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Standing Lincoln: The Man, Lincoln Park, Illinois
By Louis Oscar Griffith
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Standing Lincoln: The Man, Lincoln Park, Illinois
Watercolor and graphite on paper , c. 1895
Signed in script lower right (see photo)
The scene depicts the Augustus Saint-Gaudens bro...
Category
1890s American Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Untitled (West Virginia fam valley and blue hills)
By William C. Grauer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
After creating murals for the Greenbrier Hotel in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia in 1932, together Grauer and his wife founded and co-directed the successful Old White Art Colony, School and Gallery, which they continued to frequent during the summer months in the 1930s and 1940s. Grauer’s involvement in West Virginia also included his West Virginia murals for the West Virginia exhibitions at the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago and the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City.
William C. Grauer (1895-1985)
William C. Grauer (1895-1985) was born in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. After attending the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, Grauer received a four year scholarship from the City of Philadelphia to pursue post graduate work. It was during this time that Grauer began working as a designer at the Decorative Stained Glass Co. in Philadelphia.
Following his World War I service in France, Grauer moved to Akron, Ohio where he opened a studio in 1919 with his future brother-in-law, the architect George Evans Mitchell. Soon, the Rorimer-Brooks design company, the developer Van Swerngen brothers, as well as the Sterling Welch and Halle Bros. department stores realized the extent of Grauer's talent and eagerly employed him. Grauer’s work during this time included architectural renderings for Shaker Square, Moreland Courts, and other many other projects commissioned by Cleveland architects. Grauer also remained true to his roots as a master designer of stained glass windows. With his work in such high demand, Grauer received a commission in 1921 to paint murals for the French Grill Room of the Kansas City Club...
Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Miniatures with Text from the "Legend of Phra Malai"
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Unknown Artist, Thailand, 19th century
Miniatures with Text from the "Legend of Phra Malai"
Double folio; ink, color and gold leaf, c. 1900
Unsigned
Script: Khmer (Cambodian) These texts are written in Khom script, a variant of Khmer script often used in Central Thai religious manuscripts.
Paired devas (lesser gods) on throne-like plinths addorse Khmer (Cambodian) script containing tales of Phra Malai, a Sri Lankan arhat or Buddhist saint known for his travels to hell. There, the compassionate monk gave teachings and comfort to sufferers. Phra Malai stories taught the karmic effects of human actions to the faithful as well as conveying Maitreya's message of hope for attaining nirvana.
Though known in neighboring countries, the stories of Phra Malai achieved their greatest popularity and influence in Siam (present day Thailand)
Condition: Very good
Sight window) size: 11-1/8 x 27 inches
Frame size: 19-5/8 x 34-7/8 x 3/4 inches
The legend of Phra Malai, a Buddhist monk of the Theravada tradition said to have attained supernatural powers through his accumulated merit and meditation, is the main text in this 19th-century Thai samut khoi (folding book) held in the Thai, Lao, and Cambodian Collections of the British Library. Phra Malai figures prominently in Thai art...
Category
Late 19th Century Other Art Style Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pigment
Two Miniatures and text from the "Legend of Phra Malai"
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Unknown Artist, Thailand, 19th century
Two Miniatures and text from the "Legend of Phra Malai"
Ink and color on paper, c, 1900
Unsigned as usual
Script: Aksar Chrieng or Khmer These texts are written in Khom script, a variant of Khmer script often used in Central Thai religious manuscripts.
Phra Malai was a Budhist monk whose meditations permitted him to travel to heaven and hell.
Condition: Good, with minor staining to text
Sight (window) size: 11-1/8 x 27 inches
Frame size: 19-3/4 x 35 x 3/4 inches
Framed in solid cherry wood with archival, acid free materials
The legend of Phra Malai, a Buddhist monk of the Theravada tradition said to have attained supernatural powers through his accumulated merit and meditation, is the main text in this 19th-century Thai samut khoi (folding book) held in the Thai, Lao, and Cambodian Collections of the British Library. Phra Malai figures prominently in Thai art...
Category
19th Century Other Art Style Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pigment
Three Graces
By Ray H. French
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Three Graces
Pentel marker on paper, 1965
Signed and dated by the artist lower left (see photo)
Part of a series of 100 drawings, this number 97 (annotated lower right corner)
Condition: Excellent
Sheet/Image size: 20 x 15 inches
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Martha A. French Trust
Ray H. French: The Evolution of an Artistic Innovator
Printmaker, painter, and sculptor Ray H. French was born in Terre Haute, Indiana on May 16, 1919. Terre Haute was a cultural wasteland before the opening of the Sheldon Swope Art Museum in 1942. Thus, with a father as a coal miner and carpenter, art remained a luxury for Ray. Nevertheless, local art teachers Mabel Mikel Williams and Nola E. Williams helped to foster his creativity and unshakable drive to create things of beauty.
After high school, Ray attended the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. His studies there were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, during which he developed surveillance photographs for the Army Air Force. After the war, Ray transferred to the University of Iowa on the G.I. Bill, where he received both his BFA and MFA degrees. The University of Iowa during the 1940s was a cultural mecca with many major art historians and artists. While in Iowa, Ray played an important role in this culture by becoming a founding member of the Iowa Print...
Category
1960s American Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Permanent Marker
red ballboy or Studies for "Tennis Tournament"
By George Wesley Bellows
Located in Fairlawn, OH
red ballboy or Studies for "Tennis Tournament"
Unsigned
Provenance: Estate of the Artist, 1925
Emma S. Bellows (widow(
Emma S. Bellows Trust
Allison Galleries, New York Representing the Bellows Trust. Stock HVA 34
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York
Thomas French Fine Art
Ronald Slotter, Columbus, Ohio
Columbus College of Art and Design, de-accessed 2010
Annotated by the artist:"red ballboy"
Study sketches...
Category
1910s Ashcan School Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Seated Nude
By August F. Biehle
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Seated Nude
Match Stick ink drawing, c. 1925
Signed by the artist in pencil lower right: A. Biehle
Created at the Kakoon Arts Club, Cleveland. Influenced by friend and fellow artist...
Category
1920s American Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Irish Sea
By Edward Dobrotka
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Irish Sea
Watercolor, 1947
Signed and dated by the artist lower right
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 12 x 18 inches
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
...
Category
1940s American Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
The Dead Tiger
By Dorothy Dehner
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Dead Tiger
Ink and watercolor on paper, 1955
Signed and dated in ink (see photo)
Condition: Aging to the entire sheet (it's 78 years old)
Image/Sheet size: 18 1/4 x 23 inches
One of a series of watercolors Dehner created in the Hudson Valley and gave to a patron. They are variations of the same composition with differing colors.
Titled by the artist in pencil verso.
Provenance: Gift of the artist
Private Collection, Hudson Valley, NY
Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994)
Painter, sculptor, art writer, and poet, Dorothy Dehner explored abstraction, cubism, realism and surrealism during her artistic journey. Early in her career she was known for painting and for large-cast metal sculptures, but in the 1950s and 1960s, turned increasingly to wood cut into hard-edge geometric shapes.
From 1950, she lived primarily in New York City. Dorothy Dehner was born in 1901 in Cleveland, Ohio, but, as a teenager in 1916, moved to Pasadena, California when her parents died. Her artistic interests were initially in acting. She majored in drama at UCLA for the school year of 1922-1923, then moved to New York City to study acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Art.
After travel to Europe in France, Italy and Switzerland in 1925, where she saw Cubist and Fauve paintings as well as the great art of the ages, Dehner entered the Art Students League to study sculpture, but switched to painting because she felt the former was bound in academic formula.
She studied drawing with Kimon Nicolaides...
Category
1950s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Chorus Line
By Sam Spanier
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Chorus Line
Oil pastel on paper, c. 1960's
Signed (see photo)
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Estate of the artist (Estate No. 745)
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 5 3/4 x 4 inches
Sam Spanier (1925-2008)
Born in Brooklyn New York, Sam Spanier studied painting with Hans Hofmann (1949–50) and also at the Taos Valley Art School (1951). His formative years as a working artist were spent in Paris (1951–52), where he also became involved with the work of G. I. Gurdjieff, through his disciple, Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann.
By 1953, Spanier’s work had already begun to meet with critical acclaim. That year, he had his first solo gallery show, and was selected by Milton Avery and Hans Hofmann to receive the prestigious Lorian Fund Award. His second solo exhibition, in 1955, was curated by renowned museum director, Gordon Washburn. Spanier’s early work was reviewed by Dore Ashton, Donald Judd, Fairfield Porter, Stuart Preston, and Irving Sandler, among other significant critics of the period.
Spanier’s spiritual path increasingly became the central focus of both his life and his art. In 1960, he was introduced to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, which led to visits to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, in 1962 and 1964, during which he was inspired to leave New York City and found Matagiri (in 1968)—a spiritual center in Woodstock, New York—with his lifelong partner, Eric Hughes. The work he embarked upon there bifurcates his life as an artist, separating him from New York’s art world, and radically altering the trajectory of his career. From that point forward, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to consider his artistic endeavor apart from the life of dedication he had undertaken, and to which he remained committed.
As early as 1954, Dore Ashton had recognized in Sam Spanier a “haptic visionary;” in 1960, Irving Sandler wrote that the people in Spanier’s paintings “seem to have witnessed some transfiguring event.” In his later paintings—usually worked in oil pastel on panel or paper—made during intermittent creative periods, from the mid-1970s to the final years of his life, the artist’s inner life remains always apparent in his subject matter; and from the portraits and abstract Buddha-like figures and heads, to the fantasy landscapes, the paintings are redolent with a rich intensity of color and light that can only be described as inspired.
Sam Spanier’s works are in the collections of the Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. He received the Woodstock Artists Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007.
Selected Solo Exhibitions:
Urban Gallery, New York (1954, 1955, 1956); Wittenborn Gallery, New York (1958); Gallery Mayer, New York (1958, 1959, 1960); Unison Gallery, New Paltz (1986, 1995, 2009); Limner Gallery, New York (1988); Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, New York (1999).
Selected Group Exhibitions:
Salon des Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France (1952); October Exhibition of Oil Paintings, New York City Center Gallery, New York (1954); Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Centre Culturel de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France (1954); Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1955); Les Plus Mauvais Tableaux, Galerie Prismes, Paris (1955);
Première Exposition Internationale de l’Art Plastique Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (1956); Recent Paintings USA: The Figure, The Museum of Modern Art (1960); Winter’s Work, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1985); Juried Group Show, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1986); Woodstock Artists, Self-Portraits, Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, Woodstock, New York (1988); Portraits, Albert Shahinian Fine Art, Poughkeepsie, New York (2003); The World We Live In, Upstate Art, Phoenicia, New York (2003); Show of Heads, Limner Gallery, Phoenicia, New York (2004).
Selected Writings on the Artist:
Dore Ashton, “Sam Spanier,” Art Digest (May 1, 1954) and “Sam Spanier,” The New York Times (March 16, 1960); Cassia Berman, “Sam Spanier: A Divine Calling,” Woodstock Times (February 7, 2008); Lawrence Campbell, “Sam Spanier: Exhibition of Paintings at Urban Gallery,” Art News (April 1, 1954); Sam Feinstein, “Sam Spanier: Exhibition of Paintings at Urban Gallery,” Art Digest (March 1, 1955); Pat Horner, “Big Heart, Timeless Art —Sam Spanier Retrospective at Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock Times (July 1, 1999); Donald Judd, “In the Galleries: Sam Spanier,” Arts Magazine (April 1960); Liam Nelson, “Human Force...
Category
1960s Abstract Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Oil Crayon
Farm Horse Drunking
By Edmund Blampied
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Farm Horse Drunking
Charcoal and pastel on artist's board, c. 1920
Signed lower right in pencil (see photo)
Titled in ink lower center, as are all the illustration for At the Farm (s...
Category
1920s English School Animal Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Nude on a Stool
By Aaron Bohrod
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Nude on a Stool
Ink on paper, c. 1970-80
Signed in red ink lower right
Illustrated: Elliott & Wooden, page 232 A copy of this hardbound books accompanies purchase
Condition: Excell...
Category
1970s American Realist Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Seated Couple
By Raphael Soyer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Inspiration (Seated Couple)
Graphite on paper, c. 1967
Signed twice in pencil by the artist on recto (see photos)
Condition: Excellent
Image size: 13 x 16 inches
Note: Although not t...
Category
1960s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Untitled
By Leon Kelly
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled
Pastel on paper, 1922
Initialed and dated lower right (see photo)
Exhibited: Francis Nauman, Leon Kelly: Draftsman Extraordinaire, New York, April 4 - May 23, 2014.
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
The Orange Chicken...
Category
1920s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Untitled
By Leon Kelly
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled
Pastel on paper, 1922
Initialed lower right (see photo)
Exhibited: Francis Nauman, Leon Kelly: Draftsman Extraordinaire, New York, April 4 - May 23, 2014.
Condition: excellent
Image size: 11 8 7/8 inches
Frame size: 18 1/4 x 16 1/4 inches
Provenance: Estate of the artist
The Orange Chicken...
Category
1920s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Provincetown (Sunbathing)
By Peter Grippe
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Provincetown (Sunbathing)
Sepia ink on tan paper, 1966
Signed in ink lower center (see photo)
Exhibited: Art from Lexington Homes, Lincoln Massachusetts...
Category
1960s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Untitled Female Nude
By Steven Assael
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Female Nude)
Graphite and sgrafitto on yellow paper, 1987
Signed lower right
Note: Steven Assael is represented by Forum Gallery in New York. In 1977 he won the Charles Ro...
Category
1980s American Realist Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Nude in a Mirror
By Aaron Bohrod
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Nude in a Mirror
Ink and wash on paper, n.d.
Signed in red ink lower right (see photo)
Illustrated: Elliott & Wooden, page 153, a monograph on the artist's drawings
Note: a cop...
Category
1960s American Realist Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Nude Reclining on a Mat
By Aaron Bohrod
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Nude Reclining on a Mat
Ink on paper, n.d.
Signed in red ink lower right
Same model used in Elliott & Wooden pages 198 and 199
Condition: Excellent
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
Warren Shaull, Dodge City, KS (collector's stamp verso)
Aaron Bohrod (21 November 1907 – 3 April 1992) was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'œil still-life paintings.
Education
Bohrod was born in Chicago in 1907, the son of an emigree Bessarabian-Jewish grocer. Bohrod studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League of New York between 1926 and 1930. While at the Art Students League, Bohrod was influenced by John Sloan and chose themes that involved his own surroundings.
Career
He returned to Chicago in 1930 where he painted views of the city and its working class. He eventually earned Guggenheim Fellowships which permitted him to travel throughout the country, painting and recording the American scene. His early work won him widespread praise as an important social realist and regional painter and printmaker and his work was marketed through Associated American Artists in New York. Bohrod completed three commissioned murals for the Treasury Departments Section of Fine Arts in Illinois; Vandalia in 1935, Galesburg in 1938 and Clinton in 1939. During World War II, Bohrod worked as an artist; first in the Pacific for the United States Army Corps of Engineers' Army War Art Unit...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Realist Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Untitled
By Dorothy Heller
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled
Watercolor on paper, 1990
Signed lower left corner
Provenance: Gift of the Artist to one of hr patrons
Distinguished Midwest Private Collection
Conditi...
Category
1990s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Pencils and Pens
By George Rickey
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Pencils and Pens
Graphite on paper, 1987
Signed and dated by the artist lower right (see photo)
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 13 5/16 x 10 11/16 inches
Rickey, a noted kine...
Category
1980s American Modern Still-life Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Study of an Italian Town with Women in a Doorway
By Jared French
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study of an Italian Town with Women in a Doorway
Graphite on cream wove paper, c. 1960
Signed by the artist in pencil lower right (see photo)
A master of ...
Category
1960s American Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Surrealist landscape with organic shapes
By Charles Harris ( Beni Kosh )
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Surrealist landscape with organic shapes
Watercolor on paper, 1960-1970
Signed CE Harris lower right corner (see photo)
Stamped with the artist’s estate stamp verso (see photo)
Reference: Beni Kosh Collection Estate Stamp #705
Provenance: Estate of the artist
A wonderful example by one of the few African American Surrealist painters.
“An African-American born Charles E. Harris, the name under which he painted until the early 1960s when he took the name of Kosh. His paintings span the period 1949-71, and reflect abstract and surreal figurative subjects which include Cleveland street scenes, jazz clubs, and depictions of Christ.”
Courtesy of Rachel Davis Fine Art
“Beni E. Kosh was born as Charles Elmer Harris, in Cleveland Ohio. He changed his name in the 1960’s, which translates to “Son of Ethiopia”. He rarely exhibited or sold his work and was affiliated with the African-American artists’ “Sho-nuff Art Group” and the Karamu House and studied under Cleveland artist Paul Travis. His style is very diverse and he experimented with Cubism, portraiture and abstractions in series. His paintings span from 1949 – 1971, and reflect abstract and surreal figurative subjects, which include Cleveland street scenes, jazz clubs, and depictions of Christ. He received little recognition during his lifetime and was only “rediscovered” literally days after his death when hundreds of his paintings were rescued by an art dealer.”
(Courtesy Pennsylvania Art...
Category
20th Century Surrealist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
The Infant Jupiter Nursing from the She-Goat Amaltheia (The Birth of Jupiter)
By Luigi Quaini
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Infant Jupiter Nursing from the She-Goat Amaltheia
(The Birth of Jupiter)
Red chalk and wash on off-white paper, c. 1700
Unsigned
Attribuuted to Quaini by Dwight Miller, the sch...
Category
18th Century and Earlier Baroque Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Untitled (Letitia, pregnant with Rising Sun)
By Sedrick Huckaby
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Letitia, pregnant with Rising Sun)
Graphite on paper, 2005
Signed: "Sedrick Huckaby III" lower right (see photo)
In April 2008, Huckaby was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for "stellar achievement and exceptional promise for continued accomplishment"
Provenance: Valley House Gallery, the artist's dealer for many years Inv. #12949
Image size: 6 3/4 x 10 inches
Sedrick Huckaby (b. 1975)
Born in Fort Worth in 1975, Huckaby has been creating some form of art since his childhood. In 1995, he began his formal art studies at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. After a brief stay he transferred to Boston University, where he received a BFA degree. He then earned a MFA degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Huckaby is known for his powerful use of color and his exploration of cultural roles and the heritage of the African American family. His work has evolved from portraiture to objects and interiors that venerate his personal family legacy rooted in Fort Worth, Texas. Portraying these familiar subjects on a large scale and pushing his use of materials, Huckaby defines the significance of family and tradition while touching on the subject of ethnographic stereotypes in our culture.
For the past few years he has concentrated his efforts on a series of quilt paintings. One of the series he created is a tribute to both of his Grandmothers and a celebration of the African American quilting tradition. He used the actual quilts sewn by family members as models for his paintings. These quilts document significant events in his family history. According to Huckaby, the paintings represent an artistic family legacy. The colorful, rhythmic abstracted patterns come together like the musical notes in African American musician John Coltrane's famous jazz composition, A Love Supreme, from which the painting series acquired its name.
He has earned national acclaim for his work over the past several years. Huckaby has received the 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
The Model
By William C. Grauer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Model
Watercolor on paper, c. 1930
signed lower right (see photo)
Condition: Excellent
A few bits of adhesive residue verso
Colors fresh and unfaded
Housed in a Marin style metal gilt frame
Sheet size: 19 1/4 x 25 1/4 inches
Frame size: 30 x 35-1/2 x 1-1/2 inches
A major example of the artist's cubist watercolors
Provenance: Estate of the artist
By decent to his daughter Gretchen
Realted to a watercolor illustrated in William H. Robinson and Christine Fowler Shearer, "Against the Grain: Modernism in the Midwest," American Art Review Vol. XXII, no. 4 (August 2010), page 86
William C. Grauer (1895-1985)
William C. Grauer (1895-1985) was born in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. After attending the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, Grauer received a four year scholarship from the City of Philadelphia to pursue post graduate work. It was during this time that Grauer began working as a designer at the Decorative Stained Glass Co. in Philadelphia.
Following his World War I service in France, Grauer moved to Akron, Ohio where he opened a studio in 1919 with his future brother-in-law, the architect George Evans...
Category
1930s American Modern Interior Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Untitled
By Leon Kelly
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled
Pastel on paper, 1922
Signed with the artist's initials in pencil
Provenance: Estate of the artist
Francis M. Nauman (label)
Private collection, NY
A very early abstract/cubist work by Kelly. Created while the artist was studying with Arthur Carles in Philadelphia.
Leon Kelly (October 21, 1901 – June 28, 1982) was an American artist born in Philadelphia, PA. He is most well known for his contributions to American Surrealism, but his work also encompassed styles such as Cubism, Social Realism, and Abstraction. Reclusive by nature, a character trait that became more exaggerated in the 1940s and later, Kelly's work reflects his determination not to be limited by the trends of his time. His large output of paintings is complemented by a prolific number of drawings that span his career of 50 years. Some of the collections where his work is represented are: The Metropolitan Museum in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Boston Public Library.
Biography
Kelly was born in 1901 at home at 1533 Newkirk Street, Philadelphia, PA. He was the only child of Elizabeth (née Stevenson) and Pantaleon L. Kelly. The family resided in Philadelphia where Pantaleon and two of his cousins owned Kelly Brothers, a successful tailoring business. The prosperity of the firm enabled his father to purchase a 144-acre farm in Bucks County PA in 1902, which he named "Rural Retreat" It was here that Pantaleon took Leon to spend every weekend away from the pressures of business and from the disappointments in his failing marriage. Idyllic and peaceful memories of the farm stayed with Leon and embued his work with a love of nature that emerged later in the Lunar Series, in Return and Departure, and in the insect imagery of his Surrealist work. "If anything," he once said,"I am a Pantheist and see a spirit in everything, the grass, the rocks, everything."
At thirteen, Leon left school and began private painting lessons with Albert Jean Adolphe, a teacher at the School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) in Philadelphia. He learned technique by copying the works of the old masters and visiting the Philadelphia Zoo, where he would draw animals. Drawings done in 1916 and 1917 of elephants, snakes and antelope, as well as copies of old master paintings by Holbein and Michelangelo, heralded an impressive emerging talent. In 1917, he studied sculpture with Alexander Portnoff but his studies came to an abrupt halt with the start of World War I. Being too young to enlist, he joined the Quartermaster Corp at the Army Depot in Philadelphia, where he served for more than a year loading ships with supplies and, along with other artists, working on drawings for camouflage.
By 1920, the family's fortunes drastically changed. His father's business had failed due to the introduction of ready made clothing and his marriage, unhappy from the beginning, dissolved. Broken by circumstance Pantaleon left Philadelphia to begin a wandering existence looking for work leaving Leon to support his mother and grandmother. He found a job in 1920 at the Freihofer Baking Company where he worked nights for the next four years. Under these circumstances Leon continued to develop his skills in drawing and painting and learned of the revolutionary developments in art that were taking place in Paris.
During the day he was granted permission to study anatomy at the Philadelphia School of Osteopathy where he dissected a cadaver and perfected his knowledge of the human figure. He also met and studied etching with Earl Horter, a well known illustrator, who had amassed a significant collection of modern art which included work by Brancusi, Matisse, and Cubist works by Picasso and Braque. Among the artists around Horter was Arthur Carles, a charismatic and controversial painter who taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Leon enrolled in the Academy in 1922, becoming what Carles described as, "his best student".
In the next three years Leon work ranged from academic studies of plaster casts, to pointillism, to landscapes of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, as well as a series of pastels showing influences from Matisse to Picasso. Clearly influenced by Earl Horter's collection and Arthur Carles he mastered analytical cubism in works such as The Three Pears, 1923 and 1925 experimented with Purism in Moon Behind the Italian House. In 1925 Kelly was awarded a Cresson Scholarship and on June 14 he left for Europe.
Paris
The first trip to Europe lasted for approximately three and a half months and introduced Kelly to a culture and place where he felt he belonged. Though he returned to the Academy in the Fall, he left for Europe again a few months later to begin a four-year stay in Paris. He moved into an apartment at 19 rue Daguerre in Paris and began an existence intellectually rich but in creature comforts, very poor. "I kept a cinderblock over the drain in the kitchen sink to keep the rats out of the apartment" he once explained. He frequented the cafes making acquaintances with Henry Miller, James Joyce and the critic Félix Fénéon as well as others. His days were split between copying old master paintings in the Louvre and pursuing modernist ideas that were swirling through the work of all the artists around him. The Lake, 1926 and Interior of the Studio, 1927, now in the Newark Museum.
Patrons during this time were the police official Leon Zamaran, a collector of Courbets, Lautrecs and others, who began collecting Kelly's work. Another was Alfred Barnes of the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia.
In 1929 Kelly married a young French woman, Henriette D'Erfurth. She appears frequently in paintings and drawings done between 1928 and the early 1930s.
Philadelphia
The stock market crash of 1929 made it impossible to continue living in Paris and Kelly and Henriette returned to Philadelphia in 1930. He rented a studio on Thompson Street and began working and participating in shows in the city's galleries. Work from 1930 to 1940 showed continuing influences and experimentation with the themes and techniques acquired in Paris as well as a brief foray into Social Realism. The Little Gallery of Contemporary Art purchased the Absinthe Drinker...
Category
1920s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Deco Woman
By William Sommer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Deco Woman
Crayon on paper, c. 1920
Signed in ink lower left: "Wm. Sommer" (see photo)
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Edwin Sommer (the artist’s son)
Jose...
Category
1910s Art Deco Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Crayon
untitled (Rocks along the Coast)
By William C. Grauer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
untitled (Rocks along the Coast)
Gouache and watercolor on paper, c. 1950
Signed with the estate stamp signature lower left (see photo)
This is a preliminary study for a large exhibition painting...
Category
1950s American Modern Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Gouache
The Duomo, Florence
By Donald Shaw MacLaughlan
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Duomo, Florence
Watercolor, 1914
Signed and dated lower center edge (see photo)
Florence Cathedral, formally the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore, is the cathedral of Florence, Italy. It was begun in 1296 in the Gothic style to a design of Arnolfo di Cambio and was structurally completed by 1436, with the dome engineered by Filippo Brunelleschi.
Condition: Excellent
Image size: 16 3/4 x 14 1/2 inches
Frame size: 24 1/4 x 22 inches
Donald Shaw MacLaughlan was born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada on November 9, 1876. His family moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1890 where he began to experiment with different art media; watercolor, oil painting and finally, etching – with a few attempts at lithography. He spent much of his early years at the Boston Public Library studying the work of printmakers, from Durer and Rembrandt to the 18th century English, French and Italian masters.
Like many American artists of the time MacLaughlan traveled to Europe to study in Paris, enrolling in the Ecole des Beaux Arts and studied further with Jean Leon Gerome and Jean Paul Laurens. In 1899 he began producing etchings, which became his major interest until his death in 1938. He became acquainted with James NcNeill Whistler (1834-1903) and other artists who created etchings and spent time studying the etchings of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and other old masters in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale. Both Rembrandt and Whistler would have major influences on his art. In 1900 he created a set of 25 etched views of Paris and in 1901 exhibited two etchings in the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. He returned to the U.S. in 1903, then went back to Paris the following year.
He traveled extensively in Europe, visiting England, Switzerland, Italy and Spain as well as various locales in France. His etched views of Venice were well-known. MacLaughlan exhibited views of Paris, Rouen, Normandy and Italy in 1906 in a solo show at the American Art Association Galleries in Paris. He also displayed his work in the 1906 exhibitions of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Société des Peintres-Graveurs Français. MacLaughlan even instructed other expatriate Canadian artists then living in Paris, most notably Clarence...
Category
1910s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Woman in a Fur Wrap
By Rudolf Bauer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Woman in a Fur Wrap
Pen and ink heightened with white, c. 1920
Signed in ink lower right (see photo)
Estate stamp verso (see photo)
Provenance: estate of the artist
Borghi & Company, New York
Condition: excellent
Sheet/Image size: 11 1/8 x 8 1/8 inches
Rudolph Bauer
1889-1953
"Rudolf Bauer was born in Lindenwald near Bromberg, Silesia, in 1889 but his family moved only a few years later to Berlin. In 1905 Bauer began his studies at the Berlin Academy of Art but left the Academy only a few months later to educate himself. The upshot was paintings, caricatures and comical drawings which were published in 'Berliner Tageblatt', 'Ulk' and 'Le Figaro'.
From 1912 Bauer contributed to the magazine and Gallery 'Der Sturm' founded by Herwarth Walden and pivotal to German Expressionism and the international avant-garde. In 1915 Rudolf Bauer participated for the first time in a group show at Walden's gallery. There he met Hilla von Rebay...
Category
1920s Art Deco Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Untitled (Man at Desk)
By Sedrick Huckaby
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Man at Desk)
Pen and ink on paper, 2012
Signed lower right
Series: Portraits of Community: Hidden in Plain Sight, 2012
References And Exhibitions:
Illustrated: Swarthmore College video for their exhibition "Hidden in Plain Sight," Jan 24- Feb 24, 2013.
Born in Fort Worth in 1975, Huckaby has been creating some form of art since his childhood. In 1995, he began his formal art studies at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. After a brief stay he transferred to Boston University, where he received a BFA degree. He then earned a MFA degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Huckaby is known for his powerful use of color and his exploration of cultural roles and the heritage of the African American family. His work has evolved from portraiture to objects and interiors that venerate his personal family legacy rooted in Fort Worth, Texas. Portraying these familiar subjects on a large scale and pushing his use of materials, Huckaby defines the significance of family and tradition while touching on the subject of ethnographic stereotypes in our culture.
For the past few years he has concentrated his efforts on a series of quilt paintings. One of the series he created is a tribute to both of his Grandmothers and a celebration of the African American quilting tradition. He used the actual quilts sewn by family members as models for his paintings. These quilts document significant events in his family history. According to Huckaby, the paintings represent an artistic family legacy. The colorful, rhythmic abstracted patterns come together like the musical notes in African American musician John Coltrane's famous jazz composition, A Love Supreme, from which the painting series acquired its name.
He has earned national acclaim for his work over the past several years. Huckaby has received the 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and the 2004 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant Program Award. More recently, he was the 2008 recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship Award, which allowed him to travel the country and paint African-American quilts from private and public collections. Past Guggenheim Fellowship Award winners include Ansel Adams, Langston Hughes, Henry Kissinger, and Isamu Noguchi.
He has exhibited at the Resource Center of African American Art in Atlanta, the Danforth Museum in Framingham, and the Studio Museum in Harlem. His work, including a painting titled Study for Little D and the Dollar, in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, can be found in important collections throughout the United States, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Minneapolis Museum of Art. Currently, Huckaby’s 18-by-14-foot oil painting Hidden in Plain Site (2011) is on view in the Amon Carter Museum’s atrium through October.
Public Collections:
Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State University, American Dad
African American Museum, Dallas, Texas, Grandmother’s Quilt
The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, The 99% - Highland Hills
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, "Girl World" Study for Sustenance Installation
Ball State University Museum of Art, Muncie, Indiana, "The Truth about Hip Hop" Study for Sustenance
Installation
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas
Brandywine Workshop, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The 99% - Highland Hills
City of Fort Worth, Fort Worth, TX, The Welcome Space
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Corporate Aviation, Texas, A Place Between
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Hyatt Regency Hotel, Texas, William Madison (Gooseneck Bill)
McDonald
Fort Worth Central Library, Fort Worth, Texas, Hazel Harvey Peace Portrait
Grace Museum, Abilene, Texas, Cobby
Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, MA, Selection from The 99%
Holdworth Center, Austin, TX, Selection from The 99%
Jesuit Dallas Museum, Dallas, Texas, “Gone But Not Forgotten: Sha”
Kansas African American Museum, Wichita, Kansas, Self Portrait (2)
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas, Untitled (Anthony)
Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Untitled)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, Enocio
Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, Big Momma...
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Waterco...
Materials
Ballpoint Pen
Preliminary Study for Cretan Dancer Bronze
By Boris Lovet-Lorski
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Preliminary Study for Cretan Dancer Bronze
Graphite on tracing paper, 1930
Unsigned
Note: The bronze sculpture measures 24 1/2 x 33 5/8 inches and is signed and dated 1930 on the base (see image on right). It is currently being offered for sale by Taylor Graham Gallery in New York. (see photo)
“The stylizing of the Cretan allegories, used in figures of animals such as horses and bulls, symbolizes the ancient power of the South. These figures reveal a spiritual sensuality as he strives to attain a symbol of the earth and universe endowed with musical values. If man is the center of his idea of life and nature, it is because of the laws that govern the movement of stars and history. The link binding his figures together has, in a sense, a Pythagorean harmony.”
Salvatore Quasimodo, Milan, 1967, quoted from Bush, Boris Lover-Lorski: The Language of Time, page 12.
Image size: 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
Condition: Repaired tear in the lower left corner (see detail photo)
Boris Lovet-Lorski
Lithuanian/Russian/American
1894-1973
Sculptor, painter, and printmaker, Boris Lovet-Lorski was born in Lithuania in 1894. His mother died when he was age three. His father was affluent and owned real estate. Boris grew up in a privileged environment. He studied architecture and then fine arts at the Imperial Academy of Art in Petrograd, Russia (now Saint Petersburg). Following the revolution in 1917 and its aftermath, Boris immigrated to Boston to live with his brother. In the 1920’s, his stylized, Art Deco inspired sculptures, lithographs, and paintings proved to be popular among the American elite. He exhibited frequently, holding his first solo exhibition in Boston, 1920. In the following years, Boris exhibited in New York at Marie Sterner Gallery, Jacques Seligmann Galleries and Wildenstein and Company. He lived in Paris from 1926 to 1932 where he befriended Joseph Hecht, and was exposed to the works of Pablo Picasso, Ossip Zadkine, Contantin Brancusi and Aristide Maillol. In 1932 he returned to America where he became a citizen later in the decade.
Lovet-Lorski exhibited in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists (New York), the National Academy of Design (New York), and the Lotos Club (New York), as well as several Parisian salons. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Musée Luxembourg, Bibliotèque Nationale, and the Petit Palais in France, the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (A more extensive list of his works in museums follows) He is considered one of the most successful and recognized sculptors of his generation. His creative influence can be seen in many of his contemporary artists.
He died in Los Angeles in 1973.
Regarding his iconic Art Deco sculptures of Cretan Dancers:
“The stylizing of the Cretan allegories, used in figures of animals such as horses and bulls, symbolizes the ancient power of the South. These figures reveal a spiritual sensuality as he strives to attain a symbol of the earth and universe endowed with musical values. If man is the center of his idea of life and nature, it is because of the laws that govern the movement of stars and history. The link binding his figures together has, in a sense, a Pythagorean harmony.”
Salvatore Quasimodo, Milan, 1967, quoted from Bush, Boris Lover-Lorski: The Language of Time, page 12.
Lovet-Lorski created sculptures of the following major figures
I.J. Paderewski, Prime Minister of Poland
Arturo Toscanini, Italian Conductor
Lilian Gish, Actress
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Mrs. M. C. Niarchos, wife of Stavros Niarchos
President Abraham Lincoln
James Forrestal, Secretary of...
Category
1930s Art Deco Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Impossible Solutions at The Fountain of Youth
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Impossible Solutions at The Fountain of Youth
Collage on paper, 1987
Signed with the artist's initials and datedlower left
Condition: Good, with the ...
Category
1980s Surrealist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Paper
Outgoing Fog (South Bristol, Maine)
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Outgoing Fog
Watercolor on paper, 1976
Signed by the artist lower left
Painted in South Bristol, Maine
Condition: Excellent
Watercolor size: 15 x 22 7/8 inches
Frame size: 20 x 30 inches (aprox.)
Florian...
Category
1970s Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
untitled (The White Barn with Farmers and Horse)
By William Grauer
Located in Fairlawn, OH
untitled (The White Barn with Farmers and Horse)
Watercolor, c. 1950
Signed by the artist in ink lower right: Wm. C. Grauer
Numbered in pencil verso: 152
Provenance:
Estate of the Artist
Gretchen Grauer Vanderhoof, the artist's daughter
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 18 3/4 x 24 inches
William C. Grauer (1895-1985)
William C. Grauer (1895-1985) was born in Philadelphia to German immigrant parents. After attending the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art, Grauer received a four year scholarship from the City of Philadelphia to pursue post graduate work. It was during this time that Grauer began working as a designer at the Decorative Stained Glass Co. in Philadelphia.
Following his World War I service in France, Grauer moved to Akron, Ohio where he opened a studio in 1919 with his future brother-in-law, the architect George Evans...
Category
1950s American Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Girl with the Golden Curls
By Everett Shinn
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Girl with the Golden Curls
Watercolor, c. 1895
Unsigned
Provenance: Davis Galleries, New York (see photo of label on reverse)
Condition: Mounted to support by the artist
A few imperfections (bubbles) in the mounting
Original frame
Image size: 6 3/4 x 4 1/2 inches
Frame size: 13-1/2 x 11-1/4 x 3/4 inches
A charming pre Ashcan work by the artist. Done while he was making his living as a commercial illustrator for advertsing and magazines.
Everett Shinn (1876-1953)
In 1897, Shinn moved to New York City to work as an illustrator at the New York World. He became fascinated by the drama of the city. While visiting Europe in 1900, Shinn took interest in the work of the Impressionists, particularly those of Degas. Degas’ influence can be read in Shinn’s depictions of American theater. From his acquaintances in the theater world, Shinn began to paint decorative “rococo revivalist” murals in the homes of the wealthy elite. He also worked extensively in pastel, portraying the rough life of the city. In 1908, Shinn exhibited alongside his Charcoal Club associates, with the addition of Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast...
Category
1890s American Impressionist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Untitled (Abstraction)
By Rolph Scarlett
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Abstraction)
Ink on textured paper, c. 1958
Signed lower right "Scarlett" (see photo)
Condition: Excellent
Archival framing with OP3 Acrylic
Sheet size: 21 3/4 x 30 inches
Frame size: 28 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches
Note: A rare mid to late 1950s example of the artist's abstract expressionist style.
Provenance: estate of the artist
Private Collection, Hudson River Valley, New York
Rolph Scarlett
B. 1889, GUELPH, ONTARIO; D. 1984, WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK
Born on June 13, 1889 in Guelph, Canada, and into an artistic family, Rolph Scarlett spent his teenage years as an apprentice in his uncle’s jewelry firm and briefly studied at the Art Students League, New York. While working in the jewelry industry, Scarlett found time to paint and design theatrical sets in his free time, including one for the 1928 world premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s drama Lazarus Laughed (1926). In 1923, while on a business trip to Switzerland, Scarlett had met the artist Paul Klee and soon after abandoned his figurative painting style in favor of an abstract language that suggested more universal, cosmic truths.
In 1937, after permanently settling in New York, Scarlett became acquainted with the artist and curator Hilla Rebay, the first director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952). Rebay provided Scarlett with a Guggenheim Foundation scholarship to paint full-time and obtained several of his paintings for the museum’s collection. From 1940 to 1946, Scarlett served as the museum’s chief lecturer, giving Sunday afternoon talks on art. Through Rebay, Scarlett became acquainted with the nonobjective works of Rudolf Bauer and Vasily Kandinsky and further refined his abstract style. Works from this era such as Yellow Bar (1942) are defined by overlapping geometric planes of bright, primary colors set against mute backgrounds. Scarlett avoided any reference to the outside world and believed that nonobjective painting was an act, in his words, of “pure creation.”
During his lifetime, solo shows of his work were held at the Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York (1949); Sioux City Art Center, Iowa (1951); and Washburn Gallery...
Category
1950s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Playing with Lives (First Responder)
By Darius Steward
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Playing with Lives (First Responder)
Watercolor on Arches paper, 2020
Signed with the artist's initials lower right
Signed with the artist's embossed "Yummy" blindstamp lower right
...
Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Dad Taught Me to Be Brave, No. 3
By Darius Steward
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Dad Taught Me to Be Brave , No. 3 (Hand touching lips)
Signed with the artist's initials.
Watercolor on Yupo paper
Series: Dad Taught Me to Be Brave (3 waterc...
Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Stolen Moments #2
By Darius Steward
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Stolen Moments #2
Watercolor on Twinrocker All Purpose Paper
Signed with the artist's initials lower right (see photo)
From the series: Stolen Moments
Signed with the artist's "Yummy...
Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Standing Nude, hand on a plinth
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Standing Nude, hand on a plinth
Graphite on paper, c. 1900
Signed with a double tri lobed symbol upper left corner (see photo)
Condition: excellent, slight surface dirt
Sheet size: 1...
Category
Early 1900s Art Nouveau Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Graphite
Untitled (Joe and Patsy LoGuidice at the Casa Luna)
By Larry Rivers
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Joe and Patsy LoGuidice at the Casa Luna)
Pastel, charcoal and colored pencil, 1970-1975
Signed lower right in pencil: Larry Rivers
Inscribed on the rabbit of the original white frame: LOGUIDICE in ink
Provenance: Private Collection, New York (Westchester County)
Condition: Excellent
Image size: 31 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches
Frame size: 39 1/2 x 32 1/2 inches
Note: The image depicts Ciprian “Joe” LoGuidice (d. 2008) and his wife Patsy with their dog (Golden Retriever?) in their famous house Casa Luna, located in Zihautenajo, Mexico. Joe LoGuidice had a most colorful life as stated in his memorial posting by Pam Barkentin:
Ciprian "Joe" LoGiudice, of Los Angeles and Zihautanejo, Mexico Art Dealer, Political Activist, Environmentalist, Film Producer, and Executor of the Terry Southern Estate died at home in Los Angeles on September 3, 2008. A major benefactor of the Chicago Seven, he hosted a benefit for the anti-war activists at his Ontario Street Gallery in Chicago and later harbored the fugitive Abbie Hoffman in Zihautenajo where Joe designed and built the famous Casa Luna, the house without walls, in a compound that included Larry River's Studio as well as the garden where Julian Schnabel painted with the assistance of Ramon Pedrazo, Joe's gardener and the husband of his faithful housekeeper, Concha Pedrazo. Here at Casa Luna, from the early seventies on, Joe and his wife, Patsy, generously hosted friends and enemies alike with great enthusiasm and humor.Most recently, through his participation in "Save the Bay", Joe was instrumental in preventing cruise ships from anchoring in the Bay of Zihautanejo. He was also producing "Five Easy Steps to Metaphysical Fitness", a documentary about the philosopher/comic, Emily Levine. Christo's first wrapping of a building in the United States, the Chicago Museum of Art, was produced by LoGiudice. Other artists he represented, in both his Chicago and New York Galleries, included John Chamberlin, Larry Poons, Mark de Suvero, Leon Golub and Jules Olitski. Joe is survived by his wife of 25 years, Patsy Cummings.
An important work by Rivers showing his friend and art dealer in their famous house, Casa Luna, in Mexico. The cultural import of LoGuidice cannot be understated. He was a major figure in the New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles art cultures. The artist’s who were his friends and guests were many of the leading icons of late 20th century art.
Larry Rivers
Larry Rivers in 1961
Born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg
August 17, 1923
Bronx, New York, U.S.
Died August 14, 2002 (aged 78)
Southampton, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Education Hans Hofmann School
Known for Painting, sculpture
Movement East Coast figurative painting, new realism, pop art
Spouse(s) Augusta Berger (m. 1945; div. 1946)
Clarice Price (m. 1961; sep. 1967)
Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg, August 17, 1923 – August 14, 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, Long Island, and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.
Early life
Larry Rivers was born in the Bronx to Samuel and Sonya Grossberg, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. From 1940–1945 he worked as a jazz saxophonist in New York City, changing his name to Larry Rivers in 1940 after being introduced as "Larry Rivers and the Mudcats" at a local pub. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music in 1945–46, along with Miles Davis, with whom he remained friends until Davis's death in 1991.
Training and career
Larry Rivers in 1961
Rivers is considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, because he was one of the first artists to really merge non-objective, non-narrative art with narrative and objective abstraction.
Rivers took up painting in 1945 and studied at the Hans Hofmann School from 1947–48. He earned a BA in art education from New York University in 1951. He was a pop artist of the New York School, reproducing everyday objects of American popular culture as art. He was one of eleven New York artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery in 1955. During the early 1960s Rivers lived in the Hotel Chelsea, notable for its artistic residents such as Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Arthur C. Clarke, Dylan Thomas, Sid Vicious and multiple people associated with Andy Warhol's Factory and where he brought several of his French nouveau réalistes friends like Yves Klein who wrote there in April 1961 his Manifeste de l'hôtel Chelsea, Arman, Martial Raysse, Jean Tinguely, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Christo, Daniel Spoerri or Alain Jacquet, several of whom left, like him, some pieces of art in the lobby of the hotel for payment of their rooms. In 1965 Rivers had his first comprehensive retrospective in five important American museums.
His final work for the exhibition was The History of the Russian Revolution, which was later on extended permanent display at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. During 1967 he was in London collaborating with the American painter Howard Kanovitz. In 1968, Rivers traveled to Africa for a second time with Pierre Dominique Gaisseau to finish their documentary Africa and I, which was a part of the groundbreaking NBC series Experiments in Television. During this trip they narrowly escaped execution as suspected mercenaries.[citation needed]
During the 1970s Rivers worked closely with Diana Molinari and Michel Auder on many video tape projects, including the infamous Tits, and also worked in neon.
Rivers's legs appeared in John Lennon and Yoko Ono's 1971 film Up Your Legs Forever.
Personal life
Rivers married Augusta Berger in 1945, and they had one son, Steven. Rivers also adopted Berger's son from a previous relationship, Joseph, and reared both children after the couple divorced. He married Clarice Price in 1961, a Welsh school teacher who cared for his two sons. Rivers and Clarice Price had two daughters, Gwynne and Emma. After six years, they separated.
Shortly after, he lived and collaborated with Diana Molinari, who featured in many of his works of the 1970s. After that Rivers lived with Sheila Lanham, a Baltimore artist...
Category
1970s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pastel
Chain Gang Music
By Stephen Longstreet
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Chain Gang Music
Watercolor on paper, dated '39, but created in the 1970's
Signed "Longstreet" lower left corner
Titled and annotated "George - '39" in pencil at top of sheet
Provenance: Acquired from the artist
Joseph M. Erdelac, friend and patron of the artist
Born Henri Weiner (sometimes spelled Wiener), the artist tried alternate names and personae including Paul Haggard, Thomas Burton, and David Ormsbee before settling on the name Stephen Longstreet in 1939. Longstreet dates his art based on the period he means to represent, not the actual date of execution.
Stephen Longstreet (1907-2002)
The artist’s own grandchildren attempt to fathom the real life and nature of Stephen Longstreet, prolific author, artist, screenplay writer, and jazz aficionado.
Born Chauncy Weiner (sometimes spelled Wiener) in New York City in 1907, Longstreet reinvented himself on a regular basis. Changing his name first to “Henry,” then “Henri,” he started his career as a commercial artist for a department store. In various public biographies he claimed to have studied in New York, London, and Paris, and said he was a student of cartoonist Ralph Barton...
Category
1970s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Jazmen
By Sedrick Huckaby
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Jazmen
Pen and ink on paper, 2013
Signed and titled lower right (see photo)
Annotated: “I want to go to Dunbar,…because my friends are there…”
Series: The 99% - Highland Hills
Exhibited: Valley House Gallery, Everyday Glory, Dec. 4, 2013-Jan. 11, 2014
Illustrated: Everyday Glory, page 45
Condition: excellent
Sheet size: 14 x 10 7/16 inches
Provenance: Valley House Gallery (no. 18597)
Sedrick Huckaby (b. 1975)
Born in Fort Worth in 1975, Huckaby has been creating some form of art since his childhood. In 1995, he began his formal art studies at Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth. After a brief stay he transferred to Boston University, where he received a BFA degree. He then earned a MFA degree from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
Huckaby is known for his powerful use of color and his exploration of cultural roles and the heritage of the African American family. His work has evolved from portraiture to objects and interiors that venerate his personal family legacy rooted in Fort Worth, Texas. Portraying these familiar subjects on a large scale and pushing his use of materials, Huckaby defines the significance of family and tradition while touching on the subject of ethnographic stereotypes in our culture.
For the past few years he has concentrated his efforts on a series of quilt paintings. One of the series he created is a tribute to both of his Grandmothers and a celebration of the African American quilting tradition. He used the actual quilts sewn by family members as models for his paintings. These quilts document significant events in his family history. According to Huckaby, the paintings represent an artistic family legacy. The colorful, rhythmic abstracted patterns come together like the musical notes in African American musician John Coltrane's famous jazz composition, A Love Supreme, from which the painting series acquired its name.
He has earned national acclaim for his work over the past several years. Huckaby has received the 2001 Louis Comfort Tiffany Award...
Category
2010s American Realist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Ink
Breaking Up of the Penelope
By Edward Dobrotka
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Breaking Up of the Penelope
watercolor on artists watercolor board, 1942
Signed and dated by the artist lower right (see photo)
Exhibitions:
Cleveland, OH, The Cleveland Museum of Art, May 3 - June 11, 1944: "The 26th Annual Ehibition of Works by Artists and Craftsmen of the Western Reserve," , (label on verso)
Youngstown OH, The Butler Insititue of American Art, 1943: "1943 New Year Show," , (label on verso)
"Ed Dobrotka was one of comic-book illustrator Joe Shuster's early assistants. In the studio, he worked on the 'Superman' series, inking the pencils of artists including Shuster, John Sikela, Leo Nowak and Wayne Boring.
Dobrotka did do some pencilling of his own, however he returned to inking exclusively in 1945. In the following years, he worked with Sikela on the 'Superboy' series until the 1950s. He has also work on the solo 'Lois Lane...
Category
1940s American Realist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
The Mouth of Honey
By George Wesley Bellows
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Mouth of Honey
Lithographic crayon and mixed media on paper mounted to support paper
Initialed by the artist "GB" bottom center on image. (see photo)
Titled in pencil in bottom m...
Category
1920s Ashcan School Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Crayon
Young Lady in Profile
By Harrison M. Fisher
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Young Lady in Profile (Dorothy Gibson)
Graphite on paper, c. 1915
Signed lower right (see photo).
The sitter for this drawing, along with a huge number of Harrison Fisher’s works, is the model, turned actress, Miss Dorothy Winifred Gibson (1889-1946).
She was one of the lucky ones who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. There is an in depth biographical sketch available on Wiki.
"Dorothy Winifred Gibson (1889-1946) is arguably one of the most fascinating women of the twentieth century. Her story is more than deserving of its own film or TV show and yet, if it was to ever appear on the screen, it would be in serious danger of being criticised as ‘too unbelievable’ or ‘farfetched’. But believe me, readers, everything I am about to tell you about Dorothy Gibson is true...
Early Life
Dorothy Winifred Gibson (originally Dorothy Winifred Brown, before her father died when she was three years old and her mother remarried), was born in New Jersey on 17 May 1889. Between 1906 and 1911 (aged 17-22), she appeared on stage as a singer and dancer in a number of theatre and vaudeville productions, and in 1909 she began modelling for Harrison Fisher, a famous commercial artist. Dorothy soon became Fisher’s favourite muse, and her image was seen regularly on postcards, merchandising products and even on the covers of magazines like Cosmopolitan. During this time, Dorothy met and married a pharmacist named George Henry Battier Jr, but the couple soon separated and were divorced by 1913.
As early as 1911, Dorothy began appearing in movies, starting out as an extra but soon taking the leading roles in a series of films by Éclair Studios. Praised for her natural acting style and comedic flair, she was a huge hit – and arguably the first actress to be promoted as a star in her own right.
Surviving the sinking of the RMS Titanic
On 17 March 1912, after starring in a string of movies, Dorothy and her mother, Pauline, took a trip to Europe – but after a few weeks Dorothy was called back to America by the studio to start working on a new series of films. Dorothy and her mother were in Paris when they booked their tickets on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic, and boarded at Cherbourg on 10th April.
On the night the ship sank, Dorothy had ‘spent a pleasant Sunday evening playing bridge with a couple of friendly New York bankers’ (her words, in an interview with the New York Dramatic Mirror). Despite the request of a steward for them to finish, they carried on with their game and it was not until about 11:40pm that Dorothy returned to the stateroom she shared with her mother. It was at that point that she felt ‘a long drawn, sickening crunch’ and, while not exactly alarmed, she decided nonetheless to investigate. Quickly noticing that the deck was ‘lopsided’, she rushed back to her room to fetch her mother, and the pair returned to the boat deck. Dorothy and her mother escaped from the ship on the first lifeboat launched (number 7), and given how quiet it was on the boat deck at the time, she asked her bridge partners to join them.
However, events took a turn for the worst when a hole was found in the bottom of the lifeboat, causing icy cold water to rush in and almost flood the boat. Luckily, though, Dorothy explained, ‘this was remedied by volunteer contributions from the lingerie of the women and the garments of men.’
It is hard for us now to imagine the terrors of that night – and the emotional damage it caused to those who survived. After the event, Dorothy told the Moving Picture World, ‘I will never forget the terrible cry that rang out from people who were thrown into the sea and others who were afraid for their loved ones.’ Unbelievably, though, Dorothy was to re-enact the experience a mere five days after it happened, when she starred in the first film about the disaster. It was a silent movie, called Saved From The Titanic, and was actually hugely successful and the first of many hit films about the sinking. In the movie, Dorothy even wore the same clothes she had been wearing when the ship sank – a white silk dress underneath a cardigan and polo coat.
Shortly after the release of Saved from the Titanic Dorothy gave up acting.
An affair to remember...
Category
1910s American Impressionist Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Graphite
Snowy Peaks (Mont Blanc)
By Robert Hallowell
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Snowy Peaks (Mont Blanc)
Watercolor on paper, c. 1930
Signed "R. Hallowell" lower right (see photo)
The image depicts is of Mont Blanc in France.
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe, rising 4,807.81 m above sea level. It is the second-most prominent mountain in Europe, after Mount Elbrus, and it is the eleventh most prominent mountain summit in the world. Wikipedia
Provenance:
From the Estate of the Artist
Marbella Gallery, NYC (label)
Exhibited and Illustrated: Robert Hallowell (1886-1939), Marbella Gallery, New York, Introduction by Ronald G. Pisano, No. 99.
“There is in Mr. Hallowell’s work a grace that amounts to graciousness.”
Leo Stein (1872-1949)
Robert Hallowell (1886-1939) was highly regarded as an artist exhibiting at the finest galleries and museums in American and France in the 1920’s and 1930’s. His other professional life included graduating from Phillips Academy, Andover and Harvard University. While at Harvard he was president of the Harvard Lampoon...
Category
1930s American Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Femme nue de dos allongee
By Théophile Alexandre Steinlen
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Femme nue de dos allongee
Charcoal and white chalk on laid paper
Signed in charcoal, lower right "Steinlen" (see photo)
Note: Similar reclining nude drawing illustrated Slatkin No. 12 (See window on right)
Similar drawing, same model, same media, Proute 1971, Catalog Dandre Bardon, no. 115
There also other similar finished drawings of nudes in similar poses and with the same couch, white blanket...
Category
1920s French School Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Charcoal, Chalk
Night Life at the Moulin Rouge
By Henry Somm
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Night Life at the Moulin Rouge
Pen and ink drawing, c. 1890
Signed lower left (see photo)
A scene of the night life near the Moulin Rouge, Paris. The Moulin Rouge is the famous cabaret located in the old wind mill building in the right distance of this image. It was the center of fin de siecle culture in Paris.
Condition: Slight yellowing to the sheet from age.
Sight size: 9 x 5 3/4 inches
Frame size: 14-1/8 x 10-3/4 x 1/2"
Provenance: Eric G. Carlson (1940-2016), art historian and noted art dealer
François Clément Sommier, best known under the pseudonym “Henry Somm,” was born in Rouen in 1844. He attended the local École municipale des beaux-arts and went on in 1867 to Paris, where he studied under Isidore Pils (1813-1875).
“Somm is above all a painter and his watercolors are much sought after; he has the painter’s eye to the highest degree imaginable.” Louis Morin, Somm’s fellow artist revealed in 1893 that while his training as an academic painter forged his draughsmanship and an acute eye for colors, Somm preferred and excelled in the graphic realm. Particularly prolific, he produced a very extensive corpus of 7,500 drawings and prints, many of which were widely reproduced in journals and magazines.
In 1867, Somm’s career reached a turning point with the discovery of Japanese culture through his friendship with French collector and critic Philippe Burty and a visit to the Paris International Exhibition. More generally, Japanese art and especially Japanese woodblock prints exerted a heavy influence on French artists at the time, and especially on the Impressionists, who were particularly inspired by the subject matter, as well as the innovative use of perspective, composition and color. Although technically not an Impressionist by pure definition, Somm’s interest in the effect of atmospheric light on shadow and color prompted Edgar Degas to invite him to participate in their 4th exhibition in 1879. However, Somm did not exhibit again with the Impressionists, and was never considered a member of the group. Rather, his work intersects between Impressionism, Symbolism and Japonism. In fact, while his drypoints and etchings reflect a more literal borrowing of Japanese elements than the work of Whistler or Monet, they also clearly anticipate the future work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
Although Somm was 20 years older than Toulouse-Lautrec, both artists developed a friendship, as habitués of the Chat noir, a cabaret founded by Rodolphe Salis and located 84 boulevard de Rochechouart in Montmartre. More than a cabaret, the Chat noir also became an important gathering place for writers, poets, composers, musicians, and artists living in Montmartre. For Somm, a founding member of this artistic circle, it also served as a unique environment, where he could express his limitless imagination as active participant to the events – notably the literary soirées organized by the hydropathic group – and illustrator of the Chat noir journal.
In 1886, Somm, in collaboration with Georges Auriol, initiated the Chat noir’s first puppet show, which subsequently evolved into shadow theater. Somm’s Japonism and sense of humor appealed to Toulouse-Lautrec, and this influence is echoed in Lautrec posters advertising two other Montmartre nightspots, namely Le Mirliton and Le Divan Japonais...
Category
Late 19th Century French School Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
Interior Scene with Figures
By Louis Schanker
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Interior Scene with Figures
Ink and watercolor on paper, c. 1930's
Signed with the Estate stamp lower center
Condition: Loss upper right corner; two small tears lower margin
Colors very fresh and vibrant
Provenance: Jem Hom Gallery, Washington, D.C.
Martin Dimanond Fine Arts, NYC (?)
Louis Schanker (1903–1981)[1] was an American abstract artist.
"He grew up in an Orthodox Jewish environment in the Bronx, New York. His parents, Sam, a tailor, and Fannie Schanker, were of Romanian descent.[2] He had five siblings.[3] At an early age he had an interest in both art and music He took art courses at Cooper Union, The Educational Alliance and The Art Students League with Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko and Milton Avery amongst others. During this time he shared a coldwater studio with the Soyer brothers, Chaim Gross and Adolph Gottlieb. In 1920 he traveled across the country. He lived the hobo life, joined the Sparks and then Barnum and Bailey circuses, later working as a thresher in the wheat fields of the Great Plains. There are elements in his works such as the circus murals...
Category
1930s American Modern Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Watercolor
Cows in a Field (Recto) Two Figures in an Interior (Verso)
By Louis Schanker
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Cows in a Field (Recto)
Two Figures in an Interior (Verso)
Watercolor on heavy textured paper, 1938
Signed in ink verso image of Two Figures, unsigned ...
Category
1930s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Watercolor
Preparatory drawing for Figure Composition, Carmel (CA.)
By E. Ambrose Webster
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Preparatory drawing for Figure Composition, Carmel (CA)
Graphite on paper, 1931
Signed with the artist's initial "W" lower right corner (see photo)...
Category
1930s American Modern Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Volunteer Firemen, Provincetown
By E. Ambrose Webster
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Preparatory drawing for Volunteer Firemen, Provincetown
Graphite on paper, 1932
Initialed in pencil by the artist lower left: W
Provenance:
Estate of the artist, 1935
Georgianna Webs...
Category
1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
Veillee Sepulchrale; Verso: Study of two figures in a landscape
By Eugene Berman
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Veillee Sepulchrale
Verso: Study of two figures in a landscape
Pen and ink on rose colored Canson watermark paper, 1944
Signed in ink with the artist's initials lower center (see photo)
Dated 1944 lower center;
Titled in ink upper left corner (see photo)
Provenance:
Swann Galleries, 2010, realized $900.
John Popplestone (1928-2013), Akron, OH collector, noted psychologist and author
Berman brothers (painters)
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This article is about the painters. For the American songwriters/producers, see Berman Brothers (producers).
Eugene Berman in Italy in the 1960s
Eugène Berman (Russian: Евгений Густавович Берман; 4 November 1899, Saint Petersburg, Russia – 14 December 1972, Rome) and his brother Leonid Berman (1896 – 1976[1]) were Russian Neo-romantic painters and theater and opera designers.
Contents
1 Early years
2 Later years and death
2.1 Works
3 Legacy
4 See also
5 References
Early years
Born in Russia, the Bermans fled the Russian revolution in 1918. In Paris the Bermans exhibited at the Galerie Pierre where their work earned them the name "Neo-Romantics" for its melancholy and introspective qualities, having taken inspiration from the Blue Period paintings of Pablo Picasso. Other Neo-Romantic painters were Christian Bérard, Pavel Tchelitchev, Kristians...
Category
1940s Surrealist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Pen, Ink
Study of a Seated Woman and Two Smaller Studies of the Same
By Henirich Schwemminger
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study of a Seated Woman and Two Smaller Studies of the Same
Unsigned
Annotated: "Roma" (Rome)
Black chalk heightened with white chalk on buff wove paper
Sheet size: 11 x 8 1/2 inches
Frame size: 17 5/8 x 13 5/8 inches
Condition: Good. Slight staining and discoloration verso.
Surface soiling and staining. A few scattered foxmarks. The bottom left corner reattached and backed. Splits at the top corner - backed. A small split at top right corner. A small loss and a hole at top left edge.
Framed with conservation glass.
Provenance:
Spencer A. Samuels & Co., NY
Michael Miller...
Category
19th Century Academic Nude Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Chalk
Untitled
By Peter Marks
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled Abstraction
Unsigned
Mixed media, c. 2003-2004
Provenance:
Estate of the artist
Peter Marks (1935 -2010)
Peter Marks was born in New York City on January 18, 1935. A life...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Mixed Media
Materials
Mixed Media
Chicken Ride
By Reginald Marsh
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Chicken Ride
Pen and ink on paper, c. 1940
Unsigned
Annotated by the artist with his color intentions
Preliminary study for "Chicken Ride," watercolor, 1940, in the collection of Mr...
Category
1940s American Modern Drawings and Watercolor Paintings
Materials
Ink
Study of Corn with Nicotaina
By Charles E. Burchfield
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Study of Corn with Nicotaina
Signed with the artist's monogram and dated lower left
Crayon on paper laid down on support paper by the artist
Inscribed with title, date and dimensions...
Category
1960s American Modern Still-life Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite