"Five Olympic Rowers", Monumental 1930s Painting of Nude Male Oarsmen

An extraordinary example of Art Deco painting with allegorical meaning -- like so many murals painted in the 1920s and 1930s -- this large work by William L'Engle depicts five nude male figures laboring in the field, symbolizing life in Provincetown, Massachusetts. A Black male figure in the foreground is planting crops, while two other figures in the distance are pulling a rope, perhaps alluding to fishing boats tied up at the dock, while another nude seems to be sinking into sleep beneath a pier -- all with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean in the background. L'Engle called this "The Five Josephs," perhaps referring to Joseph of Arimathea and other figures in the New Testament. William L'Engle was a towering figure in the Provincetown art colony, and was extremely well connected with America's artistic elite, starting with his trip to Europe as a young man with Waldo Pierce and George Biddle. Over time, William and his life Lucy became close to a wide range of important figures in painting, theater and the arts, including Charles Hawthorne, Eugene O'Neill, Gerrit Beneker, John Dos Passos, Edmund Wilson and Mary McCarthy, William and Marguerite Zorach, Edna St. Vincent-Millay, Charles Demuth, Childe Hassam, George Biddle, Edwin Dickinson...

Strikingly and vividly painted in watery tones of blue, green, tan and rose, this watercolor painting by Jean Paul Slusser depicts three nude male bathers...

Brilliantly hued and striking in composition, this painting by famed Broadway designer Raoul Pene du Bois is one of his largest works we have ever seen. Perhaps a study for one of hi...

Monumental and quite extraordinary, this utopian scene -- all cast in a lovely, warm glow -- depicts a wide range of nude figures, mostly male, in a grassy river valley between mount...

Suffused with the rich, subdued colors of the WPA period, this painting by Maryland artist Larry Rodda depicts a male and female nude couple sitting on a grassy spot overlooking an a...

Painted in an era when African or African American figures were increasingly featured in painting and sculpture, both in America and Europe, this sensuous depiction of a black male figure by Rowena Meeks Abdy...

French nude painting (oil on canvas) with original frame signed Maubri.

Wilhelm Christens - female nude 64cm x 42cm (frame excluded) - oil on canvas applied to rigid cardboard 1920s Christens, Wilhelm (1878 Düsseldorf - 1964) He attended the Karl...

Great Italian artist Francesco Galante wonderful oil on round canvas painting Modern art Nude of a Seated Woman signed lower left by Francesco Galante. Brass label with name and da...

Art Deco painting in oil on canvas illustrating a young nude woman, pensive, half lying down, in front and the face resting on her right hand. Her skin is clear and she wears a short hairstyle in the fashion of the 30s. A certain light emanates from this work which takes up a classic theme of Western art: the female nude. This Art Deco painting is not signed but can be linked to the work of the French...

Monumental Harley Francis abstract male nudes oil painting on canvas Offered for sale is a monumental abstract oil painting by Harley Frances ( 1940...

Italian male nude oil painting on wood panel, circa 1930. Stunning and unusual framed Italian male nude oil painting on a wood panel. This Italian A...