J.W. Shank

“Adobe Wall Taos Pueblo”

1987

“St. Michael’s in Brooklyn, c. 1944” by Ernest Fiene (1894-1965) New York City served as an endless source of inspiration for Fiene, who often captured street scenes like this one i...

Snowy Barn #2, 1971, oil on canvas, signed and dated verso, 18 x 23 inches Marina Stern was a multifaceted New York-based artist whose works ranged from Expressionism and Pop Art to the Neo Immaculate paintings and pastels for which she is best known. A native of Venice, Stern and her family fled in 1939 to escape Italy’s repressive racial laws. After living in England for several years, the family arrived in the United States in 1941. A bright and capable student, Stern graduated from New York’s Julia Richman High School at age 15 and soon enrolled in the Pratt Institute to pursue an interdisciplinary education in the arts. Despite majoring in advertising design, Stern favored her fine art courses. She graduated from Pratt in 1946 at age 18 and began working for advertising agencies. After a brief marriage which ended in divorce, Stern married her second husband, who encouraged the artist to study at the Art Students League of New York, under the renowned Japanese American modernist, Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In Fall 1953, Stern gave birth to her first child, Michael, as she continued to study at the Arts Students League. Later in the Spring of 1957, Stern gave birth to her daughter Nina, as she continued to balance motherhood with her fine art practice and commercial art and design work. Stern’s first significant exhibitions were in 1962 at the Waverly Gallery and the Osgood Gallery, both in New York, followed by inclusion of her work in the Bertha Schaefer Traveling Collage Show from 1963 to 1964. Stern made a splash in the avant-garde art world in 1964 when Time magazine reviewed a show at Amel Gallery which featured three of her audio-visual paintings. Time’s critic noted that Stern created the “cleverest noisemakers” in the exhibition. Time dubbed this work “Talkie Pop,” a label which Stern rejected. Following this recognition, Stern was selected for inclusion in The New American Realism at the Worcester Art Museum—a major showcase of leading artists, including Andy Warhol, Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jasper Johns. After the Worcester exhibition, Stern began to shift away from her “talking” Pop paintings to mysterious, interior scenes with orange, blue or black walls with windows or doors rising above black and white floors, often depopulated, but sometimes with figures. One of these works, Seven Minus Twenty-One Equals Seven, entered the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1966. By 1969, Stern began to incorporate industrial images into these scenes, and in the early 1970s, Stern created her first Neo-Immaculate works of rural, and urban landscapes, which she described as her most satisfying work. Stern often depicted locations that she held close -- New York, New Jersey, Iowa (where her son attended college), Sharon, Connecticut (where her family spent weekends and vacations) and her native Venice, Italy. Stern’s success as a Neo Immaculate painter led to consistent New York gallery representation for over two decades, first with Lee Ault Co and James Yu Gallery, and then Forum Gallery, where she had six solo shows. In 1971, Stern completed a Neo-Immaculate mural commission for the Port Authority of New York, George Washington Bridge #1 and #2, followed by another commission from the NY Cityarts Public Art Program in 1976 for a mural on Mulberry Street. Stern also enjoyed solo exhibitions in Boston (Eleanor Rigelhaupt Gallery), Connecticut (Silo Gallery, the Hotchkiss School, J. Rosenthal Fine Arts Gallery, Tremaine Gallery, and Staib Gallery), Chicago (Michael Rosenfeld Gallery), and Santa Fe (Santa Fe East Gallery). Her work was included in group shows at over a dozen public institutions, including The National Academy of Design, The Staten Island Museum, Worcester Art Museum, the Oklahoma Art Center, and the Arkansas Art Center. The Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art hosted a retrospective of four decades of Stern’s work from January 19 to April 22, 2007, entitled Perception and the Cultural Environment: The Paintings of Marina...

Abram Tromka (1895-1964) City at Night, ca. 1940. Oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches; 20 x 24 inches in antique oak frame. Signed lower right. Frame is of the period, but probably not ...

A Large, Colorful Vermont Landscape Painting by Famed Chicago Modern Artist, Harold Haydon. A wonderful quirky self portrait of the artist ...

Mid Century Northern California Mountain Lake Landscape Serene landscape by Margot Wilson Lowe (American, 20th Century). The viewer looks out over a large mountain lake, reflecting ...

Snow in the Valley - Winter Landscape in Oil on Canvas Serene winter landscape by A. V. Gagliardi (20th Century). A valley is covered with snow, with a small house and river in thew...

Mid Century South Lake Tahoe in Winter Landscape Original Oil Painting Snow-capped stone pillars with split-rail fence framing iconic South Lake Tahoe valley in winter. A crisp blue...

Wonderful and dynamic western painting of two wild fighting stallions by listed artist Bernard Preston Thomas (American, 1918-1992), dated 1951. Signed and dated lower left corner and on verso. Image size: 28"H x 36"W. Presented in rustic painted frame size: 34"H x 41"W x 3"D. Originally from Sheridan, Wyoming, he loved football and art, giving up the sport to concentrate on a career in art. Thomas graduated from Woodbury College in Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Science degree, earning the Leo Youngsworth Award for outstanding senior art student at Woodbury. He became a camouflage technician at the outbreak of WWII and caught the attention of General Patton...

Serene mid century lakeside landscape by an unknown artist (American, 20th Century). Presented in a rustic giltwood frame. Image: 9"H x 12"W. Framed: 11.25"H x 14.25"W. Excellent w...

Vibrant painting of the Utah desert range by an unknown artist. Unsigned. Presented in a painted wood frame with linen fillet. Image size, 24"H x 30"L.