Dong Kingman

Seoul, Korea

1954 - 1956

Signed and dated lower left: A. WALKOWITZ / 1908

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) New York City Skyline View from the East River Watercolor on paper 13 x 19 inches Signed lower left In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Oscar Bluemner Sheepshead, Long Island, 1907 Signed with the artist's conjoined initials "OB" and dated "4-30 - 5 - 30" / "Aug 3, 07" Watercolor on paper 6 x 10 inches Provenance: J...

This captivating Modernist watercolor painting of a serene forest scene by Richard Sorby (1911-2001) beautifully captures the essence of nature through a minimalist and expressive lens. Painted in the 1940s, the piece features stylized trees in bold, dark hues of green, blue, and black, complemented by earthy tones of brown, orange, and white. The watercolor on paper is signed by the artist in the lower right corner and beautifully framed with archival materials. The outer dimensions of the piece measure 26 ½ x 18 ½ x 1 inches, with the image size itself being 22 ¾ x 14 ¾ inches. About the Artist: Richard Sorby, a Colorado-based artist, was renowned for his distinctive modernist style, blending abstraction with representational themes. Sorby earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Colorado State College of Education (now the University of Northern Colorado) in 1937 and went on to study under influential mentors, including Vance Kirkland and William Joseph Eastman...

'Any Day in America' by Ron Croci. Social Realist, Beat Generation, Allen Ginsberg ----- Signed lower right, "Croci" for Ron Croci (American, born 1945), and painted circa 1970. A ...

Abstract watercolor or gouache composition bearing the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee. Pawel August Kontny, (Polish-German-American artist) He was born in Laurahuette, Poland, in 1923, the son of a wealthy pastry shop owner. In 1939 he began studying architecture in Breslau where he was introduced to the European masters and to the work of some of the German Expressionists, soon afterward banned as "degenerate artists" and removed from museums throughout Germany by the Nazi regime. His studies were interrupted by World War II. Drafted into the German army, traveling in many countries as a soldier, he sketched various landscapes but in 1945, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Italy. After the war, he studied at the Union of Nuremberg Architects to help design buildings to replace ones destroyed in the war. He recorded his impressions of the local population and the landscapes through his watercolors and drawings. Pawel Kontny thereafter moved to Nuremberg, Germany, becoming a member of the Union of Nuremberg Architects and helping to rebuild the city's historic center. He soon decided to concentrate on his professional art career. He married Irmgard Laurer, a dancer with the Nuremberg Opera. Pavel Kontny 's career as an artist was launched with his participation in an all German exhibition, held at the Dusseldorf Museum in 1952. He held one-man shows in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. During his trip to the United States in 1960, Kontny became instantly enamored with Colorado, and decided to relocate to Cherry Hills with his wife and two children. He quickly established himself in the local art community, being affiliated for a time with Denver Art Galleries and Saks Galleries. His subject matter became the Southwest. During this time he received the Prestigious Gold Medal of the Art Academy of Rome. His extensive travel provided material for the paintings he did using his hallmark marble dust technique. he also worked equally in pastel, watercolor, charcoal and pencil-and-ink. in a style which merged abstraction and realist styles, influenced by Abstract Expressionist painting and South Western American landscapes. In the early 1960s he was one of only a few European-born professional artists in the state, a select group that included Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), a member of the prewar Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, and Roland Detre...

Artist: Thelma Speed Houston – American (1914-2000) Title: Trafalgar Year: unknown Medium: Watercolor on heavy watercolor paper Sheet size: 18 x 24 inches Signature: Signed lower lef...

A Unique, 1960s Mid-Century Modern, European City View Watercolor by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Artwork is formatted in a trapezoid shape, an innovative compositional dev...

A Vibrant, Colorful Mid-Century Watercolor of Village Rooftops by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Depicting a tropical hillside village of terracotta rooftops nestled beside a...

Donald Stacy "Mound Street" c. 1950s Gouache paint on paper 24" x 18'" unframed Unsigned Came from artist's estate For sale is a striking black and white painting titled "Mound Stre...