20th Century Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

"Der Hafen von Plit" is a drawing by Paul Klee. The drawing is signed lower left, "Klee". The framed piece measures 25 1/4 x 30 1/2 x 1 3/8 in. Paul Klee was one of the most import...

"Harlequin’s Birthday" Mid 20th Century American Abstract 1960s Color Field James Daugherty (1887 – 1974) Harlequin’s Birthday 17 1/4 x 11 inches Pastel on paper, c. 1965 Titled lo...

Elizabeth Murray Untitled Abstract Composition, 1990 Graphite, colored pencil and paper collage on paper (frame bears the original Paula Cooper Gallery label) Signed and dated Spring...

James Nares Untitled flower monotype, 1988 Monotype on hand made paper Pencil signed and dated by James Nares on the lower right front Frame included: floated in the original wood fr...

Rem Raymond Coninckx (1904 - 1974) Rem Raymond Coninckx was born on 28th March in Couvin (Belgium) 1904 and died in Dinan 1974. He was a painter, draftsman, engraver and also creat...

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 ...

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 ...

Untitled molded mud-dried paper with collage elements, 1996 Signed and dated lower edge (see photo) Annotated and titled verso Sheet size: 24 x 7 inches Provenance: Ralph Drake, fir...

Artist: David Roth, American (1942 - ) Title: Untitled VI Year: 1974 Medium: Acrylic Painting on Arches Paper, signed and dated Image Size: 15.5 x 45.5 inches Size: 22.5 in. x 53.5 i...

Art Deco Illustrator Charles Perry Weimer creates a powerfully graphic depiction of a 1930s couple in front of a classic Art Deco building with a...

Plastic dynamism, Blac,white Futurism, Speed, Signature bottom left ALFREDO GAURO AMBROSI (Rome 1901 – Verona 1945) Painter of the second Futurism, he is mainly dedicated to aeropainting. His most famous work is the Air-Portrait of Mussolini the aviator...

"Sleeping Figures" Watercolor Abstract Painting 10" x 14"in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in painting in 1967 in...

Sam Francis Untitled (SF64-121) 1964 Gouache and oil on paper 69.9 x 104.4 cms (27 1/2 x 41 1/8 ins) SF14605 Exhibited: New York, 'Chamberlain/Francis', Van Doren Waxter, July 11- ...

Untitled Watercolor on paper. 1971 Unsigned Sheet size: 24 x 19 inches Condition: Excellent From the collection of Ileana Sonnabend (1914-2007) Laddie John Dill, a Los Angeles artist...

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...

Sheila Isham Flight XXXI, 1987 acrylic, watercolor, and collage on handmade paper with deckled edges Pencil signed, dated and titled Signed again and warm...

Image size is 11.60" by 9" Boris Deutsch (Lithuanian-American Modernist) was born in Krasnogorsk Lithuania june 4 1892 died in Los Angeles 1978. Entered the polytechnic school in rig...

Genevive Moreau (French, fl. early Twentieth Century) Three Designs in Blue Gouache 32 x 50 cm c. 1925 Signed in pencil; from a small portfolio of well-executed designs by the artis...

Genevive Moreau (French, fl. early Twentieth Century) Design for Fabric - Triangles in Green, Blue and Terracotta (c. 1925) Gouache 22 x 16 cm Signed in pencil; from a small portfol...

Pastel, gouache and coffee on paper. Artwork size: 58 x 56 cm. Frame size: 78 x 76 cm. Free shipment worldwide. Acquired directly from the artist. Archive number (P90/37) “The heart is an eye,” writes Nobel laureate Octavio Paz in an essay on Matta’s paintings. Matta creates a world coloured both by a sunny faith in the future and by visions of impending doom. Roberto Sebastian Echaurren Antonio Matta, who died aged 91 on 23 November 2002, was born in Santiago, Chile, on 11 November 1911 into a family with Spanish, French and Basque roots, and raised in an atmosphere of religiosity. By the age of 21 he had graduated and begun work as an architect, but his leisure time he devoted to sketching and painting. In 1933 he travelled to Europe for the first time, visiting Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy and other countries, and subsequently taking the initiative to collaborate with the architect, Le Corbusier. As time passed, however, Matta’s enthusiasm for a career in architecture waned, and he began to devote himself full-time to art, making early acquaintances with surrealists such as Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, André Breton and others. Between 1939 and 1948 Matta, like many of his artistic contemporaries, lived in self-imposed exile in the USA, but, after almost 10 years’ absence from Europe, he returned to make first Rome and then, a few years later, Paris his home. Throughout most of the rest of his life Matta commuted between his studio in Paris and his creative refuge in the monastery outside Rome. And it is here, in Italy, that he produced his greatest paintings. Matta’s first retrospective in Sweden was organised in 1956 when his works were exhibited in what was then Galerie Colibri – run by, among others, the artist C O Hultén at number 36 Södra Förstadsgatan in Malmö, Sweden. This was also the time when Matta began to collaborate with poets and other artists in Sweden. He produced the illustrations for Lasse Söderberg’s first anthology of poems, Akrobaterna (“The Acrobats”), published in 1955, and was also responsible for the cover of the Swedish art and literary magazine Salamander. In 1959 the first museum exhibition of Matta’s work in Europe was arranged at the Museum of Modern Art (Moderna Museet) in Stockholm. Held under the aegis of Pontus Hultén, it was entitled “Fifteen Forms of Doubt” and included 15 or so gigantic paintings...

Black and white abstract charcoal drawing by Houston artist Paul Forsythe. The work features a large, abstract, organic shape in the upper right corner of the composition. Currently ...

Michel Debiève was born on May 29, 1931, with his twin brother Raymond, in a popular suburb of Maubeuge (North of France). Very early, encouraged by Emile, their father, the two brot...

Ellsworth Kelly Drawing of Cyclamen III, and collage for Conques (Untitled), exhibited at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, 1987 Graphite drawing, and mixed media collag...

Sandra Blow (British, 1925-2006) Abstract, 1970 Watercolour Signed with estate stamp (lower left) 11 x 7 in. (28 x 18 cm.) The late British artist Sandra Betty Blow (1925-2006) came...

Untitled Pastel on paper, 1922 Signed with the artist's initials in pencil Provenance: Estate of the artist Francis M. Nauman (label) Private collection, NY A very early abstract/cubist work by Kelly. Created while the artist was studying with Arthur Carles in Philadelphia. Leon Kelly (October 21, 1901 – June 28, 1982) was an American artist born in Philadelphia, PA. He is most well known for his contributions to American Surrealism, but his work also encompassed styles such as Cubism, Social Realism, and Abstraction. Reclusive by nature, a character trait that became more exaggerated in the 1940s and later, Kelly's work reflects his determination not to be limited by the trends of his time. His large output of paintings is complemented by a prolific number of drawings that span his career of 50 years. Some of the collections where his work is represented are: The Metropolitan Museum in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Boston Public Library. Biography Kelly was born in 1901 at home at 1533 Newkirk Street, Philadelphia, PA. He was the only child of Elizabeth (née Stevenson) and Pantaleon L. Kelly. The family resided in Philadelphia where Pantaleon and two of his cousins owned Kelly Brothers, a successful tailoring business. The prosperity of the firm enabled his father to purchase a 144-acre farm in Bucks County PA in 1902, which he named "Rural Retreat" It was here that Pantaleon took Leon to spend every weekend away from the pressures of business and from the disappointments in his failing marriage. Idyllic and peaceful memories of the farm stayed with Leon and embued his work with a love of nature that emerged later in the Lunar Series, in Return and Departure, and in the insect imagery of his Surrealist work. "If anything," he once said,"I am a Pantheist and see a spirit in everything, the grass, the rocks, everything." At thirteen, Leon left school and began private painting lessons with Albert Jean Adolphe, a teacher at the School of Industrial Art (now the University of the Arts) in Philadelphia. He learned technique by copying the works of the old masters and visiting the Philadelphia Zoo, where he would draw animals. Drawings done in 1916 and 1917 of elephants, snakes and antelope, as well as copies of old master paintings by Holbein and Michelangelo, heralded an impressive emerging talent. In 1917, he studied sculpture with Alexander Portnoff but his studies came to an abrupt halt with the start of World War I. Being too young to enlist, he joined the Quartermaster Corp at the Army Depot in Philadelphia, where he served for more than a year loading ships with supplies and, along with other artists, working on drawings for camouflage. By 1920, the family's fortunes drastically changed. His father's business had failed due to the introduction of ready made clothing and his marriage, unhappy from the beginning, dissolved. Broken by circumstance Pantaleon left Philadelphia to begin a wandering existence looking for work leaving Leon to support his mother and grandmother. He found a job in 1920 at the Freihofer Baking Company where he worked nights for the next four years. Under these circumstances Leon continued to develop his skills in drawing and painting and learned of the revolutionary developments in art that were taking place in Paris. During the day he was granted permission to study anatomy at the Philadelphia School of Osteopathy where he dissected a cadaver and perfected his knowledge of the human figure. He also met and studied etching with Earl Horter, a well known illustrator, who had amassed a significant collection of modern art which included work by Brancusi, Matisse, and Cubist works by Picasso and Braque. Among the artists around Horter was Arthur Carles, a charismatic and controversial painter who taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Leon enrolled in the Academy in 1922, becoming what Carles described as, "his best student". In the next three years Leon work ranged from academic studies of plaster casts, to pointillism, to landscapes of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, as well as a series of pastels showing influences from Matisse to Picasso. Clearly influenced by Earl Horter's collection and Arthur Carles he mastered analytical cubism in works such as The Three Pears, 1923 and 1925 experimented with Purism in Moon Behind the Italian House. In 1925 Kelly was awarded a Cresson Scholarship and on June 14 he left for Europe. Paris The first trip to Europe lasted for approximately three and a half months and introduced Kelly to a culture and place where he felt he belonged. Though he returned to the Academy in the Fall, he left for Europe again a few months later to begin a four-year stay in Paris. He moved into an apartment at 19 rue Daguerre in Paris and began an existence intellectually rich but in creature comforts, very poor. "I kept a cinderblock over the drain in the kitchen sink to keep the rats out of the apartment" he once explained. He frequented the cafes making acquaintances with Henry Miller, James Joyce and the critic Félix Fénéon as well as others. His days were split between copying old master paintings in the Louvre and pursuing modernist ideas that were swirling through the work of all the artists around him. The Lake, 1926 and Interior of the Studio, 1927, now in the Newark Museum. Patrons during this time were the police official Leon Zamaran, a collector of Courbets, Lautrecs and others, who began collecting Kelly's work. Another was Alfred Barnes of the Barnes Collection in Philadelphia. In 1929 Kelly married a young French woman, Henriette D'Erfurth. She appears frequently in paintings and drawings done between 1928 and the early 1930s. Philadelphia The stock market crash of 1929 made it impossible to continue living in Paris and Kelly and Henriette returned to Philadelphia in 1930. He rented a studio on Thompson Street and began working and participating in shows in the city's galleries. Work from 1930 to 1940 showed continuing influences and experimentation with the themes and techniques acquired in Paris as well as a brief foray into Social Realism. The Little Gallery of Contemporary Art purchased the Absinthe Drinker...

"Reclining Woman with Fish" Watercolor painting 11 x 14.5in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of F...

An original mixed media pastel and watercolor on paper by American female artist Adele Becker. This work is currently being offered unframed. Proceeds from the sale of this work wi...

Artist: Kim Jones, American (1944 - ) Title: Don't Cry For Me Argentina Year: 1988 Medium: Ink and Gouache, signed and dated verso Size: 20 x 15.5 in. (50.8 x 39.37 cm) Frame Size: 2...

Untitled Fabric Design Gouache on paper, 1920-1935 Signed with the Atelier Stamp verso (see photo) Numbered with the Atelier Litt Archive number verso (see photo) No. 05535 ...

BLADE graffiti drawing: A classic graffiti tag from Blade - King of Graffiti. Executed circa late 1980s or early the 1990s, the work features a classic Blade Tag in marker, alongside...

D. Tongen "Orange and Blue" 1980s 11.75"x9.75" Soft pastel and pencil on paper Initialed and dated in pencil lower right

This work is registered as an authentic work by Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) in the archives of the Calder Foundation (NY), under application number A.24492.  Created in 1967, this original pen and red ink drawing on paper is initialed ‘CA’ in blue ink in the lower right by Alexander Calder (1898 – 1976) with a handwritten dedication, also in blue ink, ‘To Alvin Lane’ along the lower center. The Sketch for ‘The X & Its Tails’ is an original study and preliminary drawing made by Calder preceding his large-scale sculpture for the Detroit Institute of Arts.  Sketches for models and sculptures are rare and this is no exception; according to Alvin S. Lane, collector and friend to Calder, “To the best of my knowledge there were very few, if any, preliminary drawings done by Calder that were on the market, but he was good enough when he did two for commissions to send the drawings to me as a present [including this Sketch for ‘The X & Its Tails’].  I included one of them here to show that although his drawings usually have a flowing steady line, his preliminary drawings are sloppy scribbles” (23). Provenance: ~       Gift of artist ~       Private Collection (Riverdale, NJ) Catalogue Raisonné and COA: Sketch for 'The X & Its Tails,' 1967 is fully documented and referenced in the below catalogue raisonnés and texts (copies will be enclosed as added documentation with the invoices that will accompany the final sale of the work). 1. Registered with the Calder Foundation, NY under application number A.24492. 2. Elvehjem Museum of Art. The Terese and Alvin S. Lane Collection...

Abstract Non-Objective Mid 20th Century Color Field Painting James Daugherty James Daugherty (1887 – 1974) "Unidentified Flying Object," 12 x 16 inche...

A painting by Alexander Calder. "The Forest" is a Post-War abstract painting, gouache and ink on paper in bold colors of reds, blacks, yellows, and blues by artist Alexander Calder. The artwork is signed lower right, "Calder 72...

Waterfall is a striking original pastel by acclaimed Taos artist Emil James Bisttram (1895–1976), a leading figure in American modernism and the Transcendental Painting Group. This s...

Unique work mixed media signed on bottom H75 x W 57 cm (framed)

Untitled Graphite on paper, 1930 Signed and dated upper right (see photo) Exhibited: Francis Nauman, Leon Kelly: Draftsman Extraordinaire, New York, April 4 - May 23, 2014. (label) C...

Dorothy Dehner A Piano for Pete, 1975 Ink on paper Hand signed, dated and inscribed "A Piano for Pete - Best, Dorothy" on the the front Unique Frame included Held in the original vin...

Gouache on paper and technic mixed, signed lower left.

Claude Bauret Allard (French, b. 1936), "New Mexico", Pastel on Paper, 1983, signed in pencil, titled, and dated to verso, unframed. 19" H x 26.25" W. Provenance: From a 35 East 75th...

"Abstract Composition IX" Abstract Painting 10" x 14" in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in painting in 1967 in hi...

Unsigned. Presented in a contemporary white frame. On paper.

Original watercolor on paper. Hand signed on front by the artist. Additional images are available upon request. Certificate of Authenticity is included. Please do not hesitate to ...

Important watercolour on paper 'Untitled' by the great Italian artist Riccardo Licata. Dated and signed at lower right "74 Licata". This work is representative at the highest level ...

"The Nature of Things" is an original oil pastel drawing on paper by Reginald K. Gee. The artist initialed the piece on the back. This work features a variety of abstract techniques-...

Hiromichi Iwashita (Japanese, b. 1942), "Bodega Bay" Diptych, 28 September 1995, mixed media on paper, both signed and dated, vertical composition titled, each floating in black fram...

Nam June Paik Untitled, Plate Six from Novecento, 1992 Mixed Media: Color offset lithograph with unique chalk pastel drawing 13 3/10 × 18 inches Hand signed, Edition 104/130 Pencil n...

Bauhaus Iconic work by the master or Cubism and Expressionism Dalzell Hatfield Gallery, Los Angeles Bonhams, Exhibited: Moller Fine Art, "Precision ...

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...

"Not Intended For Office Viewing Series, Section F" is an original oil pastel drawing on illustration board by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. This piece fe...

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 that this painting was never ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Burgoyne Diller (1906-1965) Recognized as the first American painter to embrace the tenets of Neo-Plasticism, Burgoyne Dill...

This artwork titled "Neon Lights" 1978 is an ink and watercolor on Fabriano paper by renown French artist Sacha Kolin, 1911-1981. It is hand signed and dated at the lower right corne...

Title: Abstract Architectural Still Life French Modernist Gouache by Guy Nicod Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 15.75 x 19.25 inches (height x ...

"Bourrée Fantasque #4", Pastel on Paper by Artist Francisco Moncion, is a Mid-20th Century fantasy image inspired by George Balanchine's 1949 ballet of the same name for the New York...

Maurice Sievan (American, 1898-1981), Untitled, Mixed Media on Paper, 1970, crayon and watercolor, signed and dated "'70" to lower left and inscribed to verso, in a white mat, unfram...

It is somewhat hard to reconcile Gershon Iskowitz's (1921-1988) joyful aesthetic with his personal history. Born to a religious family in Poland, Iskowitz was allowed to leave yesh...

"Three Pyramids + Blue Ball" is a gouache on paper by Alexander Calder. The work is signed in the lower right, "Calder 73”. Although renowned for his innovative and groundbreaking sculptures, Alexander Calder started his artistic career as an abstract painter, preferring to use gouache. What is gouache? Gouache is a water-soluble paint – a type of opaque watercolor. As Calder returned to gouache painting towards the end of his life, he was now armed with a lifetime of experience as a sculptor. He explored the three-dimensional vocabulary of sculptural forms he had developed onto the two-dimensional surface of the paper. Certain shapes and colors recur throughout his gouaches and sculptures. Circles, ovals, and other geometric forms dominate the space. There is the same sense of energy and fluidity. The shapes do not sit on the surface but vibrate giving a feeling of movement in contrast to the static nature of painting. Like his sculpture, Calder’s gouache...

Dimitri Petrov, American (1919 - 1986) - Untitled - Minimalist Abstract, Year: 1975, Medium: Pencil and Watercolor on Paper, signed and dated, Size: 22 x 30 in. (55.88 x 76.2 cm)

Persian miniature realized in Iran or Central Asia in the early 20th Century Gouache, ink and gold on paper, mounter on a later walnut frame. Very well preserved, with strong pigme...