1940s Abstract Paintings

Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 18 by 24 inches overall. Excellent condition, ready to hang...

Nicely painted early American modernist abstract landscape. Oil on canvas. Framed.

Vintage American school modernist abstract painting. Oil on canvas. Housed in a great period modernist silver leaf frame.

Werner Drewes (1899-1985) oil on canvas, 1947 Titled: “Adobe Village” Measures: 15 ½ x 36 Frame: 21 x 42 Signed lower left and also on the verso In excellent condition. Born in Nie...

Antique signed Canadian fishing oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24L x 30H.

Antique American modernist abstract landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. No signature found. Framed. Image size, 24L x 22H.

This striking original 1949 gouache and wax painting, titled "Fetishes", is a powerful work by acclaimed New Mexico modernist Howard Schleeter (1903–1976). Rich with symbolic abstrac...

These artworks by Carl Holty are only sold as a pair. Each painting measures 9" x 11" and framed 18" x 20.25" x 2.5" The red and gold work is signed "Carl Holty" in the lower right. About this artists: Carl Holty was awakened to his interest in art as a child through visits to the Layton Art Gallery of Milwaukee, and began painting lessons with Friedrich Wilhelm Heine at a young age. Though born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1900, he was raised in Wisconsin and enrolled at Marquette University. Before long, Holty abandoned his pre-medical studies in order to pursue art. He spent a summer at the School of the Chicago Art Institute in Saugatuck, Michigan, and set off for New York in 1920. He then studied at the National Academy of Design under Francis Coates Jones...

Edward Zutrau Toucan, 7/29/1949 Dated on verso Oil on linen 30 x 23 inches Edward Zutrau (1922–1993) was an American painter whose career spanned from the 1940s through the early 1...

Genre: Avant-Garde Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: Mexico Dimensions: 25 3/4" x 19 3/4" x 3/4" Dimensions w/Frame: 27" x 21 1/4" THE VICTIM Yonia Fain Oil, 1947 Although this oil painting’s subject is predominantly abstract, there is a faint echo of a figural shape at its center. A figure wearing Tefillin, An organic form appears to be pinned to a hammer shaped object, reminiscent of a crucifix. This tool may be a reference to one of the Soviet Union’s symbols. Moreover, it is likely a direct reference to the persecution Fain faced as a Russian Jew in Bolshevik Russia. The contrast between colors, geometric lines, and organic curves is indicative of Fain’s collaboration with Diego Rivera, as well as the time he spent in Mexico. The primary hues communicate the hardship the artist underwent and his cathartic ability to reproduce those emotions through paint. In addition to being a renowned artist and award-winning poet, Yonia Fain is among the few survivors to triumph over the turmoil of the 20th century. Fain’s abundant body of artwork and poetry pays tribute to the hardship many experienced during the Russian Revolution, Nazi invasion of Poland, and World War II. The persecution Fain experienced forced him to immigrate to several countries including China, Mexico, and the United States. Yonia Fain was born in Russia in 1914. When he was only 10-years-old, he and his family fled from the Bolshevik Revolution to Poland. There he pursued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and hoped to continue his education in Paris. He was awarded B.A. and M.F.A. degrees from the University of Poland. In 1939, the artist and his wife Helen moved to Warsaw when the town they lived in, Vilna, became occupied by the Soviet Union. Although they managed to escape the Nazis, Fain was apprehended by Soviet military...

Oil on canvas

Original watercolor on paper. Initialed lower right by Rolph Scarlett. Artwork size 7.75 x 8.75 inches. Frame size 17.5 x 21.5 inches. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certifi...

"Two Seas and a Moon" Surrealism American Scene WWII Modern WWI Denver WPA Era Arnold Ronnebeck (1885 - 1947) Two Seas and a Moon 30 x 22 1/2 inches Oil on Canvas, c. 1943 Signed u...

Vintage French impressionist landscape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 15 by 18 inches overall. Handsomely framed in whit...

"Backstage, Ambassador" Broadway Theatre NYC Mid-century Modern Modernist CubistSigned lower left, titled on the stretcher. Norkin was a Brooklyn, Ne...

Genre: Modern Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Board Dimensions: 16" x 19 3/4" x 1/4" Dimensions w/Frame: 19 1/4" x 23 1/4" Hand signed lower right Ernesto Linares Early Mexic...

This Modernist oil on canvas painting, titled "The Immigrant" and signed by Hida Coates Altschule, is a powerful and evocative piece created in America circa 1946. Deeply reflective ...

Signed & dated 1940 lower left. Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) He was born to Czechoslovakian parents in 1892 in New York City. Living in Chicago as a youth, he took classes at the S...

Emil John HESS 1913-2003 This vibrant watercolor on canvas by acclaimed American artist Emil John Hess immerses viewers in the lively atmosphere of a bustling circus scene. Painted...

Gerome Kamrowski Untitled, circa 1944 Signed lower right Oil on canvas 35 3/4 inches x 47 3/4 inches Gerome Kamrowski was born in Warren, Minnesota, on January 19, 1914. In 1932 he...

Signed lower right, 'Buk' for Eduard Buk Ulreich (American, 1889-1966), dedicated lower right, 'Made for Ruth M.' and painted circa 1945. Titled verso 'Birds in Flight', additionally...

Julio De Diego’s Atomic Series paintings made an extraordinary statement regarding the shock and fear that accompanied the dawn of the nuclear age. In the artist’s own words, “Scientists were working secretly to develop formidable powers taken from the mysterious depths of the earth - with the power to make the earth useless! Then, the EXPLOSION! . . . we entered the Atomic Age, and from there the neo-Atomic war begins. Explosions fell everywhere and man kept on fighting, discovering he could fight without flesh.” To execute these works, De Diego developed a technique of using tempera underpainting before applying layer upon layer of pigmented oil glazes. The result is paintings with surfaces which were described as “bonelike” in quality. The forms seem to float freely, creating a three-dimensional visual effect. In the 1954 book The Modern Renaissance in American Art, author Ralph Pearson summarizes the series as “a fantastic interpretation of a weighty theme. Perhaps it is well to let fantasy and irony appear to lighten the devastating impact. By inverse action, they may in fact increase its weight.” Exhibited 1964 Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio, Texas This work retains its original frame which measures 54" x 42" x 2" About this artist: Julio De Diego crafted a formidable persona within the artistic developments and political struggles of his time. The artist characterized his own work as “lyrical,” explaining, “through the years, the surrealists, the social-conscious painters and the others tried to adopt me, but I went my own way, good, bad or indifferent.” [1] His independence manifested early in life when de Diego left his parent’s home in Madrid, Spain, in adolescence following his father’s attempts to curtail his artistic aspirations. At the age of fifteen he held his first exhibition, set up within a gambling casino. He managed to acquire an apprenticeship in a studio producing scenery for Madrid’s operas, but moved from behind the curtains to the stage, trying his hand at acting and performing as an extra in the Ballet Russes’ Petrouchka with Nijinsky. He spent several years in the Spanish army, including a six-month stretch in the Rif War of 1920 in Northern Africa. His artistic career pushed ahead as he set off for Paris and became familiar with modernism’s forays into abstraction, surrealism, and cubism. The artist arrived in the U.S. in 1924 and settled in Chicago two years later. He established himself with a commission for the decoration of two chapels in St. Gregory’s Church. He also worked in fashion illustration, designed magazine covers and developed a popular laundry bag for the Hotel Sherman. De Diego began exhibiting through the Art Institute of Chicago in 1929, and participated in the annual Chicago Artists Exhibitions, Annual American Exhibitions, and International Water Color Exhibitions. He held a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in the summer of 1935. Though the artist’s career was advancing, his family life had deteriorated. In 1932 his first marriage dissolved, and the couple’s young daughter Kiriki was sent to live with friend Paul Hoffman. De Diego continued to develop his artistic vocabulary with a growing interest in Mexican art. He traveled throughout the country acquainting himself with the works of muralists such as Carlos Merida, and also began a collection of small native artifacts...

Vintage American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 15 by 19 inches overall. Handsomely framed in...

Very impressive early American abstract expressionist painting. Oil on board. Framed. Signed. Housed in a wonderful period wide modernist frame.

The fame, notoriety, and monetary value of an artist's work in today's market are not based on one's talent and vision. Factors such as marketing and media momentum play a defining r...

Vintage American modernist sunset cloudscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 19 by 25 inches overall. Handsomely framed ...

Nicolas de Staël Study 1944 Original oil on canvas Unsigned On canvas 32 x 24 cm (c. 13 x 10 in) Presented in in a wood frame 41 x 34 cm (c. 16 x 13 in) Annotated "Nicolas de Stael ...

Antique American female modernist still life oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Signed. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a wood molding. Excellent conditio...

Vintage French modernist South France landscape oil painting from the cirlce of Andre LHote. Apparently unsigned. Very finely painted. Oil on canvas, lain to board. Framed. Measu...

Vintage American modernist landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Measuring: 27 by 30 inches overall, and 20 by 24 painting alone.. In excellent original condition. ...

The work represents a wide eye cat staring at a rooster. The work is as simple as it's complex. The negative space is as important as the positive space. It's as sophisticated as it'...

Oskar Fishinger (1900-1967), began his career in Germany as one of the pioneers of the Germans avant garde abstract film movement, known for inventing abstract musical animations, and what was often reffered to as, Optical Poetry. He arrived in Hollywood in 1936 where he worked in film until 1947, before turning his attention exclusively to his abstract painting. Time Travel #2, one of a pair of two Fishinger paintings...

Signed lower right Agnes Hart was born in Meridan, Connecticut. She studied at the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, Florida; at Iowa State University with Josef Presser, Paul Burlin and Lucile...

Large and impressive modernist landscape painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed illegibly.

Just discovered, a rare, surrealist painting by American artist Robert McIntosh(1916-2010) McIntosh was extremely prolific and exhibited thro...

Charles Elmer Harris (Beni E. Kosh), Untitled (Central Railroad), watercolor, c. 1945. Estate stamped verso, 'Beni E Kosh COLLECTION' and numbered '697' in ink. A fine, modernist re...

signed ‘Gropper’ (lower right); with the artist's studio stamp (on the verso)

Presenting a just discovered master level abstract painting, Green Forrest, by American artist Robert McIntosh (1916-2010.) Green Forrest is an original mixed media painting on hea...

Signed lower left, 'Hortense M. Gordon' for Hortense Crompton Mattice Gordon (Canadian, 1886-1961) and dated 1949. Previously with: Dominion Gallery of Montreal (stamp, verso). Phot...

Antique American school signed seascape painting. Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24L x 18H.

Belgian artist Miette Braive(1916-2000), was classically trained in Belgium, before moving to Paris to pursue her art career as first a student and then a contemporary of the famed F...

This vibrant oil painting by Henry Varnum Poor (American, 1888–1970) captures a blooming spring landscape with barns, budding trees, and bright skies rendered in expressive, textural...

Oil on academy board by the Russian/American artist Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed and dated lower left, 1945. Condition: Excellent. Presently not framed. Biography : Russian-America...

Antique American modernist abstract oil painting by Lela "Jackie" Axline (1910-1998). Oil on board, circa 1940. Signed. Displayed in a period modern frame. Image, 16"L x 24"H.

Vintage American modernist tropical landscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 14 by 14 inches overall. Handsomely framed...

Impressive early American modernist street scene. Reminiscent of New Orleans or another souther city. A bustling street scene. Nicely framed. No signature found. Image size, 24...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) Untitled, c. 1949 oil on canvas 18 x 32 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1950, he was immediately drafted and served for two years in the army as a mural painter. He received his Master of Arts from Kent State in 1961. A frequent exhibitor at galleries and museums and winner of multiple May Show prizes, Andres taught art in the Cleveland Public Schools for 28 years, as well as teaching the University of Buffalo, the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Western Reserve University. Very little in Richard Andres’ childhood would have predicted his love of classical music, mid-century-modern architecture and certainly not his lifelong passion for art and in particular abstract art. Richard’s father, Raymond, had no more than a third-grade education, and his mother, Clara, was one of thirteen children – only three of whom lived into adulthood and none of whom attended high school. They lived, when Richard was a boy, in a dingy area of Buffalo, NY in a walk-up apartment situated above a tavern. Raymond and Clara supplemented the income from their factory jobs in the bar downstairs with Raymond playing ragtime on the piano and Clara serving drinks. This often left Richard and his two older brothers at home alone to fend for themselves. The two older boys, Raymond and Russell, were - unlike Richard- rather rough and tumble and entertained themselves with stickball, boxing and the like. Richard, on the other hand, from a very young age liked to draw, or better yet even, to paint with the small set of watercolors he received for Christmas one year. Paper, however, at the height of the depression, was hard to come by. Luckily, Clara used paper doilies as decoration for the apartment and Richard would contentedly paint and then cut up doilies, gluing the pieces together to create collages. At eight-years-old, he discovered the Albright-Knox Museum (then known as the Albright Art Gallery) and spent several hours a week there studying the paintings. He was particularly fond of Charles Burchfield‘s landscapes, enamored with their ‘messiness’ and thinking that they somehow captured more ‘feeling’ than works he was previously familiar with. For his tenth Christmas, he asked for and received a ‘how-to’ paint book by Elliot O’Hare. Through this self-teaching, he assembled the portfolio needed for acceptance to Buffalo Technical High School where he studied Advertising Arts. In his Junior year, he was encouraged to enter a watercolor painting, “Two Barns,” in the national 1944-45 Ingersoll Art Award Contest and was one of twelve grand prize winners – each one winning one hundred dollars. More importantly the painting was exhibited at the Carnegie Institute Galleries, which resulted in his winning a national scholarship to the Cleveland School of Art (The Cleveland Art Institute). He flourished at the art school under the tutelage of faculty members such as Carl Gaertner, as well as that of visiting artists such as William Sommer and Henry George Keller. He would say in later years that Gaertner, in particular, influenced his attitude toward life as well as art. “Gaertner,” Andres said, “believed that there was no need to be a ‘tortured artist’, that an artist should rather enjoy beauty, family, and life in general.” Free to spend his days as he chose, he wandered the Cleveland Art Museum for most of the hours he was not attending classes or painting; the remaining time was spent drinking coffee at a local hangout with art school friends – which is where he met fellow Henry Keller scholarship winner, Avis Johnson. Richard was immediately smitten with Avis, but being rather shy, it took him the entire summer of 1948 to build up his courage to ask her out. Over that summer he ‘thought about Avis’ and worked in a diner to save money. He also used the hundred-dollar prize money won in High School to visit the first Max Beckmann retrospective in the United States at the City Art Museum in St. Louis. Over a half century later he spoke of that exhibit with a reverence usually reserved for spiritual matters, “I walked in and it was like nothing I had ever seen before... the color...It just glowed.” Returning to campus in the Fall, the first thing he did was go to the coffee shop in hopes of finding Avis. He did, and she, upon seeing him, realized that she was also smitten with him. They quickly became known as ‘the couple’ on campus, and a year later, with Richard being drafted for the Korean war, they were quickly married by a Justice of the Peace, celebrating after with family at Avis’s Cleveland home. As a gift, faculty member John Paul Miller designed and made the simple gold wedding ring Avis wore for their 65 years of marriage. During those 65 years neither wavered in their mutual love, nor in the respect they shared for one another’s art. The couple lived in a converted chicken coop in Missouri while Richard was in boot camp. At the camp, he would volunteer for any job offered and one of those jobs ended up being painting road signs. His commander noticed how quickly and neatly he worked and gave him more painting work to do - eventually recommending him for a position painting murals for Army offices in Panama. Until her dying day, Avis remained angry that “The army got to keep those fabulous murals and they probably didn’t even know how wonderful they were.” In Panama, their first son, Mark, was born. After Richard’s discharge in 1953, they moved back to the Cleveland area and used the GI bill to attend Kent State gaining his BA in education. The small family then moved briefly to Buffalo, where Richard taught at the Albright Art School and the University of Buffalo – and their second son, Peter, was born. Richard had exhibited work in the Cleveland May Show and the Butler Art Museum during his art school years, and during the years in Buffalo, his work was exhibited at the gallery he had so loved as a child, the Albright Art Gallery. In 1956, the family moved back to the Cleveland area and Richard began teaching art at Lincoln West High School during the day while working toward his MA in art at Kent State in the evenings. Avis and Richard, with the help of an architect, designed their first home - a saltbox style house in Hudson, Ohio, and in 1958, their third son, Max (after Max Beckmann) was born. Richard enjoyed the consistency of teaching high school as well as the time it gave him to paint on the weekends and during the summer months. In 1961, he received his MA and his daughter, Claire, was born. With a fourth child, the house was much too small, and Avis and Richard began designing their second home. An admirer of MCM architecture, Richard’s favorite example of the style was the Farnsworth house – he often spoke of how the concepts behind this architectural style, particularly that of Mies van der Rohe, influenced his painting. Andres described himself as a 1950’s...

Symbolic figurative abstract of wispy figures surrounding a heart by Marguerite Louis Blasingame (American; 1906-1947), circa 1940-45. Marguerite and her husband Frank Blasingame...

Vintage modernist abstract hat shop painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1950. Housed in a period frame. Image size, 32L x 26H.

Mid Century Hawaiian Symbolism -- Stairway to Destiny Symbolic figurative abstract with climbing stairway in bright spring colors by Marguerite Loui...

Vintage American modernist abstract still life oil painting. Oil on board, circa 1950. Housed in a vintage frame. Image size, 22L x 13H. Signed.

Painted by Robert Gilberg (American, 1911-1970) circa 1950. Unsigned and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity. Born in Oakland, Robert George Gilberg first studied at the O...

Presenting a just discovered mixed media painting by American artist Robert McIntosh, (1916-2010.) Tango, is an original mixed media gouache o...

Impressive early American modernist central park, new york city oil painting. Framed. Oil on canvasboard . Image size, 18H by 24L.

This stunning Scottish Abstract Expressionist oil painting is by noted Scottish artist William Gear. Painted in 1949 it is an early and significant painting which dates to the early part of his career. Entitled Abstract Landscape with Red and Green it was painted during Gear's time in Paris and involvement with COBRA. Mostly red and green shapes are incased in black on a vivid yellow background. A really pleasing composition to the eye and perfectly housed in an ebonised frame, it is an excellent example of Gear's work. Signed and Dated '49 lower right. Inscribed, titled and dated verso. Provenance: Cornish collection. Condition. Acrylic on canvas 25 inches by 20 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in an ebonised frame, 30 inches by 25 inches and in good condition. Few British painters have played an active role in the modern abstract movement of post-war Europe. William Gear was the most passionate and committed exception. He continued the tradition of the Edinburgh-Paris axis established by J.D. Fergusson, Samuel Peploe and others, spending vital years between 1947 and 1950 living and working in Paris. Significantly, in recent years, he received the greatest acclaim in France, Germany and the Netherlands. He was born in 1915 in Methil, Fife, into a mining family; the particular landscape of "pitheads, the sea, rocks, castles, trees, storms and poverty" marked his earliest identity with a place and probably remained the most influential to his art. Years later he recalled as a schoolboy visiting the local art gallery in Kirkcaldy and seeing 12 colourful still-lifes by Peploe. Art-history lessons during student years at Edinburgh College of Art, in particular Byzantine classes under David Talbot Rice, also influenced his concern for structure. This had as much to do with the formal language of painting as sheer delight in the medium itself. Gear never missed an opportunity to show people the merits of a well-constructed painting. On a travelling scholarship in 1937, he chose to study with Fernand Leger, described by Gear as "a keystone for me, seldom abstract, rather a degree of abstraction". The Second World War interrupted these formative years and, by 1940, Gear had joined the Royal Corps of Signals. Dispatched to the Middle East, he still had the discipline to paint - mostly works on paper of damaged landscapes - with exhibitions in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Cairo as well as Siena and Florence. His naturally robust and tenacious temperament was profoundly affected by visiting Bergen-Belsen, and this certainly influenced the later experiments with the black armature. As the British officer in Celle, working for the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section of the Control Commission, he focused on securing the safety of the Berlin Art Collection in Schloss Celle, and organised an important series of modern art exhibitions, including the rejected work of Karl Otto Gotz...

Work on wood

This Untitled Abstract Composition in Oil on Canvas signed Joe Stefanelli is a gem of Mid-Century American Abstraction. This painting brilliantly exemplifies the approach and movemen...

Monumental antique American modernist abstract cityscape oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found. Very impressive painting in person here.

Antique American impressionist seascape signed oil painting by Frank Montague Moore (1877 - 1967). Oil on board. Signed. Framed. Image size, 30L x 20H.

A simplified landscape oil painting by Joe Jones. This two-toned piece is nicely framed and signed. Modern Landscape Joe Jones, American (1909–1963) Date: circa 1940 Oil on Canvas, ...