Robert Funk Fine Art Portrait Paintings

Mid-century female illustrator/artist Gladys Rockmore Davis paints a compelling portrait of a contemplative beauty who looks like Elizabeth Taylor. Frontal and lateral forces work together in this pyramidal composition. The sitter stares down at the viewer creating a frontal tension. Her hypnotic gaze is counterbalanced by the lateral movement of her crossed hands and triggers an emotional response. Gladys Rockmore Davis is both a work-for-hire illustrator and a fine artist- She was an illustrator for clients such as Upjohn, Munsingwear, Elgin Watches, and Johnson & Johnson. Davis had a show at the prestigious Midtown Gallery and Babcock Gallery in New York. She studied at the California School of Fine Arts, Art Institute of Chicago, and Art Students League. William R. French Gold Medal...

Portrait of an Old Man circa 1900 - 1925 Oil on canvas Signed lower left h: 25 x w: 29 in / h: 63.5 x w: 73.7 cm Private Collection unframed

Tug with Club Street Violence rendered in high contrast dayglow like red and inky black black. Untitled, 2018 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 24-1/4 inches (91.4 x 61.6 cm) Signed and dated ...

Saturday Evening Post, Story Illustration Depicts Connecticut train station with possible drunk commuter being assisted by good samaritan Signed lower left Provenance: Illustration ...

O MARA'S MUNICIPAL TAVERN - Saturday Evening Post Illustration Supreme technical skill allows the artist to realistically capture an...

This charming portrait is a statement piece for any space. The two elegantly handsome sitters are brother and sister and are accompanied by their loyal dog. With 18th and 19th centu...

This surreal Men's Fashion illustration with a dragonfly is staged in an inside/outside setting against dreamlike Rene Magritte clouds. Of particular note is how the artist cropped t...

The Artist captures a "caught moment" of cloths blowing in the wind. It's being witnessed by an inquisitive bird, while be ducklings and a cute kitty cat accompany her. Signed lower...

Quick and loose expressionist portrait of stage and screen actress Paula Laurence Portrait of Paula Laurence (1916-2005). Oil and graphite on linen. Signed top right. Exhibited: "Lil...

"Six Breasts No Waiting" showcases Haitian Master Salnave Philippe-Auguste's whimsically fruitful imagination. He executes it in a distinctive painting style of simplified compos...

A sadistic laughing Devil grinning a big smile is pictured hovering over a Hellfire. He is reveling while witnessing tiny ant-like sinners engage in eternal torture, torment, and co...

One of the hallmarks of great art is recognizing the artist's style instantly. This is the case with Richard Erdoes. His highly stylized comic figures are expressive and communicate the story delightfully and joyfully. Even though this work is rendered in flat, minimalistic two colors, the inventive shape relationships and positive and negative areas convey a very high level of artistic skill. The present work was done on assignment for the prestigious Standard Oil ( Exxon's predecessor ) corporation's company magazine, The Lamp. Although not a newstand magazine, The Lamp had the highest editional and artistic content. Work is unsigned and unframed. Richard Erdoes (Hungarian Erdős, German Erdös; July 7, 1912 – July 16, 2008) was an American artist, photographer, illustrator and author. Early life Erdoes was born in Frankfurt,to Maria Josefa Schrom on July 7, 1912. His father, Richárd Erdős Sr., was a Jewish Hungarian...

This is a parody portrait of the famed Duke of Urbino, Federico da Montefeltro, by Piero della Francesca, in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence. Hispanic Illustrator Ignacio Gomez pain...

Famed American Illustrator Paul Davis of 1968 Che Guevara poster fame illustrates an article about Whisky from Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the United States. He executes the wor...

With stylistic confidence, French Artist Georges Lepape created three highly inventive and masterfully imaginative Art Deco figures based on Ancient Greek history. The work was for a...

This spectacular mural size painting was commissioned as a commercial assignment for a Bloomingdale's window backdrop. It's of monumental size and a rare statement piece. It was pu...

This Mid-Century illustration/painting is rendered in a Neo-Classical style and showcases young lovers in a morning embrace. The man is holding a small bouquet as the woman leans int...

This work celebrates the customs and folklore of Indigenous People / Eskimo native life. Illustrator Gianni Benvenuti shows a partially clothed Eskimo man lying on his back in a tran...

Brilliant 1970s illustrator Roger Hane paints a surreal scene depicting a beautiful girl with flowing black hair, a strong jawline, and a blue cast to her f...

From the artist who created the famous Che Guevara poster comes another powerful political portrait. With the same graphic boldness, Paul Davis depicts the presidential candidate George McGovern...

Brains in a basket? Unwrapped turkeys piled up in a shopping cart are symbolic of a family exposed brains. This symbolic Pop Art Illustration brilliantly depicts Sigmund Freud holding a baby with a family in the parking lot of a shopping center...

McLean's consummate skill as a portrait artist, graphic designer and master of composition is on full display in the complex narrative work. This work contains 41 portraits including those of Bette Midler, Jimi Hendrix, and Benny Goodman...

Done most likely for Look Magazine, Sports Illustrated and Playboy or perhaps an advertising agency. Work is framed in a simple metal frame

Paul Rand is remembered as one of history's greatest and most famous graphic designers. He was also a painter. The fact that Paul Rand used Naïve Art in much of his corporate identit...

Brazilian/ American Artist William Schock paints a portrait of a Muslim woman in a Hijab gazing directly at the viewer. She is set against an obelisk and an arch in a well-balanced c...

A complex story is portrayed in one picture. American Glamour Illustrator Jon Whitcomb interprets a Mid-Century Cosmopolitan story about a beautiful blond actress who, on set, appea...

A "Flapper of 1800" is depicted in profile with her maid holding a hat box and cradling a little monkey. The maid is a step to the right and a step behind her. Overlapping garments v...

A high-impact graphic of a whimsical Lion sporting a bowler hat is depicted for a cover for Holiday Magazine, April 1958. The issue was about England, and the editors finally ran a ...

Artist Richard Erdoes is as undervalued as he is overlooked. Rarely does an artwork come on that market that combines sharp-witted originality with mind-boggling technical proficiency. In “Mid-Century Expressway,” Erodes painstakingly draws a birds-eye view of a Norman Rockwell-like town buzzing with activity. He paints far away and close up in one image. Each block has its own charming Americana story unfolding. The closer the viewer gets to each scene, the more detail is revealed. In black and white, the artist describes not only the architecture and infrastructure but also human activity - lot's of it. Erodes’s congested town is humming. Overflowing trains, packed busses, zooming cars, stuffed trucks, frenzied pedestrians and even a marching band is depicted with great whit. But do not worry. Progress is coming and all will be well. Superimposed onto this black and white clogged urban scene is a proposed new highway. It's painted in a punchy green and creates an unexpectedly distinct design. The artwork was most likely done for Fortune Magazine or the like. Notice he Esso Gasoline signs...

This is more than a cover illustration depicting the legendary Charlie Parker playing the saxophone. It's an inventive graphic design concept from trailblazing illustrator Robert Weaver. By showing the subject in two parts. The artwork's visual idea is as radical as Parker's music. A wide shot and a close-up butted together dynamically communicates an energetic motion and movement in a still image. Signed lower right. Record album cover illustration for Charlie Parker: Bird with Strings Live at the Apollo, Carnegie Hall and Birdland (Columbia Records, 1976). From Wikipedia: Robert Weaver (July 5, 1924 – September 4, 1994) was an American illustrator who was considered a pioneer of a contemporary approach to the field that began in the 1950s. Biography Beginning in 1952, he embarked on a mission to combine the visual ideas found in fine art with the responsibility of journalist. At the time, many practitioners of illustration were expected to paint and draw for advertising and magazine assignments with artwork that was conservative, idealized and saccharine, while other illustrators such as Ronald Searle, Arthur Szyk, George Grosz, Kathe Kollwitz and later Ralph Steadman and Tomi Ungerer injected their own opinion into the matter. Weaver joined this latter tradition by moving his role of an illustrator from a page decorator to a journalist. He ventured from the typical haven of an illustrator's studio into the world and used a pencil to observe, record facts, and draw real life based visual essays, the way that illustrators such as Burt Silverman and Franklin McMahon did. This approach would later be termed "visual journalism" and in 1983 would form the basis of a special masters degree, Illustration as Visual Essay, from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He died at his home in Manhattan on September 4, 1994.[1] Career and legacy In an article for the AIGA in 1990, noted graphic art historian Steve Heller categorized Weaver as a journalistic illustrator. Other artists included Bob Gill, Jack Beck, Robert Andrew Parker, Thomas B. Allen and Philip Hays. They received crucial assignments from a group of visionary art directors that included Cipe Pineles...

Lorraine Fox was a pioneering female Illustrator/artist who championed a unique style immediately identified as hers. This work, in two parts, was most likely for a newsstand woman's...

Even without the punch line, Gahan Wilson's highly stylized paintings are marvelous to behold. He is one of a few artists with a unique style instantly re...

An image of a horned devil with pointy claws and bat-like wings emerges from a Voodoo drum. He has with arms stretched out like a Christ figure. The drum grows out of a yellow plant-...

This beautiful work by the great American Illustrator Bob Peak has a sister work in the collection of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angles. We feel that our work has a little more detail, complexity and dimension to it as the beautiful female figure seems to be floating in an endless sky of dreamy colors. Portrait of beautiful woman, Large powerfully sensual deco-esque work by America's Master of the Movie Poster. Bob Peak. Some of the movie posters Peak has worked on. West Side Story, Rollerball, Star Trek, Superman, Excalibur, Apocalypse Now, The Spy Who Loved Me. My Fair Lady, Camelot and Enter the Dragon. Additionally, Peak illustrated 45 covers of Time Magazine and many covers for Sports Illustrated, TV Guide. Signed lower center Private Collection Georges Delerue...

This impeccably rendered mid-century double portrait of a quarreling man and woman exhibits a supreme academic training knowledge lost in almost all contemporary art. It features an ...

A dreamy young blond woman holding a Bengal cat is depicted relaxing in a deckchair. She gazes upward and outward, pondering—the distinctive marbling of the cat echos the floral back...

As they take center stage, four acrobats are depicted, forming an architectural structure composed of contorted human bodies. The small gallery of onlookers displays a variety of ex...

Campy and sexy illustration of two French chorus girls for the mid-century Avon paperback Les Girls. Story of the Folies Bergere Unsigned and unframed. George Ziel...

Original illustration was done by Renna for the novel "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Jules Verne, published in 1963. What makes this work special is how brilliantly the subj...

Female Illustrator of the Golden Age, Ruth Mary Hallock, paints a sensitive, heartwarming portrait of Mother and Child in a post-impressionist style. Richly saturated hues and gestur...

Rendered with an alla prima paint application and quick gestural brushstrokes, "Tender Family Portrait - Mother and Child" reflects Margery Ryerson's deep knowledge of academic training. Reyerson studied with Robert Henri at The Art Students League. This painting is aesthetically pleasing and communicates a sense of maternal tenderness from a female artist. Margery Ryerson did a book on her former teacher. Henri's philosophical and practical musings were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit (1923), a book that remained in print for several decades. Signed. Lower Left Margery Austen Ryerson (September 15, 1886 - 1989) was an American artist, painter, etcher, lithographer and watercolorist.Her work is included in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum Biography Ryerson earned her Bachelor's of Fine Arts in English from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, after attending private schools in Morristown. She went on to study under Charles Hawthorne at the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and with Robert Henri at the Art Students League in New York. During the years 1920 through 1940 Ryerson taught in New York settlement houses. There she got the privilege to paint and draw the children in their care. The subjects of these paintings were often the children of the underclass and immigrants. Her artistic technique and subjects gained universal recognition and appealed to many people. Miss Ryerson is most known for her portraits...

Trailblazing Gay Female illustrator of the Golden Age, Ida Waugh, paints a powerful narrative of a young woman coming to the aid of another who, due to an accident, is lying prostrate in an unpaved road. The reason why the work is in black and white is because this was assignment art for a book or magazine and color printing was not yet available for mass publications Signed lower left. Framed under glass, Ida Waugh (October 24, 1846 – January 25, 1919) was an American illustrator of children's literature who often collaborated with her lifelong companion, Amy Ella Blanchard. Personal life Ida Waugh was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 24, 1846, the daughter of painter Samuel B. Waugh and his first wife, Sarah Mendenhall, therefore she was half-sister of painter Frederick Judd Waugh. Her step-mother was Mary Eliza Young Waugh, a miniaturist. She attended Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris, studying with Georges Callot, Paul-Louis Delance, and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.In 1868 she attended the first "Ladies Life Class" at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; in the same class there were Emily Sartain and Catherine Ann Drinker. Career Ida Waugh collaborated with her partner Amy Ella Blanchard in publishing children's books, Waugh as illustrator and Blanchard as writer. Waugh also published books on her own Other than a children's book illustrator, Waugh was an award-winning painter. In 1869 she exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts two works, "The Bargain" and a portrait bust of Carl Gaertner. Her self-portrait and another painting, "Little Cosette" (1870), are in the permanent collection of the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, both donated by Mrs. John S. Haug in 1961.They were part of the exhibition "Women and Biography" in 2014, including: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley, Edith Emerson, Anne Minich, Catherine Mulligan, Mitzi Melnicoff, Alice Kent Stoddard, Aubrey Levinthal, Martha Armstrong...

Devils depicted. Artist Wilson Bigaud paints a graphic narrative of mid-century life in Haiti without modern medicine. A man is dying yet there is no doctor present. In the struggle...

Italian illustrator Gianni Benvenuti paints a charming fantasy scene. It's of an extreme closeup of a tiny crowned and winged Prince and Princess They are standing upright in a dand...

Immigrant children from New York's Lower East Side are joyfully captured whizzing down on a slide. From the window of a tenement building, a lone adult with child witnesses the foli...

Female artist Louise Lue Osborne paints a classic composition with an interaction of two women and a child soaked in golden late light. The figural gro...

In a 1971 interview with Ebony Magazine, Alvin Hollinsworth commented on his African Jesus Christ painting, "I have always felt that Christ was a Blac...

Broad areas of bold, flat red, magenta, and pink characterize this mid-century painting by Barbara Warren Ebersole ( Barbara Tate Ebersole ). It depicts a block party festooned with balloons and a street organ grinder with a smartly dressed performing monkey. The overall look of a lot mid-century art inspires many of today's most celebrated contemporary artists. Signed and dated upper left. Oil on Masonite. Barbara Warren Ebersole was a painter and an author. She may have been of Native American...

One Thousand and One Nights - It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights. What is notable about this work is how magnificently composed, designed, and rendered it is. Its l...

This powerful and graphically composed image of a black man with white angel wings was painted in a realist style by African American artist Thomas Blackshear...

Only Ballantine Ale Brews "Brewer's Gold," ad illustration appeared in the major magazines of the day. A magic moment is caught at a peak point of drama. It's the instant of friends having fun. A cold beer from the fridge is offered and it's is acknowledged with a head nod. The woman in the foreground covers her giggling face reacting to a funny comment. The decisive moment is preserved. Sounds like a critique of an art photograph? No, it's an illustrator. This ingenious Infiniti "S" composition simultaneously represents the best of photography and painting. Cartier-Bresson could have captured the precise moment. While Nicolas Poussin could have rendered the complex figural composition. Add to it , a painting technique and color scheme with the quick drama of a post-impressionist. We have a great work of art by an overlooked American illustrator/artist/painter, Mike Ludlow...

“Graduation Day” is emblematic of mid-century American Illustration. But the real story of this storytelling work is that it embodies the lost art of portrait painting and graphic design. Alex Ross borrows on the classical tradition and flaunts his skills as a narrative painter. In “Graduation Day”, he paints a complex composition involving at least thirteen portraits. The subjects are beautifully rendered and lit. They are set against a dark grey background and jump off the surface at the viewer. The composition is complexly designed. The future graduate in the red jacket engaging with a girl photographer is a compositional device that leads the viewer's eye to the main subject - a father congratulating his son on graduating from medical school. Creating art that relies on facial expressions and body gestures is a talent absent in contemporary art. Why? It’s very hard to do and takes years and training and practice to get it right. Despite Alex Ross's folksy subject matter, this work is a high example of naturalism and representation by an important member of the Golden Age of American Illustration. Signed lower right Born in the town of Dunfermline, Scotland, Alexander Sharpe Ross (1908-1990) moved with his family to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1911. After attending Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon University), Ross moved to New York and joined the Charles E. Cooper Studio, where he worked among such notable illustrators as Ward Brackett, Stevan Dohanos, J. Frederick Smith...

Wilson Bigaud is an idea artist in who showcases visual ideas in many of his paintings. In this work, a married Haitian couple tunes their radios in sync as they lie in bed. Bigaud was greatly interested in radios, which appeared in many of his works. This work rises to the level of Surrealism in that Bigaud is doing more than just depicting a normal bedroom moment. There is something very strange and bizarre in the couple's synchronized actions. Also of note, it looks like the woman is swallowing the edge of the radio. Signed lower right in a handmade and hand-painted frame. Wear to the edges of board, including delamination in the corners, some dents and losses. Frame rubbing with associated wear. Areas of white discoloration to the bed and headboard...

Among the many accolades I would grant Dean Cornwell, the one that rises to the top would be that he is one of America's greatest portrait painters. With a few strokes, he captures h...

Prolific Saturday Evening Post Cover Illustrator Pearl L. Hill Worthington paints a stunning portrait of a Ballerina in a tutu with underlighting. She sits on a decorative Chinese ...

Anna Milo Upjohn was an overlooked female illustrator in the school of Jessie Willcox Smith. Her work displays a deep academic knowledge evident in her stylized illustrations of children and engaging their world. Signed lower right- 'A.M.UPJOHN" unframed. She was an assignment artist for renowned women's publications such as The Woman's Home Companion and children's books, as well as commercial assignments.s for the Red Cross. Unframed Anna Milo Upjohn (1868–1951) was an American artist, illustrator, author, and relief worker who, late in her long career, became known for paintings, drawings, and illustrations she made for the American Red Cross. After graduating from high school, she studied art briefly in New York but obtained most of her training in Paris from Claudio Castelucho and Lucien Simon.[1] In the early years of the twentieth century, she became known both for her portraits and paintings of children and for her book and magazine illustrations. Finding herself in France at the outset of the First World War, she devoted herself to relief work first among the refugees in Paris and later among the devastated villages in France and Belgium. Having spent the first half of her adult life as an independent professional, she served as a staff artist for the American Red Cross between 1921 and 1931. She traveled extensively during her adult life and lived mostly in New York City; Ithaca, New York; and Washington, D.C. Early life and training During the 1870s, Upjohn's family lived with her grandfather, a well-known architect named Richard Upjohn who had retired to a scenic home in Garrison, New York. Richard Upjohn's biographer says when she was about five she would accompany him as he sketched and painted. She questioned him about his color choices and learned that artists often chose colors different from the ones present in the subjects they painted. He also showed her engravings of famous paintings, explaining what made them great and where they fell short in his view.[2] Her family was living in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin when she graduated from high school in 1887.[3] A few years later, the family moved to New York, where, in the early 1890s, she took classes at the Cooper Union Woman's Art School.[4] She began her foreign travels in 1893 and during the next few years studied art in Munich, Florence, and Paris.[5] In 1902, she took an illustration class at the National Academy of Design and the following year won the Academy's Suydam silver medal for her work.[6] Between 1909 and 1912, she studied and traveled in Europe's other major cities.[7] In 1922, Upjohn told a reporter that she had studied art "in many places, usually for a few months at a time and disconnectedly, but what counted most was the work she did in Paris under Castelucho and Lucien Simon.”[1] Born in Barcelona, Castelucho's birth name was Claudi Catelucho Diana, but he went by his surname alone. In Paris during the early years of the twentieth century, he and Simon both trained private students and both taught at two mondernist alternatives to the École des Beaux Arts: the Académie Colarossi and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.[8] Upjohn did not say whether she took private lessons, classes, or both. Career in art Image No. 1, Anna Milo Upjohn, Young Boy Going Fishing, 1910, oil on canvas, 25 x 30 inches In 1890, at the age of twenty-one, Upjohn completed a painting of angels for St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Her uncle Richard M. Upjohn had designed the building and her father was currently its rector (having succeeded John Henry Hobart Brown...

Somewhat like Gertrude Abercrombie but the work is better painted, conceived, and designed - Magazine Illustration. Most likely for: Good Housek...

Signed lower right, unframed - Interior Illustration for Redbook Magazine

Redhead Girl in Window with Flower Pots by Lorraine Fox can be a joyful addition to your home. A beautiful redheaded young girl looks back at us from ...

Lorraine Fox was an American illustrator and commercial artist who illustrated magazines, book covers, and advertisements. Among the magazines, she illustrated for were Woman's Day, ...