1940s Paintings

Work on canvas Dimensions with frame 58 x 66 x 5 cm This painting depicts three massive draft horses, majestically posed in an open field, under a soft, cloudy sky. The artist captur...

Seymour Franks Tempole, 1948 Signed lower right; signed, dated, titled on verso Oil on canvas 35 x 42 inches American painter and designer, Seymour Franks, was born in New York Ci...

Carl Frederick Gaertner (American, 1898-1952) Flower Garden, Cape Cod, c. 1940s Gouache on illustration board 17.5 x 29 inches 27 x 39 inches, as framed Carl Gaertner was one of the greatest painters to emerge from the Cleveland School...

Antique American school seascape oil painting. Oil on board. Framed. Unframed. Image size, 20L x 16H.

3423 English writer portrait, oil on board displayed in a gilt -wood frame, signed by Welsh.Image size 10 H x 8 W

6118 Parisian cafe street scene Set in a gilted wood frame Image size 8x9,5"

Albert Heckman Woodstock Landscape Oil on board 10 x 8 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art ...

One of the finest impressionistic seascapes we have owned. It really does remind me of Monet. It is signed Nagy and there are a number of well listed artists with that last name. We ...

5-3536 Chinese Landscape reverse oil Painting on glass with gilt detailing Set in a gilt wood frame Image size 9.5x7.5"

A charming, colorful and quirky 1940s Mid-Century Modern Still Life, "Elephant and Red Pillow" by notable Chicago Artist, Harold Haydon Artwork size: 8 1/2 x 10 1/2 inches; Framed...

A nice American modernist landscape painting, dating from the 1940s. This work is on the manner of E. Oscar Thalinger, but does not appear to be signed. The work is unframed, as it...

Oil on Canvas Canvas size: 24 x 36 in. Frame Size: 33 x 39 in. "Turning them North" is an exhilarating scene of the American Old West by Gary Lynn Roberts (b. 1953, American) execut...

This charming British portrait oil painting is by female artist Dod Procter. It was painted in 1949 and exhibited at the Royal Academy London the same year. The painting is of a litt...

Very impressive mid century polo field modernist landscape. Oil on canvas. No signature found. Framed.

Impressive American modernist winter landscape. Detailed and well painted skating scene. Oil on canvas. Nicely framed.

Signed oil on canvas board figures in cityscape circa 1940 by sought after French impressionist painter Edouard Cortes. The work depicts an autumnal scene of the the Arc de Triomphe,...

Antique American school abstract expressionist painting. Oil on board. Signed. In excellent original condition. Nicely framed in a period wood molding. Excellent condition, read...

This superb Post Impressionist floral oil painting is by noted successful Russian born female artist Nadia Benois. Benois came to England and settled in L...

Fantastic New York Central Park scene by Henry Ives Cobb Jr. Signed lower left. Gouache on paper. Titled "Six Gun". Henry Ives Cobb Jr. (March 24, 1883 – August 1974) was an America...

A charming, colorful 1948 Mid-Century Modern beach scene by notable Chicago artist, Harold Haydon. Depicting a sunlit beach scene with bathers and sailboats painted along the sandy ...

Leo Cahn Untitled, 1947 Oil on board 35 3/4 x 23 3/8 in. Framed: 42 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 2 in. Signed and dated lower left

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...

Ignasi Mundó Marcet (1918-2012) - woman in white - Oil on canvas Canvas measures 73x60 cm. Frame size 76x63 cm. MUNDO Ignasi Ignasi Mundó trained at the School of La Lonja, with Joa...

Dynamic seascape along rocky Big Sur beach with surf by Willard Little (American, 20th century), circa 1940. Aqua blue water, both shallow and deep, reflects the golden sunlight. Are...

Title of the Artwork: Hunting Still Life Artist: Josep Serrasanta (1916-1998) Technique: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 39.37 x 31.89 in Date: 1949 Artistic Movement: Romantic Realism wit...

An accomplished American Scene painter, Clyde Singer successfully captured everyday life during his long career. A unique aspect of American life is depicted in this painting, entitl...

5131 Vintage framed oil painting of grist mill in a snow filled landscape Signed B.Burt Image size 19.5x23.5

Jimmy Ernst Personal Equation, 1950 Signed and dated lower right Oil on canvas 41 x 39 1/2 inches Provenance: Laurel Gallery, New York Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York Collection ...

Wonderful 1940's Swiss winter scene with snow covered chalet in valley, by an unknown artist, c.1940's. Signature illegible lower right. Presented in period rustic frame. Image size...

“The Champ, 1942” by Theodore Fried (1902-1980) This important portrait by Hungarian-American artist Theodore Fried depicts the legendary boxer Joe Louis aka “The Brown Bomber” and ...

Constantin Kluge was a Russian-born French painter best known for his naturalistic scenes of Paris and French countryside. Kluge was born to a wealthy military family on January 29, ...

Incredible early American modernist interior scene by Anthony Toney (1913 - 2004) . Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed. Measuring 26 by 32 overall and 18 by 24 painting alone.

Constantin Kluge was a Russian-born French painter best known for his naturalistic scenes of Paris and French countryside. Kluge was born to a wealthy military family on January 29, ...

'The Town Hall of Les Baux-de-Provence', oil on canvas, by Yves Brayer (1946). Having spent several months a year in Provence, the artist created dozens of wo...

Untitled (Modernist Three-Panel Screen), 1948, mixed media on paperboard mounted into a three-section screen, 58 x 45 inches, signed and dated on each panel upper right This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s. Charles Malcolm Campbell...

Signed oil on board portrait circa 1940 by French post impressionist painter Jean Gabriel Domergue. The work depicts a blonde lady - Audrey - in a mint green dress...

Riders Through the Canyon, c. 1941 Oil on board Signed lower right 24 x 32.25 inches "Also, on this second trip the significant colors of the Southwest became apparent - the prep...

John F. Carlson Hyannis Pond, 1940 Signed lower left Oil on board 16 x 20 inches Provenance Vose Galleries Private Collection, New Jersey The native Swede John Fabian Carlson beca...

A classic still life in the style of Cezanne with fruit, wine jug and antique tea towel situated on a galvanized metal topped table by D. (Dorothy) Mil...

John Steuart Curry "Sketching Wisconsin," 1946 oil on canvas 31.13 x 28 inches, canvas 39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame Signed and dated lower right Overall excellent condition Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression. Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin. The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills. Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception. Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin. Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him. The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields. Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...

Work on canvas

Andreas Roth (American, 1871-1949) Grand Canyon, 1943 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower right 24 x 34 inches 29.5 x 39 inches, framed Andreas Roth was a German painter. Son of th...

"Coney Island" Brooklyn NYC Amusement Park Mid-century American Scene WPA Modern Ludwig Bemelmans (1898 – 1962), “Coney Island" 35 x 27 inches Oil on board Signed lower right Origi...

Antique impressionist seascape oil painting by Tod (Raphael Leroy) Lindenmuth (1885 - 1976) . Oil on board. Framed. Signed. In excellent original condition. Handsomely framed in a...

Transport yourself to the heart of Paris during the enchanting 1940s with this exquisite original painting by the renowned artist Moura Chabor (1905 - 199...

3703 Oil on artist board Set in a vintage wood frame Image size 13x9.5"

“Boats Resting, Nantucket, 1940” by Emily L. Hoffmeier (American, 1888-1952) A lovely depiction of a serene harbor scene by the important Nantucket painter and founding member of th...

Post Office WPA Mural Study American Scene Social Realism Modern 20th Century Carlos Lopez (1910-1953) "Bounty" WPA Mural Study for Michigan Post Office 19 ½ x 22 ½ inches Oil on B...

Original oil on canvas painting by the well known Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed middle right and dated 1943. Condition is very good. Unlined canvas. The painti...

A unique pair of vintage herbarium / botanical displays collected and created by S. Lindwald in June 1946 in Sweden. These botanical specimen are preserved behind glass in a new doub...

Whimsical oil on paper painting of a tabby cat resting on a rug and backed by large abstract cat forms, circa 1940. Signed lower left. Original artwork on paper displayed on a whit...

Francis Mabel Hollams (British, 1877–1963) Three Portraits of “Scrap,” a Wire-Haired Terrier Oil on wood panel, monogrammed lower left “FMH” Circa 1940–1950 A delightful and charac...

Barbara Shermund (1899-1978). Society Satirical Cartoon, ca. 1940s. Gouache on heavy illustration paper, image measures 17 x 14 inches; 23 x 20 inches in matting. Signed lower left. Very good condition but matting panel should be replaced. Unframed. Provenance: Ethel Maud Mott Herman, artist (1883-1984), West Orange NJ. For two decades, she drew almost 600 cartoons for The New Yorker with female characters that commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony. In the mid-1920s, Harold Ross, the founder of a new magazine called The New Yorker, was looking for cartoonists who could create sardonic, highbrow illustrations accompanied by witty captions that would function as social critiques. He found that talent in Barbara Shermund. For about two decades, until the 1940s, Shermund helped Ross and his first art editor, Rea Irvin, realize their vision by contributing almost 600 cartoons and sassy captions with a fresh, feminist voice. Her cartoons commented on life with wit, intelligence and irony, using female characters who critiqued the patriarchy and celebrated speakeasies, cafes, spunky women and leisure. They spoke directly to flapper women of the era who defied convention with a new sense of political, social and economic independence. “Shermund’s women spoke their minds about sex, marriage and society; smoked cigarettes and drank; and poked fun at everything in an era when it was not common to see young women doing so,” Caitlin A. McGurk wrote in 2020 for the Art Students League. In one Shermund cartoon, published in The New Yorker in 1928, two forlorn women sit and chat on couches. “Yeah,” one says, “I guess the best thing to do is to just get married and forget about love.” “While for many, the idea of a New Yorker cartoon conjures a highbrow, dry non sequitur — often more alienating than familiar — Shermund’s cartoons are the antithesis,” wrote McGurk, who is an associate curator and assistant professor at Ohio State University’s Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. “They are about human nature, relationships, youth and age.” (McGurk is writing a book about Shermund. And yet by the 1940s and ’50s, as America’s postwar focus shifted to domestic life, Shermund’s feminist voice and cool critique of society fell out of vogue. Her last cartoon appeared in The New Yorker in 1944, and much of her life and career after that remains unclear. No major newspaper wrote about her death in 1978 — The New York Times was on strike then, along with The Daily News and The New York Post — and her ashes sat in a New Jersey funeral...

Antique American school modernist still life painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Signed.

East River (Untitled), c. 1940s, oil on canvas signed lower right, 18 x 24 inches Isabella Markell was a painter, etcher, and sculptor, who is best known for her New York City scen...

Paris: Place du Tertre and Sacre Coeur, the Roman Catholic Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris by Henri Miloch (1898-1979) signed lower right watercolour and gouache painting on ar...

Beautiful impressionistic landscape of Shongum Lake, New Jersey countryside in Spring with Stream and blossoms by Rudolph J. Eicher (1884 - 1958), Circa 1940s. Bright springtime fo...

Vintage American modernist abstract oil painting. Oil on canvas. Framed. Measuring: 21 by 25 inches overall, and 16 by 20 painting alone.. In excellent original condition. Handsomel...

Title: Bell Tower of a Spanish Village Artist: Joaquín Asensio Mariné (1890-1961) Technique: Oil on canvas Dimensions: 25.6 x 21.3 in (65 x 54 cm) Framed: No Period: First half of th...

Rolf Stoll (American, 1892-1978) Kae Dorn Cass, 1940 Oil on canvas Signed upper right 32 x 25 inches 38 x 31 inches, framed Exhibited: The 27th Annual May Show, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1940 This work won first prize for oil painting- Portrait category Provenance: Collection of Kae Dorn Cass's niece Kae Dorn Cass Rolf Stoll Rolf Stoll, a painter of figure subjects, landscapes and floral still lifes, was an important member of the Cleveland art scene during the second quarter of the century. He was also an influential teacher, as well as one of Ohio’s foremost portrait painters. Rolf Stoll was born in Heidelberg, Germany, in 1892. As a boy, he attended a military academy, during which time he developed an interest in art. He received his early formal training at the Academy of Fine Arts in Karlsruhe and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. He emigrated to the United States in 1912, settling in New York City. A decade later, after studying at the school of the National Academy of Design and supporting himself by working as a commercial artist, Stoll decided to leave New York. Upon the recommendation of Warren Pryor, one of his teachers, he decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio. After arriving in Cleveland, Rolf Stoll continued to work as a commercial artist. However, in 1926, he joined the faculty of the Cleveland School of Art, where he taught drawing. Two years later Stoll was appointed head of the school’s portrait painting department. A talented portraitist, Stoll’s sitters included industrialists, community leaders and many prominent members of Cleveland and Ohio society, as well as over twenty faculty members from Case Western Reserve University. Stoll also gave portrait classes at the John Huntington Polytechnic Institute from 1926 to 1953. In his male portraits especially, he was admired for his ability to convey the dignity of his sitter’s professional position without sacrificing individuality. As noted by one contemporary reviewer, Stoll was a “master of rich color, a searching student of human types, a forceful portrayer of all that the face reveals of the mind and the soul.” In addition to his activity as a portraitist, Rolf Stoll painted figure subjects and floral still lifes. He was also known for his views of the Ohio countryside...