Skippings Fine Arts Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

One of my favourite pieces at the moment - the subject, a mysterious young woman seated on a stool with her back towards us has such a strong presence that it feels as if she were ri...

Alexander Warshawsky was born in Cleveland, Ohio on March 29, 1887. He studied painting at the Cleveland School of Art and the National Academy of Design in New York City. Warshawsky...

A strong and witty piece - not only if you love music, concerts or perhaps play a string instrument! Look at the passion of the performers, all with individual faces. Our gouache pa...

A strong portrait, and a piece of history. It was confidently sketched in 1923, during the heyday of the "Lost Generation" in Paris, at the Closerie des Lilas - Ernest Hemingway's favourite haunt and home-from-home in the City. This historical café is where Hemingway first read The Great Gatsby with his friend F. Scott Fitzgerald and where he wrote most of The Sun Also Rises...

If you are interested in African American Art and in Women in the Arts, I will certainly not need to introduce Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1988). Often associated with the Harlem Renaissance, her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. I am proud to present an original watercolour painting by the artist which dates from the late 1940s or early 1950s. Jones was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a father who became the first African-American to earn a law degree from Suffolk Law School. Jones's parents encouraged her to draw and paint using watercolors during her childhood. She held her first solo exhibition at the age of seventeen in Martha's Vineyard. He career began in the 1930s and she continued to produce art work until her death in 1998 at the age of 92. Her style shifted and evolved multiple times in response to influences in her life, especially her extensive travels. She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists". Her work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry. In 1937, Jones received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Académie Julian, bringing her to France for the first time. The French were appreciative of her paintings and talent and Loïs Mailou Jones was thrilled at the country’s racial tolerance, so different from her reality in the United States. She summered in France annually from 1945 to 1953, sharing studio with her lifelong friend Celine Marie Tabary in Cabris, France. It was during one of these sojourns that the lovely work presented here was created. Our painting depicts the village of Tourettes sur Loup, just north of Nice, in the Provence Cote d'Azur region, about 14 miles from Cabris. Please note its similarities with her painting "Arreau, Hautes-Pyrénées" in the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her portrayal of the picturesque village nestled in a valley evokes landscape paintings by Paul Cézanne, a stylistic influence she acknowledged. Over the course of the following 10 years, Jones exhibited at the Phillips Collection, Seattle Art Museum, National Academy of Design, the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Pennsylvania's Lincoln University, Howard University, galleries in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1952, the book Loïs Mailou Jones: Peintures 1937–1951 was published, reproducing more than one hundred of her art pieces completed in France.At the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Jones exhibited with a group of prominent black artists, such as Jacob Lawrence and Alma Thomas. These artists and others were known as the "Little Paris...

A virtuoso charcoal sketch by the Frech 19th Century master Gustave Jean Jacquet (1846-1904). It depicts a thoughtful woman (or woman in thought?) with her face resting on her hand...

A fascinating allegorical scene by French master Paul-Louis Delance (1848–1924), an artist known for the allegorical and history paintings. His grandfather was the Count Joseph van R...

All the sun and the joie de vivre of the mediterranean in one large drawing! Dated 1959, the work evokes Brigitte Bardot, the French Riviera and French New Wave Cinema. The artist is Dany Lartigue, son of photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue, Dany was brought up between Paris and Saint Tropez, which was still a fisherman’s village at the time. Although as an artist Dany worked from Montmartre studio, the Cote d’Azur of his childhood remained his spiritual home, and he returned there often. In Saint Tropez, by then fashionable, he would meet his friends Juliette Greco...

A striking pop art drawing, dating from the 1960s, featuring lettering and a packet of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Pop art as art movement emerged in the 1950s and flourished in the 196...

An atmospheric landscape in the last glow of the evening sun by a rare 19th Century master , Auguste Delâtre. Delâtre (1822-1902) was a pioneering pri...

Superb original drawing in coloured conté pencils, heightened with white on oatmeal coloured vergé paper by Claudio Bravo. The work was created during the artist's Moroccan period, a...

An exceptional ink, wash and graphite portrait of a gentleman by Henri-Joseph Hesse, dating from circa 1820, the time of the Bourbon restoration in France. It depicts a dashing figur...

A magnificent and sensitively treated line drawing in coloured ink, heightened with white. It depicts Argan, the hypochondriac from Molière's play of the same name. Dating from circa...

A stunning sky and cloud study by Gaston Prunier. Originally from Le Havre, the sea port where the Seine empties into the English Channel, Prunier was c...

A stunning ensemble of fiour original mid century illustrations for Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" . Whilst sharing the modernist, stylis...

A stunning portrait of a Parisian beauty from the romantic period by Adele Grasset (active ca 1830-1850). With her intelligent eyes and determined look, doesn't this lady bear great resemblance to Chopin's paramour George Sand? The sitter is Jeanne Marie Vidal, wife of Claude Auguste Seguin, from a prominent family in Avignon, as the family tree attached to the back for the frame indicates. Research in old annals has also revealed that Madame Seguin was a modern and independent lady: she worked in lady's fashion in Paris, and patented wrapping mechanism that protected lady's hats during their transport! As often with woman artists of the 18th and 19th century, there is little biographical information available on the artist, Adèle Grasset. We do know however, that she had studied with the highly prominent artist François Gérard (1770-1837) , known also as the Baron Gérard...

A astounding portrait of a society beauty by Adele Grasset (active ca 1830-1850). With an open face and and lightly smiling lips, she is wearing a gown typical of the romantic period. Drawn in graphite and heightened with white, the drawing is dated 1836 As often with woman artists of the 18th and 19th century, there is little biographical information available on Adèle Grasset. We do know however, that she had studied with the highly prominent artist François Gérard (1770-1837) , known also as the Baron Gérard...

A lovely and very fresh watercolour on paper by John Baragwanath KING (1864—1939) This village scene is signed lower left, and measures 25 x 38 cm. It is presented in its original frame - the framed is 39 x 51cm Born in Cornwall, the artist trained first as an engineer before turning to art, and exhibited in London, Manchester and Paris. He lived at 'Westbourne', St Austell...

An exquisite watercolour and paint painting on paper by German resistance fighter and concentration camp survivor Rainer Küchenmeister (1926-2010)...