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Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

American, 1896-1970

Known for his scenes of prize-fighting and circus-genre, Robert Riggs had a highly successful career as an artist, especially in the ‘30s and ‘40s. His painting, The Brown Bomber, showed the boxing victory of Joe Louis over Max Schmeling. This is one of the paintings that earned Riggs election to the National Academy of Design in 1946. He was born in Decatur, Illinois, and as a young man ran away from home and joined the circus. He studied at the James Milliken University in Illinois and then trained at the Art Students League in New York, but his study was interrupted by Army service in the First World War. He attended the Académie Julian in Paris and then returned to the United States where he settled in Philadelphia and worked for N. W. Ayer Sons, an advertising agency for whom he did numerous illustrations.

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Artist: Robert Riggs
Prospector firing Rifle ( Happiness is a Warm Gun ) Gay Art
By Robert Riggs
Located in Miami, FL
Tempera mixed with gum arabic and alcohol on Renaissance Panel ( composite wood panel ) Robert Riggs was a gay man. Being gay in American during the 1940's time was something not to flaunt in public. Rigg's had to communicate his underlying feelings in more symbolic ways. Throughout Riggs' oeuvre, one sees continuous references to strong hunked out manly men and vulnerable boys. It is a core element of is iconography and is described in a powerful graphic style. In “Prospector firing Rifle,” there is a Dick Pic. Riggs is clearly making a sexual statement about the moment of climax. The long, straight rifle explodes and is captured at the moment of its peak climax. Meanwhile, the two bags of gold clearly resemble the other part of the male anatomy. Riggs was a thoughtful and meticulous visual thinker, and nothing in any of Riggs’s compositions was haphazardly placed. In tribute to the artist’s suppressed feelings, I have given this work a second title “Happiness is a Warm Gun...
Category

1940s Academic Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

Materials

Tempera

George Washington Marine Procession New York Presidential Inauguration, Life Mag
By Robert Riggs
Located in Miami, FL
"The Great Man Comes to Take His Oath" Life Magazine Spread, July 4th, 1960, This epic narrative depicts the celebration of George Washington's inauguration, en route to Federal Hall...
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1930s American Realist Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Indian sacrificial ceremony - Aztec Human Sacrifice
By Robert Riggs
Located in Miami, FL
The sacrificial ceremony, Freemans The Collection of Philip Desind Signed Three times Riggs l.r. A powerful account of moments a tribe member is cut open and the heart is handed over to a young brave, There is a reason why there are few contemporary painters who can paint a portrait this good. It's hard to do. It's easy to throw some paint or spray a mess of graffiti on canvas. That's easy. To execute a portrait with a great depth of anatomy and structure takes years of academic training. In Riggs's time there were teachers who knew how to pass on this knowledge. He studied at the Art Students League and the Académie Julian . Today, they are very few and far between. - Robert Riggs was a Gay Artist...
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1950s American Realist Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media

“The Hamilton-Burr Duel, ” illustration for LIFE Magazine
By Robert Riggs
Located in Fort Washington, PA
Illustrating an article about the life of Alexander Hamilton titled “The Duel,” published in LIFE Magazine, July 7, 1947, page 69. The full caption reads: “The Hamilton-Burr Duel, w...
Category

20th Century Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil

Indian Ritual Walking on Fire, Firewalking Ceremony, Mythology and Religion
By Robert Riggs
Located in Miami, FL
Narrative artist Robert Riggs captures a highly-charged scene of an Indian firewalking ceremony. Firewalking is part of a religious ritual and is associated with the mystical powers...
Category

1950s Academic Robert Riggs Landscape Paintings

Materials

Varnish, Pigment

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Antique Western Oil on Canvas Painting Native American "The Captive" 1901
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A large American Western, Native American oil on canvas landscape, by Frank Paul Sauerwein (1871-1910), "The Captive", 1901. This large oil on canvas depicts a Native American brave captively tied to a tree stump and being viewed by a rival tribe, who are evidently deciding his fate. Behind the collected tribe of elders, braves and children are a pair of conical tipi dwellings, to the background are grazing horses and another group of native people in a tree lined setting. The painting is indistinctly signed lower left, condition is good, the painting is housed in the original frame with a giltwood rabbet, the painting at sight is 40" x 26". Provenance; From a lifelong collection of 19th & early 20th Century Western Art, Portland, Oregon. Frank Sauerwein was a respected painter of western landscapes, Indian portraits, Indian genre scenes, and California missions. His promising career was cut short by his death of tuberculosis at age thirty-nine. The son of European-trained artist, Charles D. Sauerwein, Frank took his first art lessons from his father before studying at the Philadelphia School of Industrial Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and, finally, the Philadephia Museum School of Art. In 1891 he moved to Denver in hope of improving his health. In 1893, Sauerwein accompanied the artist Charles Craig on a trip to the Ute reservation in southwestern Colorado. This began Sauerwein's unyielding fascination with the Southwest and its Native inhabitants. After a trip to Europe, he returned to the American West, visiting Taos in 1899 and Santa Fe in 1900. That same year, Sauerwein visited the Navajo reservation, becoming good friends with trading post entrepreneur, Lorenzo Hubbell. He also spent time at Keam's Canyon on the Hopi reservation where he sketched local inhabitants. Sauerwein moved to Los Angeles in 1901, and then to Pasadena in 1902, but he maintained his contacts in the Southwest with Summer trips to the Grand Canyon, New Mexico Indian Pueblos, Taos, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. He especially loved the Grand Canyon which is the subject of a large number of his paintings. Rendered in a tight, academic style, Sauerwein's paintings clearly show the influence of German...
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Octave Denis Victor Guillonnet (1872 - 1967) Les Oliviers, oil on panel signed
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Robert Riggs landscape paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Riggs landscape paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Riggs in paint, oil paint, mixed media and more. Not every interior allows for large Robert Riggs landscape paintings, so small editions measuring 13 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Ernest Fiene, Harold Vincent Skene, and Philip Evergood. Robert Riggs landscape paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $25,000 and tops out at $92,000, while the average work can sell for $35,000.

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