American Modern Landscape Paintings

A lovely 1930s watercolor on paper of a summer nocturne moonrise by famed Chicago Modern artist Francis Chapin. A captivating dune landscape completed while Chapin was an instructor...

Mystery American Artist Untitled (waterfall), c. 20th century Watercolor on paper Sight: 20 1/2 x 14 in. Framed: 21 1/2 x 17 1/2 x 1 in.

A charming, vibrant 1940s Modern landscape painting of Calais, Vermont by famed Chicago artist, Harold Haydon. A wonderful example of the artist's favo...

Tower and Wires, 1987, acrylic on canvas, signed lower right, 24 x 16 inches, exhibited: Alfred P. Maurice Artist in the City Paintings 1979 - 1997, Archer Gallery of Clark College, ...

FRANCIS VANDEVEER KUGHLER "New York Skyline C. 1940" - oil on Masonite, 30"x40" Unframed, Signed lower center Born in New York City in 1901, Francis Vandeveer Kughler attended Co...

A vibrant, MidCentury Modern 1940s summer landscape painting of a Vermont river by notable Chicago artist, Harold Haydon. A picturesque, quiet scene painted near the artist's longti...

Farm in the Valley - Plein Air California Landscape Beautiful mid century landscape of a California farm by Baumgardner (American, 20th Century). The viewer stands on a dirt road, w...

Hand signed lower left corner Oil on masonite Dimensions: Frame H 18.25" x W 22.25". Sight H 11.25" x W 15.25 This is a great scene, vintage Americana. Possibly Crown Heights in Brooklyn New York City. Done in a mid century modern style with great vibrant colors and loose, adept, brushwork. Fruit vendor with ladies shopping. George Schwacha, Jr. (1908 - 1986) New Jersey artist. Known for Landscape painting and snow scenes. He studied Arthur W. Woelfle; John Grabach; Edward Dufner and A. Schweider. George Schwacha was president of the American Artists Professional League and a past president of the Audubon Artists and Art Center of New Jersey. He belongs to the American Watercolor Society, The National Society of Painters in Casein, and the Philadelphia Watercolor Club. His paintings have been shown throughout the country at museums such as the Pennsylvania Academy, the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC and the Birmingham Art Museum, The Butler Art Institute in Youngstown, Ohio the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, as well as in leading New Jersey and New York exhibitions, including the American Society of Arts and Letters. He is listed in Who's Who in American Art and International Directory of Arts. His work is represented nationally in over 30 museums and public collections including the Newark Museum, Montclair Museum, Birmingham Art Museum, the Isaac Delgado Museum in New Orleans, and the Butler Art Institute. Worldwide he is also represented in collections in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, England, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Hong Kong, Israel, Scotland and Switzerland. Seymour Zayon, Bertram Hartman, Hugh Campbell, Frank Herbst, Joseph Newman, Theodore Valenkamph, Robert John McClelland, Nicolai Cikovsky, Ben Benn, George Howell Gay, Robert Brackman, Vernon Wood...

This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Subway Construction, c. 1928, oil on board, 19 x 15 ¾ inches, signed upper left, artist and title verso; exhibited: 1) 12th Annual Exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists, The Waldorf Astoria, New York NY, from March 9 to April 1, 1928, no. 864 (original price $250) (see Death Prevailing Theme of Artists in Weird Exhibits, The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec, Canada), March 8, 1928); 2) Boston Tercentenary Exhibition Fine Arts and Crafts Exhibition, Horticultural Hall, Boston MA, July, 1930, no. 108 (honorable mention - noted verso); 3) 38th Annual Exhibition of American Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH, June, 1931 (see Alexander, Mary, The Week in Art Circles, The Cincinnati Enquirer, June 7, 1931); and 4) National Art Week Exhibition [Group Show], Montross Gallery, New York, New York, December, 1940 (see Devree, Howard, Brief Comment on Some Recently Opened Exhibitions in the Galleries, The New York Times, December 1, 1940) About the Painting Ernest Stock’s Subway Construction depicts the excavation of New York’s 8th Avenue line, which was the first completed section of the city-operated Independent Subway System (IND). The groundbreaking ceremony was in 1925, but the line did not open until 1932, placing Stock’s painting in the middle of the construction effort. The 8th Avenue line was primarily constructed using the “cut and cover” method in which the streets above the line were dug up, infrastructure was built from the surface level down, the resulting holes were filled, and the streets reconstructed. While many artists of the 1920s were fascinated with the upward thrust of New York’s exploding skyline as architects and developers sought to erect ever higher buildings, Stock turned his attention to the engineering marvels which were taking place below ground. In Subway Construction, Stock depicts workers removing the earth beneath the street and building scaffolding and other support structures to allow concrete to be poured. Light and shadow fall across the x-shaped grid pattern formed by the wooden beams and planks. It is no surprise that critics reviewing the painting commented on Stock’s use of an “interesting pattern” to form a painting that is “clever and well designed.” About the Artist Ernest Richard Stock was an award-winning painter, print maker, muralist, and commercial artist. He was born in Bristol, England and was educated at the prestigious Bristol Grammar School. During World War I, Stock joined the British Royal Air Flying Corps in Canada and served in France as a pilot where he was wounded. After the war, he immigrated to the United States and joined the firm of Mack, Jenny, and Tyler, where he further honed his architectural and decorative painting skills. During the 1920s, Stock often traveled back and forth between the US and Europe. He was twice married, including to the American author, Katherine Anne Porter. Starting in the mid-1920s, Stock began to exhibit his artwork professionally, including at London’s Beaux Arts Gallery, the Society of Independent Artists, the Salons of America, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Whitney Studio and various locations in the Northeast. Critics often praised the strong design sensibility in Stock’s paintings. Stock was a commercial illustrator for a handful of published books and during World War II, he worked in the Stratford Connecticut...

A charming, vibrant, early Mexican rooftop city street scene by famed Chicago Modern artist Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). Depicting a quiet, picturesque view of the rooftops and c...

A dynamic 1930s, WPA era industrial scene watercolor of a steel mill and factory workers by notable Chicago Modern artist, Harold Haydon. A wonderful example of early Twentieth Cent...

A charming vintage 1950s painting of Martha's Vineyard, "Oak Bluffs, Mass." by notable Chicago artist Francis Chapin. A bustling view of the picturesque lighthouse and Soldiers Mem...

"Showers Today" San Francisco's Chinatown on an Overcast Day Original Watercolor A two sided watercolor on Arches paper by San Francisco and Maryland artist Harolod Gretzner (America...

Hendrik (Henry) J Glintenkamp (1887 - 1946) Mexican Mountains, 1940 Oil on canvas 32 x 26 inches Signed lower left; signed and dated on the reverse T...

Artist Harold Haydon called his tiny paintings "Thumb Box" paintings. This 1943 oil on paper painting depicts the Racine Ravine (Wisconsin Lakefront Beach). This is the perfect ser...

“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...

Weehawken Sequence, c. 1910-16 Oil on canvas board, 9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm) Framed dimensions: 13 3/8 x 16 1/4 inches John Marin’s long and prolific career is best marked by ...

A dynamic 1930s, WPA era industrial scene watercolor of a steel mill and factory workers by notable Chicago Modern artist, Harold Haydon. A wonderful example of early Twentieth Cent...

This large painting is a ca. 1960 copy of a famous Rockwell Kent painting that was executed in Vermont in 1921. The work is oil on canvas and well represents the original image, tho...

In late spring, the high desert floor is still covered with grass and flowering yuccas. Against this colorful backdrop, the artist has captured a burst of sunlight breaking through t...

Morris Kantor New York (1896 - 1974) Paris from the Ile St. Louis, 1927 (view of Eiffel Tower) Oil painting on canvas Hand Signed lower left. Provenance: Hirshhorn Museum and Scul...

A charming, diminutive 1945 city street scene painting of Navy sailors standing beside a store front in Hanover, NH by famed Chicago artist Harold Haydon. Image size: 4 1/2" x 6". ...

Vineyard Estate Winery Landscape with Grape Vines in Oil on Canvas-Wrapped Board Beautiful landscape of a vineyard estate in California wine country with grape vines in the foregrou...

Bearnice Fisher "Purple Sky Landscape" 1978 Gouache on paper 30" x 22.5" unframed Signed and dated lower right in pencil Bearnice Fisher lived and worked in NYC

Orange Grove Landscape, 1941, gouache on illustration board, 14 inches x 18 inches (image), 22 x 26 inches (framed) signed and dated lower right, newly framed with museum glazing ...

“Evening, 1971” by Robert Dash (American, 1931-2013) In 1967, Dash purchased an old barn on a small field in Sagaponack, NY. Over the next several decades, he turned the feral groun...

This painting is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s. Blue Lake, c. 1940s, oil on masonite, signed lower right, 20 x 36 inches, label and inscriptio...

(Note: This work is part of our exhibition Connected by Creativity: WPA Era Works from the Collection of Leata and Edward Beatty Rowan) Oil on panel, 14 ½ x 18 inches unframed, 22 x 25 ½ inches framed, inscribed “painted by David McCosh Property of Edward b. Rowan” and numbered “8” verso, this work is unsigned, but guaranteed to be by David McCosh Exhibited: The First Exhibit of the Iowa Artist...

This original 1940s grayscale watercolor by Charles Ragland Bunnell depicts a semi-abstracted view of the Golden Cycle Mill in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Rendered in subtle gradations of black and gray, the composition reflects the influence of WPA-era Modernism, combining industrial subject matter with expressive abstraction. The work is a notable example of mid-20th-century American Regionalism, capturing both a sense of place and a forward-looking artistic vision. Bunnell’s restrained palette and simplified architectural forms transform the industrial landscape into a dynamic modern composition, emphasizing structure, rhythm, and atmosphere. The subject references the Golden Cycle Mining and Reduction Company, a major contributor to Colorado’s early 20th-century mining industry, located in what is now Old Colorado City. Through this modernist lens, the painting documents an important chapter of Western industrial history. The watercolor measures 8 1/8 x 9 5/8 inches (sight size) and is presented in a custom black frame measuring 18 x 19 ½ x 1 ⅜ inches, making it a refined, display-ready piece for collectors of American Modern art, WPA works, and industrial landscapes. Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897–1968) was a pioneering Colorado modernist, New Deal art...

Untitled (Collapsed Shacks), c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 ½ x 26 ½ inches, presented in a period frame This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: ...

Abstract landscape with colored plots in a dominant green. The landscape evolves in modulations with blurred contours, to suggest volumes more than to draw a precise pattern. The pal...

Grace Hill Turnbull Laughing Waters, 1925 Signed lower right, titled on verso Oil on canvas 26 x 37 inches Provenance The artist Catonsville Community College, Catonsville, Maryland...

Mario Larrinaga was born in Baja California in 1895 and moved with his brother to Los Angeles in 1909. He had no formal training in art, but had natural talent that was noticed by local movie studios. He was hired by Universal Studios as a designer, art director and creator of background scenes. He produced some of the background effects for King Kong in 1933. After a career in set design and illustration he focused on painting for pleasure in California, Mexico and Hawaii. He belonged to local art clubs and exhibited his works often. This stylized modernist work was likely created around 1960. It is oil on wood panel and of a horizontal format, 18” x 36”. It portrays a procession of seemingly Hawaiian natives...

Donald Stacy "Figure in Shadow" c.1950s Gouache paint on paper 24" x 18" unframed Unsigned Came from artist's estate Donald Stacy (1925-2011) New Jersey Studied: Newark School of Fine Art The Art Students League Pratt Graphic Arts Center University of Paris 1953-54 University of Aix-en-Provence 1954-55 Faculty: Art Department of the New School Museum of Modern Art School of Visual Arts Stacy Studio Workshop Exhibitions: Grand Central Moderns George Wittenborn The New School Print Exhibitions, Chicago University of Oklahoma Honolulu Museum Monclair Museum Wisconsin State College Louisiana Art...

Three Roosters from the beautiful island of Kauai, being as goofy as the naturally can in this contemporary tropical jungle painting . Hawaiian Chickens - Animal paintings by Marc Z...

signed "Mozley" at lower right

A beautiful wooded landscape scene with houses and trees. Painted on a masonite board. hand signed lower right. with framers label verso. Framed to 40 X 55 inches. 33 X 48 without the frame and mat. It is not dated. Lena Gurr (1897–1992), was an American woman artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained emotional content as they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Born into a Russian-Jewish Yiddish speaking immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility. Gurr used Lena Gurr as her professional name. After marrying Joseph Biel she was sometimes referred to as Lena Gurr Biel. Biel had been born in Grodno, Poland (later absorbed into Russia) and had lived in England, France, and Australia before coming to New York. An artist, he specialized in landscape paintings and silkscreen printing as well as photography. He studied art at the Russian Academy in Paris. After immigrating to the United States, he studied under George Grosz at the Arts Students League. Gurr was born in Brooklyn and, apart from brief stays in Manhattan and in Paris, lived there her whole life. This painting bears the influence of Lyonel Feininger an influential German American artist. Gurr began studying art at a young age. In 1919 she studied painting and printmaking at the Educational Alliance Art School and between 1920 and 1922 she won a scholarship to attend the Art Students League where she took classes with John Sloan and Maurice Sterne. In 1926 and 1928 Gurr participated in group shows at the Whitney Studio Club in Greenwich Village and in 1928 she also participated in the 12th annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Waldorf Roof in New York. (Reviewing this show, Helen Appleton Read, the critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, said "I made three discoveries on my first visit, Thomas Nagel, Eugenie McEvoy and Lena Gurr with two figure compositions which have something of Marie Laurencin or Helene Perdriat quality of naive sophistication.") The Waldorf Roof was a set of rooms on the top floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, one of which had glass sides and a glass roof. The rooms were used for concerts, dances, benefits, and exhibitions.From 1929 to 1931 Gurr took a leave of absence from her teaching position to travel in France with Joseph Biel, an artist whom she had met while studying at the Art Students League. They spent time in Nice and Mentone but mainly in Paris. During the early months of 1931, while she was still abroad, her work appeared in group exhibitions held at the R. H. Macy department store and the Opportunity Gallery (opened by Gifford Beal). In 1932 she participated in three shows: a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, an annual exhibition of the New York Society of Women Artists, ( Its first president was Marguerite Zorach. Founding members included Agnes Weinrich, Anne Goldthwaite...

Ernest Fiene Tugboat in New York Harbor Signed lower right Oil on canvas 24 1/2 x 34 1/2 inches Ernest Fiene was born in Elberfeld, Germany in 1894. As a teenager, Fiene immigrated...

"Concert" Early 20th Century WPA Modernism American City Landscape Scene Ashcan The size of the canvas 28 3/4 x 43 1/4 inches. The painting comes directly from the artist's estate. It is signed lower right as well as signed, titled and dated verso. We have available more than two dozen paintings and works on paper from the 1930s - 80s that come directly from the Loew estate. BIO Michael Loew (1907 – 1985) was the son of a New York City baker. After high school, he was an apprentice to a stained-glass maker, and from 1926-1929, he studied at the Art Students League. In 1929, he traveled to Paris, North Africa, Germany, and Italy with a group of artists. When he returned to New York City in 1931, the Great Depression hit Loew unexpectedly, and for the next two years he paid his apartment rent with his paintings. In 1935, he found work with the WPA where he painted murals and partnered up with longtime friend Willem de Kooning in 1939 on a mural for the Hall of Pharmacy at the New York World’s Fair. Their friendship lasted for the rest of their lives. In the mid-30’s he painted in Mexico and the Yucatán documenting the construction of a U.S. Naval airbase on Tinian Island. It was from this airbase that the Enola...

Elm trees in autumn at the edge of Salt Creek, Illinois, by Mary H. Brubaker (American, b. 1891). Signed and dated "Mary H. Brubaker 35" in the lower left cor...

Mischa Askenazy Moving Houses Signed lower right Oil on canvas 26 x 38 inches Mischa Askenazy was born near Odessa, on February 22, 1888. At age four, Askenazy immigrated with his ...

Fabulous original mid century modern oil on canvas painting by the well known New York artist, William Katz. The painting is done in a colorful abstraction of sailboats and is signed by the artist lower left. The artist has mixed sand into the oil paint to give the painting a highly textured look. Condition is excellent. Circa 1955. The frame is original with a studded gold edge detailing and with natural wood sides. Frame is in fine original condition. Overall framed measurements are 17 by 29.25 inches. Provenance: A Saint Petersburg, Florida collector. William P. Katz (1926-2003) American William Katz was born in New York, studied at The Art Students League and with Sebastiano Mineo of New York City. For five years he worked and lived in the home that was once occupied by the great American sculptor Gutson Borglum. His works are in many private collections in the United States, Norway, England, Canada and Greece. Best known for sculptures, he also created paintings and designed textiles and jewelry. Alexander Kirkland called him an abstract "figurist-fantasist." He has had one-man exhibits at many galleries including: 1964, Miami Museum of Modern Art, Miami, FL; 1965, Fordham University...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintin...

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Tenby, Coast of Wales, 1960 Acrylic on scintilla paper Signed and dated lower right 18 x 28.5 inches 26 x 36 inches, framed Clarence H...

The Railway Station, c. 1934, oil on canvas, signed lower right, titled verso and noted "34"; illustrated Kaufman, Jeffrey, Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman...

My Only Working Tool, 1949, oil on panel, signed and dated lower right, 16 x 12 inches, remnant of exhibition label verso, exhibited at the Art News Second Annual National Amateur Competition, National Academy of Design, New York, NY, December, 1950 (see The Best Amateurs, Art News, volume 49, issue 8, December 6 to 20, 1950, p. 65 – 66), presented in a period frame Fausto Sansone...

This painting is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Oil on canvas, 16 x 12 inches, Signed lower right Exhibited: 1) [Solo E...

This original 1940s American Modernist gouache on archival paper painting, "Artists Sketching (California)," captures a dynamic scene of three artists at work against a majestic mountain backdrop. With expressive brushwork and a rich color palette, the piece embodies Frederick E. Shane’s signature blend of realism and modernist abstraction. Signed, titled, and dated by the artist in the lower margin, this remarkable artwork reflects the era’s Regionalist influence and the artist’s keen eye for capturing creative moments in the natural landscape. The painting is professionally housed in a custom archival frame, ensuring long-term preservation. Frame dimensions: 25.5 x 37.5 x 1.5 inches. Image size: 20.25 x 29.75 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Frederick Shane About the Artist: Frederick E. Shane (1906-1992) A celebrated Missouri Regionalist painter and printmaker, Frederick E. Shane was known for his compelling genre scenes, landscapes, seascapes, and portraits in a variety of media, including oil, watercolor, gouache, tempera, and lithography. While fundamentally a realist, Shane often incorporated elements of abstraction, expressionism, and surrealism, adding depth and emotion to his compositions. During the summers of 1925-26, Shane studied under Randall Davey at the Broadmoor Academy in Colorado Springs, an institution founded in 1919 by philanthropists Spencer and Julie Penrose. Shane remained closely connected to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the Academy’s successor, throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, participating in Artists West of the Mississippi exhibitions and forming lasting friendships with key figures like Boardman Robinson and Adolph Dehn...

Artist: Ben Benn, Polish/American (1884 - 1983) Title: 23rd and 2nd Ave, New York City Year: 1924 Medium: Oil on board, signed l.r. Size: 14 x 11.5 in. (35.56 x 29.21 cm) Frame Size:...

The flow of botanical splendor bursts in lavish color in the foreground while the palms and trees open the view to distant mountains in this tropical painting. Jungle Fantasy #2 - ...

A lovely scene of the canals in Annecy, France by renowned American artist Emma Fordyce MacRae (1887-1974). This work highlights the geometric nature of the historic architecture al...

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...

Beautiful American realist view of Pack River in Sandpoint, Idaho by Laura Lindberg (American, 1904-1976). Signed lower right corner "64 L Lindberg". 26 Pack River Laura Lindberg and...

Wonderful mid century landscape of an old Monterey Cypress tree in Carmel background in teal hues by Jeanne Manget (American, b. 1913 - 1988), c.1960....

A large, delightful, Mid-Century Modern 1950s Martha's Vineyard street scene painting by famed Chicago artist, Francis Chapin. Depicting a picturesque view of the historic Main Stre...

Yvonne Jacquette (American, b. 1935) Tokyo Diptych, 1985 Pastel on paper Overall 17 1/4 x 28 1/2 inches Signed lower center Provenance: Carey Ellis Company, Houston, Texas Brooke Alexander, New York Collection of an American Corporation Exhibited: New York, Brooke Alexander, Yvonne Jacquette: Tokyo Nightviews, April 5 - May 3, 1986, n.p., illustrated; this exhibition later traveled to Brunswick, Maine, Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Yvonne Jacquette: Tokyo Nightviews, June 27 - August 24, 1986. Yvonne Jacquette has a preference for high places, a circling plane, a penthouse window, an aerie from which to watch the world. Her work has often depicted the city and man-made landscape from the vantage of angels. It is a privileged perspective, long loved by photographers, who were perhaps the first to recognize the geometric grandeur of the city below. That grandeur structures Jacquette's images but is not its full content. Her work attempts to resolve the visual and emotional pardoxes of the modern metropolis. Only from the tower is there the possibility of order and context. And unlaced beauty. Jacquette first visited Japan in 1982. Nighttime Tokyo, its cars and crowds and canyons of loud Vegas neon, made a vivid and bewildering impression on her. The neon signs, pulsing, scaling the walls of high rises, fascinated the artist, "like Times Square spread over miles." Her fascination was equal parts marvel, confusion, and curiosity—the sparks of art. She returned to Tokyo in May of 1985, choosing hotel rooms with expansive vistas. From these views Jacquette excerpted images for a series of pastel night scenes. The basic forms and colors of each drawing were blocked in during night sessions by the window. She worked in the dark, selecting colors by flashlight. In daylight, she sharpened the geometry and corrected ambiguous passages. She refined the drawings further in the studio until the images read clearly. Photographic correctness was not important. The finished drawings are complete statements, not simply preparatory sketches for paintings. They have the authority of expert witness. In clear, discreet jots of pastel they record the performance of seeing, each touch of color attesting to a moment's close scrutiny. Yvonne Jacquette was born on December 15, 1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence from 1952 to 1955, when she moved to New York City. Her late husband was photographer Rudy Burckhardt, and the couple were part of a circle of artist friends that included Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz, Red Grooms, and Mimi Gross. She continues to live and work in New York City, as well as in Searsmont, Maine. A flight to San Diego in 1969 sparked Jacquette’s interest in aerial views, after which she began flying in commercial airliners to study cloud formations and weather patterns. She soon started sketching and painting the landscape as seen from above, beginning a process that has developed into a defining element of her art. Her first nocturnal painting...

Lower East Side, New York City Tenement shops Hand signed lower right Abram Tromka was born May 1, 1896 in Poland. At the age of seven he immigrated with his family to the United States, settling in New York City. It was on the boat coming to New York where Tromka first became interested in art. Fascinated by a woman who was painting, he decided that he wanted to become an artist. Upon arrival at immigration headquarters, Tromka’s family adopted the surname “Phillips,” which he kept until 1930. Hence the artist’s early works bear the signature — ‘Phillips.’ Having a rough childhood, Tromka left home at 15 and spent the remainder of his teenage years living at the Henry Street...

It is infrequent, to say the least, that a diagnosis of tuberculosis proves fortuitous, but that was the event, in 1921, that set Paul Starrett Sample on the road to becoming a professional artist. (The best source for an overview of Sample’s life and oeuvre remains Paul Sample: Painter of the American Scene, exhib. cat., [Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, 1988] with a detailed and definitive chronology by Sample scholar, Paula F. Glick, and an essay by Robert L. McGrath. It is the source for this essay unless otherwise indicated.) Sample, born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1896 to a construction engineer and his wife, spent his childhood moving with his family to the various locations that his father’s work took them. By 1911, the family had landed in Glencoe, Illinois, settling long enough for Paul to graduate from New Trier High School in 1916. Sample enrolled at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where his interests were anything but academic. His enthusiasms included the football and basketball teams, boxing, pledging at a fraternity, and learning to play the saxophone. After the United States entered World War I, Sample, to his family’s dismay, signed on for the Naval Reserve, leading directly to a hiatus from Dartmouth. In 1918 and 1919, Sample served in the U.S. Merchant Marine where he earned a third mate’s license and seriously contemplated life as a sailor. Acceding to parental pressure, he returned to Dartmouth, graduating in 1921. Sample’s undergraduate life revolved around sports and a jazz band he formed with his brother, Donald, two years younger and also a Dartmouth student. In November 1933, Sample summarized his life in a letter he wrote introducing himself to Frederick Newlin Price, founder of Ferargil Galleries, who would become his New York art dealer. The artist characterized his undergraduate years as spent “wasting my time intensively.” He told Price that that “I took an art appreciation course and slept thru it every day” (Ferargil Galleries Records, circa 1900–63, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, available on line). In 1920, Donald Sample contracted tuberculosis. He went for treatment to the world-famous Trudeau Sanitorium at Saranac Lake, in New York State’s Adirondack Mountains for the prescribed regimen of rest, healthful food, and fresh air. Visiting his brother in 1921, Paul also contracted the disease. Tuberculosis is highly contagious, and had no certain cure before the development of streptomycin in 1946. Even for patients who appeared to have recovered, there was a significant rate of recurrence. Thus, in his letter to Price, Sample avoided the stigma conjured by naming the disease, but wrote “I had a relapse with a bad lung and spent the next four years hospitalized in Saranac Lake.” The stringent physical restrictions imposed by adherence to “the cure” required Sample to cultivate an alternate set of interests. He read voraciously and, at the suggestion of his physician, contacted the husband of a fellow patient for instruction in art. That artist, then living in Saranac, was Jonas Lie (1880–1940), a prominent Norwegian-American painter and an associate academician at the National Academy of Design. Lie had gained renown for his dramatic 1913 series of paintings documenting the construction of the Panama Canal (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; United States Military Academy, West Point, New York). Primarily a landscape artist, Lie had a particular affinity for scenes with water. His paintings, impressionistic, atmospheric, and brushy, never strayed from a realistic rendering of his subject. Sample regarded Lie as a mentor and retained a lifelong reverence for his teacher. Sample’s early paintings very much reflect Lie’s influence. ` In 1925, “cured,” Sample left Saranac Lake for what proved to be a brief stay in New York City, where his veteran’s benefits financed a commercial art course. The family, however, had moved to California, in the futile hope that the climate would benefit Donald. Sample joined them and after Donald’s death, remained in California, taking classes at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles. In Sample’s account to Price, “I couldn’t stomach the practice of painting a lot of High Sierras and desert flowers which seemed to be the only kind of pictures that were sold here so I got a job teaching drawing and painting at the art school of the University of Southern California.” Initially hired as a part-time instructor, Sample progressed to full-time status and ultimately, by the mid-1930s, to the post of Chairman of the Fine Art Department. Sample, however, did not want to wind up as a professor. “Teaching is all right in small doses,” he wrote, “but I have a horror of drifting into being a college professor and nothing more.” At the same time as he taught, Sample began to exhibit his work in a variety of venues at first locally, then nationally. Though he confessed himself “a terrible salesman,” and though occupied with continued learning and teaching, Sample was nonetheless, ambitious. In 1927, he wrote in his diary, “I am eventually going to be a painter and a damned good one. And what is more, I am going to make money at it” (as quoted by Glick, p. 15). In 1928, Sample felt sufficiently solvent to marry his long-time love, Sylvia Howland, who had also been a patient at Saranac Lake. The Howland family were rooted New Englanders and in summertime the Samples regularly traveled East for family reunion vacations. While the 1930s brought serious hardship to many artists, for Paul Sample it was a decade of success. Buttressed by the financial safety net of his teacher’s salary, he painted realist depictions of the American scene. While his work addressed depression-era conditions with a sympathetic eye, Sample avoided the anger and tinge of bitterness that characterized much contemporary realist art. Beginning in 1930, Sample began to exhibit regularly in juried exhibitions at important national venues, garnering prizes along the way. In 1930, Inner Harbor won an honorable mention in the Annual Exhibition of the Art Institute of Chicago. That same year Sample was also represented in a show at the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo and at the Biennial Exhibition of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. In 1931, Dairy Ranch won the second Hallgarten Prize at the Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, in New York. Sample also made his first appearances at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, and The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. In 1936, Miner’s Resting won the Temple Gold Medal at the Pennsylvania Academy’s Annual Exhibition. Always interested in watercolor, in 1936, Sample began to send works on paper to exhibitions at the Whitney Museum, New York. While participating in juried exhibitions, Sample also cultivated commercial possibilities. His first New York art dealer was the prestigious Macbeth Gallery in New York, which included his work in a November 1931 exhibition. In 1934, Sample joined the Ferargil Galleries in New York, after Fred Price arranged the sale of Sample’s Church Supper to the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1937, The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased Sample’s Janitor’s Holiday from the annual exhibition of the National Academy of Design, a notable honor. As prestigious as this exhibition schedule may have been, by far Sample’s most visible presence in the 1930s and 1940s was the result of his relationship with Henry Luce’s burgeoning publishing empire, Time, Inc. Sample’s first contribution to a Luce publication appears to have been another San Pedro...

Delle Miller On the Upper Mississippi, circa 1926 Signed lower left Oil on canvas 26 1/8 x 29 1/8 inches By 1909, Miller was an instructor at the Kansas...