape itself.” A strong advocate for public art, Di Benedetto headed Art for the Cities, Inc., which sponsored nine sculptures for Burns Park as part of the Denver Sculpture Symposium held in the Mile High City in 1968. The catalysts for the idea of the sculptures were Beverly and Bernie Rosen, who had been instrumental in the creation of the contemporary department at the Denver Art Museum. Along with Di Benedetto, the other participating sculptors were Dean Fleming, Peter Forakis, Roger Kotoske, Tony Magar, Robert Mangold, Robert Morris, Richard Van Buren and Bill Verhelst. The park project eventually served as a prototype for twenty-two states, bringing the sculpture to urban spaces. The sculptures reflected Di Benedetto’s concept of “burden-less environmental art” with no hidden meaning for the public to decipher. His goal in public art was to “create a work which, when integrated with the site, will create a tranquil oasis, a counterbalance to the modern chaotic world we experience daily.” During the 1960s and 1970s, he received other major sculpture commissions: an 80-foot-long copper wall, Jewish Community Center, Denver (1962); sculpture garden, General Rose Hospital, Denver (1964); Fountain, First National Bank of Dallas (1966); Colorado Fuel & Iron Company, Pueblo, Colorado (1969); neighborhood park sculpture, Yonkers, New York (1971); High School Park, Northglenn, Colorado (1974); ice skating rink sculpture, Pueblo (1976). Fate was not as kind to his mural which the Colorado Supreme Court justices commissioned him to paint in 1976 for the Colorado Judicial Building from a field of twenty-two candidates. With his former student, Phyllis Montrose as his principal assistant along with three others, he spent a year and a half executing the mural. Entitled Justice Through the Ages (aka Lawgivers), it depicted sixty individuals from ancient Babylon...

Circa 1968 abstract oil and crayon on board by artist Margo Hoff (1910-2008), estate stamped verso. Abstracted cliff scene painted in shades of red, pink...

An original gouache and wax painting by New Mexico modernist, Howard Schleeter (1903-1976) signed and dated lower right from November 18, 1949. Presented in a custom frame created b...

Oil on board painting by Alfred James Wands (1904-1998) titled "Mexico". Mountain landscape painting with village of buildings and a church in the foreground painted in colors of gre...

A figurative bas relief sculpture of a female ballet dancer moving through arabesque pose by Colorado/Missouri artist, Eric Bransby (1916-1920). Bronze, Polymer forton casting. Provenance: Collection of the artist Eric James Bransby is a muralist, painter, illustrator, and teacher. Bransby studied at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center in Colorado under Thomas Hart Benton, Jean Charlot, Boardman Robinson, and Josef Albers. He also studied at the Yale School of Fine Art. Bransby painted the Rockhurst Library Triptych Mural at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, where he was an associate professor of art. Bransby has also painted murals at Brigham Young University, the Air Force Academy...

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...

Fabric Shop is a vintage painting by Margo Hoff (1910-2008). Painted in hues of pink, coral, orange, green, blue, black, green and yellow with canvas collage on canvas. Presented in a vintage/original frame, outer dimensions measure 16 ¼ x 16 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 15 x 15 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Margo Hoff 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...

American modern lithograph on paper titled 'Mining Town' signed by artist Robert Beauchamp (1923-1995) featuring a figure walking and a cat sitting on a fence in a mining town. Image...

Oil on canvas signed by artist Angelo Di Benedetto (1913-1992) featuring two young figures reading a book together while sitting from 1947. Painted in shades of green, orange, red, gray, and green. Image measures 28 x 38 inches, framed dimensions are 33 ¾ x 39 ¾ inches. Painting is in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. 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...

Oil on canvas abstract painting with a bird motif signed by artist Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995) circa 1980. Painted in red, blue, purple, orange, and black. Presented in a vintage frame measuring 30 ½ x 28 ½ inches, image size is 29 ¼ x 27 inches. About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez...

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, ...

Apple Tree, vintage Signed oil painting of apple trees in blossom, springtime on the Western Slope, Colorado mountain landscape painting by Harold Skene (1883-1978). Dominant colors are green, blue and white with yellow and red/brown. Custom frame in a dark brown is included, outer dimensions (with frame) measure 29 ¾ x 36 x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 24 x 30 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: Harold Vincent Skene was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on June 19, 1883. He attended schools in eastern Massachusetts and graduated Harvard University School of Architecture in 1906. Skene attended Denver Art Academy where he studied with Robert Alexander Graham. He also studied at the Broadmoor Art Academy, Colorado Springs where he worked as an assistant to Allen Tupper True...

'Faulkner in Fresno', vintage 1986 original abstract painting by Sidney Guberman (b. 1936). Painted in shades of red, pale green, black, blue, purple, teal & white. Signed, dated a...

Oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Winter Witches in an Upside World Interfering with Each Other" from 1990. Titled and dated by the artist on verso. Painted in shades of black, gray, red, purple, and green. Presented in the original artist frame, outer dimensions measure 44 ⅛ x 44 ⅛ x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 43 x 43 inches. About the artist: Edward Marecak 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. 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, 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...

Oil painting on linen by Denver artist Raymond Knaub (born 1940) titled "Terra Tomah Mountain - Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado". Presented in a c...

Nude photograph titled 'Torso with Blowing Shirt (3/5)' signed and dated by contemporary artist Mark Sink (b. 1958) taken in 1988. Exhibited as part of "Twel...

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 bronze sculpture mounted on granite base by Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995). Measures 7 ½ x 6 x 2 inches, including stand. Sculpture is in very good to excellent condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. About the Artist: Born 1917 Died 1995 Born in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez...

Mid-century modern abstract painting of crystal formations by Margo Hoff (1910-2008) created with acrylic and canvas collage in purple and pink coloring. Wrapped canvas is ready to hang, outer dimensions measure 49 x 49 x 1 ¼ inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Margo Hoff About the Artist: Born Oklahoma 1910 Died New York 2008 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...

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...

Pastel on paper drawing signed and dated by Sushe Felix (20th Century) in the lower right portraying an American Modernist view of Garden of the Gods...

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...

Serigraph on paper titled "Gothic Towers" by Edward (Eduardo) Arcenio Chavez (1917-1995) from circa 1955 of an abstract tower structure with orange, brown, greens and white. Presented framed, outer dimensions measure 25 ¼ x 17 ½ x 1 ½ inches. Image sight size 18 ½ x 11 ¼ inches. Print is clean and in very good vintage 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 in Wagonmound, New Mexico, Eduardo Chavez...

Cowboy on Horseback with Tourists is a lithograph circa 1935 by Caroline Speare Rohland. Presented in a custom black frame, outer dimensions measure 17 ⅞ x 13 ⅝ x ⅝ inches. Image sig...

Watercolor by Elisabeth Spalding (1868-1954) titled "Little Garden Flowers (Still Life)" in colors of green, orange, and pink. Presented in a custom gold frame with archival materials, outer dimensions measure 28 ¼ x 25 ⅜ x 1 ⅛ inches. Image size is 16 ⅛ x 13 ¼ inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Provenance: Private collection, Denver Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: In 1874, at the age of six, Elizabeth Spalding and her family settled in Denver where her father, the Reverend John F. Spalding, became an early-day bishop in the Colorado Diocese of the Episcopal Church. After graduating from Wolfe Hall, a female academy in Denver where she later taught, she went to New York in 1890 to study drawing at a private school and painting at Cooper Union with J. Alden Weir. Later in the decade, she returned to New York to study at the Art Students League with Childe Hassam, Kenyon Cox and John Twachtman, and did outdoor sketching with Leonard Ochtman. She also spent summers working with a number of eminent American artists: Arthur Wesley Dow at Ipswich, Massachusetts; John F. Carlson at Woodstock, New York (later the first landscape painting instructor at the newly-founded Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs,1920-22); Charles H. Woodbury at Ogunquit, Maine; and Henry McCarter at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts classes in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. She also studied in France and England and lived briefly in Washington, DC. Spending the major portion of her career In Denver, she became a founding member of several local important art organizations. The first was the Le Brun Art Club, the city’s initial all-female artist group formed in 1890 and named after the renowned eighteenth-century French artist, Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun. In 1893, Spalding and several other Le Brun Club members (Henrietta Bromwell, Emma Richardson Cherry...

Original painting by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993). "Liberty Rides the Goose" is a semi-abstract depiction of Lady Liberty wearing Red, white and blue wi...

Abstract terra cotta sculpture by Sushe Felix (20th Century) featuring a continuous form with curves, ridges, and multiple circular holes throughout the form. Measures 12 x 14 x 10 i...

Original lithograph by Ross Eugene Braught (1898-1983) titled 'Clear Creek Canyon I (Colorado)' from 1933. Pencil signed by the artist in the lower right margin. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials measuring 26 ½ x 31 ½ inches, image size is 16 x 23 inches. Clear Creek rises near Loveland Pass...

Untitled (Fruit, Leaves, Spotted Cloth) oil on canvas painting signed by Bernard Arnest (1917-1986) from 1959. Abstracted still life featuring fruit and leaves on a purple/grey background. Presented in a custom frame measuring 43 x 36 ¾ inches, image size measures 40 x 34 inches. Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: A Denver native, Arnest studied with Helen Perry at East High School who is accredited to having identified many of Colorado’s talented artists. At Perry’s recommendation Arnest benefited from supplemental instruction at the newly founded Kirkland School of Art and at the School of Fine Art and Design operated by Colorado artist Frank Mechau. Following graduation from East, Arnest enrolled at the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs, where he studied with Boardman Robinson and Henry Varnum Poor. In 1940 Arnest was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in painting which he spent in San Francisco. That same year San Francisco Museum of Art had a one-man show for Arnest, the first of many in his professional career. Other exhibitions included the Whitney Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Academy of Design, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. After the war he worked for two years in New York City and began a thirty-nine-year affiliation with Kraushaar Galleries who also showed the likes of George Luks, John Sloan, Maurice...

"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...