Skip to main content

Carl Holty Art

American, 1900-1973
Born in Freiburg, Germany, Carl Holty moved with his parents to a Germain community in Milwaukee when he was an infant. He began studying art at the Milwaukee Normal School under instructors who had trained in Europe and later continued his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1919, following a summer at an artists' colony in Saugatuck, Michigan, Holty enrolled at Parsons School of Design and the National Academy of Design, both in New York. He briefly considering entering medical school, his father’s profession, though with the help of his grandfather, returned to Germany to continue his art education. It was at Hans Hofman’s school that Holty would be introduced to the principles of modernist composition and ideas in painting and drawing, an influence he would consider his main focus throughout his career. Hofmann "first opened my eyes to the plastic nature of drawing." Holty once recalled. Displaying no interest in the predominant style of expressionism, popular in Germany at the time, Holty focused on the tenants of Cubism, Fauvism, and Futurism which lead him, in 1928, to relocate to Paris. Holty quickly became part of the active artistic community in the nation’s capital associating with many of the major figures of international avant-garde art including Miro, Mondrian, Arp, and Delaunay, the latter of which sponsored Holty to become one of only two American members of the Abstraction-Creation group founded by Theo Van Doesburg. Holty returned to America in 1936 becoming a significant figure in the development of abstract art. He reconnected with his old mentor Hans Hofmann and developed friendships with many of the City’s rising artist’s including Vaclav Vytlacil whom he had known in Paris. It was this group that formed the American Abstract Artists association, where Holty would serve as chairman in 1938 and with whom he’d exhibit with through 1944. It was during this period Holty abandoned Cubism for Biomorphism, leaving behind edges to explore shapes and forms that ultimately lead to his color field paintings of the mid 1950s and through the remainder of his career.
(Biography provided by Taylor Graham)
to
9
8
5
4
4
1
2
2
Overall Height
to
Overall Width
to
6
9
3
1
1
9
6,934
3,277
2,514
1,216
8
8
6
6
1
Artist: Carl Holty
Mosaic II
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Appropriately called the "Mosaic" period for important historical artist Carl Holty, this is a super example! His color use during this time frame was lively as he always used sky b...
Category

1940s Abstract Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Abstracted pair of oil paintings by Carl Holty
By Carl Holty
Located in Hudson, NY
These artworks by Carl Holty are only sold as a pair. Each painting measures 9" x 11" and framed 18" x 20.25" x 2.5" The red and gold work is signed "Carl Holty" in the lower right. About this artists: Carl Holty was awakened to his interest in art as a child through visits to the Layton Art Gallery of Milwaukee, and began painting lessons with Friedrich Wilhelm Heine at a young age. Though born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1900, he was raised in Wisconsin and enrolled at Marquette University. Before long, Holty abandoned his pre-medical studies in order to pursue art. He spent a summer at the School of the Chicago Art Institute in Saugatuck, Michigan, and set off for New York in 1920. He then studied at the National Academy of Design under Francis Coates Jones...
Category

1940s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Bold German American Abstract Expressionist Color Field Oil Painting Carl Holty
By Carl Holty
Located in Surfside, FL
Carl Robert Holty (American 1900-1973) Abstract Expressionism Oil on Masonite board. Abstract with greens blues and red, Dimensions 12 x 9-1/2 inches. Framed 17 X 14 inches Hand...
Category

20th Century Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Figure Study
By Carl Holty
Located in Lawrence, NY
Signed, E Holty, (Elizabeth Holty, artist's widow) and inscribed, 1142, on verso of mount. Provenance; Private Collection, NY; Gary Snyder Fine Art, NY. ...
Category

1940s Cubist Carl Holty Art

Materials

India Ink

Red, Blue, Green abstract mid century
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Abstract, 1959 is a sophisticated Carl Holty, experimentingn with color, space, and form. Framed in a new white lacquer frame of high quality. An important artist in Art History wh...
Category

1950s Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Twelfth Night Blue, Contemporary Color Field painting
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Conceived of as one half of a diptych, together with Twelfth Night Red, the title of this painting suggest a reference to William Shakespeare’s play Twel...
Category

Late 20th Century Color-Field Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Red Gray #5
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Holty did a series of works that explored the use of varying tones of Gray with other colors. This was done during his Colorfield foray as he pioneered this movement along with such...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Mountain Wall
By Carl Holty
Located in Missouri, MO
Mountain Wall, 1962 By Carl Holty (1900-1973) Unframed: 12" x 9" Framed: 19.5" x 16.5" Signed Lower Left Known for his floating, luminous, highly-colorful forms, Carl Holty belongs ...
Category

20th Century Abstract Carl Holty Art

Materials

Oil, Panel

Blue with Green and Grey Spots
By Carl Holty
Located in Missouri, MO
Blue with Green and Grey Spots By Carl Holty (1900-1973) Signed Lower Right Unframed: 16" x 20" Framed: 17" x 21" Known for his floating, luminous, highly-colorful forms, Carl Holty...
Category

20th Century Abstract Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Related Items
Pastel-Toned Abstract Impressionist Venice Grand Canal Landscape
By Jane Peterson
Located in Houston, TX
Pastel pink, blue, and purple toned Venice Canal abstract impressionist landscape by American artist Jane Peterson. This painting depicts what seems to be an early morning scene feat...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Impressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Arapahoe XII
By Ludwig Sander
Located in Austin, TX
Oil on canvas. Signed, titled, dated verso. 40 x 44 in. 41.5 x 45.5 in. (framed) Custom framed in a natural cherry floater. Provenance Knoedler Contemporary, New York Ludwig Sand...
Category

1970s Color-Field Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Original Leonardo Nierman Abstract Painting Oil on Masonite Framed Purple
By Leonardo Nierman
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original oil on masonite painting by well listed Mexican artist Leonardo Nierman. This work comes in a unique gold frame presentation which is likely original to the piece. Si...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Looking Away - Figurative Abstract
By Daniel David Fuentes
Located in Soquel, CA
A figurative abstract painting on masonite by San Francisco, California area artist Daniel David Fuentes (American, 1978-2016). San Francisco Bay Area abstract expressionist and land...
Category

1990s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Shimmering Pond in the Woods Abstract 1960
By Rose Herzog
Located in Soquel, CA
Highly textured abstract composition by Rose Herzog (American, mid-20th Century). This piece includes the use of tissue paper, fibers, and other materials to create raised, textured ...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Cotton, Masonite, Mixed Media, Oil, Tissue Paper

Untitled Abstract Landscape
By Morris Shulman
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Beautiful abstract expressionist landscape by American artist, Morris Shulman (1912-1978). Untitled Landscape, 1958. Oil on masonite panel measures 24 x 36 inches. Signed and dated l...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Cubist Charcoal Figure Drawing on Paper
Located in Soquel, CA
Cubist Charcoal Figure Drawing on Paper Rich figurative drawing with wonderful depth to the composition by unknown artist. Artist has a strong command over charcoal as a medium, wit...
Category

1940s Cubist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

"Aerial Composition" - Mid Century Magenta & Red Abstract
By Anna Ballarian
Located in Soquel, CA
Emotive abstract in warm colors by Anna Ballarian (American, 1918-2010), playing with deep contextualized Magenta and Ochre and blurred collage blocks to an extraordinary Kinetic aff...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

Reflection II-abstract painting, made in sky blue, pink, beige, grey color
By Galin R
Located in Fort Lee, NJ
About the Artist: Art Decorator, working in contemporary colors for interiors. "I love to draw from an early age, so my profession was predetermined. After graduating from Art Scho...
Category

2010s Abstract Carl Holty Art

Materials

Cotton Canvas, Oil

Rock Candy Mountain (unique, signed Abstract Expressionist painting)
By Ben Wilson
Located in New York, NY
Ben Wilson Rock Candy Mountain, ca. 1970 Oil on masonite board (Hand Signed, titled and dated) Hand signed, titled and dated by Ben Wilson on the back Frame Included: held in artist's original vintage 1970 wood frame This stunning painting with candy colors is done by the second generation Abstract Expressionist artist Ben Wilson - one of the youngest artists to be given a show at prestigious ACA Gallery in 1940. In 2017, he was the subject of a career retrospective at the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University from September 6 to November 4 and it was accompanied by a catalogue. Measurements: Frame: 23.5 x 47.5 x 1 inch Artwork: 25 x 49 inches About Ben Wilson: Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia in 1913 to Jewish parents who had emigrated from Kiev and settled in New York City. He was educated in Manhattan public schools and graduated from City College in 1935. To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his first one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reflecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identified strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specific imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Influenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, influenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplified in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Masonite, Oil

1960s Paul Feeley School Color Field Painting
Located in Larchmont, NY
School of Paul Feeley Untitled, c. 1960s Oil on canvas 20 x 59 5/8 in. Signed lower right Primarily a painter, Paul Feeley (American, 1910 - 1966) favored canvases with simple geome...
Category

1970s Color-Field Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Abstract Figures and Landscape, Surreal Line Drawing Composition
By David Rosen (b.1912)
Located in Soquel, CA
Dynamic surrealist line drawing of figures in an abstracted landscape by David Rosen (Canadian, 1912-2004). Signed "Rosen" in the lower right corner. Presented in a new tan mat with ...
Category

Late 20th Century Surrealist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Paper, India Ink

Previously Available Items
Federation, pastel colored abstraction
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Very contemporary yet a period abstraction by an artist president of the American Abstract Artists Group. This clear, crisp, and pastel-colored abstraction by Carl Holty is a marvelo...
Category

1940s Abstract Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Dark Blue Abstraction
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
Dark Blue is exceptional abstraction that has Cubist elements but is moving toward the exploration of Colorfield painting. The fragmented forms and use of a...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Canadian Return
By Carl Holty
Located in Greenwich, CT
During some periods of Holty’s abstract painting career, he would allow certain representational forms emerge in his works, as he does with the Moon and sense of clouds and atmospher...
Category

1960s Abstract Expressionist Carl Holty Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Carl Holty art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Carl Holty art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Carl Holty in oil paint, paint, canvas and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Carl Holty art, so small editions measuring 7 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Paul Burlin, Robert Goodnough, and Fred Mitchell. Carl Holty art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $3,500 and tops out at $55,000, while the average work can sell for $18,000.

Artists Similar to Carl Holty

Recently Viewed

View All