Manhattan - Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Arman Hope for Peace, 1997 Original drawing done in permanent marker, held inside a softback monograph (Hand signed and inscribed to noted collector and philanthropist David Copley) ...

Sol LeWitt Unique Geometric Abstraction on Postcard, 1982 Original drawing done on postcard from the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam), mailed, stamped and postmarked (franked) from Spolet...

Ellen Phelan Clouds over Narrows (Lake Champlain), 1998 Watercolor and gouache on paper 15 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches (sheet) 21 1/2 x 23 1/2 inches (frame) Si...

Paul Allen Reed Untitled #31, 1982 Oil pastel on paper Pencil signed dated and annotated "7 10 79 1" by Paul Reed on the lower front Frame included: This work is elegantly floated an...

Richard Anuszkiewicz Near and Far Acuity, 1957 Gouache and watercolor painting Hand signed and dated 1957 by Richard Anuszkiewicz on the right front Frame included Anuszkiewicz' artworks from the late 1950s are rarely found on the market. This historic painting is one of the works that helped launch the artist's career. It was done in 1957 - the year the artist arrived in New York. Near and Far Acuity has been removed from its original frame, and re-framed in an elegant wood frame with conservation materials and UV plexiglass. The original gallery label from The Contemporaries has been preserved and affixed to the new backing, and the collector who acquires this work will also be provided with a copy of the original receipt - signed by Karl Lunde (director of the Contemporaries and author of a major monograph on the artist). Measurements: Frame: 32 x 28 x 2 inches Artwork: 21 x 25 inches This work was first exhibited in the groundbreaking, and career-making 1960 exhibition at The Contemporaries gallery (New York, February 29, 1960 - March 19, 1960) and was featured in the exhibition catalogue, shown in the images here. In his essay entitled "Richard Anuszkiewicz: Color Precisionist" by art historian John T. Spike, he writes, "In the spring of '57, Richard Anuszkiewicz left Ohio for good. "I was ready. I came to New York with a substantial amount of work. I was ready to go around to the galleries and I was prepared because I really had something. I had an idea. I had a series of paintings that showed this idea and I felt good about it and I felt now that's the only place for me to be." A friend helped him get a job touching up the plaster models of classical temples and statues in the Junior Museum of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He took off six months the next year to travel around Europe in a Volkswagen, also seeing some places in North Africa. "When I came back, I remember taking my work around to the galleries and receiving interesting comments — positive comments from the various people. But Abstract Expressionism was very popular. My things were very hard-edged, very strong in color — a use of color that nobody was using. Everybody would say. 'Oh, they are nice, but so hard to look at. They hurt my eyes". Leo Castelli considered him seriously but the gallery was developing a specialization in pop artists like Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg. "I can remember going to Martha Jackson and having her look at the work and she would put her hands straight out in front of her and block out parts of the painting with her hand and she'd say, mmm no rest areas." He finally caught on with The Contemporaries Gallery in the fall of 1959. The gallery at 992 Madison Avenue mainly represented new European talent. Karl Lunde, the gallery director, saw some of his canvases hanging...

JACK YOUNGERMAN Intored, 2015 Watercolor painting on Dieu Donne handmade paper with one deckled edge Pencil signed and dated on the front This is a unique painting on paper Provenan...

Wolf Kahn Bay with Boats, 1987 Color monotype on Somerset white wove paper Hand signed and dated by Wolf Kahn on the lower right front, bears labels on the back Frame Included: matte...

Donald Baechler Untitled (Rose), 2015 Original Graphite drawing on archival bond paper. Framed, with museum provenance Signed and dated in graphite pencil on the front Provenance: Do...

David Storey Untitled, 1993 Charcoal and pastel 29 x 19 inches (sheet) 30 x 20 inches (frame) Unsigned Natural wood frame with light white wash. Floated in window opening. 1.5'' dep...

Herbert Ferber Untitled, 1968 Unique Ink and color wash on paper Hand signed and dated by the artist on the front Framed with original Knoedler Gallery label (under the respected dir...

Ron Gorchov Untitled early 1960s Abstract Expressionist work, 1962 Ink and watercolor painting on paper Signed and dated in black ink lower left recto Frame included: elegantly floa...

Ronnie Cutrone Your Own Heart, 1987 Watercolor and Silkscreen on Paper Signed, dated and numbered from the edition of 7, with each work being unique. 40 × 30 inches Fantastic vintage...

Joseph Stella was a visionary artist who painted what he saw, an idiosyncratic and individual experience of his time and place. Stella arrived in New York in 1896, part of a wave of Italian immigrants from poverty-stricken Southern Italy. But Stella was not a child of poverty. His father was a notary and respected citizen in Muro Locano, a small town in the southern Appenines. The five Stella brothers were all properly educated in Naples. Stella’s older brother, Antonio, was the first of the family to come to America. Antonio Stella trained as a physician in Italy, and was a successful and respected doctor in the Italian community centered in Greenwich Village. He sponsored and supported his younger brother, Joseph, first sending him to medical school in New York, then to study pharmacology, and then sustaining him through the early days of his artistic career. Antonio Stella specialized in the treatment of tuberculosis and was active in social reform circles. His connections were instrumental in Joseph Stella’s early commissions for illustrations in reform journals. Joseph Stella, from the beginning, was an outsider. He was of the Italian-American community, but did not share its overwhelming poverty and general lack of education. He went back to Italy on several occasions, but was no longer an Italian. His art incorporated many influences. At various times his work echoed the concerns and techniques of the so-called Ashcan School, of New York Dada, of Futurism and, of Cubism, among others. These are all legitimate influences, but Stella never totally committed himself to any group. He was a convivial, but ultimately solitary figure, with a lifelong mistrust of any authority external to his own personal mandate. He was in Europe during the time that Alfred Stieglitz established his 291 Gallery. When Stella returned he joined the international coterie of artists who gathered at the West Side apartment of the art patron Conrad Arensberg. It was here that Stella became close friends with Marcel Duchamp. Stella was nineteen when he arrived in America and studied in the early years of the century at the Art Students League, and with William Merritt Chase, under whose tutelage he received rigorous training as a draftsman. His love of line, and his mastery of its techniques, is apparent early in his career in the illustrations he made for various social reform journals. Stella, whose later work as a colorist is breathtakingly lush, never felt obliged to choose between line and color. He drew throughout his career, and unlike other modernists, whose work evolved inexorably to more and more abstract form, Stella freely reverted to earlier realist modes of representation whenever it suited him. This was because, in fact, his “realist” work was not “true to nature,” but true to Stella’s own unique interpretation. Stella began to draw flowers, vegetables, butterflies, and birds in 1919, after he had finished the Brooklyn Bridge series of paintings, which are probably his best-known works. These drawings of flora and fauna were initially coincidental with his fantastical, nostalgic and spiritual vision of his native Italy which he called Tree of My Life (Mr. and Mrs. Barney A. Ebsworth Foundation and Windsor, Inc., St. Louis, illus. in Barbara Haskell, Joseph Stella, exh. cat. [New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1994], p. 111 no. 133). Two Wood Ducks...

Nancy Pantirer Untitled Watercolor on paper 28 x 22 inches Part of Nancy Pantirer’s UNDERWATER series Pantirer’s UNDERWATER series features large watercolor and acrylic pieces on t...

Robert Longo Pressure, 1983 Acrylic and Graphite on Paper Signed and dated 'Robert Longo 83’ (lower right) in graphite Frame included: Floated and framed in a museum quality frame with UV plexiglass This is a unique painting "Pressure " [on God], Robert Longo's unique acrylic and graphite work on paper, was created during the same period as his iconic work, simply labeled "Pressure", now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in N.Y. Whereas the latter depicts a young man, the present work, titled "Pressure on Heaven", then deliberately changed to "Pressure on God", is more ethereal in subject matter, though the lone youth's image is still present in the composition. From Lexander magazine: "In the excerpt from Neal Benezra’s article about 1980s art in the previous post, he writes, “Robert Longo’s Pressure might well be the most representative work of art of the 1980s.” I would go further and state that it is the definitive work of the 1980s—the penultimate visual anthem of the era—and most especially the period between 1979—1987, during which the musical genres of gothic rock and deathrock flourished and achieved their greatest artistic successes through the work of a variety of diverse bands including Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees...

Abstract Mid 20th Century WPA Non Objective American Modernism New Hope Modern.mixed media. 21 x 16 (sight). Housed in a hand carved frame. Louis King Stone ...

Abstract work of art on paper by Iliyan Ivanov. The artwork belongs to the series "In Not So Many Words," which consists of 12 acrylic on paper pieces created in 2022-23. All the wo...

Maeve D'Arcy Friendly Reminder, 2024 ink and colored pencil on paper 22 x 30 in. (dar147)

Maeve D'Arcy Buck a Shuck, 2024 ink and colored pencil on paper 22 x 30 in. (dar146)

Maeve D'Arcy Bells and Whistles, 2024 ink and colored pencil on paper 22 x 30 in. (dar148)

Maeve D'Arcy Birthday Season, 2024 ink and colored pencil on paper 22 x 30 in. (dar149)

Thomas Anderson Abstract Expressionist painting on paper, ca. 1987 Mixed media watercolor, gouache and marker on paper Signed in black marker lower right front Unique Frame included ...

Of her recent works, Urso states, "I make exploratory paintings, working in response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intu...

This is a complicated drawing, even for Morris Graves (1910-2001), known as the Mystical Painter of Nature. Graves tried to be sensitive to the slightest tremor or breeze that a sma...

Anna Kruhelska is a visual artist and architect working across fields of art and design. She creates abstract, three-dimensional paper wall reliefs that startle in their intricacy an...

ABOUT Matt Kinney was born in Georgetown, Massachusetts. He attended Pratt Institute and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, graduating in 1998. After graduation, Kinney began in...

Larry Zox Dexter's Choice, State II, ca. 1990 Mixed media, Watercolor pochoir, and Oil stick Wax, Water-Based Crayons, on heavy Arches museum watercolor rag paper with deckled edges 40 × 60 in 101.6 × 152.4 cm Edition 8/30 (unique variant) Frame included Measurements: Sheet: 40 inches (vertical) by 60 inches (horizontal) Frame: 42 inches x 62 inches x 1 inch Dexter's Choice, State # II is a unique, mixed media work from an edition of 30 unique variants done in pochoir, (25 stencils, 14 colors). Here, Zox uses watercolor instead of inks, which is applied to heavy 300 lb. watercolor paper. Although it is a multiple signed and numbered from the edition of 30, each work of art is unique because of how the paper receives the watercolor brush. In addition, this work is created like a mixed media painting because it has 11 lines added by hand with wax and water based crayons and oil sticks. The unique watercolor technique that Zox employed in making "Dexter's Choice" is documented in the textbook, "Screen Printing: Water Based Techniques,Roni Henning, NYIT ". Dexter's Choice was published by Images Gallery, and this work was acquired directly from the publisher before they sold out. This work is elegantly floated and framed in a white wood frame. Accompanied by gallery issued Certificate of Guarantee Larry Zox Biography: A PAINTER who played an essential role in the Color Field discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, Larry Zox is best known for his intensely and brilliantly colored geometric abstractions that question and violate symmetry.1 Zox stated in 1965: “Being contrary is the only way I can get at anything.” To Zox, this position was not necessarily arbitrary, but instead meant “responding to something in an examination of it [such as] using
a mechanical format with X number of possibilities.”2 What he sought was to “get at the specific character and quality of each painting in and for itself,” as James Monte stated in his introductory essay in the catalogue for Zox’s 1973–1974 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.3 Zox’s robust paintings reveal
a celebrated artist and master of composition who is explored and challenged the possibilities of Post-Painterly Abstraction and Minimalist pictorial conventions. Zox began to receive attention in the 1960s when he was included in several groundbreaking exhibitions of Color Field and Minimalist art, including Shape and Structure (1965), organized by Henry Geldzahler and Frank Stella for Tibor de Nagy, New York, and Systemic Painting (1966), organized by Lawrence Alloway for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. In 1973–1974, the Whitney’s solo exhibition of Zox’s work gave recognition to his significance in the art scene of the preceding decade. In the following year, he was represented in the inaugural exhibition of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Wahsington, DC, which acquired fourteen of his works.
 Zox was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1937. He attended the University of Oklahoma and Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa, and then studied under George Grosz at the Des Moines Art Center. In 1958, Zox moved to New York, joining the downtown art scene. His studio on 20th Street became a gathering place for artists, jazz musicians, bikers, and boxers, and he occasionally sparred with visiting fighters. He later established a studio in East Hampton, a former black smithy used previously by Jackson Pollock. In his earliest works, such as Banner (1962) Zox created
collages consisting of pieces of painted paper stapled onto sheets of plywood. He then produced paintings that were illusions of collages, including both torn- and trued-edged forms, to which he added a wide range of strong hues that created ambiguous surfaces. In paintings such as For Jean (1963), he omitted the collage aspect of his work and applied flat color areas to create more complete statements of pure color and shape. He then replaced these torn and expressive edges with clean and impersonal lines that would define his work for the next decade. From 1962 to 1965, he produced his Rotation series, at first creating plywood and Plexiglas reliefs, which turned squares into dynamic polygons. He used these shapes in his paintings as well, employing white as a foil between colors to produce negative spaces that suggest that the colored shapes had only been cut out and laid down instead of painted. The New York Times in 1964 wrote of the works in show such as Rotation B (1964) and of the artist: “The artist is hip, cool, adventurous, not content to stay with the mere exercise of sensibility that one sees in smaller works.”4 In 1965, he began the Scissor Jack series, in which he arranged opposing triangular shapes with inverted Vs of bare canvas at their centers that threaten to split their compositions apart. In several works from this series, Zox was inspired by ancient Chinese water vessels. With a mathematical precision and a poetic license, Zox flattened the three dimensional object onto graph paper, and later translated his interpretation of the vessel’s lines onto canvas with masking tape, forming the structure of the painting. The Diamond Cut and Diamond Drill paintings...

Of her recent works, Urso states, "I make exploratory paintings, working in response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intu...

Meg Hitchcock The Nine Eyes Widely Opened, 2022 Text from The Tibetan Book of the Dead, acrylic graphite, ink, embroidery thread 14 x 11 in. frame size: 17.75 x 14.75 in. (Hit005)

Andrei Petrov is an American artist of Russian origins. He is best known for his abstract oil paintings where calibrated stratifications of intense shades of colors are scraped to ex...

An early work by Charles Burchfield, likely a project for an illustration. A Landscape in pastel colors with a white tree and the text Love and xxx.

Billy Al Bengston Sweet Filthy Cheat, 2004 Watercolor and acrylic on paper Signed, dated and titled on the front Frame included Unique This unique work, with it's charmingly sly tit...

Ceri Richards Lyre Bird (Design for the cover of Poetry London), 1943 Ink, gouache and pastel on paper Bears original Jonathan Clark & Co. label on the back of the frame Unique Frame...

Of her recent works, Urso states, "I make exploratory paintings, working in response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intu...

Of her recent works, Urso states, "I make exploratory paintings, working in response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intu...

Of her recent works, Urso states, "I make exploratory paintings, working in response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intu...

Josette Urso Lake and Sky, 2022 watercolor on paper 6 x 6 in.

Gen Paul (1895-1955 Fr.) lived in Montmartre, Paris France. He is know for his action painting with quick brush strokes and this work of art was painted around 1955-1960. He was a mu...

CARL ANDRE Untitled Drawing, 1984 Felt tip pen, marker and stamp on Postmarked (franked) card to Lynn Charles Foster 3 3/5 × 6 1/10 inches Hand-sig...

An exquisite work of geometric abstraction by this celebrated artist Winston Roeth Untitled, ca. 1996 Pastel on handmade paper Hand signed on the front Frame included: Floated and fr...

Lyman Kipp Untitled Minimalist painting on paper, 1980 Color oil painting on paper done with ink paint roller Signed and dated on the front Unique Frame included Signed and dated 19...

Andrei Petrov's Explosive Issue is a 13 x 10.5 inches watercolor painting. The main colors are green and gray with accents of orange. Petrov works by applying layers of paint and the...

Unidentified/Unknown Artist Signature (Miller) "Untitled: Floral Still Life in Orange, Yellow, Purple and Green", Abstract Impressionist Still...

Louise Bourgeois We Love You, 2000 Mixed Media Engraving and watercolor with unique Ink drawing on Fabriano Paper 7 × 11 1/10 inches Unique Variant with origi...

Colored marker on heavy paper

Abstract artwork on paper by a Bulgarian/American artist Iliyan Ivanov. Ivanov continues to treat color in a multilayered approach, introducing a wider palette with brighter and bol...

Baldur Helgason drawing 2018: Baldur Helgason Jorgen the Dog Day: A robust, lively Helgason hand-drawing defined by the artist’s signature style. Med...

This mesmerizing ink drawing on clay-coated panel by Jenifer Kent shows off the artist's meditative process as she hand-draws, without assistance from a straight edge, a network of l...

"Line is the operative formal element in the work shown here, but there are many other lines in play. Pieces walk a line between drawings that might be tapestries or sculptures or p...

Paul Feeley Rafina II Greece, 1961 Watercolour on paper Hand Signed, titled and dated lower front In 1961, color field painter Paul Feeley created a series of watercolors - Rafina an...

WILLIAM BAZIOTES Untitled Abstract Expressionist Mid Century Modern ink drawing with Estate COA, ca. 1955 Ink Drawing on Paper Signed lower right recto. Accompanied by letter of authenticity from Estate. Unique Measurements: Framed: 14.5 inches by 17.5 inches. x .5 inches Artwork 8.5 x 11 inches This work is by the American painter William Baziotes. Baziotes graduated from the National Academy of Design in New York. His interest in the surrealism movement can be seen in the lyrical compositions that comprise a large portion of his work. Baziotes, along with David Hare, Robert Motherwell, and Mark Rothko, founded the Subjects of the Artist School. Baziotes was also one of the first New York artists to experiment with the surrealist technique, automatic drawing. Framed 14.5 inches by 17.5 inches. This work was acquired from the famous Pennypacker auction of the Baziotes Estate, and is accompanied by a letter of authenticity and provenance from the artist's widow Ethel Baziotes. William Baziotes Biography: B. 1912, PITTSBURGH; D. 1963, NEW YORK William Baziotes was born on June 11, 1912, in Pittsburgh, to parents of Greek origin. He grew up in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he worked at the Case Glass company from 1931 to 1933, antiquing glass and running errands. At this time, he took evening sketch classes and met the poet Byron Vazakas, who became a lifelong friend. Vazakas introduced Baziotes to the work of Charles Baudelaire and the Symbolist poets. In 1931, Baziotes saw the Henri Matisse exhibition...

I make exploratory paintings, working in direct response to my immediate environment. My approach involves moment-to-moment extrapolation governed by intuitive leaps of scale, color,...

Katherine Porter Country Music (Nashville is an Enigma), 1986 Mixed media; colored pencil, gouache, and graphite on paper, uniquely signed and inscribed with Nashville dateline Hand ...

Peter Halley Untitled Geometric Abstraction, ca. 1990 Graphite and Ink Signed in graphite pencil by Peter Halley; lower right front Frame included: floated and framed in wood frame U...

Agatha Wojciechowsky Untitled Concert Hall Abstraction Watercolor, 1964 Watercolor on thick wove paper (with original label from Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery) Signed and dated by the artist on the lower-right front 19 3/4 × 15 inches Unframed Dazzling 1960s, modern abstraction watercolor piece. This work was acquired from the legendary Cordier & Ekstrom Gallery Agatha Wojciechowsky (1896 -1986) was recognized during her lifetime as a Surrealist. Although not following an art movement, her work reflected the sentiment of Art Informel of the 1950's. She had solo exhibitions from the 1960's to the present in New York, Cologne, Berlin, and Hamburg. Group exhibitions included shows with Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dubuffet, Isamu Noguchi, Francis Picabia, Romare Bearden. Her artwork can be found in numerous public collections including Museum of Modern Art, the Prado, the Menil Collection, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Whitney Museum. Agatha lived her earlier years in Steinach de Saale, and then sailed to the United States in 1923 to be a German-speaking governess in a German baron...

Judy Pfaff Untitled, 1994 Collage, Mixed media, Gouache and Leaves on paper, in Artist's Frame. Signed with Andre Emmerich & Bellas Artes Gallery Labels - accompanied by original shi...

BLADE subway graffiti drawing 1992: A stunning, highly collectible original work from Blade - King of Graffiti. Executed in 1992, the work was created ...

Marilla Palmer Waiting for Iris, 2022 watercolor, pressed petals, foil, velvet, sequin, Durabrite print on Arches Hot Press paper 15 x 11 in. (pal212) This original artwork by Maril...