Jim's of Lambertville Still-life Paintings

Jim's of Lambertville Fine Art Gallery is proud to present this piece by Gershon Benjamin (1899 – 1985). An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and urban scene...

Jim's of Lambertville Fine Art Gallery is proud to offer this work by Cora S. Brooks (1885 - 1930). Cora S. Brooks was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey in 1885. Her father, Edward F. Brooks, was the General Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1902, her family moved to Lansdowne, PA. She attended the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now the Moore College of Art & Design). Brooks specialized in flower still lives, but also was known to paint landscapes, and do an occasional portrait. She was one of the founding members of the Philadelphia Ten, a group of women artists who emerged out of the Philadelphia art...

Jim's of Lambertville is proud to present this artwork by Gershon Benjamin (1899 – 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and urban scenes, Gershon Benja...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: James Lechay (1907 – 2001) Born in the Bronx in 1907, James Lechay spent most of his childhood in Brooklyn before moving to Joilet, Illinois at age 13 to live with his uncle after his mother passed away. In 1928, he received his B.A. in psychology from the University of Illinois. The next year, he attended one week of graduate school before leaving to study under his brother, the painter Myron Lechay, in New York. At his brother’s studio, James began to associate with other artists of the time such as Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, William Zorach, and Raphael and Moses Soyer. From Myron, James Lechay learned to train his eye to observe natural forms and developed a philosophy dependent upon the relationship built between the artist and the subject. Lechay became engaged in the social and political issues of Depression-era New York and even joined the social realism movement for a brief time in the 1930s. He operated as the leader of the Artists Union while employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). With the WPA, Lechay traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he established a gallery and exhibited the works of Milton Avery, Max Weber, and other WPA artists. Despite his association with many artists and artistic communities in New York in the 1930s and 40s, Lechay opposed adopting a style due to its popularity and commercial success. His use, however, of large brushstrokes from Abstract Expressionism, the flattened plane of Modernism, and the simple compositions of early Abstraction created a combination of styles completely his own. A painter of a vast range of subjects, including still lifes, portraits, and landscapes, Lechay was known to reduce these forms to their visual essentials. Lechay often did not date his paintings as he frequently reworked them, even after they were exhibited, calling his pieces, “finished at all stages and never finished”. In 1945, Lechay was hired by the University of Iowa’s art department, where he worked alongside Mauricio Lasansky, Humbert Albrizio, Carl Fracassini, and Byron Burford...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: James Lechay (1907 – 2001) Born in the Bronx in 1907, James Lechay spent most of his childhood in Brooklyn before moving to Joilet, Illinois at age 13 to live with his uncle after his mother passed away. In 1928, he received his B.A. in psychology from the University of Illinois. The next year, he attended one week of graduate school before leaving to study under his brother, the painter Myron Lechay, in New York. At his brother’s studio, James began to associate with other artists of the time such as Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky, William Zorach, and Raphael and Moses Soyer. From Myron, James Lechay learned to train his eye to observe natural forms and developed a philosophy dependent upon the relationship built between the artist and the subject. Lechay became engaged in the social and political issues of Depression-era New York and even joined the social realism movement for a brief time in the 1930s. He operated as the leader of the Artists Union while employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). With the WPA, Lechay traveled to Las Vegas, New Mexico, where he established a gallery and exhibited the works of Milton Avery, Max Weber, and other WPA artists. Despite his association with many artists and artistic communities in New York in the 1930s and 40s, Lechay opposed adopting a style due to its popularity and commercial success. His use, however, of large brushstrokes from Abstract Expressionism, the flattened plane of Modernism, and the simple compositions of early Abstraction created a combination of styles completely his own. A painter of a vast range of subjects, including still lifes, portraits, and landscapes, Lechay was known to reduce these forms to their visual essentials. Lechay often did not date his paintings as he frequently reworked them, even after they were exhibited, calling his pieces, “finished at all stages and never finished”. In 1945, Lechay was hired by the University of Iowa’s art department, where he worked alongside Mauricio Lasansky, Humbert Albrizio, Carl Fracassini, and Byron Burford...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Bror Julius Olsson “B.J.O.” Nordfeldt (1878 – 1955) Bror Julius Olsson was born in Tullstrop, Sweden in 1878. He immigrated to the United States in 1891, later adopting his mother’s maiden name of Nordfeldt. Beginning his art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago where he was chosen to assist fellow artist, Albert Herter, with a large mural project for the McCormick Harvester Company. In 1900, he was sent to Paris by McCormick to help set up the completed mural at the Paris Exposition. While there, he studied briefly at the Academie Julian before traveling to England to study woodblock printmaking under F. Morley Fletcher. Returning to Chicago in 1903, Nordfeldt would spend the next ten years painting mainly figurative works in an academic style similar to that of the Old Masters. By the mid-teens he had developed a bold dramatic modernist style and divided his time between New York and Provincetown, Massachusetts. There, he invented the “Provincetown Print...

Illustrated in "Joseph Barrett, The Prime Years 1970s - 1990s", pg. 54, plate #062. Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Barrett (1936 – ) Joseph Barrett was born in Midland, North Carolina, in 1936 and studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Barrett, now of Lahaska, Pennsylvania, has been painting his entire adult life. His favorite subjects include the landscape surrounding New Hope and many local landmarks often encompassing figures into his compositions. Barrett utilizes a heavy impasto and his palette bears similarities to that of Fern Coppedge and George Sotter. Barrett’s paintings are always found in unique and somewhat charming handmade frames designed by the artist and finished in metal leaf. A living contemporary of the no longer living “New Hope School” impressionist painters, Joseph Barrett resides outside of New Hope above his old-fashioned antique shop and studio. Entering Barrett’s shop is like taking a step back in time. Inside this cluttered and dusty haven of treasures from the past, is a studio spanning only four by eight feet. This little studio, containing cans of old brushes and hundreds of used paint tubes...

Illustrated in "Joseph Barrett, The Prime Years 1970s - 1990s", pg. 23 Plate #026 Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Barrett (1936 – ) Joseph Bar...

Illustrated in "Joseph Barrett, The Prime Years 1970s - 1990s", pg. 10 #010 Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Barrett (1936 – ) Joseph Barrett was born in Midland, North Carolina, in 1936 and studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. Barrett, now of Lahaska, Pennsylvania, has been painting his entire adult life. His favorite subjects include the landscape surrounding New Hope and many local landmarks often encompassing figures into his compositions. Barrett utilizes a heavy impasto and his palette bears similarities to that of Fern Coppedge and George Sotter. Barrett’s paintings are always found in unique and somewhat charming handmade frames designed by the artist and finished in metal leaf. A living contemporary of the no longer living “New Hope School” impressionist painters, Joseph Barrett resides outside of New Hope above his old-fashioned antique shop and studio. Entering Barrett’s shop is like taking a step back in time. Inside this cluttered and dusty haven of treasures from the past, is a studio spanning only four by eight feet. This little studio, containing cans of old brushes and hundreds of used paint tubes...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) He was born to Czechoslovakian parents in 1892 in New York City. Living in Chicago as a youth, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, returning to New York when he was 20. From 1913 to 1916, he enjoyed a scholarship from the Art Students League, and worked with John C. Johansen (a portraitist whose expressive style resembled that of John Singer Sargent), and Anders Zorn. He accepted a teaching position at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1916, remaining there until 1921. This enabled him to travel to Europe to study Cézanne’s paintings and works of the Old Masters. He traveled to Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich seeking the works of Titian, Cranach, Rembrandt, Veronese, and Holbein, which gave him new perspective. Vytlacil studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, settling there in 1921. Fellow students were Ernest Thurn and Worth Ryder, who introduced him to famous abstractionist Hans Hofmann. He worked with Hofmann from about 1922 to 1926, as a student and teaching assistant. During the summer of 1928, after returning to the United States, Vytlacil gave lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on modern European art. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the Art Students League faculty. After one year, he returned to Europe and successfully persuaded Hofmann to teach at the League as well. He spent about six years in Europe, studying the works of Matisse, Picasso, and Dufy. In 1935, he returned to New York and became a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936. He later had teaching posts at Queens College in New York; the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California; Black Mountain College in North Carolina; and the Art Students League. His paintings exhibit a clear inclination toward modernism. His still lives and interiors from the 1920s indicate an understanding of the art of Cézanne. In the 1930s, his works displayed two very different kinds of art at the same time. His cityscapes and landscapes combine Cubist-inspired spatial concerns with an expressionistic approach to line and color. Vytlacil also used old wood, metal, cork, and string in constructions, influenced by his friend and former student, Rupert Turnbull. He eventually ceased creating constructions as he considered them too limiting. The spatial challenges of painting were still his preference. During the 1940s and 1950s, his works indicated a sense of spontaneity not felt in his earlier work. He married Elizabeth Foster in Florence, Italy, in 1927 and they lived and worked in Positano, Italy for extended periods of time. Later on, they divided their time between homes in Sparkill, New York and Chilmark, Massachusetts, where Vyt, as he was affectionately called, taught at the Martha's Vineyard Art...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Mercedes Matter (1913 - 2001) Best known as a painter of abstract still life and founder of the New York Studio School, M...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) An American Modernist of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed lower left. Complemented by a hand carved and gilt frame. Exhibited at the "4th Annual Exhibition of the National Asso...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed lower left. Complemented by a hand carved and gilt frame. M. Elizabeth Price (1877 - 1965) Mary Elizabeth Price was born in West Virginia and raised on a farm in Solebury, Pennsylvania, on the outskirts of New Hope. She studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Arts and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Hugh Breckenridge. Additionally, she studied in New Hope with William Lathrop. Following her art studies, Price went to New York. While there, she conducted the “Baby Art...