Michael Kotasek Landscape 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...

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. ...

Reindeer In Forest Tempera on silk, gold leaf frame under glass, by Chinese artist Ma Hai Feng born 1958.

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...

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...

Honore Sharrer (1920 - 2009) Woman Listening Signed lower right Caseine on paper 15 x 20 inches Provenance: Forum Gallery, New York Private Collection ...

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...

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...

Original Holiday Greeting Card Christmas Illustration featuring a snowy scene with dogs chasing a horse-drawn sleigh Medium: Egg Tempera on Illustration Board Signature: Unsigned Charlotte Joan Sternberg was born in Meriden, Connecticut in 1920. Early on, she became interested in art, and her parents encouraged her efforts. She attended public schools in the area, as well as taking art classes at the technical school. Afterwards, she attended the Yale School of Art. Her fellow classmates included Rudolph Zallinger, who executed the dinosaur mural at the Peabody Museum in New Haven; Jean Day Zallinger, renowned book illustrator; and Edward Paier, founder of the Paier College of Art. It was there that she became interested in egg tempera, and most of her well-known artwork was done in this medium. She was one of a number of Yale artists who revived this medium.(She did not work professionally in oils, although she sometimes used gouache or watercolor.) She went on to a long career in commercial illustration. She worked extensively for J.Walter Thompson, doing advertising art for such companies as Esso (later Exxon), Textron, and Lederle pharmaceuticals. While she did a variety of subjects, she was best known for her Americana themes, particularly snow scenes of historic New England. Many of these pieces were published as Christmas cards for American Artists Group. She also taught for many years at the Paier College of Art. She also did a number of limited edition prints for Greenwich Workshop. Her art is used on such items as tapestry pillows, puzzles, and decorative flags. She was commissioned to do several portraits, including those of Gov.John Lodge...

Victor Mikhail Arnautoff (1896 - 1979) Motion (Mile Rocks Lighthouse), San Francisco, 1939 Oil and tempera on board 60 x 40 inches Signed lower left Provenance: The artist California School of Fine Arts (CFSA) John & Lynne Bolen Fine Arts, Huntington Beach, California Exhibited: New York, World's Fair, Exhibition of Contemporary American Art, 1939. San Francisco Museum of Art, 1962. Literature: American Art from the New York World's Fair 1939, Poughkeepsie, 1987, no. 11, p. 41, illustrated. Robert W. Cherny, Victor Arnautoff and the Politics of Art, Urbana, Illinois, 2017. The lighthouse in the distance is the Mile Rocks Lighthouse in San Francisco Bay, built in 1906 after many shipwrecks made the lighthouse necessary. In 1962 the lighthouse was reduced in size to make room for a helipad. Arnautoff was the son of a Russian Orthodox priest. He showed a talent for art from an early age and hoped to study art after graduating from the gymnasium in Mariupol. With the outbreak of World War I, he enrolled in the Yelizavetgrad Cavalry School. He went on to hold military leadership positions in the army of Nicholas II and the White Siberian army. With the defeat of the Whites in Siberia, he crossed into northeastern China and surrendered his weapons. Arnautoff remained in China for five years. He again tried to pursue art, but was impoverished and took a position training the cavalry of the warlord Zhang Zuolin. He met and married Lydia Blonsky and they had two sons, Michael and Vasily. In November 1925 Arnautoff went to San Francisco on a student visa to study at the California School of Fine Arts. There he studied sculpture with Edgar Walter and painting with several instructors. His wife and children joined him, and they all continued to Mexico in 1929, where, on Ralph Stackpole...