Gallery of the Masters Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Running Horse Study William Henry Dethlef Koerner (German, American, 1878-1938) Pencil on Paper Signed Lower Right 5 x 8 inches 12 x 15 inches with frame William Henry Dethlef Koern...

Golfers, 1928 Fred Conway (American, 1900-1973) Signed and Dated Lower Right 18.5 x 24.5 inches 30.5 x 37 inches with frame A member of the faculty of the Washington University Art ...

Head Study, 1930 John Sloan (1871-1951) Signed Lower Right 10.5" x 9" Unframed 19" x 16.5" Framed Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, John Sloan became one o...

Framed Size: approx 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches Fred Conway (1900-1973) "Golf Bags, Caddy with Golf Bag on His Back" Pen/Ink/Watercolor on Paper Site Size: approx. 10 x 13 inches Framed Size: approx. 17 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches A member of the faculty of the Washington University Art School from 1929 to 1970, Frederick Conway...

Dong Kingman "Chinese Theater, Los Angeles" 1965 Watercolor on Paper Sheet Size: 15 x 22 inches Framed Size: approx 19 x 26 inches Dong Kingman, the world-renowned artist and teacher, died in his sleep on May 12, 2000 at age 89 in his home in Manhattan. The cause was pancreatic cancer. Long acknowledged as an American watercolor master, he has received an extraordinary number of awards and honors throughout his 70-year career in the arts. Included are two Guggenheim fellowships in 1942 and 1943; the San Francisco Art Association First Purchase Prize, 1936; Audubon Artist Medal of Honor, 1946; Philadelphia Watercolor Club Joseph Pennel Memorial Medal, 1950; Metropolitan Museum of Art Award, and the National Academy Design 150th Anniversary Gold Medal Award, 1975. In 1987, the American Watercolor Society awarded Dong Kingman its highest honor, the Dolphin Medal, "for having made outstanding contributions to art especially to that of watercolor." His work is represented in the permanent collections of 50 museums and universities, including the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, M.H. deYoung Memorial Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Des Moines Art Center, Columbus Museum of Arts and Crafts, Brooklyn Museum and Hirshhorn Museum. Born in Oakland, California in 1911 of Chinese descent, Kingman moved to Hong Kong at age five. He studied art and calligraphy in his formative years at the Lingnan School. The painting master Szeto Wai had recently studied art in Paris and took a keen interest in young Dongs precocious talents. He taught him both Chinese classical and French Impressionist styles of painting. Kingman returned home to Oakland when he was 18 at the height of the Depression. He worked as a newsboy and dishwasher to make ends meet. When he was employed as a houseboy for the Drew family in San Francisco, he painted every spare moment. In a year, he created enough pictures to have a one-man show at the Art Center. It attracted the attention of San Francisco art critics who raved about Kingmans unique style. Wrote Junius Cravens of the San Francisco News: "That young Chinese artist is showing 20 of the freshest and most satisfying watercolors that have been seen hereabouts in many a day Kingman already has developed that universal quality which may place a sincere artist work above the limitations of either racial characteristics or schools. Kingmans art belongs to the world at large today." Dong Kingman became an overnight success. From 1936 to 1941, he was a project artist for WPA and became a pioneer for a new school of painting, the "California Style." His two Guggenheim fellowships enabled him to travel the country painting American scenes. His first one-man show in New York at Midtown Galleries in 1942 was well received in the media, including Time, Newsweek, the New Yorker and American Artist. M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco held a major exhibit of his watercolors in 1945. In 1951, Midtown presented a 10-year retrospective of his work. Time Magazine wrote, "At age 40, Kingman is one of the worlds best watercolorists." Other retrospectives, including Corcoran in Washington,D.C. an d Witte Memorial Museum in San Antonio, were held for the artist. Kingman moved to Wildenstein (1958-1969) where he had successful exhibits in New York, London and Paris. Hammer Galleries exhibited his paintings in the 70s, and then the artist expanded his venues to the West Coast and Far East. During World War II, he served with the OSS in Washington, D.C. where he was a cartographer. After his honorable discharge, Kingman moved to Brooklyn Heights from San Francisco when he became a guest lecturer and then art instructor at Columbia University (1946-1958). Hunter College also appointed him instructor in watercolors and Chinese Art (1948-1953). His teaching career continued with the Famous Artists School, Westport, CT in 1953, joining such distinguished artists on the faculty as Will Barnet, Stuart Davis, Norman Rockwell and Ben Shahn. He also became a teaching member for 40 years for the Hewitt Painting Workshops, which conducts worldwide painting tours. He taught at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, was a member of its board, and received an honorary doctorate from the Academy. In 1954, the U.S. Department of State invited Kingman to go on a cultural exchange program tour around the world to give exhibitions and lectures and to meet local artists. When he came home, he presented the State Department with a 40-foot long report on a scroll, which later appeared in LIFE Magazine. One of Kingman's most treasured experiences was his invitation by the Ministry of Culture of the Peoples Republic of China to exhibit in that country in 1981. He was the first American artist to be accorded a one-man show since diplomatic relations resumed. More than 100,000 visitors attended his exhibitions in Beijing, Hangzhou and Guangzhou and the retrospective received critical acclaim from the Chinese press. Noted the China Daily Mail, "Just as the master painters of the Song Dynasty roamed about mountain and stream to capture the rhythm of nature, Dong Kingman traveled the world capturing the dynamism of modern lifefamiliar scenes have been transformed into a vibrant new vision of life through color schemes with rhythms that play over the entire surface of the picture. The wind swept skies which enliven his watercolors remind us of the pleinairism of the French Impressionists." Kingman, who has been fascinated with movies since seeing his first film "The Thief of Baghdad...

Alessandro Pigna (Italian, 1862-1919) "Caesar Provoked" c. 1890 Watercolor Signed Lower Left "APigna" Site Size: approx. 18 x 28.5 inches Framed Size: approx. 24 x 34.5 inches Ales...

Mark Tobey "Men at the Seattle Public Market" (Two Figures) 1958 Ink and Tempera on Silk Signed and Dated Lower Left *This is a rare and important work. See attached images with book...

Guiseppe Aureli (1858-1929) "An Opulent Evening" c. 1880s Watercolor on Paper Signed Lower Right Site Size: approx. 30 x 20 inches Framed Size: approx. 37 x 29 inches Giuseppe Aureli (December 5, 1858 in Rome – 1929) was an Italian painter and watercolorist. His work is noted for its historical subject matter, portraits of Italian noble families as well as genre paintings and local scenes, especially work with Oriental themes. He received his early art education at the Academia de San Luca where he was the pupil of Pietro Gabarini and Cesare Maccari.[1] He exhibited in various exhibitions; including: The International Exhibition of 1888 in Munich and the World Fair of 1893 in Chicago, but his Oriental works were rarely included in these early exhibitions. Having his workshop at 48 Via Margutta in Rome, Aureli was in a position to exchange ideas with the most prolific Orientalist artists at that the time. He used the same staircase that led to a rabbit-warren of studios including those of Filippo Bartolini, Enrico Tarenghi...

Olaf Wieghorst (American, 1899-1988) "Season's Greetings" (Brave on Horseback) 1960 Watercolor/Gouache on Paper Initialed and Monogramed and Dated Dedicated: "To Rosalie & Jack, Season's Greetings, Mae & Olaf Xmas 1960" Site Size: 12 x 9 inches Framed Size: approx. 22.5 x 18.5 inches Born in Viborg, Denmark, Olaf Wieghorst was a child acrobatic performer from the age of nine when he began appearances at Tivoli Theater in Copenhagen and later toured Europe. He also learned horseback riding working on a stock farm, and horses became a major focus of his admiration and later his painting. In 1918, he arrived in the United States, having worked as a cabin boy on a steamer. He served in the 5th U.S. Cavalry on the Mexican border in the days of Pancho Villa...

Maurice Milliere (1871-1946) "A Close Competition" 1905 Colored Pencil on Paper Signed and Dated Lower Left Site: approx. 35 x 36 inches Framed: approx. 43 x 35 inches Born at Le Havre in Normandy on 12th December 1871, Millière began his art education in his home town but soon transferred to l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied portraiture, life drawing and figure painting in the atelier of Leon Bonnat, whose pupils included Toulouse-Lautrec and Raoul Dufy. He also studied at l'Ecole des Arts Decoratifs. His skill as a draughtsman translated quickly into success as a cartoonist and illustrator and his brilliant interpretation of the "Modern Parisienne" soon became known as the "Petite femme...

Jacob (Yaacov) Eisenscher "The Village Market" 1947 Gouache/Watercolor on Paper Signed and Dated Lower Left Image Size: approx 18 x 12.5 Framed Size: approx 27 1/8 x 22 1/4 inches ...

Everett Shinn "Gentleman Napping in a Chair" (Illustration) Pen and Ink on Paper Initialed "E.S." Lower Right Displaying an early aptitude for drawing, coupled with a strong interes...

Cassilly Adams (American 1843-1921) "Medicine Man" c. 1860s Watercolor on Paper Unsigned Provenance: Questroyal Gallery, NYC Site Size: approx. 14.5 x 8....

Cassilly Adams (1843-1921) "On the Lookout" c. 1860s Watercolor on Paper Signed Site Size: approx 8.5 x 14.5 inches Framed Size: approx. 16 x 22 inches A...

Sean Keating (Irish 1889-1977) "Self Portrait" c. 1950s Charcoal on Paper Signed Lower Right Framed Size: approx 20 x 16 inches A noted portrait and figure painter, influenced by both Romanticism and Realism, Sean Keating was an Irish nationalist painter who executed several iconic images of the Irish Civil war era, and of the ensuing period of industrialization. One of the great exemplars of representational painting in Ireland, Keating was an intellectual artist in that he set out to depict the birth and development of the Republic of Ireland, and his pictures are deliberately idealized even heroic. However, he held very conservative views about art - verging on the academic style - and was a committed defender of traditional Irish painting, considering much modern art to be bogus. Born in Limerick, Sean Keating studied drawing at the Limerick Technical School before winning a scholarship, arranged for him by William Orpen, to study fine art painting at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin. In 1914 he won the Taylor Scholarship and the following year exhibited three paintings at the Royal Hibernian Academy. Over the next period of years he spent time on the Aran Islands off County Galway, and then in London. He returned to Ireland in 1916 and painted the war of independence and the subsequent civil war. Works he completed at this time include the painting: Men of the South (1921) depicting a group of IRA men about to stage a military ambush, and An Allegory (c. 1922) which features a cluster of figures representing the fractures in the young Irish state. Meantime, in 1919, Keating was appointed an assistant teacher at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art. Then in 1921, he staged his first one-man show at The Hall, Leinster Street. In 1923, he was elected to the Royal Hibernian Academy. In a Dublin exhibition of Irish art held in 1924, Keating was awarded the gold medal for his picture Homage to Hugh Lane - now hanging in the Hugh Lane Gallery. In the late 1920s, Keating was commissioned to record the building of the hydro-electric power generator at Ardnacrusha, near Limerick. He painted a number of paintings of this scheme. Not unlike the Soviet Realism School of painting, these paintings sought to promote the construction work as an achievement of heroic proportions. Keating's works began to attract interest abroad. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in London and, in 1930, he held a one-man show at the Hackett Gallery, New York. In 1931 Keating's one-person exhibition was staged at the Victor Waddington Galleries, Dublin. In 1934 he was made professor of the National College of Art in Dublin, and Professor of Painting, three years later. His 1937 exhibition at the Victor Waddington Galleries attracted considerable interest. In 1939, he was asked to paint a wall-painting for the Irish pavilion at the New York World Fair and duly created a huge mural of fifty-four panels. He was President of the Royal Hibernian Academy from 1949 to 1962, exhibiting nearly 300 works during the period. In 1963, a retrospective exhibition was staged at the Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, which was opened by Irish President de Valera...

Gisella Loeffler "The Necklace and the Pot" c. 1919 Gouache on Paper Initialed Lower Left Framed Size: approx 15 x 15 inches In a village filled with colorful characters, few Taos artists were as colorful as Gisella Loeffler [1900-1977]. From her handmade Austrian clothing and hand-painted furniture to whimsical paintings and letters written in multicolored crayon, joyful color defined the artist, who early on chose to use simply Gisella as her professional name and was known as such to everyone in Taos. 

In spite of her fame there—the Taos News once labeled her a Taos legend—Gisella is rarely included in scholarly discussions of the Taos Art Colony. This oversight is likely due to the naive quality of her work, in which children or childlike adults inhabit a simple, brightly colored world filled with happiness. The macabre, the sad, the tortured, the offensive—all have no place in Gisella’s paintings. Her naive style of work looks very different from that of the better-known early Taos artists. Yet both Gisella’s artwork and her interesting life command attention. Born in Austria, Gisella came to the United States with her family in 1908, settling in St. Louis, MO. After studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, she became a prominent member of the local art community, joining the St. Louis Art Guild as well as the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition to creating posters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gisella won prizes from the Artists Guild of the Author’s League of America in 1919 and 1920 and from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923. She also began working in textiles, including batik, to which she would return later in her career.  In the early 1920s Gisella married writer and music critic Edgar Lacher. A difficult character, Lacher may have chafed under Gisella’s success, for the couple divorced in the 1930s. Having seen a local exhibition of paintings by Taos artists Oscar Berninghaus (who was from St. Louis) and Ernest Blumenschein, Gisella felt drawn to Taos, which reminded her of the villages of her native Austria. In 1933 the single mother with two daughters, Undine and Aithra, moved to Taos, where she lived off and on for the rest of her life. She traveled frequently, spending extended periods in Mexico, South America, and California, but always returned to New Mexico. Gisella initially applied an Austro-Hungarian folk-art style to the Indian and Hispanic subjects that she found in New Mexico. In her early work she covered her surfaces with decorative floral and faunal motifs, and her images were flat with no attempt at rendering traditional one-point perspective. Eventually, though, Gisella developed her own style, often using children or childlike figures as subjects. Still, the influence of her native country’s folk art remained evident in her New Mexican, Mexican, and South American images. In 1938 Gisella moved briefly to Los Griegos, north of Albuquerque, to be closer to medical facilities for her eldest daughter, who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Two years later, she moved to California to participate in the war effort, painting camouflage and decals on airplanes for Lockheed. In California, Gisella broadened her range of artistic pursuits. She taught art privately, created illustrations for Scripts Magazine, and did interior design for private homes. She also designed greeting cards, a practice she continued after her return to New Mexico, where she created a series of Christmas cards.  Gisella began illustrating children’s books in 1941 when she collaborated on Franzi and Gizi with author Margery Bianco. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own book, El Ekeko, in 1964. She also designed ceramics—her Happy Time Dinnerware, marketed by Poppy Trail...

Gisella Loeffler "Going for a Stroll" c. 1919 Gouache on Paper Initialed Framed Size: approx 17 x 13 inches In a village filled with colorful characters, few Taos artists were as colorful as Gisella Loeffler [1900-1977]. From her handmade Austrian clothing and hand-painted furniture to whimsical paintings and letters written in multicolored crayon, joyful color defined the artist, who early on chose to use simply Gisella as her professional name and was known as such to everyone in Taos. 

In spite of her fame there—the Taos News once labeled her a Taos legend—Gisella is rarely included in scholarly discussions of the Taos Art Colony. This oversight is likely due to the naive quality of her work, in which children or childlike adults inhabit a simple, brightly colored world filled with happiness. The macabre, the sad, the tortured, the offensive—all have no place in Gisella’s paintings. Her naive style of work looks very different from that of the better-known early Taos artists. Yet both Gisella’s artwork and her interesting life command attention. Born in Austria, Gisella came to the United States with her family in 1908, settling in St. Louis, MO. After studying art at Washington University in St. Louis, she became a prominent member of the local art community, joining the St. Louis Art Guild as well as the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. In addition to creating posters for the St. Louis Post Dispatch, Gisella won prizes from the Artists Guild of the Author’s League of America in 1919 and 1920 and from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1923. She also began working in textiles, including batik, to which she would return later in her career.  In the early 1920s Gisella married writer and music critic Edgar Lacher. A difficult character, Lacher may have chafed under Gisella’s success, for the couple divorced in the 1930s. Having seen a local exhibition of paintings by Taos artists Oscar Berninghaus (who was from St. Louis) and Ernest Blumenschein, Gisella felt drawn to Taos, which reminded her of the villages of her native Austria. In 1933 the single mother with two daughters, Undine and Aithra, moved to Taos, where she lived off and on for the rest of her life. She traveled frequently, spending extended periods in Mexico, South America, and California, but always returned to New Mexico. Gisella initially applied an Austro-Hungarian folk-art style to the Indian and Hispanic subjects that she found in New Mexico. In her early work she covered her surfaces with decorative floral and faunal motifs, and her images were flat with no attempt at rendering traditional one-point perspective. Eventually, though, Gisella developed her own style, often using children or childlike figures as subjects. Still, the influence of her native country’s folk art remained evident in her New Mexican, Mexican, and South American images. In 1938 Gisella moved briefly to Los Griegos, north of Albuquerque, to be closer to medical facilities for her eldest daughter, who was suffering from rheumatic fever. Two years later, she moved to California to participate in the war effort, painting camouflage and decals on airplanes for Lockheed. In California, Gisella broadened her range of artistic pursuits. She taught art privately, created illustrations for Scripts Magazine, and did interior design for private homes. She also designed greeting cards, a practice she continued after her return to New Mexico, where she created a series of Christmas cards.  Gisella began illustrating children’s books in 1941 when she collaborated on Franzi and Gizi with author Margery Bianco. Eventually she wrote and illustrated her own book, El Ekeko, in 1964. She also designed ceramics—her Happy Time Dinnerware, marketed by Poppy Trail...

Constantin Guys (1802-1892) "Carriage Ride in the Park" c. 1860s Ink and Wash on Paper Original Labels Verso Site Size: approx. 8 x 11.5 inches Framed S...

Allesandro Battaglia (1870-1940, Italian) "The Flirtation" 1906 Watercolor on Paper Signed "A. Battaglia, Roma 1906" Site Size: 30 x 20 inches Framed Size: approx 41 x 33 inches Son of Clelia Bompiani and Ercole Battaglia, he was trained by his grandfather Roberto Bompiani...

David Halbach "Winter's Blanket" 1992 Watercolor on Paper Signed and Dated Lower Left Image Size: 9 x 11 inches Framed Size: 14.5 x 16.5 inches A member of the Cowboy Artists of America since 1985, he has lived in Arizona beginning 1975 and later in the Sierras of California. In 1975, he also won the prestigious Silver Medal at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame show for his watercolor "Story Teller." In 1996 he completed a project for "National Geographic." He attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, and his teachers were the acclaimed Millard Sheets and Rex Brandt...

Aristide Maillol "Femme de Torse" 1930 Charcoal on Paper Monogrammed Lower Right with Photo Certificate of Authenticity Paper Size: approx 12 x 8 7/8 inches Framed Size: approx 15.25...