Paint Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Simon Samsonian (1912 - 2003) Colorful Geometric Abstraction, 1981 Oil on paper 16 x 22 inches Signed and dated lower right Provenance: Estate of the artist This survivor of the Armenian genocide wound up in a Cairo orphanage in 1927. He rose to fame as one of Egypt’s great modernists, but after moving to Long Island late in life he withdrew into anonymity. Now his compelling story is being told. Art historians are finally beginning to realize that the power of abstraction in its early years was a zeitgeist not limited to the major European centers of the avant-garde — Paris, Munich, and Moscow — but one that quickly rippled to major cities throughout the world. Within a few decades that original shock of a new vision had inspired thousands of artists from different cultures — particularly those the Middle East — whose translations were not slavish imitations of works by seminal figures like Picasso, Braque, Malevich, and Kandinsky but creative variants colored by their respective cultures. This essay focuses on an extraordinary Armenian artist, his harrowing survival of the genocide, his rise to fame in Cairo, and his creation of a unique style of abstraction. Art historians have typically formed a chorus that teaches the history of abstraction like this: Just before and during the World War I era, several avant-garde artists emerged to create shockingly different new forms by which artists could express themselves. In Paris, Picasso and Braque broke out with cubism, quickly followed by Mondrian. In Moscow, Malevich created Suprematism, the ultimate hard-edge geometric abstraction. And in Munich, Kandinsky emerged as the father of Abstract Expressionism. Within these few short years a zeitgeist was sensed throughout the art world. American pioneers, too — particularly Stanton Macdonald-Wright and Morgan Russell — felt this explosive freedom of expression. When Europe was recovering after World War I it became clear that Paris would retain its title as capitol of the art world, lasting through the Roaring Twenties and even through the Great Depression. But the end of World War II changed everything. A parallel war had been won by a group of irascible young Abstract Expressionists in New York — led by Pollock, Rothko, DeKooning, and Kline. No sooner had Paris been liberated from the Germans than Picasso, Matisse, Breton, and Duchamp surrendered to the Americans. From that point on New York would be the epicenter of the art world. But a lens that focuses myopically on the war between the avant-garde of Paris and New York misses the wider narrative of multiple aesthetic modernities that developed in the several decades following World War I. For Armenian artists the matter is even more complex owing to the genocide of 1915 where more than 1.5 million people — seventy-five percent of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire — were massacred. Those not shot on the spot were sent on death marches through the Mesopotamian desert without food or water. Frequently, the marchers were stripped and forced to walk naked under the scorching sun until they dropped dead. As a child Samsonian witnessed the murder of his parents and most of the members of his family. Soon thereafter, his older sister, Anahid, quickly shepherded him into a line of children being rescued by Greek nuns. But they became separated and he lost her, too. He was sent to a Greek orphanage in Smyrna (now Izmir), on Turkey’s west coast. Because he only knew his first name, the orphanage gave him a last name based on the place where they found him — Samsun — a major port on Turkey’s north coast on the Black Sea. His birth date was unknown, too. According to Samsonian’s vague recollections he assumed he was about three or four years old at the onset of the genocide, which would place his birth year in 1911 or 1912. In 1922, when Samsonian was about 10, the Turks ended their war with the Greeks by putting Smyrna to the torch in what has been called the “Catastrophe of Smyrna.” Once again, the child was on the run, escaping the fire and slaughter. He found temporary refuge in Constantinople, but within a year that major port would fall to the Turks, too, and become renamed as Istanbul. This time, Samsonian was whisked away to an orphanage in Greece founded by the American charity, Near East Relief — which is credited with saving so many Armenian orphans that the American historian Howard M. Sachar said it “quite literally kept an entire nation alive. Any understanding of Samsonian’s approach to modernism requires careful consideration of the impact of his early years because his art is inseparable from the anguish he experienced. In 1927, when he was a teenager, he was transferred to Cairo, Egypt, then a cosmopolitan city hosting a sizable portion of the Armenian diaspora. There he lived with thirty-two other children on the top floor of the Kalousdian Armenian School. Upon graduating in 1932 he won a scholarship to attend the Leonardo da Vinci Art Institute — an Italian art school in Cairo — where he won first prize in final examinations among one hundred students. He found work with an Armenian lithographic printer and he returned to the Kalousdian Armenian School to teach drawing. In 1939 he married one of his students, Lucy Guendimian. The Cairo in which Samsonian matured as an artist was home to many prominent art collectors after World War I. In this receptive environment Samsonian exhibited widely and won many awards. Beginning in 1937 and for the next thirty years he exhibited annually at the prestigious Le Salon du Caire hosted by the Société les Amis de l’Art (founded in 1921). After World War II he hit his stride as a modernist in Cairo, counting among his peers other artists of the Armenian diaspora such as Onnig Avedissian, Achod Zorian, Gregoire Meguerdichian, Hagop Hagopian...

This detailed artwork on paper puts emphasis on design and composition. A Navajo inspired rug motif is created using traditional design elements with a contemporary outcome. Symmetry...

Untitled exemplifies Rooskens’ work from the period following 1965, a time when the artist continued to explore fantastical beings, mask- and shield-like imagery, firmly rooted in hi...

'Untitled No. 1' by Thomas Guise, 1967. Royal Society of Artists, Edinburgh Academy, Palo Alto ----- Signed lower right, 'T.G.M. Guise' for Thomas Gladstone Middleton Guise (Scottish, 1916-1984) and dated 1967. Previously with: Los Robles Gallery, Palo Alto, California. Thomas Guise studied art at Edinburgh College of Art under Thomson Adam Bruce, RSA (1947-1949) before serving with the Royal Artillery between 1939 and 1946. After returning to Scotland, Guise began working professionally as an artist and commenced his fruitful association with the Featherhal Press. Over the course of his career, he was the recipient of numerous prizes, medals and juried awards including the Award for Life Drawing (1947). Guise exhibited internationally with success and was a member of the Royal Society of Arts, the Royal Society of British Artists and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolor among others. Accompanied by an artist catalogue, 'T.G.M. Guise: Propinquity', Featherhall Press Limited, Edinburgh 1996. Selected Group Shows 1948 - 1984: RBA, RSA, RI, RSW, RGI, SSA, NEAC. Arun Art Centre The Bath Festival Exhibition Selected Solo Shows: 1966 - Randolph Gallery, Edinburgh Festival 1967 - Encina Gallery Stanford University, California, United States 1968 - Los Robles Gallery, Palo Alto, California, United States 1968 - Randolph Gallery Edinburgh Festival 1970 - Clarkson Gallery, Victoria Street...

This is original watercolor over a limited edition woodcut political poster. hand signed, dated and numbered. it bears similarity to works by Alexander Calder. Employing a star and abstract design. Katherine Porter is an American artist born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1941. She received her BA from Colorado College in 1963. Katherine Porter received an honorary doctorate from Colby College. She has shown twice in the Whitney Biennial and solo exhibitions at the Knoedler Gallery in London, the Nina Nielsen Gallery in Boston, and the Andre Emmerich and Salander-O'Reilly Galleries in New York. Her work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Tel Aviv Museum and Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem. (Katherine Page Porter, Katherine Pavlis Porter) Her exhibitions include biennials in 1976 and 1981 at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City; 1980 at the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts; 1981, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire; 1985, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; and 1987 at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York City. Classic Americana. American Abstract Expressionism. Early Pattern and Decoration piece, The movement was championed by the gallery owner Holly Solomon. The P&D movement wanted to revive an interest in minor forms such as patterning which at that point was equated with triviality. The prevailing negative view of decoration was one not generally shared by non-Western cultures, The Pattern and Decoration movement was influenced by sources outside of what was considered to be fine art. Blurring the line between art and design, many P&D works mimic patterns like those on wallpapers, printed fabrics, and quilts. There is a close connection between the Pattern and Decoration movement and the Feminist art movement. The P&D movement arose in opposition to the Minimalist and Conceptualist movements. Mary Grigoriadis Valerie Jaudon, Joyce Kozloff, Miriam Schapiro, Robert Zakanitch all worked in this same vein. SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS Galerie Hubert Winter, Vienna, Austria Victoria Munroe Fine Art, Boston, MA Meridian Gallery, San Francisco, CA Salander O’Reilly Gallery, New York, NY Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME Andre Emmerich Gallery, New York, NY Knoedler Gallery, London Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, NY Pace Gallery, Addison, ME Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (drawings) Harcus Krakow Gallery, Boston, MA SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS Contemporary Landscape Painting, Nagoya/Boston Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan From the Collection of Edward Broida, Palm Beach Art Museum, Palm Beach, FL Abstraction Per Se (through January 1993), Pratt Manhattan Gallery, NY Painting Self-Evident (Curator), Picolo Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC Art on Paper 1990, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina, Museo Barjola, Gijon, Spain; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal; Pratt Manhattan Gallery, NY Sightings, Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos, Barcelona; Casa Revilla, Valladolid, Invitational, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT Atelier Project, Neuberger Museum, SUNY Purchase, NY Landscape Show, Allan Frumkin Gallery, NY Rethinking the Avant-Garde, by Jonathan Fineberg, The Katonah Gallery, NY Nancy Hoffman Gallery, NY Group Show, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Holland Contemporary Drawings, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture, Museum of Modern Art, NY Modern Expressionist: German, Italian, & American Painters, Sidney Janis Gallery, NY American Women Artists, Part II: Younger Generation, Sidney Janis Gallery, NY Contemporary Works on Paper, Frumkin-Adams Gallery, NY Hassam Speicher Purchase Fund Exhibition, American Academy of Arts and Letters, NY The End of the World: Contemporary Visions of the Apocalypse, The New York Museum of Contemporary Art, NY Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Homage to Arthur Dove, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY Six Painters, The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY Twenty New York Painters, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA 74th American Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL Abstract Painting, Women’s Caucus, NY Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York Spoleto Choice, Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC From Women’s Eyes, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Theodoran, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY Three If By Air, Obelisk Gallery, Boston, MA Betty Parsons Collection, Finch College, New York, NY SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria California Palace of the Legion of Honor (Achenbach Foundation), San Francisco, CA Detroit Art Institute, Detroit, MI Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Gemeentsmuseum of the Hague, The Hague, Netherlands (permanent installation) Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA Houston Museum of Fine Art, Houston, TX Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Mount Holyoke...

Signed and titled recto A masterful example of the artist's series of music inspired works of art. Haas had the condition known as synesthesia. Frame: 19 1/2 x 22 3/4" Image: 11 3/...

Robert Andrew Parker, American (1927 - 2024) - Mechanical Bull, Medium: Watercolor on Paper, signed lower left, Size: 16 x 17.75 in. (40.64 x 45.09 cm), Frame Size: 21.25 x 21.25 i...

Liane Ricci was born in Sleepy Hollow, NY in 1970, and has studied at the Art Students League, the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology, and at the Hartford ...

"Participatory Universe" is a dynamic 11 x 15-inch (framed 16.5 x 20.5) work on paper by Amy Cheng, rendered in gouache and oil marker. Known for her intricate layering and rhythmic ...

Neutral toned abstract cubist still life painting of an antique coffee grinder arranged next to a coffee pot. Signed in the front lower right corner. Currently hung in a gold frame w...

"#227 – I WAS AFRAID" is from Amy Williams' series A Farewell to Arms – wherein the artist works directly onto pages of a found copy of Ernest Hemingway's WWII romance novel. The art...

This piece titled SV XV, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped in...

This piece titled SV XVIII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 13"h x 13"w framed and is shipped i...

This piece titled SV V, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped in ...

This piece titled SV VI, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped in...

This piece titled SV III, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped i...

This piece titled SV IV, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped in...

This piece titled SV XII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped i...

This piece titled SV VIII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped ...

This piece titled SV VII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped i...

This piece titled SV X, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 34"h x 26.5"w framed and is shipped in ...

This piece titled SV XIX, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 6"h x 8"w framed and is shipped in th...

This piece titled SV XX, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 6"h x 8"w framed and is shipped in the...

This piece titled SV XXII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 6"h x 8"w framed and is shipped in t...

This piece titled SV XXIII, Knife Drawing is an original artwork by Lucha Rodríguez made of watercolor and manipulated paper This piece measures 6"h x 8"w framed and is shipped in ...

Poetry piece. Based on poem or song. Washington Square New York Watercolor painting hand signed by Peter Emanuel Goldman. Legendary French American Film Auteur, These are recently p...

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,...

Ink on paper, Acrylic and / or watercolor, signed in the front, framed in a aluminum silver frame, glass. Philip Wittmann work is based on signs. Sign...

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

Dominic Mingolla (1922 – 1999) Mingolla created paintings in many different materials and genres. Best known for his large abstract expressionist watercolor paintings similar in style to Paul Jenkins and for his Enamel work. His work bears affinities both to Lyrical Abstraction and to Tachisme artists such as Nicolas de Staël, Serge Poliakoff, Andre Lanskoy, Hans Hartung, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Gustave Singier, Alfred Manessier, Roger Bissiere, "Lyrical Abstraction arose in the 1960s and 70s, following the challenge of Minimalism and Conceptual art. Many artists began moving away from geometric, hard-edge, and minimal styles, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions worked in a loose gestural style. These "lyrical abstractionists" sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting, and to revive and reinvigorate a painterly 'tradition' in American art. At the same time, these artists sought to reinstate the primacy of line and color as formal elements in works composed according to aesthetic principles – rather than as the visual representation of sociopolitical realities or philosophical theories." "Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly techniques, the abstract works included in this exhibition sing with rich fluid color and quiet energy. Artists associated with Lyrical Abstraction include: Natvar Bhavsar, Lamar Briggs, Friedel Dzubas, Sam Francis, Ronnie Landfield, Pat Lipsky...

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

Acrylic and oil on paper - Unframed Claude Tétot is a French abstract artist whose work expresses harmony in disharmony by exploring the enigmatic unity that can exist between seemi...

This series of works stems from the reflection on the value attributed to objects (metals and precious stones), established culturally and historically by society. By means of the tw...

Peter Pinchbeck, English (1931 - 2000) - Green and White Squares, Year: 1982, Medium: Gouache on Paper, signed and dated in pencil on verso, Size: 22.25 x 30 in. (56.52 x 76.2 cm)

Peter Pinchbeck, English (1931 - 2000) - Yellow, Red and Purple Square, Year: 1981, Medium: Gouache on Fabriano Cotton Paper, signed, and dated in pencil, Image Size: 18 x 25.5 inc...

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

Grażyna Rigall is a painter, illustrator, author of stage designs and music videos. - The artist is interested in the merging of the world of fauna and flora with the world of man, p...

Grażyna Rigall is a painter, illustrator, author of stage designs and music videos. - The artist is interested in the merging of the world of fauna and flora with the world of man, p...

Grażyna Rigall is a painter, illustrator, author of stage designs and music videos. - The artist is interested in the merging of the world of fauna and flora with the world of man, p...

“Impact” by Sarah Alexander is a 22 x 30 x 2 inch watercolor and acrylic painting on panel depicting a zoomed-in view of a sweet gum seed pod in bright cobalt, turquoise blue and fie...

Watercolor and gouache on paper Signed, titled, and dated in pencil, verso This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Willy Bo Richardson received an MFA in pai...

'Piercing Shafts' Original artwork, framed ready to hang _________________ Yucca leaves: lances and swords, flashing shafts of sunlight through the piercing forms, a dance of loyalt...

Memento 04 (Abstract Painting) Acrylic on Hahnemühle paper - Unframed Emma Godebska is a French abstract artist living in Nimes, France. Her use of nat...

Frida Willis (Swedish, born 1971) "Hope" 2024 Watercolor, Ink, Paper The artist signed the bottom right of the artwork. "Hope" by Frida Willis captures a striking and delicate portr...

Poetry piece. Based on poem or song. Paris, France Watercolor painting hand signed by Peter Emanuel Goldman. Legendary French American Film Auteur, These are recently produced water...

This detailed artwork on paper puts emphasis on design and composition. A navajo inspired pattern is created using traditional design elements. The high contrasting, geometric patter...

Translated title: "Blindness" Watercolor on high-quality cotton paper, which is handmade in Italy. This is part of an album. It's been drawn in one go, with no erasure and with a c...

"Knife Drawing Papagayo I" is a contemporary drawing made entirely of knife cuts. Lucha Rodríguez captures light with paper, paint, and texture with th...

"Knife Drawing X" is a contemporary drawing made entirely of knife cuts. Lucha Rodríguez captures light with paper, paint, and texture with thousands o...

Oil on canvas Doïna Vieru is an Ecuadorian-Moldavian artist born in 1978 who lives & works in France, Paris. She always preferred pas/pas/passionately the image to the word and all ...

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

SOPHIA MILLIGAN 'Pollen and Swallows' Original Artwork ________________________ Capturing the essence of the thick heat of a June afternoon, when the ...

With charcoal details. Signed illegibly and dated '02' to the lower right-hand corner. Presented in a card mount and in a light wooden frame. On watercolour paper.

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

A substantial abstract watercolor comprising harmonious geometric forms arranged on a grid of blue, green, ivory and buff mosaic-like rectangles. Signed lower right "D.M. Hubbard" (A...

Energetic abstract expressionist watercolor painting of large black and orange splatters done by Norman Bluhm in 1962. Signed and dated in lower left corner. Hung in a black and gold...

James Minden potential Holographic drawing- Hand incised plastic and acrylic on panel 24 x 24 inches 2017 To get a sense of the holographic effect look at the video on that vimeo's ...

This is a contemporary abstract watercolor painting by artist David Ruth. This series of paintings often feature bright colors and vibrant layouts that draw the viewer in. They are c...

This abstract blue and white artwork titled "WARM AND DRY" is an original assemblage artwork by Jim Houser. This piece measures 10”h x 10”w. Jim Houser was born in 1973 in Philadelp...

Translated title: "Traces" Acrylic paint on high-quality cotton paper, which is handmade in Italy. This is part of an album. It's been drawn in one go, with no erasure and with a c...