American Modern Paintings

Mercedes Matter Reclining Nude, circa 1920 Signed "Mercedes Matter" on the overlap Oil on canvas 32 x 51 inches Born in New York in 1913 to famed Philadelphia Modernist, Arthur B. ...

A unique and captivating 1930s Modern still life painting featuring a derby hat, wine bottle, books and bowl of fruit by artist Francis Chapin. Titled "Still Life with Derby" the pa...

De Hirsh Margules (1899-1965). North on West Street , 1939. Watercolor on Arches wove paper. Signed and dated in pencil by artist lower margin. Sheet measures 15 x 22 inches. Framed measurement: 27 x 34 inched. Incredibly vibrant and saturated color with no fading or toning of sheet. Provenance: Babcock Galleries, NYC De Hirsh Margules (1899–1965) was a Romanian-American "abstract realist" painter who crossed paths with many major American artistic and intellectual figures of the first half of the 20th century. Elaine de Kooning said that he was "[w]idely recognized as one of the most gifted and erudite watercolorists in the country". The New York Times critic Howard Devree stated in 1938 that "Margules uses color in a breath-taking manner. A keen observer, he eliminates scrupulously without distortion of his material." Devree later called Margules "one of our most daring experimentalists in the medium" Margules was also a well-known participant in the bohemian culture of New York City's Greenwich Village, where he was widely known as the "Baron" of Greenwich Village.[1] The New York Times described him as "one of Greenwich Village's best-known personalities" and "one of the best known and most buoyant characters about Greenwich Village. Early Life De Hirsh Margules was born in 1899 in the Romanian city of Iași (also known as Iasse, Jassy, or Jasse). When Margules was 10 weeks old, his family immigrated to New York City. Both of his parents were active in the Yiddish theater, His father was Yekutiel "Edward" Margules, a "renowned Jewish actor-impresario and founder of the Yiddish stage." Margules' mother, Rosa, thirty-nine years younger than his father, was an actress in the Yiddish theater and later in vaudeville. Although Margules appeared as a child actor with the Adler Family[11] and Bertha Kalich, his sister, Annette Margules, somewhat dubiously continued in family theater and vaudeville tradition, creating the blackface role of the lightly-clad Tondelayo (a part later played on film Hedy Lamarr) in Earl Carroll's 1924 Broadway exoticist hit, White Cargo. Annette herself faced stereotyping as an exotic flower: writing about her publicist Charles Bouchert stated that "Romania produces a stormy, temperamental type of woman---a type admirably fitted to portray emotion." His brother Samuel became a noted magician who appeared under the name "Rami-Sami." Samuel later became a lawyer, representing magician Horace Goldin, among others. A family portrait including a young De Hirsh, a portrait of Rosa and Annette together, and individual photos of Rosa and Edward can be found on the Museum of the City of New York website. At around age 9 or 10, Margules took art classes with the Boys Club on East Tenth Street, and his first taste of exhibition was at a student art show presented by the club. By age 11, he had won a city-wide prize (a box camera) at a children's art show presented by the department store Wanamakers. As a young teenager, Margules was already displaying a characteristic kindness and loyalty. Upon hearing that two friends (one of them was author Alexander King), were in trouble for breaking a school microscope, the nearly broke Margules gave them five dollars to repair the microscope . Margules had to approach a wealthy man that Margules had once saved on the subway from a heart attack. Margules didn't reveal the source of the five dollars to King until twenty-five years later. In his late teens, Margules studied for a couple of months in Pittsburgh with Edwin Randby, a follower of Western painter Frederic Remington. Thereafter he pursued a two-year course of studies in architecture, design and decoration at the New York Evening School of Art and Design, while working as a clerk during the day at Stern's Department Store. He was encouraged in these artistic pursuits by his neighbor, the painter Benno Greenstein (who later went by the name of Benjamin Benno). Artistic career In 1922, Margules began work as a police reporter for the City News Association of New York .Margules then considered himself something of an expert on art, and the painter Myron Lechay is said to have responded to some unsolicited analysis of his work with the remark "Since you seem to know so much about it, why don't you paint yourself?" This led to study with Lechay and a flurry of painting. Margules' first show was in 1922 at Jane Heap's Little Review Gallery. Thereafter Margules began to participate in shows with a group including Stuart Davis, Jan Matulka, Buckminster Fuller (exhibiting depictions of his "Dymaxion house") in a gallery run by art-lover and restaurateur Romany Marie on the floor above her cafe. Jane Heap, left, with Mina Loy and Ezra Pound During the 1920s, Margules traveled outside of the country a number of times. In 1922, with the intent of reaching Bali, he took a job as a "'wiper on a tramp steamer where [he] played nursemaid to the engine." He reached Rotterdam before he turned back. He would return to Rotterdam shortly thereafter. In 1927, Margules took a lengthy leave of absence from his day job as a police reporter in order to travel to Paris, where he "set up a studio in Montmartre's Place du Tertre, on the top floor of an almost deserted hotel, a shabby establishment, lacking both heat and running water." He studied at the Louvre and traveled to paint landscapes in provincial France and North Africa. Margules also joined the "Noctambulist" movement and experimented with painting and showing his artwork in low light.Jonathan Cott wrote that: the painter De Hirsch Margulies sat on the quays of the Seine and painted pictures in the dark. In fact, the first exhibition of these paintings, which could be seen only in a darkened room, took place in [ Walter Lowenfels'] Paris apartment. Elaine de Kooning remarked that studying the works of the Noctambulists confirmed Margules' "direction toward the use of primary colors for perverse effects of heavy shadow." It was also in Paris that Margules initially conceived his idea of "Time Painting", where a painting is divided into sectors, each representing a different time of day, with color choices meant to evoke that time of day. In Paris, his social circle included Lowenfels, photographer Berenice Abbott, publisher Jane Heap, composer George Anthiel, sculptor Thelma Wood, painter André Favory, writer Norman Douglas, writer and editor George Davis, composer and writer Max Ewing, and writer Michael Fraenkel. Upon his return to New York in 1929, Margules attended an exhibition of John Marin's paintings. While at the exhibition, he "launched into an eloquent explanation of Marin to two nearby women", and was overheard by an impressed Alfred Stieglitz. The famous photographer and art promoter invited Margules to dine with his wife, the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, and his assistant, painter Emil Zoler. Stieglitz thereafter became a friend and mentor to Margules, becoming for him "what Socrates was to his friends." Alfred Stieglitz Stieglitz introduced Margules to John Marin, who quickly became the most important painterly influence upon Margules. Elaine de Kooning later noted that Margules was "indebted to Marin and through Marin to Cézanne for his initial conceptual approach - for his constructions of scenes with no negative elements, for skies that loom with the impact of mountains." Margules himself said that Marin was his "father and ... academy." The admiration was by no means unreciprocated: Marin said that Margules was "an art lover with abounding faith and sincerity, with much intelligence and quick seeing." Stieglitz also introduced Margules to many other artistic and intellectual figures in New York. With the encouragement of Alfred Stieglitz, Margules in 1936 opened a two-room gallery at 43 West 8th Street called "Another Place." Over the following two years there were fourteen solo exhibitions by Margules and others, and the gallery was well-respected by the press. It was in this gallery that the painter James Lechay, Myron's brother, exhibited his first painting. In 1936, Margules first saw recognition by major art museums when both the Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston purchased his works. In 1942, Margules gave up working as a police reporter, and apparently dedicated himself thereafter solely to an artistic vocation. "The Baron of Greenwich Village"[edit] Margules made his mark not only as an artist, but also as an outsized personality known throughout Greenwich Village and beyond. To local residents, Margules was known as the "Baron", after Baron Maurice de Hirsch, a prominent German Jewish philanthropist. Margules was easily recognizable by the beret he routinely wore over his long hair. Writer Charles Norman said that he "dressed with a flair for sloppiness." He was said to "know everybody" in Greenwich Village, to the extent that when the novelist and poet Maxwell Bodenheim was murdered, Margules was the first one the police sought to identify the body. Margules' letters show him interacting with art world figures such as Sacha Kolin, John Marin and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as with prominent figures outside the art world such as polymath Buckminster Fuller and writer Henry Miller. Most of his friends and acquaintances found Margules a generous and voluble man, given to broadly emotionally expressive gestures and acts of kindness and loyalty. In 1929, he exhibited an example of this loyalty and fellow-feeling when he appeared in court to fight what the wrongful commitment of his friend, writer and sculptor Alfred Dreyfuss, who appeared to have been a victim of an illicit attempt to block an inheritance. The Greenwich Village chronicler Charles Norman described the bone-crushing hugs that Margules would routinely bestow on his friends and acquaintances, and speaks of the "persuasive theatricality" that Margules seemed to have inherited from his actor parents. Norman also wrote about Margules' routine acts of kindness, taking in homeless artists, constantly feeding his friends and providing the salvatory loan where needed. Norman also notes that Margules was blessed with a loud and good voice, and was apt to sing an operatic air without provocation. The writer and television personality Alexander King said I think the outstanding characteristics of my friend's personality are affirmation, emphasis, and overemphasis. He chooses to express himself predominantly in superlatives and the gestures which accompany his utterances are sometimes dangerous to life and limb. Of the bystanders, I mean. King also spoke with affectionate amusement about Margules' pride in his cooking, speaking of how "if he should ever invite you to dinner, he may serve you a hamburger with onions, in his kitchen-living room, with such an air of gastronomic protocol, such mysterious hints and ogliing innuendoes, as if César Ritz and Brillat-Savarin had sneaked out, only a moment before, with his secret recipe in their pockets." Margules was such a memorable New York personality that comic book writer Alvin Schwartz imagined him at the Sixth Avenue Cafeteria in a risible yet poignant debate with Clark Kent about whether Superman had the ability to stop Hitler. Margules' entrenchment in the Greenwich Village milieu can be seen in a photograph from Fred McDarrah's "Beat Generation Album" of a January 13, 1961 writers' and poets' meeting to discuss "The Funeral of the Beat Generation", in Robert Cordier [fr]'s railroad flat at 85 Christopher Street. Among the people in the same photograph are Shel Silverstein...

Leonard Creo (American, 1923-2019) Untitled, c. 1960s Oil on canvas 29 x 48 in. Framed: 30 1/8 x 49 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. Signed lower right: Creo Creo was bor...

Neighbors, 1939, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 22 x 26 inches Norman Barr was an American Scene painter and muralist known for his poignant depictions of working-clas...

A Wonderfully Stylized, 60s Mid-Century Modern Oil Painting of Standing Male Ballet Dancers by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Painted in the 1960s, this captivating dance stu...

Mid Century Floral Still-Life in Oil on Canvas-Wrapped Illustration Board Classic mid century floral still-life with impasto in warm, autumn colors by Frances Christensen American, ...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Dichotomy, 1962 Oil on paper Signed and dated upper left 20 x 25 inches Mid-century figural abstract green painting of woman swimming ...

A small, vibrant 1950s Mid-Century Modern mountain landscape painting depicting Aspen, Colorado by famed Chicago artist Harold Haydon. Titled "Western Vi...

A large, delightful oil on Masonite, 1950s, Martha's Vineyard street scene painting by famed Chicago Modern artist, Francis Chapin. Depicting a picturesque and stylized view of Main...

A beautiful American Impressionist oil seascape of the rugged Big Sur coast, Carmel California by Virginia Shackles (American, 1921-2020). The composition is pleasing with an interes...

If you have an association with dance, yoga or working out, this unusual modernist painting might be an interesting addition to your space. Artist Albert Michini used several models ...

A dynamic, colorful 1930s painting of a boxing match in Mexico by famed Chicago Modern artist Francis Chapin. Painted during one of the artist's early trips to Mexico, an exceptional painting showing Chapin's steadfast interest in sporting scenes, particularly boxing matches. Image size: 12 x 28 inches. Framed size: 15 1/2 x 31 1/2 inches. Estate stamped on reverse. Provenance: Estate of the artist. Francis Chapin, affectionately called the “Dean of Chicago Painters” by his colleagues, was one of the city’s most popular and celebrated painters in his day. Born at the dawn of the 20th Century in Bristolville, Ohio, Chapin graduated from Washington and Jefferson College near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before enrolling at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1922. He would set down deep roots at the Art Institute of Chicago, exhibiting there over 31 times between 1926 and 1951. In 1927 Chapin won the prestigious Bryan Lathrop Fellowship from the Art Institute – a prize that funded the artist’s yearlong study trip to Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Chapin decided to remain in Chicago, noting the freedom Chicago artists have in developing independently of the pressure to conform to pre-existing molds (as was experienced by artists in New York, for example). Chapin became a popular instructor at the Art Institute, teaching there from 1929 to 1947 and at the Art Institute’s summer art school in Saugatuck, Michigan (now called Oxbow) between 1934 – 1938 (he was the director of the school from 1941-1945). Chapin’s contemporaries among Chicago’s artists included such luminaries as Ivan Le Lorraine Albright...

A Charming 1940s Watercolor of Mexico with Cathedral and Rooftops by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. Most likely completed during the artist's trip to Mexico in 1944 after rec...

When I think of where McCauley fits into American art, as a contemporary painter, sculptor and naturalistic interpreter, I place him in the same philosophical tribe as Walton Ford, A...

This is a highly stylized portrait of a lady by known and listed artist Lisa Mangor. Ms.Mangor was born in Russia in 1890 and came to New York likely around the beginning of World W...

The Painted Stallion William Henry Dethlef Koerner (German, American, 1878-1938) Oil on Panel Signed Lower Right Titled Verso 21.5 x 37 inches 26.5 x 42.5 inches with frame Written ...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904–2000) Over and Above: No. 6, 1963 Oil, sand & fish bones on canvas Signed and dated upper left 53 x 31 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achie...

Cityscape Mid-20th Century Modern Social Realism American Scene Regionalism WPA Samuel Thal (1903 to 1964) "Cityscene" 12 x 16 inches Oil on board, c. 1940s Signed verso Framed: 19...

Subtle and moody portrait of a Pensive man by Joan Tidwell (American, 1930-2002). The sitter in the portrait is a middle-aged man looking slightly downwards, wearing a collared shirt. This piece is completed in a tan and green palette, creating a somber feeling. Of particular note are the confident, thick brushstrokes - each one is well-placed in the modernist style. Similar in some ways to Picasso's portraits. Signed "Joan Tidwell" on verso Unframed. Canvas size: 30"H x 22"W oan Gay Tidwell (American, 1930-2002) was born and raised in Hollywood, CA, where she had some success as a child actor. Later, she graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Washington with a Master's Degree in English Literature and Drama. Tidwell moved to the Bay...

This mid-20th-century oil painting by acclaimed California artist Jon Blanchette beautifully captures a serene farmstead near Cabrillo, California, circa 1955. In this evocative land...

Mary Elizabeth Price Dahlias and Lustre, circa 1925 Signed within a cartouche lower right, titled verso Oil and gold leaf on Masonite Oval 16 1/4 x 22 inches Provenance The artist F...

A Fabulous, Large and Dynamic Mid-Century Modern Painting of a Chicago Night Club by Notable Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen (Am. 1918 - 1989). Painted circa 1948, this is a large, a...

Unsigned ; attributed to Joseph Biel Good friend of Dr. Mufson View is from New York University School of Medicine. Overall size with original frame 25.5 x 21 in.

Michael Mazur (American, 1935-) Hand signed and titled The Lake II, 1985 Color monotype Hand signed, titled, and dated in pencil lower margin Dimensions overall: 47 x 82 in. (frame) ...

A Serene, Picturesque 1950s American Scene Country Landscape Painting of a Wisconsin Farm in Late Autumn by Famed Chicago Modern Artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). A small gem ...

View from Main Reading Room, New York, 1959-60, oil on canvas, signed and dated in pencil verso, 20 x 20 inches, exhibited: Cincinnati Art Galleries, Cincinnati, OH, March 4 to 28, 2...

A quintessential American Scene landscape painted by the Chicago Modernist, William Schwartz. Workers in tilled fields surrounding a farmstead under dramatic skies. Painted in 1935...

“The Big City, 1948” by Anna Elkan Meltzer (American, 1896-1974) One of Meltzer’s finest works, this painting encapsulates the organized chaos of Grand Central Terminal in NYC in th...

William Samuel Schwartz (American, 1896-1977) "Portrait of an Old Man with Cane" c. 1940 Gouache on board, 21" x 17" Hand signed lower left A beautiful painting of an old man sitti...

This is a very stylized and powerful portrait by the noted artist Frank Anderson Trapp. It is dated 1940, and is very much in the modern style of French painters Ferdinand Leger...

A serene 1940s Vermont Landscape, depicting evergreen trees and a lake by artist Harold Haydon. Image size: 16" x 20". Framed size: 20" x 24". In a rustic brown wood frame. Es...

A large, dynamic Mid-Century Modern summer landscape painting with female bathers by noted Chicago artist, Rudolph Pen. A wonderful example of the artist's uniquely expressive figur...

An Introspective 1930s Modern Portrait, "Acolyte" by Noted Chicago Artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). Dry watercolor on board. Artwork size: 15 x 12 inches (Framed size: 18 ...

A large, dynamic Mid-Century Modern summer landscape painting with standing female bathers by noted Chicago artist, Rudolph Pen. A wonderful example of the artist's uniquely express...

Polly Thayer Starr (1904-2006) Oil Painting Still Life Fruit Bowl Dimensions: Frame: 12.5" X 15.5", Image: 8.5" X 11.5" Polly Thayer (Starr) (1...

American, Late 20th Century In the Manner of Lucio Ranucci Signed: Ramsey (Lower, Left) " The Red Balloon " Oil on Canvas 36" x 24" Housed in a 3" Wood Frame with a 5/8" Linen...

Gertrude Barrer: 1921-1992. Well listed American artist with auction records over $9500. She studied a the Arts Student League in the 1940s. More recently art historians have said s...

This evocative 1930s–1940s vintage oil painting by Denver modernist Paul K. Smith depicts a timeless New Mexico adobe church, likely inspired by the iconic San ...

Title: French Gouache Portrait Study of Navajo Hopi and Apache Figures by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed paper, Siz...

Meet the genuinely exciting modernist William Einstein, who is probably better known in Europe, where numerous publications on his work have been written, than in his native US! Eins...

A Wonderful Mid-Century Boxing Scene of a Standing Prize Fighter by Noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph T. Pen. This energetic sporting scene, painted in the 1960s, exemplifies the abstra...

A colorful harbor scene of Martha's Vineyard by notable Chicago Modern artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). A vibrant, blustery dockside view, with fishing and sailboats in the h...

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...

Self-Portrait, c. 1940, oil and tempera on Masonite, artist’s name inscribed verso, 30 x 25 inches William Ashby McCloy was an American artist, educator, and clinical psychologist. ...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1936 by Russian-American painter Ben Benn. With a highly recognizable modern style, fast brush stroke and expressive use of color, shape, ...

Albert Heckman Woodstock Landscape Oil on board 12 x 16 inches Albert Heckman was born in Meadville, Western Pennsylvania, 1893. He went to New York City to try his hand at the art...

Striking Fauvist portrait with a vibrant, high voltage color palette, featuring a green woman with red hair by Sydney Helfman (American, 1926-2010). Aut...

A stylish, colorful Mid-Century Modern portrait of a seated young woman in a pink dress by famed Chicago Modern artist, Francis Chapin. A fashionably dressed, young model is seated ...

Like a Comet - Nocturnal Sky in Oil on Masonite Surrealistic oil painting landscape of comet by listed San Francisco, California artist Eleanor Perry (American, 1928-2014). Signed ...

A Vibrant, Colorful, 1950s Mid-Century Modern Pool Hall Scene by Notable Chicago Artist, Francis Chapin. Artwork size: 6 3/4" x 8 1/2", Oil on Masonite, Framed size: 11" x 12 1/2"....

Hollywood, 1941, oil on board, 18 x 24 inches, signed and dated lower right, illegible writing verso About the Painting From a distance, Beckwith deftly captures the spectacle of a Hollywood premiere. But we have not been invited to the party. Our view is from the shadows of a less glamorous neighborhood with a shaggy, unkept palm tree and rundown buildings in the shadows. We look down through the darkness past a packed parking lot to the bright lights of two iconic Hollywood landmarks, the Pantages Theater and the Broadway Building. Completed in 1930, the Pantages was built as an exuberant Art Deco movie palace, while the Broadway Building housed an upscale department store which catered to entertainment industry elites who were less impacted by the Great Depression than the common man, since movies had become the mainstay of popular culture entertainment during the 1930s with large numbers of Americans looking to immerse themselves in Hollywood escapism. Here, in a rare Los Angeles urban image, Beckwith combines that Hollywood fantasy with the more sobering foreground images which could have been pulled from the L.A. Noire fiction of Raymond Chandler...

Georgina Klitgaard New Hampshire Winter Signed lower right Oil on canvas 38 x 28 inches Georgina Klitgaard’s art has sometimes gotten lost in the critical propensity to assign arti...

An original modernist oil painting by American female artist Esther Rollick.

Title: French Gouache Painting of Navajo Night Dance in New Mexico by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed paper, Size: 1...

Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Torso No. 3, 1967 Acrylic on paper Signed and dated lower right 13 x 9 inches 21 x 17 inches A mid-century figural abstract painting. Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of national artistic success that was nearly unprecedented among Cleveland School artists of his day, with representation by major New York dealers...

An Elegant 1940s Modernist Portrait of a Young Woman a Red Dress by Noted Chicago Artist, Francis Chapin (Am. 1899-1965). A beautifully executed studio portrait, the painting is oil...

Title: French Gouache Painting of Acoma Pueblo Corn Dance in New Mexico by Emile GALLOIS (1882-1965, French) Signed: Yes Medium: Original gouache painting on thick unframed paper, Si...

A Fabulous 1960s Mid-Century Modern Painting of an Embracing Couple, Lovers, by noted Chicago Artist, Rudolph Pen. A wonderful example of the artist's uniquely expressive, abstract...

A Mid-Century Modern, 1950s Cubist watercolor of a brightly-colored dock scene by Chicago and New York artist Rita Duis (Astley-Bell). Signed "Duis", lower left. Artwork size: 8 1/...