20th Century Abstract Paintings

Salvador Dalí 1904-1989 Spanish Four of Swords Signed “Dalí” (lower center) Gouache on photographic background Representing a unique blend of spiritualism and Surrealism, this go...

Vintage American modernist abstract figural oil painting of a woman and bird. Oil on canvas. Signed verso. Framed. Provenance from Fairleigh Dickinson University. Measuring: 25 by ...

Title: Mid Century French Geometric Abstract in Black White and Blue Signed SG by Serge Guerin (b. 1916), French signed lower right “SG”, name stamped verso Acrylic and gouache on ar...

Roy Newell Untitled, 1953 Signed and dated Roy Newell-1953 Oil on board 3 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches Provenance The Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Maximilian Le Witter Estate of the above Roy...

Juan Suarez (Spanish, b. 1946) Naturaleza Muerta, Mixed media painting on three assembled canvases, (triptych) It is either oil or acrylic paint. it seems like oil to me. A label ve...

Oil on board, Late 20th Century. Illegibly signed verso. Image size 12"L x 15"H.

Richard Andres (American, 1927–2013) Sailing, 1973 oil on canvas signed lower right, signed and titled verso 58 x 72 inches Exhibited: Cleveland Museum of Art, May Show 1973 Richard...

RALPH ROSENBORG – "LANDSCAPE: GARDEN OF FLOWERS, 1973" Oil on Canvas ⚜ Signed and Dated Lower Left and on Verso ⚜ Custom Conservation Frame A VIBRANT ABSTRACT LANDSCAPE BY AN AMERIC...

This colourful abstract expressionist painting is by the award-winning artist Milly Ristvedt. For decades, Milly Ristvedt has explored the unlimited potential and power of colour to...

Title: French Village Market Scene With Figures and Church Tower Impressionist Painting by Fanch Lel Signed: Bottom right corner Size: 15 x 18 inches (height x width) Oil painting on...

Vintage American school abstract expressionist oil painting by Ray Prohaska (1901 - 1981). Oil on board. Very nice period frame. Signed. Exhibited at Mortimer Levitt Gallery. Im...

Stephen Pace Untitled, 59-A12, 1959 Signed and dated lower left Oil on canvas 29 x 24 inches Born in Charleston, Missouri, Stephen Pace grew up in Indiana, where his parents operat...

Night and Day is an acrylic on canvas painting by Seikichi Takara painted in the 1980s. The canvas is 50 x 60 inches and the framed dimensions are 56 x 66 inches. The art is signed l...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) Crusader, c. 1969 acrylic on canvas signed and titled verso 48.5 X 62.5 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 1927. A graduate ...

Black & Orange Abstract Expressionist Painting by Leading British Urban Artist, Angela Wakefield (b.1978) - entitled "Abstract Nocturne", Alternate Version Art measures 24 x 24 inc...

Antique American modernist abstract minimalist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed verso.

This stunning abstract artwork was made in 1960, by the well known Italian artist Ermete Lancini. The artwork is a painting and a collage with fabric and other glued elements on the ...

Original watercolor on paper. Hand signed on front; signed, titled and dated on verso by the artist. Additional images are available upon request. Certificate of Authenticity is inc...

Ms De Pinna was part of the Provincetown modernist art movement and was a student of legendary artist/teacher Hans Hoffman. Vivian (Foster) De Pinna was a su...

Title: French Impressionist Painting of Moored Fishing Boats and Lighthouse By Fanch Lel Signed: Yes Size: 8.75 x 10.75 inches (height x width) Oil painting on board, unframed Condit...

5157 Vintage Cubic nude oil pastel Signed lower right

The Provence Village 20th century French school after Andre Lhote (bears signature, ie: not by Andre Lhote) oil on board, framed framed: 12 x 19.5 inches board: 8 x 15.5 inches Pro...

Bay Leaf River, acrylic on canvas, 24" x 82", 1984. Abstract Landscape Painting. Claude Vermette R.C.A. (1930 - 2006) is a Canadian ceramist and paint...

David Hare Cronus Hunting, 1967 Acrylic and paper collage on linen 68 x 53 inches “Freedom is what we want,” David Hare boldly stated in 1965, but then he added the caveat, “and wha...

ABOUT THIS PIECE This is a series of oil on canvas Californian landscapes, painted by the late American artist Herb Kornfeld. This piece is framed, and is SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY. ...

Work on paper Silver wood frame with glass pane 72 x 93 x 2 cm

"Abstract Composition" by Armand Rottenberg (French 1903-2000) oil painting on card, unframed painting: 19.5 x 13 inches Superb original painting by the French abstract artist (...

Stunning and completely unique one of a kind original artwork - by the well listed French abstract painter, Bernard Herzog (b.1935). During the latter part of his career, like Henr...

"Untitled Abstract II" is an Original Oil on Canvas by G. CURTIS. The piece is part of a set. It measures 49.5 x 37.5 x 1 inches with frame. It is signed and dated by the artist. The...

Nicely painted mid century abstract cubist oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed.

Abstract Expressionist Composition by Jacques COULAIS (1955-2011) gouache painting on paper/ card unframed: 14 x 7.75 inches condition: excellent provenance: all the paintings we hav...

Vintage American modernist abstract painting. Mixed media watercolor on board. Framed. Measuring: 16 by 18 inches. Handsomely framed in giltwood molding. Excellent condition, ready...

This is an interesting abstract work done with handmade Japanese Kozo or Washi type fiber paper mounted on board. Hand signed and dated in wonderful muted earth tones of fall foliage. Taro Yamamoto (1919 – 1994) belonged to the New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic, including Paris. New York School Abstract Expressionism, represented by Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline and others became a leading art movement of the post World War II era. He was also associated with Action painting Yamamoto was born in Hollywood, California. He lived in Japan from age six to age nineteen. In 1936 he returned to the USA and began studies in cubism at Los Angeles City College. In 1941 he joined the U.S. Army and served during WWII. After being discharged from the service he returned to California where he studied at the Santa Monica City College. 1950-1952 at The Art Students League of New York, under Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Morris Kantor, Reginald Marsh, Byron Browne and Vaclav Vytlacil; 1951-1953 at the Hans Hofmann School of Fine Arts in New York City. In 1952 he won a John Sloan Fellowship from the Art Students League. The next year he traveled to Europe under a Edward G. MacDowell Traveling Fellowship where he studies in Stuttgart, Germany with Willi Baumeister. He also exhibited at Galerie Huit in Paris. In 1954 Yamamoto was invited to a residency at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. There he worked alongside Stuart Davis, Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko developing his unique abstract expressionist style. Later in his life he devoted himself to a more hard-edge geometric style of painting. He married Gwyneth Cotton, a naturalized English woman, in 1955, and they lived in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. They were active at the Universalist Church of Provincetown. (He descended from a long line of Shinto priests) Yamamoto died in Provincetown in 1994. Selected Solo Exhibitions 1953: Galerie Huit, Paris; 1955: The Art Students League of New York, NYC; 1960-1962: Krasner Gallery, NYC; 1963-1964: 371 Gallery, Provincetown, MA; Selected Group Exhibitions 1951: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; 1952: NY Contemporary Gallery, NYC; 1952, 1955, 1956, 1962: Provincetown Art...

Mid Century pointillist painting on canvas of the Spirit of Ecstasy. Artist unknown. Colourful and full of energy, the large application of dots in this pointillist work both mesmer...

This original watercolor on paper by Cuban artist Wifredo Lam is in excellent condition and measures 12"h x 10"w. It is signed lower right and dated 1961. It bears a simple gold fr...

Pure mid century abstract expressionist painting. Great colors and movement. Oil on canvas. Framed. No signature found.

John Rozelle (American, 1944-) Grant Series II #5, Collage, 1988 Hand signed, dated and titled in pencil Provenance: Isobel Neal Gallery, Chicago, Measurements Matted to approximately 20 by 16 Sight: 11 by 9 inches Layers of torn ripped, and painted paper with music notes are overlaid on top of each other in this contemporary collage assemblage composition with a jazz sensibility. The pieces of paper have been arbitrarily arranged while in contrast, the artist has applied color in this piece in a very thoughtful way. John Everette Rozelle is an internationally renowned artist from St. Louis, Missouri now living in Banyoles, Girona. He is a masterful collagist, painter and sculptor included in museums and private collections worldwide. John Rozelle was born in St. Louis, Missouri and holds a B.F.A with a major in painting and a minor in sculpture from Washington University and a M.F.A from Fontbonne College. John Rozelle is currently tenured Associate Professor in the Drawing and Painting Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Prior to joining the Art Institute faculty he taught drawing, design, painting, and sculpture as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Fontbonne College. Rozelle has served on numerous occasions as curator, juror, and artist-in-residence for several exhibitions. His twenty years of solo and group shows have included those in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta, and Los Angeles. His work is housed among various corporate collections some of which include: Anheuser Busch, Citibank Corp., AT&T, Borg-Warner, Price Waterhouse, Saks Fifth Avenue, the Seven-Up Company, Ralston Purina, the Westin Hotels and ARCO. Rozelle is currently tenured Associate Professor in the Drawing and Painting Department at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His art can be found in over 20 public collections and in over 50 private collections throughout the United States. He has been in many important exhibitions including Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Layers of Meaning: Collage and Abstraction in the Late 20th Century. Included: Romare Bearden, Moe Brooker...

If you are looking for a powerful mid century modernist abstract with meaning, this could fit the bill. The oil on board is signed John M. Good and dated on a back board 1961. It is...

Richard Andres (American, 1927-2013) Naval Occurrence, c. 1963 oil on canvas signed and titled verso 24 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...

'City Lights' by Joan Savo, 1960. San Francisco Beat Generation, Woman Artist, Bay Area Abstraction ----- Signed lower right, 'Savo' for Joan Savo (American, 1918-1992) and dated 19...

Rare early American modernist cubist abstract by Anita F. Plumb. Framed. Pastel and gouache on paper. Signed. Image size, 20H by 26L.

Vintage American modernist painting. Gouache on board. Signed. Framed. Measuring: 20 by 15 inches overall. Handsomely framed in an antique Italian frame. Excellent condition, read...

This original vintage painting by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897–1968), titled Quitting Time from his Black and Blue Series (1941), exemplifies the artist’s signature Abstract Structu...

Richard Andres American, 1927-2013 Untitled, c. 1984 acrylic and ink on paper mounted on canvas signed lower right 19 x 16 inches Richard Andres was born in Buffalo, New York in 192...

Kenneth Marcus Hugh (American, 1916-2011) Small Craft Advisory Watercolor on paper Signed lower right 15 in. h. x 22.5 in. w., image 20.25 in. h. x...

Cecil Touchon (1956-, Austin, Texas) Z-A / PDP165CT95 Abstract Composition Oil, collage on canvas Hand signed and inscribed verso Dimensions: 24 x 22 in. Cecil Touchon (born 1956, ...

Edward Avedisian (American, 1936-2007) Abstract Large Painting Acrylic on panel heavily textured with a 3D effect. Dimensions: 48"h x 75"w Circa late 1970s, early 1980s Provenance: ...

Title: Mid Century French Black and White Geometric Abstract Composition by Serge Guerin (b. 1916), French Acrylic and gouache on black artists paper, unframed Size: 25.75 (height) x...

Antique American abstract oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a giltwood molding. Excellent condition, ready to hang and en...

Manuel Soto-Muñoz (1913-2000), Puerto Rican born American painter. Recipient award of merit Florida Southern College, 1958; prize Art Students League New York, 1950; 1st prize Salón ...

Vintage American modernist oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Provenance from a Sag Harbor, NY collection. Measuring: 23 by 29 inches overall. Handsomely framed in white wood mol...

Washes of sun yellow are edged in dashes of bright colors - mauve, cerise, lime and rust -- in this monumental color-field canvas by Milly Ristvedt. "Summer Window" from 1973 was cr...

Title: French Impressionist Village Harbour with Boats at Dusk by Fanch Lel By Fanch Lel Signed: Yes Size: 19.25 x 20.5 inches (height x width) Oil painting on cardboard, unframed C...

Josef Alan Levi (1938) is an American artist whose works range over a number of different styles, but which are unified by certain themes consistently present among them. Josef Levi began his artistic career in the 1960s and early '70s, producing highly abstract and very modernist pieces: these employing exotic materials such as light fixtures and metallic parts. By 1975, Levy had transitioned to painting and drawing still lifes. At first these were, traditionally, of mundane subjects. Later, he would depict images from art history, including figures originally created by the Old Masters. Around 1980, he made another important shift, this time toward creating highly precise, though subtly altered reproductions of pairs of female faces which were originally produced by other artists. It is perhaps this work for which he is most well known. Since around 2000, Josef Levi has changed the style of his work yet again: now he works entirely with computers, using digital techniques to abstract greatly from art history, and also from other sources. Levi's works of art in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the National Gallery of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum, among many others. Levi's art has been featured on the cover of Harper's Magazine twice, once in June 1987, and once in May 1997. Josef Levi received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959 from the University of Connecticut, where he majored in fine arts and minored in literature. From 1959 to 1960, he served to a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and from 1960 through 1967 he was in the U.S. Army Reserves. In 1966, he received the Purchase Award from the University of Illinois in 1966, and he was featured in New Talent U.S.A. by Art in America. He was an artist in residence at Appalachian State University in 1969, taught at Farleigh Dickenson University in 1971 and was a visiting professor of art at Pennsylvania State University in 1977. From 1975 to 2007, Levi resided in New York City. He now lives in an apartment in Rome, where he is able to paint with natural light as he was unable in New York. From 1959 to 1960, Josef took some courses of Howard McParlin Davis and Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University which initiated him into the techniques of reproducing the works of the Old Masters. His first works, created in the 1960s, were wood and stone sculptures of women. His first mature works were abstract pieces, constructed of electric lights and steel. In 1970, Levi's materials included fluorescent light bulbs, Rust-Oleum and perforated metal in addition to paint and canvas. By 1980, Josef Levi's art had transformed into a very specific form: a combination of reproductions of female faces which were originally depicted by other artists. The faces which he reproduces may be derived from either portraits or from small portions of much larger works; they are taken from paintings of the Old Masters, Japanese ukiyo-e, and 20th-century art. Artists from whom he has borrowed include: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Piero della Francesca, Botero, Matisse, Utamaro, Correggio, Da Vinci, Picasso, Chuck Close, Max Beckmann, Pisanello, Lichtenstein. The creation of these works is informed by Levi's knowledge and study of art history. Josef Levi's paintings from this period are drawn, then painted on fine linen canvas on wooden stretchers. The canvas is coated with twenty-five layers of gesso in order to produce a smooth surface on which to work. The drawing phase takes at least one month. Levi seals the drawing with acrylic varnish, and then he may apply layers of transparent acrylic in order to approximate the look of old paintings. After the last paint is applied, another layer of acrylic varnish is sprayed on to protect the work. Most of the figures in his contemporary pieces are not paired with any others. SELECTED COLLECTIONS MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, NY ALBRIGHT- KNOX GALLERY, BUFFALO, NY ALDRICH MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, RIDGEFIELD, CT NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, BROOKLYN, NY SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, WASHINGTON, DC CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ART...

Not the visual expected of a painting carrying the title “Maine Farmer.” But this abstract composition manages to convey the flinty resolve of men who support their families on the output of demanding and “generally infertile” soils, as described by the University of Maine. Thank the Lord for blueberries. Artist Abraham Elterman bestrides two countries. He was born in Mexico City and spent much of his education in the sciences, here in sequence: a B.Sc. in Physics at the nearly 475-year-old Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in his home town; a stint at Hebrew University of Jerusalem; a Ph.D. in Biophysics at the University of California, Berkeley; and then, taking a new direction with a residency in The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture located in Madison, Maine. Ah-ha, Maine! Elterman’s website lists 22 exhibitions in both Mexico and California, starting in 1986, and inclusion in group shows at the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, California and the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento...

6042 Vintage Cubic green landscape signed Jacobs Modern strip artist Frame

"Blue and Green Abstract" by Claudia Sisemore, acylic on canvas, 43.5 x 46 inches, $4,800. "I have a vague idea of what I am going to paint. I...

Nicely painted mid century abstract cubist oil painting. Great color and composition. Framed. Signed.

IAN HORNAK (1944–2002) Title: Domain of Asmodeus Date: 1985 Medium: Acrylic on double layered Masonite Dimensions: 31 x 37 inches (78.74 x 93.98 cm) Condition: Excellent ...

De Hirsh Margules (1899-1965). North on West Street , 1939. Watercolor on Arches wove paper. Signed and dated in pencil by artist lower margin. Sheet measures 15 x 22 inches. Framed measurement: 27 x 34 inched. Incredibly vibrant and saturated color with no fading or toning of sheet. Provenance: Babcock Galleries, NYC De Hirsh Margules (1899–1965) was a Romanian-American "abstract realist" painter who crossed paths with many major American artistic and intellectual figures of the first half of the 20th century. Elaine de Kooning said that he was "[w]idely recognized as one of the most gifted and erudite watercolorists in the country". The New York Times critic Howard Devree stated in 1938 that "Margules uses color in a breath-taking manner. A keen observer, he eliminates scrupulously without distortion of his material." Devree later called Margules "one of our most daring experimentalists in the medium" Margules was also a well-known participant in the bohemian culture of New York City's Greenwich Village, where he was widely known as the "Baron" of Greenwich Village.[1] The New York Times described him as "one of Greenwich Village's best-known personalities" and "one of the best known and most buoyant characters about Greenwich Village. Early Life De Hirsh Margules was born in 1899 in the Romanian city of Iași (also known as Iasse, Jassy, or Jasse). When Margules was 10 weeks old, his family immigrated to New York City. Both of his parents were active in the Yiddish theater, His father was Yekutiel "Edward" Margules, a "renowned Jewish actor-impresario and founder of the Yiddish stage." Margules' mother, Rosa, thirty-nine years younger than his father, was an actress in the Yiddish theater and later in vaudeville. Although Margules appeared as a child actor with the Adler Family[11] and Bertha Kalich, his sister, Annette Margules, somewhat dubiously continued in family theater and vaudeville tradition, creating the blackface role of the lightly-clad Tondelayo (a part later played on film Hedy Lamarr) in Earl Carroll's 1924 Broadway exoticist hit, White Cargo. Annette herself faced stereotyping as an exotic flower: writing about her publicist Charles Bouchert stated that "Romania produces a stormy, temperamental type of woman---a type admirably fitted to portray emotion." His brother Samuel became a noted magician who appeared under the name "Rami-Sami." Samuel later became a lawyer, representing magician Horace Goldin, among others. A family portrait including a young De Hirsh, a portrait of Rosa and Annette together, and individual photos of Rosa and Edward can be found on the Museum of the City of New York website. At around age 9 or 10, Margules took art classes with the Boys Club on East Tenth Street, and his first taste of exhibition was at a student art show presented by the club. By age 11, he had won a city-wide prize (a box camera) at a children's art show presented by the department store Wanamakers. As a young teenager, Margules was already displaying a characteristic kindness and loyalty. Upon hearing that two friends (one of them was author Alexander King), were in trouble for breaking a school microscope, the nearly broke Margules gave them five dollars to repair the microscope . Margules had to approach a wealthy man that Margules had once saved on the subway from a heart attack. Margules didn't reveal the source of the five dollars to King until twenty-five years later. In his late teens, Margules studied for a couple of months in Pittsburgh with Edwin Randby, a follower of Western painter Frederic Remington. Thereafter he pursued a two-year course of studies in architecture, design and decoration at the New York Evening School of Art and Design, while working as a clerk during the day at Stern's Department Store. He was encouraged in these artistic pursuits by his neighbor, the painter Benno Greenstein (who later went by the name of Benjamin Benno). Artistic career In 1922, Margules began work as a police reporter for the City News Association of New York .Margules then considered himself something of an expert on art, and the painter Myron Lechay is said to have responded to some unsolicited analysis of his work with the remark "Since you seem to know so much about it, why don't you paint yourself?" This led to study with Lechay and a flurry of painting. Margules' first show was in 1922 at Jane Heap's Little Review Gallery. Thereafter Margules began to participate in shows with a group including Stuart Davis, Jan Matulka, Buckminster Fuller (exhibiting depictions of his "Dymaxion house") in a gallery run by art-lover and restaurateur Romany Marie on the floor above her cafe. Jane Heap, left, with Mina Loy and Ezra Pound During the 1920s, Margules traveled outside of the country a number of times. In 1922, with the intent of reaching Bali, he took a job as a "'wiper on a tramp steamer where [he] played nursemaid to the engine." He reached Rotterdam before he turned back. He would return to Rotterdam shortly thereafter. In 1927, Margules took a lengthy leave of absence from his day job as a police reporter in order to travel to Paris, where he "set up a studio in Montmartre's Place du Tertre, on the top floor of an almost deserted hotel, a shabby establishment, lacking both heat and running water." He studied at the Louvre and traveled to paint landscapes in provincial France and North Africa. Margules also joined the "Noctambulist" movement and experimented with painting and showing his artwork in low light.Jonathan Cott wrote that: the painter De Hirsch Margulies sat on the quays of the Seine and painted pictures in the dark. In fact, the first exhibition of these paintings, which could be seen only in a darkened room, took place in [ Walter Lowenfels'] Paris apartment. Elaine de Kooning remarked that studying the works of the Noctambulists confirmed Margules' "direction toward the use of primary colors for perverse effects of heavy shadow." It was also in Paris that Margules initially conceived his idea of "Time Painting", where a painting is divided into sectors, each representing a different time of day, with color choices meant to evoke that time of day. In Paris, his social circle included Lowenfels, photographer Berenice Abbott, publisher Jane Heap, composer George Anthiel, sculptor Thelma Wood, painter André Favory, writer Norman Douglas, writer and editor George Davis, composer and writer Max Ewing, and writer Michael Fraenkel. Upon his return to New York in 1929, Margules attended an exhibition of John Marin's paintings. While at the exhibition, he "launched into an eloquent explanation of Marin to two nearby women", and was overheard by an impressed Alfred Stieglitz. The famous photographer and art promoter invited Margules to dine with his wife, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, and his assistant, painter Emil Zoler. Stieglitz thereafter became a friend and mentor to Margules, becoming for him "what Socrates was to his friends." Alfred Stieglitz Stieglitz introduced Margules to John Marin, who quickly became the most important painterly influence upon Margules. Elaine de Kooning later noted that Margules was "indebted to Marin and through Marin to Cézanne for his initial conceptual approach - for his constructions of scenes with no negative elements, for skies that loom with the impact of mountains." Margules himself said that Marin was his "father and ... academy." The admiration was by no means unreciprocated: Marin said that Margules was "an art lover with abounding faith and sincerity, with much intelligence and quick seeing." Stieglitz also introduced Margules to many other artistic and intellectual figures in New York. With the encouragement of Alfred Stieglitz, Margules in 1936 opened a two-room gallery at 43 West 8th Street called "Another Place." Over the following two years there were fourteen solo exhibitions by Margules and others, and the gallery was well-respected by the press. It was in this gallery that the painter James Lechay, Myron's brother, exhibited his first painting. In 1936, Margules first saw recognition by major art museums when both the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston purchased his works. In 1942, Margules gave up working as a police reporter, and apparently dedicated himself thereafter solely to an artistic vocation. "The Baron of Greenwich Village"[edit] Margules made his mark not only as an artist, but also as an outsized personality known throughout Greenwich Village and beyond. To local residents, Margules was known as the "Baron", after Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a prominent German Jewish philanthropist. Margules was easily recognizable by the beret he routinely wore over his long hair. Writer Charles Norman said that he "dressed with a flair for sloppiness." He was said to "know everybody" in Greenwich Village, to the extent that when the novelist and poet Maxwell Bodenheim was murdered, Margules was the first one the police sought to identify the body. Margules' letters show him interacting with art world figures such as Sacha Kolin, John Marin and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as with prominent figures outside the art world such as polymath Buckminster Fuller and writer Henry Miller. Most of his friends and acquaintances found Margules a generous and voluble man, given to broadly emotionally expressive gestures and acts of kindness and loyalty. In 1929, he exhibited an example of this loyalty and fellow-feeling when he appeared in court to fight what the wrongful commitment of his friend, writer and sculptor Alfred Dreyfuss, who appeared to have been a victim of an illicit attempt to block an inheritance. The Greenwich Village chronicler Charles Norman described the bone-crushing hugs that Margules would routinely bestow on his friends and acquaintances, and speaks of the "persuasive theatricality" that Margules seemed to have inherited from his actor parents. Norman also wrote about Margules' routine acts of kindness, taking in homeless artists, constantly feeding his friends and providing the salvatory loan where needed. Norman also notes that Margules was blessed with a loud and good voice, and was apt to sing an operatic air without provocation. The writer and television personality Alexander King said I think the outstanding characteristics of my friend's personality are affirmation, emphasis, and overemphasis. He chooses to express himself predominantly in superlatives and the gestures which accompany his utterances are sometimes dangerous to life and limb. Of the bystanders, I mean. King also spoke with affectionate amusement about Margules' pride in his cooking, speaking of how "if he should ever invite you to dinner, he may serve you a hamburger with onions, in his kitchen-living room, with such an air of gastronomic protocol, such mysterious hints and ogliing innuendoes, as if César Ritz and Brillat-Savarin had sneaked out, only a moment before, with his secret recipe in their pockets." Margules was such a memorable New York personality that comic book writer Alvin Schwartz imagined him at the Sixth Avenue Cafeteria in a risible yet poignant debate with Clark Kent about whether Superman had the ability to stop Hitler. Margules' entrenchment in the Greenwich Village milieu can be seen in a photograph from Fred McDarrah's "Beat Generation Album" of a January 13, 1961 writers' and poets' meeting to discuss "The Funeral of the Beat Generation", in Robert Cordier [fr]'s railroad flat at 85 Christopher Street. Among the people in the same photograph are Shel Silverstein...