Michael Kotasek Paintings

Architectural landscape painting by Anthony V. Martin of a white house with a lovely green velvet mat and a gold frame. Artist Biography: Anthony V. Martin grew up in east Texas. H...

This mural study is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Industry and Commerce, 1936, tempera on panel, 16 ½ x 39 ½ inches, signed verso “John Ballator, Portland Ore.” provenance includes: J.C. Penney Company, represented by Russell Tether Fine Arts Assoc.; presented in a newer wood frame About the Painting Industry and Commerce is a prime example of WPA Era muralism. Like a Mediaeval alter, this mural study is filled with icons, but the images of saints and martyrs are replaced with symbols of America's gospel of prosperity through capitalism. Industry and Commerce has a strong narrative quality with vignettes filling the entire surface. Extraction, logistics, design, power generation, and manufacturing for printing, chemicals, automobiles and metal products are all represented. To eliminate any doubt about the mural's themes, Ballator letters a description into the bottom of the study. Ballator also presents an idealized version of industrial cooperation, as his workers, lab-coated technicians and tie-wearing managers work harmoniously toward a common goal in the tidy and neatly designed environments. Although far from the reality of most industrial spaces, Ballator's study reflects the idealized and morale boosting tone that many mural projects adopted during the Great Depression. About the Artist John R Ballator achieved success as a muralist, lithographer, and teacher during the Great Depression. Born in Oregon, he studied at the Portland Museum Art School, the University of Oregon and at Yale University where he received a Bachelor of Fine Art. In 1936, Ballator was commissioned to paint a mural panel for the new Department of Justice Building in Washington DC, an important project that spanned five years with several dozen artists contributing a total of sixty-eight designs. Ballator completed murals for the St. Johns Post Office and Franklin High School, both in Portland, Oregon. He also contributed to the 1938 murals at Nathan Hale School in New Haven, Connecticut. During the late 1930s, Ballator taught art for several years at Washburn College in Topeka, Kanas, where he completed a mural for the Menninger Arts & Craft Shop before accepting a professorship at Hollins College...

High drama and fear is exressed on the faces of 5 kids as they anticipate the outcome a scary event. Signed lower left From the Estate of Charles Martignette. Most likey for the Sa...

An original realist egg tempera painting by American artist Catherine Koenig created during her travels to Mexico. This work will be featured in the gallery's upcoming exhibition "D...

An original realist egg tempera painting by American artist Catherine Koenig created during her travels to Mexico. This work will be featured in the gallery's upcoming exhibition "Dr...

A fine naive landscape painting with a windmill by American artist Janet Munro (b. 1949). Munro was born in Woburn, MA, and her work focuses o...

This charming rural winter scene of ice skaters fully displays Norman Rockwell's America, but it was painted by female artist Charlotte Joan Sternberg. She combines the mid-century A...

Konstantinos Papamichalopoulos was born in Athens, Greece in 1975. He studied painting and printmaking at the Athens School of Fine Arts, where he also received a postgraduate degree...

This is an important, large tempera painting of the sand dunes that line Michigan's coast. Zolton Sepeshy, who lived and painted in Michigan, also wrote a book on tempera painting. ...

Michael Coleman (b 1946), is known for his landscapes of rich colors in a combination of realism and atmospheric styles, often with animals depicted and the suggestion of natural har...

Autumn Landscape, by 1958, tempera on Masonite, 24 x 36 inches, signed lower left, exhibited: 1) 133rd Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design, New York, NY, February 20 – March 16, 1958 (Henry Ward Ranger Purchase Prize); and 2) Henry Ward Ranger Centennial Exhibition, National Academy of Design, New York, NY, September 25 - October 12, 1958, #133 (see Levin, Meyer, Illustrative Paintings Gathered for Ranger Show at National Academy, St. Petersburg Times, October 13, 1958 (“There’s a warm, low-keyed picture of golden fields, with distant structures, called “Autumn Landscape,” by Robert Vickrey, whose magic realism is felt in so “regular” a subject.”), literature: 1) Watson, Ernest William, Composition in Landscape and Still Life, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1959, pp. 24, 155 and 157 (illustrated); and 2) Vickrey, Robert and Cochrane, Diane, New Techniques in Egg Tempera, Watson-Guptill Publications, New York, 1973, p. 111 (illustrated); ex collection National Academy of Design Reflecting on his art, Robert Vickery...

Halloween - an iconic American painting by James Torlakson who is known for his photorealist oil paintings, watercolors and aquatint intaglio etchings. Torlakson’s photorealism subj...