Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 10

William C. Grauer
WILLIAM C GRAUER 1940s Cows Cleveland School Cubist WC

Circa 1940s

$1,250
£953.78
€1,085
CA$1,755.40
A$1,921.08
CHF 1,015.12
MX$22,929.35
NOK 12,954.22
SEK 11,847.69
DKK 8,104.39

About the Item

This small 7 x 10–inch watercolor from the 1940s by Cleveland School artist William Grauer is a compact demonstration of how mid century modernism could be fused with a keen eye for regional subject matter. At first glance, the painting appears almost fully abstract: a mosaic of angled planes in earthy browns, umbers, muted greens, and flashes of blue and violet that fracture the surface into a shifting patchwork. Yet the longer one looks, the more a recognizable scene begins to emerge. Near the center, a loosely aligned row of angular, dark shapes suggests a herd of cattle or grazing animals moving across a field. Legs are reduced to spindly lines, bodies to broken rectangles and triangles, but the collective rhythm is unmistakable. Grauer’s gift is to let representation hover just on the edge of abstraction, so the viewer oscillates between reading the forms as animals and appreciating them as purely formal elements in a complex design. The palette and brushwork underscore this tension. Transparent watercolor washes slide into one another, creating soft gradations, but they are bounded by assertive, calligraphic lines that lock the composition into a crystalline structure. Earth tones dominate, evoking soil, stone, and pasture, while the unexpected injections of saturated turquoise and violet animate the landscape and hint at changing light or distant hills. This interplay between natural color suggestion and stylized geometry reflects the broader concerns of American Scene painting and modernist experimentation in the 1940s, years in which artists sought to reconcile European-derived abstraction with distinctly American places and experiences. Within the context of the Cleveland School, known for its strong design sensibility and embrace of watercolor as a serious medium, the work feels both characteristic and personal. The modest scale encourages intimate viewing, as if one were holding a visual fragment of rural Ohio in hand, refracted through the artist’s analytic eye. Rather than present a literal pasture scene, Grauer captures its essence: movement, pattern, and the interdependence of animals and land. In doing so, he turns a familiar subject into an intricate visual puzzle, inviting viewers to reconstruct the landscape in their minds and to savor the disciplined spontaneity of his brush. Signed lower right. Framed Dimensions: 12 x 15 inches PROVENANCE: The Artist, Cleveland, Ohio; Acquired from the above over a 50 year period by a relative of the artist, Rancho Santa Fe, California.
  • Creator:
    William C. Grauer (1896, American)
  • Creation Year:
    Circa 1940s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 7 in (17.78 cm)Width: 10 in (25.4 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    In very fine, age appropriate condition.
  • Gallery Location:
    Rancho Santa Fe, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU516317274312

More From This Seller

View All
WILLIAM C GRAUER Men Horses in Landscape 1940s cubist WC Cleveland School
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
William C. Grauer’s painting from the 1940s shows him working at the edge of figuration and abstraction. A few figures and several horses gather on open ground, yet the scene is buil...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

WILLIAM C GRAUER "Amish Series: Husbandry" 1940-50s Cleveland School oil/canvas
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
William C. Grauer’s oil painting, Amish Series: Husbandry, is a vivid example of mid century Cleveland School modernism. It merges regional subject matter with a sophisticated, Cubis...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

WILLIAM C GRAUER 1950s Caribbean Men Working - Cleveland School WC
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
The watercolor shows a cliff alive with workers. At first glance it feels almost abstract, a tangle of ochres, grays, and rusty browns. Then the figures begin to emerge. Men in light...
Category

Mid-20th Century American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

WILLIAM C GRAUER "Oriental Hints" 1970s Cleveland School acrylic/panel ABSTRACT
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
William C. Grauer’s 1970s acrylic on panel Oriental Hints stands as a striking late career exploration of abstraction and surface. Unlike his earlier representational watercolors, th...
Category

1960s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel

WILLIAM C GRAUER Abstract Archaeological Fresco colorful 1970s Cleveland School
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
This powerful 1970s painting by William C. Grauer is executed in acrylic on panel at an impressive scale of 48 by 36 inches. The work immediately draws the viewer in with a glowing f...
Category

1960s Modern Abstract Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Panel

WILLIAM C GRAUER Barn Windy Autumn Sky, wc gouache 1950s Cleveland School
By William C. Grauer
Located in Rancho Santa Fe, CA
William C. Grauer’s watercolor and gouache from the 1950s shows a barn set back behind a slanting fence, with trees gathered around it and a sky full of quick, layered strokes. The p...
Category

1950s Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor, Gouache

You May Also Like

Cows in a Field (Recto) Two Figures in an Interior (Verso)
By Louis Schanker
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Cows in a Field (Recto) Two Figures in an Interior (Verso) Watercolor on heavy textured paper, 1938 Signed in ink verso image of Two Figures, unsigned ...
Category

1930s American Modern Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Cows by Woodland Pond, Toledo, Ohio, Early 20th Century Cleveland School
By Frank Wilcox
Located in Beachwood, OH
Frank Nelson Wilcox (American, 1887-1964) Cows by Woodland Pond, Toledo, Ohio, c. 1920 Watercolor and graphite on board Signed lower right 22 x 30 inches Frank Nelson Wilcox (October 3, 1887 – April 17, 1964) was a modernist American artist and a master of watercolor. Wilcox is described as the "Dean of Cleveland School painters," though some sources give this appellation to Henry Keller or Frederick Gottwald. Wilcox was born on October 3, 1887 to Frank Nelson Wilcox, Sr. and Jessie Fremont Snow Wilcox at 61 Linwood Street in Cleveland, Ohio. His father, a prominent lawyer, died at home in 1904 shortly before Wilcox' 17th birthday. His brother, lawyer and publisher Owen N. Wilcox, was president of the Gates Legal Publishing Company or The Gates Press. His sister Ruth Wilcox was a respected librarian. In 1906 Wilcox enrolled from the Cleveland School of Art under the tutelage of Henry Keller, Louis Rorimer, and Frederick Gottwald. He also attended Keller's Berlin Heights summer school from 1909. After graduating in 1910, Wilcox traveled and studied in Europe, sometimes dropping by Académie Colarossi in the evening to sketch the model or the other students at their easels, where he was influenced by French impressionism. Wilcox was influenced by Keller's innovative watercolor techniques, and from 1910 to 1916 they experimented together with impressionism and post-impressionism. Wilcox soon developed his own signature style in the American Scene or Regionalist tradition of the early 20th century. He joined the Cleveland School of Art faculty in 1913. Among his students were Lawrence Edwin Blazey, Carl Gaertner, Paul Travis, and Charles E. Burchfield. Around this time Wilcox became associated with Cowan Pottery. In 1916 Wilcox married fellow artist Florence Bard, and they spent most of their honeymoon painting in Berlin Heights with Keller. They had one daughter, Mary. In 1918 he joined the Cleveland Society of Artists, a conservative counter to the Bohemian Kokoon Arts Club, and would later serve as its president. He also began teaching night school at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute at this time, and taught briefly at Baldwin-Wallace College. Wilcox wrote and illustrated Ohio Indian Trails in 1933, which was favorably reviewed by the New York Times in 1934. This book was edited and reprinted in 1970 by William A. McGill. McGill also edited and reprinted Wilcox' Canals of the Old Northwest in 1969. Wilcox also wrote, illustrated, and published Weather Wisdom in 1949, a limited edition (50 copies) of twenty-four serigraphs (silk screen prints) accompanied by commentary "based upon familiar weather observations commonly made by people living in the country." Wilcox displayed over 250 works at Cleveland's annual May Show. He received numerous awards, including the Penton Medal for as The Omnibus, Paris (1920), Fish Tug on Lake Erie (1921), Blacksmith Shop (1922), and The Gravel Pit (1922). Other paintings include The Trailing Fog (1929), Under the Big Top (1930), and Ohio Landscape...
Category

1920s American Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Graphite

"Cheval 361" by Grégoire Mathias – Lascaux-Inspired Cubist Horse Painting
Located in PÉRIGUEUX, FR
Cheval 361 Acrylic on Canvas 73 x 93 cm Cheval 361 is the inaugural piece in Grégoire Mathias’s celebrated series inspired by the Lascaux Horses, the prehistoric cave paintings of P...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Cubist Animal Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Acrylic

"Cubist Landscape" Albert Heckman, American Modernist, Fractured Landscape
By Albert Heckman
Located in New York, NY
Albert Heckman Cubist Landscape Signed lower right Oil on canvas 21 3/4 x 30 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to tr...
Category

1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Horses in Landscape, Late 20th Century Watercolor by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013) Horses in Landscape Watercolor and graphite on paper Signed lowe...
Category

Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Graphite

Antique American Abstract Cubist Mid Century Framed Composition Signed Geist
Located in Buffalo, NY
Modernist abstract composition signed Geist. Oil on board, circa 1964. Signed lower right. Displayed in a wood frame. Excellent ready to hang condition.
Category

Mid-20th Century Cubist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil