Renata Fine Arts Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Fred Nagler was born in 1891 in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he first studied wood carving. From 1914 to 1917, he studied at The Art Students League of New York, where his prof...

Max Kuehne (1880 - 1968) Train Station, circa 1910 Watercolor on paper 8 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Illinois Max Kuehne was born in Halle, Germany on November 7, 1880. During his adolescence the family immigrated to America and settled in Flushing, New York. As a young man, Max was active in rowing events, bicycle racing, swimming and sailing. After experimenting with various occupations, Kuehne decided to study art, which led him to William Merritt Chase's famous school in New York; he was trained by Chase himself, then by Kenneth Hayes Miller. Chase was at the peak of his career, and his portraits were especially in demand. Kuehne would have profited from Chase's invaluable lessons in technique, as well as his inspirational personality. Miller, only four years older than Kuehne, was another of the many artists to benefit from Chase's teachings. Even though Miller still would have been under the spell of Chase upon Kuehne's arrival, he was already experimenting with an aestheticism that went beyond Chase's realism and virtuosity of the brush. Later Miller developed a style dependent upon volumetric figures that recall Italian Renaissance prototypes. Kuehne moved from Miller to Robert Henri in 1909. Rockwell Kent, who also studied under Chase, Miller, and Henri, expressed what he felt were their respective contributions: "As Chase had taught us to use our eyes, and Henri to enlist our hearts, Miller called on us to use our heads." (Rockwell Kent, It's Me O Lord: The Autobiography of Rockwell Kent. New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1955, p. 83). Henri prompted Kuehne to search out the unvarnished realities of urban living; a notable portion of Henri's stylistic formula was incorporated into his work. Having received such a thorough foundation in art, Kuehne spent a year in Europe's major art museums to study techniques of the old masters. His son Richard named Ernest Lawson as one of Max Kuehne's European traveling companions. In 1911 Kuehne moved to New York where he maintained a studio and painted everyday scenes around him, using the rather Manet-like, dark palette of Henri. A trip to Gloucester during the following summer engendered a brighter palette. In the words of Gallatin (1924, p. 60), during that summer Kuehne "executed some of his most successful pictures, paintings full of sunlight . . . revealing the fact that he was becoming a colorist of considerable distinction." Kuehne was away in England the year of the Armory Show (1913), where he worked on powerful, painterly seascapes on the rocky shores of Cornwall. Possibly inspired by Henri - who had discovered Madrid in 1900 then took classes there in 1906, 1908 and 1912 - Kuehne visited Spain in 1914; in all, he would spend three years there, maintaining a studio in Granada. He developed his own impressionism and a greater simplicity while in Spain, under the influence of the brilliant Mediterranean light. George Bellows convinced Kuehne to spend the summer of 1919 in Rockport, Maine (near Camden). The influence of Bellows was more than casual; he would have intensified Kuehne's commitment to paint life "in the raw" around him. After another brief trip to Spain in 1920, Kuehne went to the other Rockport (Cape Ann, Massachusetts) where he was accepted as a member of the vigorous art colony, spearheaded by Aldro T. Hibbard. Rockport's picturesque ambiance fulfilled the needs of an artist-sailor: as a writer in the Gloucester Daily Times explained, "Max Kuehne came to Rockport to paint, but he stayed to sail." The 1920s was a boom decade for Cape Ann, as it was for the rest of the nation. Kuehne's studio in Rockport was formerly occupied by Jonas Lie. Kuehne spent the summer of 1923 in Paris, where in July, André Breton started a brawl as the curtain went up on a play by his rival Tristan Tzara; the event signified the demise of the Dada movement. Kuehne could not relate to this avant-garde art but was apparently influenced by more traditional painters — the Fauves, Nabis, and painters such as Bonnard. Gallatin perceived a looser handling and more brilliant color in the pictures Kuehne brought back to the States in the fall. In 1926, Kuehne won the First Honorable Mention at the Carnegie Institute, and he re-exhibited there, for example, in 1937 (Before the Wind). Besides painting, Kuehne did sculpture, decorative screens, and furniture work with carved and gilded molding. In addition, he designed and carved his own frames, and John Taylor Adams encouraged Kuehne to execute etchings. Through his talents in all these media he was able to survive the Depression, and during the 1940s and 1950s these activities almost eclipsed his easel painting. In later years, Kuehne's landscapes and still-lifes show the influence of Cézanne and Bonnard, and his style changed radically. Max Kuehne died in 1968. He exhibited his work at the National Academy of Design, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, and in various New York City galleries. Kuehne's works are in the following public collections: the Detroit Institute of Arts (Marine Headland), the Whitney Museum (Diamond Hill...

Michaela Jean is an accomplished painter, devoted gardener, and mother from Southern California (USA). Her lifelong passion for art and nature began in childhood, inspired by her gra...

Robert Noel Blair (American, 1912-2003) was an American artist, painter, sculptor, printmaker and teacher. He is best known for his rural life & desert landscapes and World War II sc...

Figurative landscape of four infantrymen in formation with their long arquebus guns by Adolphe Ancker (Dutch, 19th Century), after Marchetti. Signed and dated "Adolph Ancker 1888" lo...

"NY Street Signs" Mid-20th Century WPA 1938 Modernist Abstract Realism Pop Art Stuart Davis (American, 1892-1964) "Street Signs" Modernist gouache and traces of pencil on paper in the proto-pop art style Davis is celebrated for, 1938, signed to lower right, framed. Image: 11 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches. Frame by Bark: 18 1/2 x 22 inches. LITERATURE: A, Boyajian, M. Rutkowski, Stuart Davis, A Catalogue Raisonne, Vol. 2, New Haven, Connecticut, 2007, vol. II, p. 632, no. 1232, illustrated. EXHIBITIONS: ACA Galleries, New York American Artists' Congress: Group Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Dec. 3-16, 1939 (SDAB I, 12/3/39, p. 129). Outlines Gallery, Pittsburgh, Stuart Davis, Mar. 3-16, 1946. Coleman Art Gallery, Philadelphia, 5 Prodigal Sons: Former Philadelphia Artists: Ralston Crawford, Stuart Davis, Charles Demuth, Julian Levi, Charles Sheeler, Oct 4 - 30, 1947 (pamphlet), no. 12. PROVENANCE: The artist; Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bowles, New York, Apr. 3, 1956; thence by descent, Private Collection, New York. NOTES: According to the Catalogue Raissonne, "the title 'Street Signs' is recorded in the artist's account books...

Original watercolor on archival paper of a Rocky Mountain Meadow by the well known American artist, Werner Drewes. Signed lower right. Titled and dated 1956 on verso of sheet. Con...

Island Of Majorca Cathedral of Santa Maria of Palma by Antonio M. Silva Watercolor of the Basilica de Palma on Majorca by Antonio M. Silva (Portugal, 20th C.) Wide view of the villag...

City is an original drawing in pencil made by the Hungarian artist Nicolas Czinober in the mid-20th century.The state of preservation is good, the paper presents some small stains. ...

Dorothy Rivo Still Life with Striped Wall Acrylic on panel Framed dimensions: 24 in. H × 26 in. W Contemporary black frame Dorothy Rivo’s Still Life with Striped Wall distills the s...

Beautiful large-scale figurative landscape watercolor of a vibrant village scene with several people and a cow amongst interesting architecture by William Howard Knowles (American, 1...

This luminous gouache captures a majestic mountain vista, likely set in California’s Sierra Nevada (possibly Yosemite). Two broad granite peaks with sunlit faces dominate the backgro...