"Floating Man, " Important Art Deco Painting with Nude Male by Dunbar Beck

This warm and vivid painting -- probably made in response to the opening salvos of World War II -- depicts the mythological Eros figure, with wings outspread, placing his arm on an i...

Buoyant and aspirational, this bold and rare print depicting man rising through the clouds toward heaven, with angels to either side, was created by Roselle Osk in the 1930s. Osk gre...

Mid-Century Surrealism Alexander Cañedo Dancing Man Oil on Canvas ca. 1950’s PAINTING DIMENSIONS: Canvas: 44 x 44 cm (17-3/8 x 17-3/8 in.) Framed: 68 x 68 cm (26-3/4 x 26-3/4 in.) Alexander Cañedo (Mexican-American, 1902 – 1978) was born in Mexico City as Alejandro de Cañedo; his father was a Mexican government official and his mother was from the United States. In 1918, when Cañedo was 15, his parents sent him to École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studied under the sculptor Jean Magrou. In 1923, Cañedo traveled to Rome where he continued his art studies. In 1927, Cañedo briefly returned to Mexico. During that trip, the Mexican Government appointed him attaché to the Mexican Embassy in Rome. In 1928, Cañedo held his first art exhibition with the Circolo Artistico in Rome, a collection of pencil drawings. More exhibitions followed in other cities in Europe. That same year, he traveled to the New York City where he exhibited widely. At this point, he began signing his work with just his last name; eventually, he also Anglicized his first name as "Alexander" and dropped the "de". Cañedo was commissioned in 1929 to illustrate the amatory novel Orientale: The Adventure of Therese Beauchamps by the French author Francis de Miomandre. The highly stylized Art Deco results were so successful that he retained Cañedo the following year to illustrate his next novel, The Love Life of Venus. In 1932, Cañedo was invited to have a solo show of his pencil drawings at Walter P. Chrysler, Junior's newly opened Cheshire Gallery, located in the Chrysler Building. He also had a solo exhibition at the Argent Galleries, and participated in shows of the Art Students League of New York, of which he was an active member. By the mid-1930s, Cañedo began exhibiting watercolors. These were shown at solo exhibitions at the Arthur U...

Fresh to the market, this painting was purchased directly from Erle Loran (1905-1999) in his Berkeley Hills home in the mid-1990s. Loran's surrealist work from the mid-1940s is highl...