Ashcan School Art

Massachusetts-born Fred Nagler studied at the Art Students League from 1914 to 1917, with George Bridgeman and Robert Henri, and eventually became a member of the Board of Control. He taught at the Connecticut College for Women, and after the death of Grant Wood, the University of Iowa State...

James Penney was widely known for his New Yorker covers as well as his paintings and prints. Penney was from Saint Joseph, Missouri. He trained in NYC at the Art Students League. The New-York Historical Society and the Library of Congress both have collections of his work. Signed, titled, and dated, and annotated 'Test #1' in pencil. Note entirely sure what's going on here...

The etching (Road to Calvary) is signed in pencil. It's in an usually spare drawing style but one that Nagler did use occasionally. Here it emphasizes the meagerness of the scene. T...

Ben Messick perfectly captures the world of the 'Ashcan' period: Everyday life, local characters, people we could still meet today. He could draw like a son-of-a-gun! And this is a v...

Saul Raskin's Cry of Union Square, has all my favorite things: a view of Union Square with S. Klein's department store on the right and a Chop Suey restaurant on the left. There's a ...

Mal's (At Cliff Evan's Cabin), by Waldo Midgley. watercolor, 9 x 12 inches (Framed size: 18.5 x 21 inches), $1,500 Waldo Midgley (1888-1986) had a fruit...

The etching (Sheep under a Tree) is signed in pencil and annotated (in lower margin) '3rd State, 4 proofs, JN imp.' in pencil. It's in an usually spare drawing style but one that Na...

Massachusetts-born Fred Nagler studied at the Art Students League from 1914 to 1917, with George Bridgeman and Robert Henri, and eventually became a member of the Board of Control. ...

Don Freeman is best known for his paintings and works on paper of New York City's theatre industry: the signage, the stages and sets, the actors, the costumers and ushers, anything a...

A vibrant painting depicting a city junk collector on his rounds with a horse and cart. It captures a moment of modern city life in New York City. Cecil Bell (1907 -1970) was b...

Norman Barr recorded his beloved New York City from the Bronx, to Coney Island, to the Fulton Fish Market. In this period he was on the New Deal's Mural ...

The ever-quirky Philip Evergood has composed a print that is at once a World War II image (The New York Times on the table has the headline 'Japs Bomb P...

John Sloan's Westminster Abbey portfolio is among the most rare of his printmaking output, and a complete set like this is even more unusual. Etched in dark brown ink in on a sturdy ...

Boston's North End is a charming Italian neighborhood with small buildings and twisting streets. The artist, John W. Gregory, captures the feeling of a pleasant afternoon visiting th...

Born in Czarist Russia Norman Barr (1908-1994) came to New York as a young boy and except for a few night classes at the school of the National Academy of ...

Margarett W. McKean Sargent Stepping Out, 1916 Signed and dated on base Bronze 14 x 6 x 8 inches Provenance Private Collection, Hingham, Massachusetts Walker-Cunningham Fine Art, St. Louis, Missouri, 2007 Exhibited New York, Hawthorne Fine Art...

An old sailor is shown at work on a what must be a huge sailing vessel. He's splicing, or joining ropes together -- probably still a useful skill in the mi...

The etching (Crucifixion) is signed and titled in pencil. Signed 'Fred' and possibly dated '27' in the image at lower left. It's in an usually spare drawing style but one that Nagl...

Woman Pulling on a Slip Conte on paper, c. 1910 Signed lower right: "E. Shinn" (see photo of legs, signature on right) Provenance: Estate of the Artist (see label) Graham Gallery, N...

Lawrence Beall Smith draws four men in a park, each with his back to a giant, strong tree. The year is 1938 and the country is coming out of the Depression but World War II is alread...

James Penney was widely known for his New Yorker covers as well as his paintings and prints. Penney was from Saint Joseph, Missouri. He trained in NY...

Russian-born and European-educated Alexander Kachinsky was a designer of stage sets (for the Ballet Russe), furniture, and commercial interiors. His prints are in the collection of t...

Paul Gattuso attended the Art Students League and worked primarily in New York City. There is an old address with a Bronx, Grand Concourse address. Gattus...

Russian-born and European-educated Alexander Kachinsky was a designer of stage sets (for the Ballet Russe), furniture, and commercial interiors. His prints are in the collection of the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian American Art museum, and the Baltimore Museum of Art. He came to this country in the 1920s. An impression of this subject in the Smithsonian. "Cloudy Day," about 1940, is an idyllic country scene, possibly the artist's White Plains...

The dimensions are for the image; there are large margins. This lithograph is signed in pencil. A native New Yorker, Ann Nooney (1900-1970) recorded the urban scene while on the Works Progress...

Norman Barr recorded his beloved New York City from the Bronx, to Coney Island, to the Fulton Fish Market. In this period he was on the New Deal's Mural ...

Fernando Castro Pacheco was a Mexican muralist, painter, and printmaker. This linocut is titled to refer to the indigenous population. It is si...

James Penney was widely known for his New Yorker covers as well as his paintings and prints. Penney was from Saint Joseph, Missouri. He trained in NYC at the Art Students League. The New-York Historical Society and the Library of Congress both have collections of his work. Signed, titled, and dated. Especially like the test marks at the lower right and the way the lawyer is leaning/relaxing on the judge...

Russian-born and European-educated Alexander Kachinsky was a designer of stage sets (for the Ballet Russe), furniture, and commercial interiors. His prints are in the collection of t...

The dimensions are for the image; there are large margins. This lithograph is signed in pencil. A native New Yorker, Ann Nooney (1900-1970) recorded the urban scene while on the Wo...

Louis Bouché was based in New York and taught at the Art Students League. The figure was an important subject in his oeuvre. An ink drawing on tan paper, ...

Very well executed original gouache on archival paper by the well known American artist Benjamin Kopman. The scene depicts three figures admiring a picture. Signed lower left. Circa ...

Joseph (Joe) Leboit made this extremely intense image of a supposedly happy recipient of a 'Derby Winner.' (Probably refers to the Irish Derby.) In fact the couple and seventeen chil...

Here for your consideration is a comical take on the position of maitre d’. Unsigned. Framed in a new African mahogany frame. Overall measurements are 25.5 by 17.5 inches. Oil pain...

Moses Oley drew an industrial scene, but one very much in isolation. The quarry equipment looks both imposing and busy. There appears to be smoke coming fro...

Norman Barr recorded his beloved New York City from the Bronx, to Coney Island, to the Fulton Fish Market. Although Barr was on the Mural Project of the ...

Paul Gattuso attended the Art Students League and worked primarily in New York City. There is an old address with a Bronx, Grand Concourse address. Gattus...

Chicago-born Golinkin studied at the Artist Students League with George Luks. After working as an illustrator for New York papers he joined the Navy in 1939 and retired as a Rear Adm...

Russia-born Ray Euffa studied at the Detroit School of Fine Arts, the Educational Alliance Art School, and Art Students League in NYC. It is New York City i...

Norman Barr made mural on the NYC-WPA; this lithograph was made in the WPA workshop but was not published by the WPA. The next year he was in the Army! Thi...

Irving Place Burlesque Etching, 1930 Unsigned (as usual for the Whitney edition) Numbered in pencil lower left Blind stamp of the Whitney Museum (WM) lower right From: Reginald Marsh...

Paul Gattuso attended the Art Students League and worked primarily in New York City. There is an old address with a Bronx, Grand Concourse address. Gattus...

James Penney was widely known for his New Yorker covers as well as his paintings and prints. This lithograph shares the happy joy of warm days in the park with people on benches and ...

James Penney was widely known for his New Yorker covers as well as his paintings and prints. Penney was from Saint Joseph, Missouri. He trained in NYC at the Art Students League. Th...

Norman Barr recorded his beloved New York City from the Bronx, to Coney Island, to the Fulton Fish Market. In this period he was on the New Deal's Mural ...

Amy Londoner Beach at Atlantic City, circa 1922 Signed lower right Pastel on paper Sight 23 x 18 inches Amy Londoner (April 12, 1875 – 1951) was an American painter who exhibited at the 1913 Armory Show. One of the first students of the Henri School of Art in 1909. Prior to the Armory Show of 1913, Amy Londoner and her classmates studied with "Ashcan" painter Robert Henri at the Henri School of Art in New York, N.Y. One notable oil painting, 'The Vase', was painted by both Henri and Londoner. Londoner was born in Lexington, Missouri on April 12, 1875. Her parents were Moses and Rebecca Londoner, who moved to Leadville, Colorado, by 1880. In 1899, Amy took responsibility for her father who had come to Los Angeles from Leadville and had mental issues. By 1900, Amy was living with her parents and sister, Blanche, in the vicinity of Leadville, Denver, Colorado. While little was written about her early life, Denver City directories indicated that nineteenth-century members of the family were merchants, with family ties to New York, N.Y. The family had a male servant. Londoner traveled with her mother to England in 1907 then shortly later, both returned to New York in 1909. Londoner was 34 years old at the time, and, according to standards of the day, should have married and raised a family long before. Instead, she enrolled as one of the first students at the Henri School of Art in 1909. At the Henri School, Londoner established friendships with Carl Sprinchorn (1887-1971), a young Swedish immigrant, and Edith Reynolds (1883-1964), daughter of wealthy industrialist family from Wilkes-Barre, PA. Londoner's correspondence, which often included references to Blanche, listed the sisters' primary address as the Hotel Endicott at 81st Street and Columbus Avenue, NYC. Other correspondence also reached Londoner in the city via Mrs. Theodore Bernstein at 252 West 74th Street; 102 West 73rd Street; and the Independent School of Art at 1947 Broadway. In 1911, Londoner vacationed at the Hotel Trexler in Atlantic City, NJ. As indicated by an undated photograph, Londoner also spent time with Edith Reynolds and Robert Henri at 'The Pines', the Reynolds family estate in Bear Creek, PA. Through her connections with the Henri School, Londoner entered progressive social and professional circles. Henri's admonition, phrased in the vocabulary of his historical time period, that one must become a "man" first and an artist second, attracted both male and female students to classes where development of unique personal styles, tailored to convey individual insights and experiences, was prized above the mastery of standardized, technical skill. Far from being dilettantes, women students at the Henri School were daring individuals willing to challenge tradition. As noted by former student Helen Appleton Read, "it was a mark of defiance,to join the radical Henri group." As Henri offered educational alternatives for women artists, he initiated exhibition opportunities for them as well. Troubled by the exclusion of work by younger artists from annual exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, Henri was instrumental in organizing the no-jury, no-prize Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910. About half of the 103 artists included in the exhibition were or had been Henri students, while twenty of the twenty-six women exhibiting had studied with Henri. Among the exhibition's 631 pieces, nine were by Amy Londoner, including the notorious 'Lady with a Headache'. Similarly, fourteen of Henri's women students exhibited in the groundbreaking Armory Show of 1913, forming about eight percent of the American exhibitors and one-third of American women exhibitors. Of the nine documented works submitted by Londoner, five were rejected, while four pastels of Atlantic City beach scenes, including 'The Beach Umbrellas' now in the Remington Collection, were displayed. Following Henri's example, Londoner served as an art instructor for younger students at the Modern School, whose only requirement was to genuinely draw what they pleased. The work of dancer Isadora Duncan, another artist devoted to the ideals of a liberal education, was also lauded by the Modern School. Henri, who long admired Duncan and invited members of her troupe to model for his classes, wrote an appreciation of her for the Modern School journal in 1915. She was also the subject of Londoner's pastel Isadora Duncan and the Children: Praise Ye the Lord with Dance. In 1914, Londoner traveled to France to spend summer abroad, living at 99 rue Notre Dames des Champs, Paris, France. As the tenets of European modernism spread throughout the United States, Londoner showed regularly at venues which a new generation of artists considered increasingly passe, including the annual Society of Independent Artists' exhibitions between 1918 and 1934, and the Salons of America exhibition in 1922. Londoner also exhibited at the Morton Gallery, Opportunity Gallery, Leonard Clayton Gallery and Brownell-Lambertson Galleries in NYC. Her painting of a 'Blond Girl' was one of two works included in the College Art Associations Traveling Exhibition of 1929, which toured colleges across the country to broad acclaim. Londoner later in life suffered from illnesses then suffered a stroke which resulted in medical bills significantly mounting over the years that her old friends from the Henri School, including Carl Sprinchorn, Florence Dreyfous, Florence Barley, and Josephine Nivison Hopper, scrambled to raise funds and find suitable long-term care facilities for Londoner. Londoner later joined Reynolds in Bear Creek, PA. Always known for her keen wit, Londoner retained her humor and concern for her works even during her illness, noting that "if anything happens to the Endicott, I guess they will just throw them out." Sprinchorn and Reynolds, however, did not allow this to happen. In 1960, Londoner's paintings 'Amsterdam Avenue at 74th Street' and 'The Builders' were loaned by Reynolds to a show commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910, presented at the Delaware Art Center, Wilmington, DE. In the late 80's, Francis William Remington, 'Bill Remington', of Bear Creek Village PA, along with his neighbor and artist Frances Anstett Brennan, both had profound admiration for Amy Londoner's art work and accomplishments as a woman who played a significant role in the Ashcan movement. Remington acquired a significant number of Londoner's artwork along with Frances Anstett Brenan that later was part of an exhibition of Londoner's artwork in April 15 of 2007, at the Hope Horn...

An important American modern landscape by Ashcan school artist Alexander O. Levy. This painting was featured in the retrospective for the artist held at the Burchfield Penney Art Ce...

A pair of exquisite drawings by American Ashcan School artist Alexander Oscar Levy.

Grant Arnold's Summer Landscape, made in 1936, in the depths of the Depression, is a study in peace and calm. It's as though he found a refuge from the wo...

Gregory often worked in lithography, probably learned at the Art Students League in New York City. In all likelihood this is a New York scene but he also often drew New England subje...

Mathilde de Cordoba was born in New York City and spent her career there. She is known for her studies of women and children. Convalescent is sign...

Blanche Grambs, known to friends as 'Grambs' (1916-2010) was born in China. She came to New York as a very young woman to study at the Art Students Leag...

Head of a Woman (Margaret) conte on wove paper, 1925 Signed and dated lower right Annotated "Margaret" in ink verso A portrait of Margaret Cassidy Manship ( d. 2012), daughter in law...

Marsh, Reginald. TWO GIRLS IN SUBWAY. S.58. Etching, 1928. Printed on cream-colored wove paper, with a watermark, upper left. One of only two proofs of ...

Man, Wife and Child Etching, 1905 Signed and titled in pencil by the artist below image (see photo) Annotated in pencil by the artist "100 proofs" Signed and dated in the plate lower...

John Sloan (1871-1954), Barbershop, 1915, etching and aquatint, signed in pencil lower right, inscribed in pencil “For John Quinn, Esq. – John Sloan” lower left margin, (also signed ...

Red Ballboy or Studies for "Tennis Tournament" Crayon on paper, c. 1920 Unsigned Condition: three vertical folds created by the artist to transport the drawing from the tennis match ...

South Spring Wind - Voice of Persephone Sanguine on paper heightened with white gouache over the entire sheet Signed lower left An important work on paper by the artist with extensiv...

Study of an Indian Model Unsigned Pastel and chalk on blue paper, mounted to support Provenance: Estate of the artist (per Graham and Sons, agent for the estate) James Graham & Sons,...

Standing Female Nude Oil on canvas, c. 1910 Signed lower left corner (see photo) Condition: Excellent Housed in a 22K Gold Leaf Frame Canvas size: 24 x 18 1/8 inche...