Spencer Douglass Crockwell

Harpooning a Whale

1930

Provenance: The Artist. Menikoff collection (friends of the artist) About this artist: Born in Little Italy in 1907, Gregorio Prestopino first set out to become a sign painter as the son of New York City immigrants. Instead, his talent provided a life-changing scholarship to the National Academy of Design, and for five years he studied drawing under C. W. Hawthorne. He spent the summer of 1934 at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. His deep involvement with the colony led him to later serve as its director in 1954. Much of Prestopino’s work was in the vein of social realism. During the 1940s and 1950s he became deeply invested in portraying everyday Manhattan and Harlem scenes. He first became interested in the Ashcan school at the National Academy of Design, and remained committed to an interest in working with urban scenes. His lively treatment of people and events revealed his affinity for sixteenth-century artist Pieter Breughel. Later in his career, he focused on producing images of nudes and picturesque New Hampshire landscapes, and investigated the relationship between color and form. Prestopino exhibited at several biennials at the Corcoran Gallery, at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art. His work was frequently shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he was awarded the Temple Gold Medal in 1946 and an additional prize in 1952. He was awarded a National Institute of Arts and Letter Grant in 1961, and in 1972 the National Academy of Design awarded him the Altman Figure Painting Award. Prestopino’s artistic cache skyrocketed when Life magazine published his images from New York’s maximum security institution Green Haven as part of its “Prison Series” in 1957. That same year his paintings and sketches of urban life were featured in the short film Harlem Wednesday. Directed by John and Faith Hubley...

Circus Elephants American Modernism WPA Regionalism Mid-Century Modern Oil. Signed lower left. Not much is known about Marco de Marco, but just look at...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY This painting of four different species of fish that can be found in South Korea is from the mid-20th century Korean artist Kim Kyung. Seafood from both the seas that surround the peninsula and from its rivers are an integral part of the livelihood and cuisine of Koreans. Kim Kyung (in Hanja, 金耕, in Hangul 김경) was born in South Korea, his real name, under the current Revised Romanization was Kim Gyeong-Eun (in Hanja 金萬斗, in Hangul 김경은). His name follows the East Asian convention of family name first, though some Western galleries choose to reorder his name with the Western convention as Kyung Kim. He was born in Hadong, Gyeongnam during the Imperial Japanese occupation, as the eldest son of a poor farm family, and at the age of 18 he entered the art department of Japan University. In 1943, he returned to his hometown to escape being drafted into the Japanese army...

Incredible vintage modernist dog portrait by well listed and important woman artist Judy Henn. Oil on board. Framed. Image size, 4 by 5 inches.

Vintage modernist expressionist sunset oil painting. Oil on canvas. Image size, 27.5L x 20H. Signed.

Incredible vintage modernist dog portrait by well listed and important woman artist Judy Henn. Oil on board. Framed. Image size, 4 by 6 inches.

Antique American modernist animal portrait painting by Jerry Farnsworth. Oil on canvas, circa 1970. Signed. Image size 20L x 16H. Housed in a peri...

Rare and well executed modernist wall plaque by Richard Kuehne. Paint on gesso plaque. Signed. Silver leaf incorporated frame as photographed.

Vintage American modernist cow abstract still life oil painting by Jeanette Welty Chelf (1929 - 2021). Oil on canvas. Signed. Framed. Image size, 20L x 16H.

Antique American modernist painting of a circus by Dennis Meighan Burlingame (1901 - 1964). Oil on canvas, circa 1935. Signed on verso. Displayed in a period modern frame. Image...