1950s Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Robert Indiana Untitled homage to Ellsworth Kelly (Acquired from the studio of Robert Indiana), 1959 Watercolor and pencil on Plover Bond paper This is an original, hand signed and d...

A handsome ca. 1950 black & white Abstraction by important Modernist artist Jan Matulka. Image size: 6" x 6 1/2". Framed size: 12 3/4" x 12 3/4". Born in Prague, Czechoslovakia...

Roger Lersy, "Abstract Seascape with Boats," Circa 1958. A vibrant lithograph on paper by French artist Roger Lersy (1920–2004), this stunning Cubist-inspired composition features an...

Ernest A. Dieringer, Untitled (Color is Life), watercolor, 1959. Initialed 'ED' and dated ' '59' in red pencil at the top and bottom sheet edges—the artist's indication that the work can be viewed from either side. Signed 'Dieringer' in pencil in the bottom support board margin. A fine abstract expressionist work, watercolor on white wove paper, with fresh, bright colors; the image extends to the sheet edges, spot glued to the original cream wove backing board, in very good condition. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 x 10 15/16 inches; backing board size 13 1/2 x 16 3/4 inches. Provenance: ex. Collection Alexander Raydon. The collector/dealer's well-known 'Raydon Gallery' was established in 1962 on 82nd Street and Madison Avenue, New York City. ABOUT THE ARTIST Ernest Dieringer studied at the Art Institute of Chicago on a National Scholastic Scholarship, beginning his career with the Chicago-based Wells Street Gallery in 1957. He showed his work with other abstract artists, including Robert Natkin and John Chamberlain. The gallery was considered a vanguard space in Chicago for exhibiting emerging abstract artists from the surrounding area. Artists associated with the gallery eventually became known as the Wells Street Group. Due to the success of the gallery, Dieringer and other group members were invited by the Manhattan-based contemporary art dealer...

Original gouache on archival paper by the well known American artist, Jimmy Ernst. Signed lower right and dated 1952. Condition is excellent. Strong, vibrant colors, no issues. Wh...

Professor George De Goya. PhD. MA. FRSA. Born In Budapest, 1915-1992, related to the Spanish artist Goya on his mother’s side. Educated in Budapest and France where he received a de...

A fine and delicate, watercolor landscape showing a view of the rural Philippines by this celebrated Philippine Modernist. Signed, lower right, in graphite, 'Romeo V Tabuena' for Rom...

Opera su carta olio, di DORA Maar Colore Turchese blu Timbro MD atelier Siglato sul retro

Charmion von Wiegand Pillar of Zen #124, 1959 Gouache on paper painting Hand signed, titled and dated on the front Unique Provenance: Andre Zarre Gallery, with label verso (Estate of renowned gallerist Andre Zarre, ne Andre Sowulewski) Measurements: Framed 26.5 inches vertical by 25.5 horizontal by 2 inches Artwork: 21 inches vertical by 22 inches horizontal Mid century modern, geometric, spiritual abstraction, mystical The Estate of the celebrated artist Charmion Von Wiegand has been represented exclusively by Michael Rosenfeld Gallery since 1998. From March 3 to August 13, 2023, Charmion Von Wiegand was the subject of an acclaimed retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel, and she has received major attention in the price, including a June, 2023 ArtNews feature entitled, "Who Was Charmion von Wiegand and Why Is She Important?". Her work was also featured in a solo presentation by Rosenfeld Gallery at the New York Art Show held at the Park Avenue Armory, which also received critical acclaim. Artists Biography - courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery: Known for her vibrant, geometric paintings that originate a deeply personal language of spiritual enlightenment expressed through a constructivist mode of abstraction, Charmion von Wiegand (1896–1983) was born in Chicago but spent much of her childhood traveling. The daughter of a journalist for Hearst, von Wiegand eventually settled in New York in 1915 to attend Barnard College and Columbia University, where she took classes at the School of Journalism while nurturing a growing interest in art history. In 1925, von Wiegand realized that she wanted to be an artist and set up a studio in Greenwich Village, teaching herself how to paint while pursuing a career as a journalist. In 1929, she secured a position in Moscow as a foreign correspondent for Hearst, the only woman at the desk at the time. In 1932, von Wiegand returned to New York and married Russian émigré Joseph Freeman, who co-founded and edited the leftist journal New Masses. Von Wiegand began writing art criticism for New Masses as well as for other publications, including New Theatre, ARTnews, and Arts Magazine. When the Abstract American Artists (AAA) held their inaugural exhibition, von Wiegand reviewed it. An early champion of abstract art, von Wiegand became close friends with AAA founder Carl Holty. In 1941, Holty introduced von Wiegand to Piet Mondrian, who would have a profound impact on her art. Fascinated by Mondrian’s artistic philosophy, von Wiegand played a key role in the introduction of his work to American audiences, translating many of the Dutch artist’s writings into English and assisting in the composition of his influential article “Toward the True Vision of Reality” (1941). Through her friendship with Mondrian, von Wiegand re-kindled her interest in Theosophy (a religion established in the late 19th century that combines aspects of Hinduism, Buddhism, occultism, and esotericism) and embarked on an extended study of neoplasticism. In her artwork, she incorporated Mondrian’s iconic grid but rejected the constraints of pure neoplasticism and embraced a wide range of influences including surrealism and German expressionism. In 1942, von Wiegand became a member of the AAA, exhibiting regularly with the group and eventually serving as its president from 1951 to 1953. In the late 1940s, sculptor and fellow AAA member Ibram Lassaw gave her a translation of The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life, which inspired von Wiegand to immerse herself in a study of Buddhist art. She began incorporating Buddhist motifs such as stupas and mandalas into her paintings, and her spiritual practice steadily intensified throughout the 1950s. In 1953, her husband gifted her a copy of the Taoist I Ching Book of Changes, a guide for divining meaning from randomly derived numbers arranged in a hexagram—a form the artist readily incorporated into her painting. Von Wiegand’s study of Theosophy also intensified over these years, bolstered by her increased access to the religion’s primary sources composed by the religion’s founders and their successors at the New York Theosophical Society’s library. Von Wiegand’s search for the sacred and transcendent ultimately led her to Tibetan Buddhism and, in 1967, von Wiegand met Khyongla Rato Rinpoche, a Gelugpa monk who had recently arrived in New York, who would mentor her spiritual study in the tradition of Mahayana Buddhism until her death. Her travels in the 1960s and 1970s took her to Tibet and India, where she had an audience with the Dalai Lama, who was living in exile in Dharamsala. Many works from these decades incorporate symbols and schematics drawn from Theosophical prismatic color charts, Chinese astrology and tantric yoga. In 1978, she was the subject of a PBS documentary titled The Circle of Charmion von Wiegand, which was scored by Philip Glass. In 1980, von Wiegand was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in 1982, the Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach (FL) organized her first retrospective exhibition. She died the following year in New York, bequeathing her estate to Khyongla Rato and the Tibet Center of New York. In 1998, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery became the sole representative of her estate and has presented her work in four solo and multiple group exhibitions. Recent notable exhibitions that have included her work are The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, 2009) and Constructive Spirit: Abstract Art in South and North America (Newark Museum, NJ, 2010). In March 2023, the Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland) opened the first comprehensive museum retrospective of von Wiegand’s work in Europe. Von Wiegand’s work is represented in numerous museum collections including the Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy (Andover, MA); Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, NY); Arithmeum, University of Bonn (Germany); Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama); Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin; Brooklyn Museum (NY); Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh, PA); The Cleveland Museum of Art (OH); Indianapolis Museum of Art (IN); Fondazione Marguerite Arp (Locarno, Switzerland); Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Massachusetts); The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY); The Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY); Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey); Seattle Art Museum (WA); Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington, DC); Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN); Weatherspoon Art Museum, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Wellin Museum of Art at Hamilton College (Clinton, NY); Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY); and Yale University Art Gallery (New Haven, CT). More about gallerist Andre Zarre A tribute in the New Criterion: Dispatch August 11, 2020 Andre Zarre, 1942–2020 by Dana Gordon On the late New York gallery pioneer. Art should never be aggressively explained; art should be felt. —Andre Zarre, 1977 Often, in the starlit New York cultural mecca, a longtime important figure fades away through the penumbra and dies without notice. Such was the fate of Andre Zarre, the contemporary art dealer, who passed away a few weeks ago. Andy, as he wanted friends to call him, opened his eponymous gallery in 1974 just off Madison Avenue on Sixty-ninth Street. He soon moved it to the omphalos of the art world in that era, 41 East Fifty-seventh Street, the Fuller Building. Over the years he moved to SoHo and then to Chelsea, as fashion and real estate prices pushed the art souk hither and thither. To understand his importance, all you need do is take a look at a list of artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery. This includes such names, from an early generation, as Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Sari Dienes, and Perle Fine. Among a subsequent generation are Pat Lipsky, Jay Milder, Thornton Willis, and Kes Zapkus.1 And this list does not include the many knowns and unknowns who were in his lively group shows. Zarre had a real “eye” and was a champion of abstract art from the moment he founded his gallery—even among the gathering storms of conceptual and political art, which he eschewed. He showed a good deal of figurative art as well. His galleries were always spacious and unpretentious, oriented simply to show the art. In the words of Dee Shapiro, who showed with the Zarre gallery many times, “He had a photographic memory and knew a lot about art and was always interested in the artist’s life.” Reliable biographical information on Zarre is scarce, but he said of his background that he was born in Poland in 1942 and that his parents were a diplomat and a socialite. He left home for the United States at the age of fifteen. During his decades as an art dealer in New York, Zarre did not appear to accumulate wealth, though he acquired a collection and lived on Park Avenue. “He was not personally aggressive in that way. People had to come to him,” Dee Shapiro said. He was honest in his financial dealings with artists, which not all art dealers are. For a long time while running the gallery he had a second job as a supervisor in an airline office and he kept little to no additional staff in the gallery. He supported a brother who remained in Poland. Among artists, Zarre was known to be quite ornery. After my show at his gallery in 1997, I refused to enter it for seventeen years. Then I ran into him in Chelsea and he offered me another show, an opportunity I gladly accepted, but he remained just as disagreeable. He showed the work of many women, probably more than any other gallery, save those devoted to showing only women. Collectors, curators, and writers found him mostly friendly. As Peter Reginato put it, Zarre was a “strange guy but I liked him. I think he was a dealer who was more interested in the art than in making money, but somehow he lasted forty-plus years.” Zarre is not known to have kept extensive or extant records of his gallery’s long history, though these may emerge in time. Scouring the Internet, one may compile a partial list of more than eighty artists who had solo shows at the Andre Zarre Gallery:Nancy Azara, Ellen Banks, Mary Barnes, Tony Bechara, Juan Bernal, Stephanie Bernheim, Randy Bloom, Elena Borstein, Michael Boyd, Fritz Bultman, Ed Buonagurio, Yoan Capote, Sonia Delaunay, Nassos Daphnis, Cathy Diamond, Sari Dienes, Joseph Dolinsky, Beata Drozd, Ronnie Elliot, William Fares, Perle Fine, Lynne Frehm, Ben Georgia, Mikel Glass, Dana Gordon, Juanita Guccione, Fred Gutzeit, Don Hazlitt, Amy Hill, Clinton Hill, Monroe Hodder, Budd Hopkins, Arlan Huang, Richard Hunt, Rhia Hurt, Buffie Johnson, Alexander Kaletski, Robert Kaupelis...

Dorothy Dehner Untitled Mid Century Modern abstract sculptural drawing, 1955 Marker and graphite on paper Signed and dated by Dorothy Dehner in black felt tip pen on the front Frame ...

WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH HOUSES Signed original brush and ink on wove paper, circa 1950. WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH HOUSES is an original watercolor brush and ink on paper, hand signed in ink pen by African-American artist, teacher, and printmaker Ronald Joseph (1910--1992) Artwork depicts an abstract landscape, is in good condition, paper tape remaining on reverse side edges, mounted in an archival acid-free mat, unframed. Artwork paper size - 18 x 21.5 in. Year created - c. 1950 About the artist - Ronald Joseph (1910 -1992) was born on the island of St. Kitts, West Indies In 1910. When he was very young, his mother decided to move to the United States but she could not afford to take him with her. Mr. and Mrs. Theophilus Joseph, a childless couple who were friends of Joseph’s mother, adopted him. Afterwards, the Joseph family moved to the Island of Dominica, where they stayed for ten years. In 1921, his foster parents also decided to come to the United States. In New York, Joseph met his mother but remained living with his foster parents. In 1926 Ronald Joseph received a scholarship for the Ethical Culture School, were he spent two and half years of his high school period. At this time he obtained an art scholarship through Dr. Henry Fritz, with whom he became acquainted through his art teacher in public school. Joseph was taken into the Saturday art class, where he was the only black participant. An artistic prodigy, Ronald Joseph had his student works shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ronald Joseph graduated from Ethical Culture Fieldston School in 1929. He was honored as “the most promising” young artist in New York City’s schools. He began his study at Pratt Institute in 1931 and graduated in 1934. During the 1930s and 1940s, Joseph participated in many exhibitions of African-American art, the Works Progress Administration mural project, and the Harlem Artists Guild. Ronald Joseph enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps at the declaration of World War II and was posted as a member of the ground crew in Tuskegee, Alabama, and in Michigan. At the end of the war in 1945, he received his G. I. Bill of Rights scholarship. In 1948, he was presented with the Rosenwald Fellowship. The funds allowed him to live and work abroad – first in Peru for two years, then in Paris. Joseph used the G.I. bill to study in Paris at the Grande Chaumière. He described this period of his life as being “independent of economy”. His work from these travels is largely undocumented; according to Rosenwald scholar, Daniel Schulman, many pieces of art are undated or simply dated “1948-1952”. After this period he came back to New York without money and work and indicated this as period of hardship. Ronald Joseph left the U.S. in 1956, disappointed in the unreceptiveness of the art world to his work with mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, he felt guilty for having left the U.S. during a period when blacks were struggling for their civil rights; on the other, he felt “lucky” to have been able to live and work in place where he did not feel discrimination as intensely. He emigrated to Belgium and later settled permanently in Brussels. Ronald Joseph was married to Claire Joseph and they had a son, Robin Joseph. In 1989 Joseph returned to the United States after an absence of thirty-three years to attend the Lehman College exhibition and symposium and to renew his old friendships. Afterward, he returned to Brussels where he continued to work as a painter, living there for the remainder of his life. Ronald Joseph started his artistic career in Harlem, New York City at the Harlem Community Arts Center, where he was one of the youngest pupils. Joseph studied lithography and other printmaking techniques with Riva Helfond, who taught him many aspects of the process based on simple techniques, including how to operate the press, and how to prepare the stones. Helfond played a significant role as a teacher of lithography at the Harlem Art Center. Joseph produced his first lithographs under her supervision, and this was at a time when she was just beginning to learn the medium herself. At the Harlem Community Arts Center Joseph met Robert Blackburn, who was his classmate. In 1937 Ronald Joseph depicted Blackburn, in one of his most famous works, that is now located at The Metropolitan Museum collection. Experimenting with lithography and etching, as well as woodblock and silkscreen printing, Joseph explored the techniques of printmaking alongside his friend Robert Blackburn. Joseph described the Harlem Art Center as a “healthy and lively” place, where he had made wonderful friends. In the late thirties, he also served as a teacher at the Harlem Community Arts Center. There Joseph met younger artist Jacob Lawrence and Gwendolyn Knight. They formed a friendship, where they enjoyed conversations and visiting museums together. Both Joseph and Knight would hire Lawrence to pose for them. Jacob Lawrence considered Ronald Joseph to be a very intellectual artist. In the 1930s, Joseph became chairman of the Harlem Artists Guild and represented it in Washington with Stuart Davis and Hugo Gellert. Ronald Joseph was also a participant in the mural section of WPA and a representative of the Harlem Artists’ Guild to the New York World’s Fair (1939-1940). Joseph’s early oil paintings were influenced by Picasso, Braque and other European artists while most of his contemporaries focused on social realism. By 1943, he was hailed by art historian James Porter as New York’s “foremost Negro abstractionist painter”. His pastels and gouaches from the late forties and early fifties showed a highly structured abstraction combined with a studied spontaneity. Ronald Joseph’s finely tuned abstractions often incorporated representational elements along with apparently “purer” forms. He described this aspect of his work in these terms: “It’s not abstract and abstract at the same time. It’s pure creation.” His works from the 1950s employed both still life and landscape as pretexts for masterly exercises in nearly abstract pictorial construction related to cubism and fauvism. During World War II, Joseph was drafted. After the war he formed “a kind of a group” with Robert Blackburn, Charles White, Larry Potter, and Reginald Gammon...

American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member of the Art Students League. "Maestro", is a rare pen...

The artist Pinajian signed lower right with ink. it is ink on paper.

A 1959 black and white, Mid-Century, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. Image size: 15 1/2" x 22 1/2". Framed size: 25" x 21". McL...

Louise (McClure) Schatz (1916 – 1997) Born in Vancouver, Canada, Louise Schatz moved with her family at age three to Minnesota. Her father, a stage director, was part of the local Bohemian culture and traveled the theater circuit around the U.S. She earned a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts at the University of California, where she became a skilled water colorist. “My Japanese instructor showed me how to preserve several colors together on paper,” she noted. “Water colors can bleed into the paper, and the paper plays with the colors – some of which can even disappear. I have a great love of texture and what materials do to color. I was very excited to discover what happens to colors and how to achieve what I wanted.” Her interest in astronomy also led Louise to study science at the university. Louise joined the “California Seven” artists in 1945 and for the next three years created prints and textile patterns. During WWII, she earned her living as a sketch artist for ship builders in San Francisco Bay, and it was there she met her future husband, Bezalel. “Then, it was very avant-garde to hire women in ship-building,” she once recounted. “We used to take dimensions from engineers and make sketches. It was very trailblazing and exciting, and the ships were constructed very quickly and launched very quickly. Besides the fact that we contributed to the war effort, it was really beautiful art.” The Bohemian society developing in San Francisco at the time included the novelist Henry Miller, who was then married to Louise’s sister, Eve. “There was a group of artists in Big Sur, all of them poor,” according to Bezalel Schatz’s sister, Zohara. “They were a group of Beatniks before the hippy era of the 1960s. There were novelists, poets, and painters there who lived communally under primitive conditions and were close to nature.” Bezalel and Louise were married in 1948 and moved to Israel. There, together with Zohara, they founded the arts and crafts workshop, “Yad,” with the goal of creating and selling alternative art objects that differed in style from those of the Bezalel School of Art. The couple divided its time between the family home in Jerusalem and a residence in Ein Hod designed for them by the architect David Resnik. Despite her connection to the Schatz family and her active involvement in the Israeli art world at the time, Louise guarded her privacy and rarely granted interviews. As Henry Miller wrote, “Her paintings reflect and reveal the extent of her sensitivity, shyness, and gentleness…” Scenes of Israel were a source of inspiration for Louise, and, in addition to her abstract Bauhaus geometric works, she also painted landscapes, flowers, and other elements of the environment in which she worked. Louise worked mainly in water colors but also created collages, book illustrations, and applied art. Among her outstanding works are murals for Zim’s “Shalom” and “Theodore Herzl” ships (together with Bezalel), El Al’s London office, and Jerusalem’s tenth anniversary exhibition, as well as ceramic walls for Jerusalem’s Midreshet Amalia and Beit Ha’am Library. She was awarded the Silver Medal in 1954 at the tenth Triennale in Milan for her copper designs, and in 1952 she received the “Above Competition” prize for her textile designs at the Bezalel National Museum. She was also awarded the Shen Beit Haomanim Prize in 1970 and the Jerusalem Prize for painting in 1973. Louise took part in many art exhibitions in Israel and abroad. Her works are held by the Israel, Tel Aviv, and Haifa Museums, and in private collections in Israel, the U.S., England, Switzerland, France, and Italy. Following her husband’s death in 1978, Louise continued to live with her sister-in-law, Zohara, at the family home in Jerusalem on Schatz Street. Louise died in Jerusalem in 1997. She has been called in the pages of the Jerusalem Post " the greatest Schatz of all" and "Israel's finest watercolorist" Parts of her work summon up affinities with Paul Klee and Julius Bissier and occasionally even Joan Miro. But she never copied any of them. Her work also bears affinities for Lyonel Feininger and Wassily Kandinsky Between 1937 and 1951, Bezalel resided in the U.S. Near the end of WWII, he worked in a California shipyard, and it was there he met his future wife, Louise. He was also introduced to the novelist Henry Miller in California, and their friendship blossomed into a creative collaboration. The artist May Ray recorded his observations about the two, noting that “I have never encountered such smooth cooperation…” Bezalel produced silkscreen prints for Miller’s novel, Into the Night Life, an innovation for both the art and publishing worlds. In Florence, New Mexico, New York, San Francisco, and other locations, Bezalel exhibited his own work and participated in group shows with some of the greatest artists of his era – Picasso...

A colorful textile design in orange, blue, red and yellow tones depicting an abstract polychrome Wedge Star pattern by set and costume designer Andre ...

A colorful 1950s textile design (Black, yellow, blue, pink, red tones) by noted set and costume designer Andre Delfau. Born in Paris, France in 1914, Andre Delfau became an internationally acclaimed stage, set and costume designer who worked world-wide from the 1930s to the 1980s. Delfau was a life long artist and painted independently of his noted design career. His artwork is recognized for it’s vibrant color and form, and a particularly keen use of line. He was highly influenced by the French Modern trends of Cubism and Surrealism, and his artwork is often infused with a dramatic sense of architecture and perspective. Delfau created fashion designs for such major Paris couture houses as Balmain, Jean Patou and Balenciaga. He completed noteworthy set designs and costumes for numerous international operatic and ballet productions, including those at the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Great Britain, the Paris Opera, the Dance Theater of Harlem, the Ruth Page International Ballet, the Civic Ballet of Chicago, the Chicago Opera Ballet and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, among others. Most notably, Delfau designed the elaborate stage sets and costumes for the 1986 PBS television production of the Viennese operetta, "Die Fledermaus...

Prelude to Transition Pastel on paper, 1953 Signed and dated lower left (See photo) Image size: 10 1/2 x 13 3/4 inches Frame size: 24-5/8 x 1-1/2 inches Exhibited and Illustrated: Z...

Professor George De Goya. PhD. MA. FRSA. Born In Budapest, 1915-1992, related to the Spanish artist Goya on his mother’s side. Educated in Budapest and France where he received a de...

Jane Freilicher Untitled I, 1958-59 Signed lower right Charcoal on paper 11 1/2 x 8 3/4 inches Provenance: Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York Private Collection, New York Jane Freilic...

Abstract black and white pencil drawing of a figure seated and gazing up into the sky, circa 1950. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Archival pl...

Provenance: Marlborough Gallery David McKee, Inc. Manny Silverman Gallery Private collection, Los Angeles

abstract, yellow ,orange,grey,geometric,1954 Edgardo CORBELLI (Turin, 1918 - 1989) Signed on the back From the traditional composition of the 1930s, the painting of Corbelli leads t...

Alexander Calder Handwritten, signed letter, 1956 Ink on paper: 2 page handwritten and hand signed letter Hand signed by Calder at the end of the letter on the second page. Unique 11...

Color on Rives paper, edited in 1953, Signed and dated in pencil by artist in lower right corner, numbered 10/20 Very good conditions Image size: 17 x 25 cm Paper size: 25 x 32.5 cm ...

Hand signed and dated on the front An exceptionally early gouache from 1957, executed on the verso of a Wells Street Gallery invitation card - one of the first cooperative galleries ...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Dehner's legacy has been ...

'Raining in Formosa on the Tamsui River' by Taiwanese artist, Ran In-Ting (Lan Yinding, 藍蔭鼎) (1956-59). Although elements of landscapes often appear in paintings produced by various cultures, before the 17th century in the West they were only peripheral. In 5th century China, shan shui or landscape painting developed, expressing harmony and natural beauty. These were among the first paintings to make landscape their subject (ref: 'The Short Story of Art...

Abstract Cityscape Mid 20th Century Modern Cubist Work on Paper Drawing Ariel 11 x 4 1/2 inches. Framed by Heydenryk. Provenance: Gary Snyder Fine Art B...

"Art Deco Sailboat in Abstract Landscape #740" is an original colorful crayon drawing on paper by Sylvia Spicuzza, signed in pencil in the lower right corner. The sailboat of the title is in the center, set against a deep blue sky upon a dark green sea. It is framed by a abstract shapes of bright color that flow into one another in curving lines. The horizon line is maintained throughout the composition, and the effect is something like looking through a kaleidoscope. Art size: 8 1/2" x 7 1/4" Frame size: 16 1/4" x 14 1/2" Born in 1908, Sylvia Spicuzza was the daughter of noted painter Francesco Spicuzza. Sylvia devoted herself to teaching art to the students of Lake Bluff Elementary School in Shorewood, WI. During this time Sylvia produced a magnificent body of work that was undiscovered until her death. Sylvia's work is rich, diverse and fascinating collection of drawings...

This abstract artwork is one of a group of over 100 pieces personally selected by the artist, and gifted to a close personal friend in 1969. Please note this painting was never matte...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Despite her artistic cont...

One of a group of over 100 works personally selected by the artist and gifted to a close personal friend in 1969, this work was never matted, framed, glued, taped or exposed to light...

Rare color lithograph on Rives paper , built in 1958 Limited edition of 125 copies Signed and numbered in pencil by the artist Numbered specimen: 111/125 Sheet size: 76 x 56 cm Plate...

silkscreen print, made in 1953 for Art of Today, Masters of Abstract Art, Album I Limited edition of 300 copies , paper size: 65 x 50 cm framed size: 74 x 58 cm artist's pencil signa...

Manfred Schwartz (American, b. Poland, 1909-1970), Celestial Tondo, Pointillist Composition, Gouache on Paper, apparently unsigned, artist estate stamp to verso, with red dot sticker...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Dehner's legacy has been overshadowed for many years by her ex-husband, the acclaimed sculptor David Smith. Stifled by their tumultuous relationship, Dehner only fully committed to her practice after divorcing him in 1951. This break was highly fruitful for her artistic output and reputation in the following years. After the divorce, Dehner refined her artistic voice and expanded her practice to include printmaking and sculpture. Her new-found independence and renewed ambition led to a pivotal relationship with the esteemed printmaking studio Atelier 17. Working there she formed a close and enduring friendship with Louise Nevelson. Today Dehner has been re-embraced and repositioned in the American art canon. Her work is best understood and appreciated in the context of not only David Smith but other artists dedicated to sculpture including Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, and of course Louise Nevelson. This energetic and hypnotic work on paper is somewhat of a departure from Denher's structured and intricate approach. Bold, frenetic strokes of ink loop chaotically across the surface, revelling in a sense of fluid dynamism that is in contrast with the artist's architectural arrangements. While it is notably looser and bolder then some of the drawings we expect from this era, we find the artist creating forms that are a harbinger of the muscular sculpture she would create in the following decade. Click here to see an example of a bronze sculpture from 1966 sold at Wright auction house...

This pencil drawing is hand signed at the lower right margin in pencil "Arp". Provenance: Galerie Denise René, Paris, purchased 3rd January, 1962 The Eileen and Herbert C. Bernard ...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Despite her artistic cont...

Dorothy Dehner (1901–1994) was an influential American multidisciplinary artist who worked with drawing, painting, printmaking, and most notably sculpture. Dehner's legacy has been ...

Ink drawing "Structural Costellation" by Josef Albers from 1958. Josef Albers' works “Structural Constellations” were created from 1949 onwards. They demonstrate spatial perception...

A drawing by Richard Diebenkorn. This Untitled work from the Urbana Series is an ink of paper, abstract drawing by Post War, Bay Area Figurat...

Mid-century oil pastel abstract incorporating a vast array of color and unique shapes by artist D. Wargon, circa 1950. Signed lower right. Original artwork on paper displayed on a...

Watercolor on heavy paper work is unframed Signed by artist in pencil, lower right verso. Property from the estate of Anne E. C. Porter, with the estate stamp, verso. ...

Disney Legend Mary Blair was also a commercial illustrator for national brands such as Maxwell House Coffee and Beatrice Foods, and two complete national campaigns for Pall Mall cigarettes. The present work was part of her Pall Mall cigarette campaign "'So friendly to your taste!'". We are unsure whether this work was a reproduced, or was only used in a test market , or for a client comp. Nonetheless, as a piece of commercial work-for-hire art, it rises to the realm of fine art. Even though the look of the work has a quick, loose and playful feel to it, each element is carefully placed to strike a perfect balance. In this campaign, the artist created the background, and the art director stripped in the product label. The cigarette to the left is also a cut-out and pasted into position to achieve the ideal look. Commercial art is, in almost all cases, a collaborative effort between the Art Director, the Artist, Account People, and the Client, yet in this case, the Mary Blair signature flat graphic and colorful style is dominant and the packaging is secondary. We have to assume the client, American Tobacco Company's brand Pall Mall was trying to sell the sizzle and not the steak. Nothing in advertising is done by chance. This Pall Mall campaign was acutely tested, and apparently, the Mary Blair style was the brand identity that the ad agency chose over other submissions. Blair's warm personal feel fits perfectly with the tag line "'So friendly to your taste!'" and connects with the audience. In the 1950s - 1960s, Mary Blair was one of the few women artists to design and execute a major mainstream advertising campaign that was not solely women-oriented subject matter: babies, women's clothes, and household products. Cigarette ads had some of the most significant budgets and visibility. Typically, they were a full page back or inside cover and pervasive billboards. The ad agencies could have called any artist in the world, and they would have jumped at the opportunity for such a sought-after, lucrative and prestigious job. In the commercial art field, Mary Blair was somewhat like Margaret Burke...

Yellow and Green Composition is a striking and lyrical example of Natalia Dumitresco’s mature abstract style, rendered here on an intimate scale. IT is also framed in a very unique a...

An Abstract expressionist gouache painting by American artist, Sid Gross. Date: 1959 Gouache on paper, signed and dated lower right Image Size: 18.5 x 12 inches Frame Size: 28 x 22 ...

paesaggio di Menerbes dove Picasso le regalò una casa e lei visse per alcuni anni - L'opera è firmata e Timbrata MD - Dora MAAR (Parigi 1907 – 1997) Nata Henrietta Theodora Mark...

Early abstraction from 1952, recalling the masterful brushwork in Asian calligraphy, with its cursive scripts and variations in fluidity and character. Yet Sennhauser departs from t...

We are proud to present the following suite of just discovered, mixed media paintings, c.1957, by American artist Robert McIntosh(1916-2010) Robert McIntosh was extremely prolific...

A captivating 1950s textile design in black and brown ochre tones with wedge star pattern by noted set and costume designer Andre Delfau. Born in Par...

Louis Wolchonok, 'Rockport Harbor', gouache, c. 1950. Signed in ink, lower right. A fine, modernist work, with fresh colors, on cream wove drawing pape...

'Roofs of Ravello' by Margaret Wentworth, 1959. Mid-Century Abstract, Harvard Fogg Museum, San Francisco Art Association, Carmel, Art Institute of Chicago ------ Initialed lower rig...

A 1959 black and white, Mid-Century, Surrealist watercolor on paper by artist Desmond McLean in a cerused black frame. Image size: 12" x 30". Framed size: 19 3/4" x 25 3/4". McL...

Abstract Composition is a Watercolor artwork realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980) in 1955. Good condition included a white cardboard passpartout (35x49 cm). H...

Venice is an original modern artwork realized by Zoran Mušic in 1959. Mixed colored pastel drawing on paper. Includes frame. Hand signed and dated on th...

Transformista 3 - Original Figurative Drawing by Jose Luis Cuevas (b. 1934 d. 2017.) This original ink drawing by Cuevas depicts two distorted figures pressing their faces together....

Wonderful abstract expressionist drawing in shades and tones of grays and black by John Haley (American, 1905-1991), c.1956-7. Signed lower left corner. Presented in 3" mat. Condition: Very good: some edge wear consistent with age. Image size: 25"H x 19"W. A feature of the artwork of John Charles...

A 1950s geometric textile design in brown, yellow and pink tones by notable stage and set designer Andre Delfau. Born in Paris, France in 1914, Andre Delfau became an internationally acclaimed stage, set and costume designer who worked world-wide from the 1930s to the 1980s. Delfau was a life long artist and painted independently of his noted design career. His artwork is recognized for it’s vibrant color and form, and a particularly keen use of line. He was highly influenced by the French Modern trends of Cubism and Surrealism, and his artwork is often infused with a dramatic sense of architecture and perspective. Delfau created fashion designs for such major Paris couture houses as Balmain, Jean Patou and Balenciaga. He completed noteworthy set designs and costumes for numerous international operatic and ballet productions, including those at the Royal Danish Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Great Britain, the Paris Opera, the Dance Theater of Harlem, the Ruth Page International Ballet, the Civic Ballet of Chicago, the Chicago Opera Ballet and the Lyric Opera of Chicago, among others. Most notably, Delfau designed the elaborate stage sets and costumes for the 1986 PBS television production of the Viennese operetta, "Die Fledermaus...

This intense abstract watercolor has drawed on sheet of Fabriano paper, an Italian high quality paper specially made for artists and its artworks. About Keller arworks was told many words but we want to add that every time we look at his creations we can feel at once his whole world. Erich Keller...