Robert Funk Fine Art

Legendary illustrator Bernard Bernie Fuchs explores the creative possibilities of radical design to illustrate a narrative of an emotional state of unconnectedness. The present work ...

Hight brow couple having relationship issues rendered in a black and white stylized Art Deco fashion. In pencil the caption reads "Are you willing to divorce your wife the minute sh...

Walk into the lobby of the Chrysler Building, and it does not look like this. To the visitor's eye, it is somewhat dark and has a tight, constrained feel to it. Photographer Mitche...

Early twentieth-century train technology in the form of a wooden switch station in Long Island City is juxtaposed against the minimalistic International Style glass facade of the Uni...

Natacha Rambova imaginatively conceives and sketches a costume for Cecil B. DeMille's 1921 movie Fool's Paradise: Paramount. Rendered in Gouache, watercolor, pencil, and metallic s...

Children's Book Illustrator Lois Lenski draws a complex figural narrative in a style that is reminiscent of how her subject would draw it. She deliberately uses black and white nai...

The soaring grandeur of the Chrysler Building's shining stainless steel Art Deco entrance is on full display in this Mitchell Funk photo. Usually, the entrance is somewhat dull-looki...

At some point, the fine art/museum world will recognize how truly brilliant a trailblazing artist like Coby Whitmore is. His exploration of bold colors, flattened, simplified space, ...

Female Illustrator of the Golden Age Alice Barber Stephens renders in an academic style and women sitting in a chair and responding to something outside of the frame. Signed lower left. Most likely done for a major newsstand magazine like Harper's, Century or Scribner's Monthly. Work is framed under glass in a simple black wood frame. Perhaps period. Matt is new. Frame size: 20.5 x 14.5 From: Wikipedia Alice Barber Stephens (July 1, 1858 – July 13, 1932) was an American painter and engraver, best remembered for her illustrations. Her work regularly appeared in magazines such as Scribner's Monthly, Harper's Weekly, and The Ladies Home Journal. Early life and education Alice Barber was born near Salem, New Jersey. She was the eighth of nine children born to Samuel Clayton Barber and Mary Owen, who were Quakers. She attended local schools until she and her family moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At age 15 she became a student at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art & Design), where she studied wood engraving. The Women's Life Class (1879), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was admitted to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1876 (the first year women were admitted), studying under Thomas Eakins. Among her fellow students at the Academy were Susan MacDowell, Frank Stephens, David Wilson Jordan, Lavinia Ebbinghausen, Thomas Anshutz, and Charles H. Stephens (whom she would marry). During this time, at the academy, she began to work with a variety of media, including black-and-white oils, ink washes, charcoal, full-color oils, and watercolors. In 1879, Eakins chose Stephens to illustrate an Academy classroom scene for Scribner's Monthly. The resulting work, Women's Life Class, was Stephens' first illustration credit. New Woman As educational opportunities were made more available in the nineteenth century, women artists became part of professional enterprises, including founding their own art associations. Artwork made by women was considered to be inferior by the art world, and to help overcome that stereotype women became "increasingly vocal and confident" in promoting women's work, and thus became part of the emerging image of the educated, modern and freer "New Woman". Artists then, "played crucial roles in representing the New Woman, both by drawing images of the icon and exemplifying this emerging type through their own lives." Alice Barber Stephens, The Women Business, oil, 1897, Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania One example of overcoming women stereotypes was Stephens' Woman in Business from 1897, which showed how women could focus not only in the home, but also in the economic world.[8] As women began to work, their career choices broadened and illustration became a commendable occupation. People's ideas about education and art started to merge, and the outcome of a certain sensitivity to the arts began to be seen as uplifting and educational. By using illustration as a means to further their practices, women were able to fit the traditional gender role while still being active in their pursuits for the "New Woman". According to Rena Robey of Art Times, "The early feminists began to leave the home to participate in clubs as moral and cultural guardians, focused on cleaning up cities and helping African Americans, impoverished women, working children, immigrants, and other previously ignored groups." Stephens took advantage of the explosion of illustration opportunities, including the opportunity to work from home. Women's education Edwin Forrest House, formerly the home of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women. Throughout the period before the civil war, textile and other decorative work became acceptable occupations for those who aspired to be in the middle class. The Philadelphia School of Design for Women, founded in 1848 by Sarah Worthington Peter was first among a group of women's design schools established in the 1850s and 1860s; others appeared in Boston, New York, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. It began as a charitable effort to train needy and deserving young women in textile and wallpaper design, wood engraving, and other salable artistic skills, providing a means for training women who needed wage work. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) was established in 1805 by painter and scientist Charles Willson Peale, sculptor William Rush...

In the late 1960s, Barbara Nessim and Gloria Steinem were roommates. This stylised and colorful illustration appears to be a highly personalized birthday card to their friend Mary A...

Mitchell Funk specializes in photographing something that has been photographed before innumerable times, but squeezes out an original vision of it. In "The Chrysler Building: A Ref...

The current work, Yo Yo, is rendered by a pioneering Feminist Female Illustrator a trailblazer and friend and roommate of Gloria Steinem. to include: "Yo Yo", 1967, signed and dated ...

The enduring appeal of Ben Denison's work is not what would be considered corny men's magazine humor of the early 1960s, but rather his masterful painting skills. In the present wor...

A child looks on with glee as his "Muscular Heroes of the Cosmos" Toys transform from inanimate objects to real, actionable beings and beat up his father. Signed upper right, Gahan...

Cartoon art is the original Conceptual Art. Renowned British Illustrator Smilby (Francis Wilford Smith) conceptualizes a Playboy cartoon so good that no caption is needed. The exist...

Maud Tausey Fangel - Baby Painter. In profile, we see a charming, young, ruddy-cheeked, blond girl with pig tales in a bright red-orange dress. She is reading Snow White as a sma...

Veiled in subtle gradations of silver and grey, the Chrysler Building proudly rises above a tight interlocking formation of less consequential neighbors. A new, boxy, and clumsy vert...

The metallic crown of the Chrysler Building reflects the golden light of sunset, giving it a jewel-like appearance. It's as if an elegant woman could wear it on her wrist. Horizonta...

The cop admires the car while the viewer admires the drawing of the car. The enduring legacy of Ben Denison may not be that he was an early cartoonist for Playboy, but for his style...

Color photography in the mid-1970s had barely emerged as a recognized fine art form. The few works in color that museum curators considered were mostly nature pictures or snapshot-l...

The work is signed dated and numbered 3/15 lower right recto, with other sizes available, and it's unframed and printed later. Printed on Hahnemühle Fine Art paper Photographer Mitc...

Fantasy illustration for children's book - "Princess Signelill and her brother” from “Sagobok av Elsa Beskow” Ink on paper, High-end archival matted. Unsigned Provenance: The Artis...

This photograph was taken in 1970, yet it looks surprisingly contemporary. The giveaway is how underdeveloped the Manhattan skyline looks. Both towers of the World Trade Center are ...

This pen and ink from 1920 depicts a Greek mythological scene with a Satyr companioning Pan, who plays the flute to an interested woodland deer. It is rendered in minute detail with...

We are presenting a rare opportunity to acquire one of Leroy Neiman's best and most compelling paintings. It is a statement piece. A combination of enticing subject matter with a mon...

"Mademoiselle X" story illustration for Vogue February 1, 1934, watercolor and ink, reverse signed in pencil "Benito for Madame X," pencil inscription "Feb.1, 1934 / Page 51 / 316," ...

This high-fashion illustration was most likely created between 1938 and 1940 for an inside editorial in a major newspaper, such as Vogue or McCall's. It showcases Ruth Grafstrom's d...

Before Long Island City blossomed into a landscape of high-rise residential development, it was a gritty industrial area. One of the iconic images of the LIC was four monumental smo...

Three High-Fashion figures adorned in flowing gowns are lined up in a row, facing the viewer. They have an Avant-garde complex design reminiscent of Gustav Klimt. The work is constru...

Academic study in profile of a high bow sitter on gray paper with white highlights. Signed lower right and dated faintly 1916 Edith Emerson (July 27, 1888 – November 21, 1981) was a...

The Chrysler Building is one of the most photographed buildings in the world, with millions of images of it taken from various perspectives. Yet, it has never been captured quite li...

For over 50 years, Mitchell Funk has been renowned for creating images with precise lighting and compositional exactitude. The present image, "Wherever You Look, You See The Chrysler...

What New York City looked like before the modern world robbed it of its charm. In post-impressionist colors, Photographer Mitchell Funk captures a poetic Central Park moment, with a...

Danish-American artist Søren Emil Carlsen paints a post-impressionist landscape that blurs the line between representation and abstraction. With its open composition, the artist capt...

An American Female Artist in her late signature style depicts a Horse and a Colt in an abstract landscape. Ethel Magafan scapes the defining lines with a knife to add to the creative...

For over 50 years, Mitchell Funk has been renowned for creating images with hyper-lighting and compositional exactitude. The present image, "Wherever You Look, You See The Chrysler B...

Does anyone remember Nedicks? What New York looked like in the 1970s. Veteran photographer Mitchell Funk captures 42nd Street at night with a parade of glowing marquees framed by t...

British-American painter and Female Illustrator artfully renders six different animals closely grouped on one page. They are seen as individuals, but silhouetted, not relating to one...

"The poor little bridesmaid ... in her pink cotton gown ... though doubtless, there never was such a pretty girl." A kitchen scene is depicted with a young bridesmaid admiring her f...

The innocence of youth is personified in this charming painting, which depicts an older sister and younger brother running on the beach amidst crashing waves. The boy looks at the vi...

Barbara Nessim is an artist/ illustrator who has contributed to Harper's Bazaar, Esquire, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Time, Ms among others. Sign...

Barbara Nessim is an artist/ illustrator who has contributed to Harper's  Bazaar, Esquire, New York Magazine, Rolling Stone, Time, Ms among others. She ...

A stylized cat named Babette is depicted licking her paw. It is rendered in black and white, which bears the influence of Asian art in its simplicity of line, use of wash, and bleedi...

For over 50 years, Mitchell Funk has been renowned for creating images with hyper-lighting and compositional exactitude. The present image, "Wherever You Look, You See The Chrysler B...

This is a painting about a man who travels back into the past and engages with a different stage in his life. Arnold Friedman worked at the New York City Post Office for four decades...

Gahan Wilson's artistic output of original ideas, masterfully executed, seems endless. He has a conceptual style that, like Charles Addams, delves into the macabre. Yet, one immedia...

This is a painting about a man who travels back into the past and engages with a different stage in his life. Arnold Friedman worked at the New York City Post Office for four decades...

Arnold Friedman worked as a clerk for decades at the Station Y, the branch at 3rd Avenue and East 67th Street in New York City. This present work was done two years after his retirem...

Wherever You Look, You See The Chrysler Building: Lower East Side. Beyond a 19th-century vermilion brick facade and standing proud and tall in a hazy New York City sky, we see The Ch...

Follow the light and cast away rational assumptions. It will lead you to the sublime. Street Photographer Mitchell Funk captures three statuesque Black Women in formation as they hea...

Margery Ryerson paints a stunning portrait of a boy dressed in Scottish clothes. The paint application is quick and loose but based on a sound academic understanding of how to constr...

Two young Scottish women wear smart business jackets and fashionable tartan skirts. They are depicted as discerning Art Connoisseurs evaluating a small bronze dancer. The Artist Hele...

Birds Eye View - New York City Street Art with Pigeon Connoisseur Visionary Photographer Mitchell Funk takes visual concepts to new heights. In the present photo, Funk takes the p...

A foreground stone wall structure of a repeating vertical shapes alternating with openings is mimicked by the similar but more majestic vertical shapes of the Mid-Town Manhattan skyl...

Framed Cuban Artist/Caricaturist Conrado Walter Massaguer presents Hollywood star Adolphe Menjou in a satirical dual portrait. In the foreground, the subject is seen in a dapper top hat, tux, fashionable cigarette and boutonnière, and is shown as being the epitome of being stylishly debonair. To make a larger point about this subject, Massaguer paints a cast shadow of Menjou as a burning red devil who studies his alter ego from above. Keeping with the artist's sarcasm, we see the good and bad in one image. Works by Massaguer are rare and this work is in keeping with his signature style. This work was most likely done on assignment for Life Magazine, Cosmopolitan, The New Yorker or Vanity Fair. Signed upper right. Inscribe lower right. Titled on verso. Unframed, Slight bend to board; toning to board; scattered faint foxing; pin point abrasions to margins, not affecting image. 19-1/2 x 15-1/8 inches board size. Conrado Walter Massaguer y Diaz was a Cuban artist, political satirist, and magazine publisher. He is considered a student of the Art Nouveau. He was the first caricaturist in the world to broadcast his art on television.He was first caricaturist to exhibit on Fifth Avenue. He was the first caricaturist in the world to exhibit his caricatures on wood. He, and his brother Oscar, were the first magazine publishers in the world to use photolithographic printing. Self portrait of Conrado Walter Massaguer, depicted on a carrousel ride, with the devil over his left shoulder and an angel over his right. (1945) He created the magazine Social with his brother Oscar to showcase Cuban artistic talent. The duo later created the magazine Carteles, which became for a period the most popular magazine in Cuba, which was purchased by Miguel Ángel Quevedo in 1953. In his life, he met and drew caricatures of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Walt Disney, Albert Einstein, the King of Spain, and many others.[ In sum total, he was the author of more than 28 thousand caricatures and drawings.Ernest Hemingway once had to refrain himself from punching Massaguer in the face after the artist drew an unflattering caricature of him. The dictator Gerardo Machado, however, did not punch Massaguer for his own unflattering caricature - he had the artist deported. He was one of the most internationally renowned Cuban artists of his day, and his art is still regularly featured in galleries across the Western Hemisphere and Europe. Early life Massaguer was born on October 18, 1889, in Cárdenas, Cuba.[In 1892, his family moved to Havana. When the Cuban War of Independence broke out, Massaguer's family escaped the country. From 1896 to 1908, he lived in Mérida, Mexico. However, during this time, his parents enrolled him in the New York Military Academy, where he stayed during school years. In 1905, after graduating the military academy, he briefly attended the San Fernando school in Havana, where he was tutored by Ricardo de la Torriente and Leopoldo Romañach. In 1906, less than a year later, he returned to the family home in Mexico. Career as artist Early career While living in Yucatán, Mexico, Massaguer published his first caricatures in local newspapers and magazines. These included La Campana, La Arcadia, and the Diario Yucateco. In 1908, he moved back to Havana. After returning to the island in 1908, Massaguer began mingling with Havana's aristocratic circles, forming close friendships with some of the city's most powerful and influential men, as well as winning the favor of many women who were quickly charmed by him. Massaguer, largely self-taught, honed his style using the avant-garde techniques he studied from the European and American magazines that were widely available in Cuba at the time. Cover of the immensely popular Cuban magazine El Figaro, drawn by Massaguer in 1909. This cover depicts two bumbling, incompetent American tourists to the island. He started drawing for El Fígaro, and was featured prominently on the cover in 1909. After two years of refining his craft, Havana announced a poster contest aimed at attracting North American tourists to stay in the city during the winter months. Notable figures like Leopoldo Romañach, Armando Menocal, Rodríguez Morey, Jaime Valls, and others also entered the competition. The jury was particularly impressed by the modern execution and creative solution of one piece, signed by Massaguer, who was relatively unknown at the time. The jury deliberations caused a great controversy.[5] The prize was ultimately awarded to the Galician painter Mariano Miguel, who had recently married the daughter of Nicolás Rivero, the wealthy owner of the conservative newspaper Diario de la Marina. Although Massaguer received only an honorable mention, the fraud scandal caused such an uproar that his name quickly entered the public spotlight, and he became an overnight sensation. In 1910, he became co-owner of the advertising agency Mercurio, with Laureano Rodríguez Castells. At Mercurio, he led the Susini cigar campaign, and earned substantial wealth. Massaguer has been described as a restless man, in both mind and body.After earning enough money from his art to begin traveling, he was almost always doing so. He constantly traveled between New York City and Havana, Mexico and France, Europe and the Americas. In 1911, his reputation among the Havana socialites solidified when he organized his own first public caricature exhibit, and also the first Caricature Salon ever held in the Americas, hosted at Athenaeum of Havana (the Ateneo), and the Círculo de La Habana. Other exhibitors here included Maribona, Riverón, Portell Vilá, Valer, Botet, Barsó, García Cabrera, Carlos Fernández, Rafael Blanco, and Hamilton de Grau. "Messaguer Visits Broadway." Caricatures of theatrical and literary figures. Elsie Janis, Raymond Hitchcock, S. Jay Kaufman (columnist), Ibanez, author of The Four Horsemen, and Frances White In 1912, in the New York American Journal, he published his first Broadway drawings. From 1913 to 1918, he was an editor for Gráfico. Social Main article: Social (magazine) Cover of the magazine Social, July 7, 1923 In 1916, he created the magazine Social with his brother, Oscar H. Massaguer. Social's contributors included Guillén Carpentier, Chacón y Calvo, Enrique José Varona and others.Social has been described as Massaguer's great love in the magazine industry, and was the property that historians say he cared the most about. Social was an innovative magazine, being the first magazine in the world to use a modern printing process called photolithographic printing. Social set cultural trends, not only in the fashion of Cuba, but in art, politics, and Cuban identity.[11] Social catered to a certain aesthetic in Cuba - that of the sophisticated elite socialite - but Massaguer would also use this magazine to ridicule and jibe against that same class of society when he found their personalities worthy of his contempt. In Social, readers could find a variety of content, including short stories, avant-garde poetry, art reviews, philosophical essays, and serialized novels, as well as articles on interior design, haute couture, and fashion. Occasionally, the magazine also featured reports on sports such as motor racing, rowing, tennis, and horse riding.The cultural promotion efforts of both Massaguer and Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring are evident in the magazine. Notably, this period overlaps with their involvement in the Minorista Group, which was then at the forefront of the country's intellectual life.[5] Many contributors were devoted members of the group, leading some experts to consider Social as the cultural voice of the Minoristas. One of the features of Social magazine was its section called "Massa Girls," which was a play on his own name, and pronounced with a glottal 'g' in a similar fashion to the letter in Massaguer.[12] Massaguer drew women as independent and free-thinking, and never drew the woman celebrity as a caricature of herself, but as a free agent surrounded by caricatures.[11] However, Massaguer himself has been described as a womanizer in his personal life, and hesitant to fully embrace every facet of women's liberation. In 1916, he also established la Unión de Artes Gráficas and the advertising agency Kesevén Anuncios.[9] The art critic Bernardo González Barroa wrote: “Massaguer has solved the problem of working hard, living comfortably off what his art produces and not missing any artistic, sporting or social event. His broad, childish laugh, of a carefree individual who carries his luck hidden in a pocket, appears everywhere for the moment, disguising the pranks of pupils that lurk, mock and, finally, flash with satisfaction at finding the characteristic point after having analyzed a soul... Massaguer's personality is beginning to solidify now. He has been the best-known and most popular caricaturist for a long time, but his technique had not reached the security, the mastery of values that he presents in his latest works, which is very natural and explainable”[5] Carteles Main article: Carteles Cover of the magazine Carteles, November 29, 1931 In 1919, Massaguer and his brother created the magazine Carteles.[9] Carteles gained the widest circulation of any magazine in Latin America, and the most popular magazine in Cuba for a time, until that title was claimed by Revista Bohemia. Carteles remained in print until July 1960.This magazine showcased Cuban commerce, art, sports, and social life before the revolution. In 1924, Carteles took a more political turn, with articles criticizing Gerardo Machado's government. it became a prime example of the humor and graphic design employed by artists like Horacio Rodríguez Suria and Andrés García...

Mid-century Artist Victory Kalin was too good an artist for his paperback assignments. He was as much a virtuoso graphic designer as an illustrator. The present work exemplifies his ...

Pioneering Color Photographer Mitchell Funk experiments with multiple in-camera exposures of the Chrysler Building, producing a triumph of color and design in motion. No less than t...

Animalier and female illustrator of the Golden Age, Gladys Emerson Cook, draws a tension-filled picture of two Scottish Terriers fighting over a stick. With a few lines, the artist ...

"Wherever You Look, You See The Chrysler Building: Dumbo" is an exemplary work and part of a new epic exhibition, Mitchell Funk Photographs The Chrysler Building for 50 Years. The Ch...

This charming rural winter scene of ice skaters fully displays Norman Rockwell's America, but it was painted by female artist Charlotte Joan Sternberg. She combines the mid-century A...