Mid-20th Century Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

A Striking, 1940s Modern Surrealist Abstract Drawing, "Sky Traffic", by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Graphite on paper, dating from 1947. Art...

Title: Cubist Gouache French Farmyard Scene With Animals Figures Wine Barrels And Tools Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 14.5 x 21.75 inches (h...

Title: French Village Landscape with Trees and Hilltop Houses Pastel Drawing Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Oil pastel on artist paper Size: 19.75 x 25.5 inches (height x width) Pro...

Title: Cubist French Abstract Interior Scene With Figures Table And Geometric Shapes Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 19.5 x 15.75 inches (heig...

Title: French Gouache Street Scene With Market Stalls Shops Figures And Architecture Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 19.75 x 25.5 inches (height x width) Provenance: Artists estate, France Condition: fair with age wear, surface creases, and fraying to the sheet edges Description: This atmospheric gouache by French modernist Guy Nicod captures the vibrancy of a bustling street market scene. Rendered with expressive brushwork and bold colour contrasts, the composition shows figures moving among market stalls, shopfronts, and delivery vehicles beneath the looming façades of Parisian-style architecture. On the right, a shop sign reading Fruits glows with yellow illumination, highlighting vendors and customers engaged in lively exchange. A truck and silhouetted figures traverse the centre, while the street recedes toward an archway in the distance, anchoring the scene in a distinctly urban setting. Nicod’s painterly approach here contrasts with his cubist abstractions, revealing his ability to capture movement and atmosphere with a modernist eye. The gouache medium lends a rich matte finish, with vivid blues, yellows, and reds creating striking tonal contrasts against the darker architecture and evening sky. The spontaneity of the brushwork evokes the immediacy of urban life, where commerce and community intersect in daily rhythm. This work is particularly search-friendly and appealing to collectors of French urban landscapes, market scenes, and Parisian street views. Keywords such as French market painting...

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...

Title: Cubist French Abstract Composition With Figures Architecture And Red Background Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 23 x 19 inches (height ...

Title: Cubist Kitchen And Butcher Scene With Hanging Meats And Utensils Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 14.5 x 21.75 inches (height x width) P...

Title: Woodland Path Among Pines Provence French Landscape Gouache Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Gouache on artist paper, unframed Size: 19.75 x 25.5 inches (height x width) Proven...

Title: Colourful French Farmyard Scene with Tree Trunks and Mountain View Drawing Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Oil pastel on artist paper Size: 19.75 x 23.5 inches (height x width...

Title: Peaceful French Village Curve with Red Roofs and Tree Pastel Drawing Guy Nicod (French 1923 - 2021) Oil pastel on artist paper Size: 14.5 x 21.25 inches (height x width) Prov...

Marsden Hartley ALPSPITZE #3 (with Zabriskie Gallery Label), 1933 Pencil on cream wove paper. In original vintage frame with Zabriskie Gallery label Sticker label, framed with Zabris...

A captivating 1930s Surrealist graphite still life drawing with a hammer, palette and chopper by notable New York Modern artist, Jan Matulka. Artwork size: 8 1/2 x 11 inches. Archivally matted to 14 x 16 1/2 inches. Estate stamped. Provenance: Estate of the artist. An innovative drawing by Matulka reminiscent of the famed series of Modern works by the American painter and contemporary of Matulka, the New York artist Stuart Davis. In 1927, Davis began work on a series of five paintings based on a still life he had created by nailing an eggbeater, an electric fan, and a rubber glove to a table in his studio. Using this group of incongruous and unlikely items, he created his first truly abstract works. An example of these paintings, Egg Beater...

Unknown Artist Untitled, c. 1960s Ink on paper Sight size: 10 x 7 in. Framed: 15 1/4 x 12 1/4 in. Signed illegibly lower right: Jack Bl...?

Signed lower right, 'Beth Ames Swartz' (American, born 1936) and dated 1967. Primarily working in the idioms of abstraction and semi-abstraction, Beth's paintings and mixed-media ...

A Striking, Colorful 1940s Modern Surrealist Abstraction by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Titled "Wings", the artwork is watercolor, mixed medi...

Stylish decoupage work by Paul Garland featuring abstract geometric angles in chrome frame Art Sz: 17 1/4"H x 18"W Frame Sz: 18"H x 18"W For over 50 years, Paul Garland (b. 1943) ...

A rare 1948 black & white drawing from woman artist, Lois Field, who studied at the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Artwork size: 3" x 4". Handsomely framed to 9" x 11". In 1923, Lois F...

Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Landscape, 1968. Ink on illustration board, 19 × 23 inches. Signed and dated Artist and art educator, Roland Ayers was born on July 2, 1932, the only ...

A Colorful, 1930s Modern Surrealist Abstraction by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Titled "The Military", the artwork is ink and colored pencil ...

Bold mid century modern abstracted pastel on paper still life of several terra cotta jugs and vessels distilled down to their most basic shapes and ar...

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...

Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) original watercolour painting on board, unframed size: 19.75 x 15.75 inches condition: overall very good, minor wear to the edges as is normal for...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 10.75 x 8.5 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we h...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 10.75 x 8.5 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we h...

A Colorful, 1930s Modern Surrealist Abstraction by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Titled "The Military", the artwork is ink and colored pencil ...

A Striking, Colorful 1930s Modern Surrealist Abstraction by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Titled "To the Wind", the artwork is colored pencil a...

CYRIL POWER (British 1872-1951) STUDIES FOR THE COLOR LINOCUT REVOLUTION II, 1931 Pencil on thin wove paper. Unsigned. Consists of two 3 inch square pencil drawings on one sheet of thin wove paper 10 x 7 3/8 inches. Preliminary studies for Power's Grosvenor School...

A Striking, 1940s Modern Surrealist Abstract Drawing, "Flash Watch" by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Graphite on green toned paper, dating from...

Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) original watercolour painting on board, unframed size: 10.5 x 13.75 inches condition: overall very good, minor wear to the edges as is normal for ...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 12.75 x 9.75 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we ...

Original watercolor on archival paper by the American artist, Lloyd Raymond. Signed lower left by the artist and dated 1963. Condition is excellent. Presently unframed. Framing op...

Pioneering female abstract artist Elsie Driggs paints stylized abstract organic forms in a warm palette of orange browns and tope. She merges abstraction with some figuration. A structured face composed of lines and tone emerges from an orange background. It's 1939, and even though Driggs is not well known, she is preceding many of the marquee names of abstraction by a decade. Although under the radar, this is a major work and is titled on the back stretcher is " Egyptian Gothic." It features the artist's inventiveness with her fine pencil lines incorporated in flat washes of color and collage elements. Signed lower right and inscribed on frame verso with title, artist and the date of 1939. Provenance, Christie's, Freemans. Framed under glass.. Elsie Driggs (1898 – July 12, 1992 in New York City) was an American painter known for her contributions to Precisionism, America's one indigenous modern-art movement before Abstract Expressionism, and for her later floral and figurative watercolors, pastels, and oils. She was the only female participant in the Precisionist movement, which in the 1920s and 1930s took a Cubist-inspired approach to painting the skyscrapers and factories that had come to define the new American landscape. Her works are in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Houston Museum of the Fine Arts, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the James A. Michener Art Museum in Pennsylvania, and the Columbus Museum of Art, among others. She was married to the American abstract artist Lee Gatch. Career Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Driggs grew up in New Rochelle, a suburb of New York City, in a family that was supportive of her artistic interests. After a summer spent painting with her sister in New Mexico in her late teens, she felt she had found her life's calling. At twenty, she enrolled in classes at the Art Students League of New York, where she studied under George Luks and Maurice Sterne, both of whom were charismatic, inspirational figures in her early life. She also attended the evening criticism classes held at the home of painter John Sloan. Driggs spent fourteen months in Europe from late 1922 to early 1924, drawing and studying Italian art. There she met Leo Stein, first in Paris and later in Florence, who became an important intellectual influence, and who urged her to study Cézanne. He also introduced her to the works of Piero della Francesca, the Renaissance artist for whom she felt throughout her life the greatest admiration.[1] Driggs eventually settled in New York City, where she found representation with the progressive Charles Daniel Gallery.[2] (Advised that the old-fashioned and misogynistic Daniel would be unlikely to take on a woman artist, she signed the works she left for his consideration simply "Driggs" and waited to meet him in person until he had expressed his eagerness to include her in his gallery.)[3] In sympathy with those artists Daniel represented who were part of the burgeoning Precisionist movement, such as Charles Demuth, Charles Sheeler, George Ault, Niles Spencer, and Preston Dickinson, she too painted "the modern landscape of factories, bridges, and skyscrapers with geometric precision and almost abstract spareness."Impressionism and academic or Ashcan realism represented the past, in Driggs' view, and she intended to be resolutely modern. She was an attractive and engaging woman, but her demeanor belied a strong ambition and a clear sense of what it would take to make her mark in the New York art world. Driggs was part of the pre-eminent first group of Precisionist painters, including Demuth and Sheeler, who exhibited at the Daniel Gallery in the 1920s. Although a later group of Precisionist painters, including Louis Lozowick, Ralston Crawford and others, came on the American Art scene during the 1930s, Driggs felt that the style came to an end with the 1929 stock market crash.[5] In 1926 she painted her most famous work, Pittsburgh, a dark and brooding picture now in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, which depicts the gargantuan smokestacks of the Jones & Laughlin steel mills in Pittsburgh. Its focus is an overpowering mass of black and gray smokestacks, thick piping, and crisscrossing wires with only clouds of smoke to relieve the severity of the image, yet it was an image in which she found an ironic beauty. She called the picture "my El Greco" and expressed surprise that viewers in later years interpreted the painting as a work of social criticism. Like the other Precisionists (e.g., Demuth, Charles Sheeler, Louis Lozowick, Stefan Hirsch), she was concerned with applying modernist techniques to renderings of the new industrial and urban landscape, not in commenting on potential dangers the overly mechanized modern world of 1920s America might present. If anything, Precisionism, like Futurism, was a celebration of man-made energy and technology. One year later, she painted Blast Furnaces, in a similar vein. As noted above, Piero della Francesca's mural depicting "The Story of the True Cross" in Arezzo, with its tubular, static and frozen forms was the major influence on Driggs' "Pittsburgh" (it may have been the major influence for "Blast Furnaces" as well).[7] After Pittsburgh, Driggs' most acclaimed work was probably Queensborough Bridge...

Surrealist proto-Afropunk drawing by African-American artist, Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Amsterdam, 1967. Ink on paper, 9.5 × 12.5 inches; 16 × 19 inches framed. Signed and dated,...

Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Aery Kingdom, WIngs of Cloud, 1971 Ink on illustration board, panel measuring 19.5 × 25.5 inches. Artist label on verso. Signed and dated. Artist and a...

Larry Zox (1937-2006) was a central figure in the evolution of 20th century abstraction in America. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Zox studied at the University of Oklahoma and went o...

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...

Roland Ayers (1932-2014). Untitled (Landscape 2), 1968 Ink on paper. 30 × 28 inches. Artist and art educator, Roland Ayers was born on July 2, 1932, the only child of Alice and...

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

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...

A Striking, 1940s Modern Surrealist Abstract Drawing, "The Way of Scrutiny" by Notable New York Avant Garde Artist, Hannah Harari (Am. 1912-2000). Graphite on paper, dating from 194...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) People, 1964 Ink and crayon on paper Signed and dated upper right 36.5 x 24 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of nation...

This is a rare, pencil signed print based upon the original drawing which is illustrated in the catalogue raisonne of Richard Lindner's Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings, Edited by...

Study No. 12 - German Newsprint Collage German newspaper collage on paper by Janet Todd Young. An abstract collage by Janet Todd Young, early AAA member and lifelong abstract artist...

Philippe Hiquily's original drawings from the early 1960s, housed in a private collection, are a distinctive showcase of the provocative Hiquilian style that defined this era. These ...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Lloyd R. Ney (1893 – 1964) Called “Bill” by his friends, Lloyd Ney was one of the pioneers of Modernist art in New Hope. Ne...

Edith Isaac-Rose "Pastel Landscape in Blues 2" c.1960 Pastel on paper 17"x15" unframed Unsigned Edith Isaac-Rose (1929-2018) Born in Chicago in 1929, and neé Ganansky-Teitelbaum, she graduated from The Art Institute of Chicago in 1951 and moved to New York in 1959 where she lived ever since. Taking as her professional name her parents’ first names, Edith was a prolific artist working first as an abstract expressionist then turning in the 1980s to figurative, political work consisting of drawings, paintings, and embroideries which she called “Daily Rage”. She had been represented by the Phyllis Kind Gallery and her work is in the Hirshhorn Museum as well as numerous private collections. Edith, along with her partner of 35 years, Bea Kreloff, (1925-2016), founded Art Workshop International in 1981 where they held art and writing workshops in Assisi, Italy, Monhegan Island, Maine, and Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Edith was a resident at the Westbeth Artist Housing in Greenwich Village and was actively involved with the anti-war movement, gay liberation...

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...

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 10.75 x 8.5 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we h...

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...

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 ...

Original watercolor on archival paper by the California artist, Edward Darrell Crisp. Signed in pencil lower right margin. Dated in pencil lower left m...

An Avant-Garde, Abstract Modern Surrealist Dreamscape by Notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon (Am. 1909-1994). A striking, black & white charcoal drawing on paper depicting a lone ...

These exceptional original drawings, painted with colored pencil on translucent tracing paper, were designed by a French artist, circa the 1960s. The two rare paintings feature a geo...

Abstract drawing on paper without frame

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 8.5 x 5.75inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we hav...

Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) signed original watercolour painting on board, unframed size: 11 x 14.75 inches condition: overall very good, minor ...

Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) original watercolour painting on board, unframed size: 10 x 15 inches condition: overall very good, minor wear to the edges as is normal for an u...

Composition is an original drawing in watercolor by Vedan in the mid 20th century. Good condition Hand-signed. The artwork is depicted through soft strokes in a well-balanced comp...

Frank Duffield (British, 1908-1982) signed original watercolour painting on artistic paper, unframed size: 10.5 x 15 inches condition: Fair, minor wear to the edges as is normal for ...