1940s Paintings

Original artwork by the master. It is in as-found poor condition. It will be shipped in a tube without glass or framing. Pencil signed with information on backing paper, crayon numb...

A painting of a woman riding on a carousel horse while holding out her white handkerchief to flow in the wind. This piece is reminiscent of a week...

Beautiful flower still life, painted with soft pastels on paper, by the Belgium female artist Simone Dujardin. Signed and dated (1944) left under. The painting has a lively use of bright colors. The porcelain and book provides a nice balance in the composition. The painting is framed behind glass, for protection of the pastel. In a beautiful carved gold leaf wooden frame. Dimensions frame: 53 x 58 cm Dimensions painting: 38 x 43 cm Simone Dujardin was a Pupil of Firmin Baes...

Paul Feiler (British 1918 - 2013) Still Life with Fruit Oil on canvas 1949 Size: 43cm high, 51cm wide - 17 ins high, 20 ins wide Frame: 59.5cm high, 66.5cm deep - 23½ ins high, ...

Very captivating set of two early 20th C still life paintings by Alexandre 'Alex' Denonne (Belgium, 1879-1953): still life "Asparagus and eggs" and still life "Melon". Oil on canvas...

Lennart Lilja, 1945 Oil on the board Work dated and signed by the artist Dimensions 46/38 Unframed work Lennart Lilja (1924-2008). He was a Swedish artist. Student of Isaac Gründewald and Otte Sköld. In the 1950s he wrote plays and tried his hand as an actor. This resulted in a role in The Seventh...

Vintage Watercolor of Nantucket Railroad, by Doris and Richard Beer, circa 1940, a watercolor on paper view of the Nantucket narrow gauge "Dummy...

Mid-Century Modern painting animal motif fishes by Robert Libeski 1946 Vienna. An amazing painting with a motif looks like the painter was situated in the middle of a sea surrounded ...

Painting title "New Jersey Bathers" circa 1949 (1908-1986) works represented in over 30 Museums. Was president of the American Artists league and past president Audubon Artists and a...

Adam Sherriff Scott was born in Perth, Scotland and began his art education in 1903 at the Edinburgh School of Art. He was awarded the Allen-Fraser Scholarship to continue his studies for four years at the Allen-Fraser institute, which was a finishing school for talented young artists, and studied under George Harcourt A.R.A. After this, he continued his studies at the Slade School under Henry Tonks as well as at the National Gallery and the Tate Gallery. In 1912, he moved to Canada. He worked for an American who commissioned him to paint large scenes of the Canadian West to sell to real estate agents. Scott moved to Montreal in 1915 He became a member of the Beaver Hall...

The painting "Cliff". Dimensions: Frame: height 53 cm / width 68 cm Image: height 40 cm / width 55 cm

Antique framed oil painting on canvas by Zollepx is a beautiful work that depicts the classic still life of a pewter pitcher filled with colorful flowers and set by an open window. P...

This evocative gouache portrait by Matthew William Boyhan captures a young man in a moment of deep contemplation. The artist’s use of muted yet warm colors highlights the subject's y...

French sanguine Art work representing a detail of a Parisian Park.

Gouache on paper fashion sketch by Ginette Roger, in new custom gilt frame. France, 1940's

Gouache on paper fashion sketch by Ginette Roger, in new custom gilt frame. France, 1940's

Art Deco mixed media painting by Robert Libeski with a female figural motif, 1946 in a neutral and timeless color palette. A decorative and figural painting in golden color tones sho...

Original Watercolor Ski Poster "Pontresina" by Herbert Leupin (Swiss: 1916 - 1999), a watercolor and gouache painting original for one of Leupin's celeb...

1940s oil painting of Amsterdam's red light district.

Montague Dawson: ‘Six Metre Class boat by the Lymington Spit’, a watercolour showing a white hulled Six Metre yacht sailing away from a racing buoy, running downwind with reduced goo...

Art Deco painting swimming pool Vue de ma table. France ca. 1940. Acrylic paint, watercolor on board. Framed. Monogrammed.

1867-1957 Having spent a considerable time in Egypt, Serailian arrived in Boston in 1892 and then accepted a position to teach in Indiana at Taylor University. He settled in San Francisco in 1900. He was a good friend of Luther Burbank and did many botanical illustrations for him. He died in San Francisco on Sept. 7, 1957. His work includes landscapes, florals, and portraits. View Of Mt Shasta...

This beautiful watercolor on paper Shows a viewpoint of buildings through an archway. Signed, dated, and titled in the lower corner. Professionally framed and matted. Vintage Conditi...

Vintage Nantucket Watercolor of "Old North Slip" on Nantucket, by Doris and Richard Beer, circa 1940, a watercolor on paper view of mooring slips along the end of Old North Wharf, signed in pencil lower right, titled on the reverse. Doris and Richard Beer (1898-1967 and 1893-1959 respectively) produced a well-known series of watercolor miniatures featuring popular Nantucket scenes. Working at their Wharf Head Studio on Old North Wharf for 18 years, the couple worked together on these copyrighted creations, photo-duplicating Doris's line sketch and Doris and Richard completing the watercolor. A native New Yorker, Doris studied at the Art Students League, Cooper Union, and with Arthur Dow at Columbia University. She developed a successful career designing theatrical scenery and costumes in New York, Newport, and later for the Straight Wharf Theater on Nantucket. Richard spent the summers of his childhood in ’Sconset. A graduate of Hamilton College, he served for ten years as American consul in posts in Budapest, England, Havana, and Canada. A self taught painter, he also was a talented writer who contributed to the Saturday Evening Post, Yankee Magazine, and Art News...

Vintage Nantucket Watercolor of Old North Wharf, by Doris and Richard Beer, circa 1940, a watercolor on paper view of shell lane down center of ol...

The oil painting on canvas by Ejner Johansen from 1948 sounds like a delightful piece of art. Ejner Johansen was a Danish artist known for his paintings, often featuring still life c...

Pair of bas-reliefs in scagliola with figures of women, England, 1940.

Dorothy Dehner (1901-1994) was one of the most important women artists in the United States in the mid-century American abstraction movement (the MoMa in New York has more than a doz...

Paul Wightman Williams, American (20th century). This diminutive mixed-media watercolor, pastel, and ink on paper depicts a haunting abstracted face. It is float-mounted in a faux-g...

S. W. Brooks, pastel portrait on cardboard, Miami Beach, 1947 Dimension: 68 x 82 cm Without frame: 60 x 44 cm.

A very interesting and unusual Lancaster Bridge Original Oil Painting by artist J. Earle Pfoutz. The painting is produced on artist board and comes complete with what appears to be an original artist decorated/painted frame. The painting is signed on the front by the artist. Overall frame Size approximately 42″ wide x 2″ deep x 30″ high J. Earle Pfoutz had a long and distinguished career as a self trained artist. More can be learned about him from reading this article produced by Gary Hawbaker at askART Earle Pfoutz Born: 1891 – Lancaster, Pennsylvania Died: 1957 Known for: Landscape, figure, still life painting An image of J Earle Pfoutz Biography from the Archives of askART J. Earle Pfoutz (John Earle Pfoutz) – (Oct 23, 1891-Nov 9, 1957) “A seventh generation descendant of a Swiss family which arrived in America early in the 17th Century, J. Earle Pfoutz was born in Lancaster, PA, son of John Bachman and Susan Allison Pfoutz. He painted houses for a living and pictures for a life. A self-taught artist, described as a primitive, he was distinctive for his vivid imagination and bold color application. He painted hundreds of Lancaster County scenes. Pfoutz traveled through the hills near his home and along the Susquehanna River in search of scenes. He began painting with a brush when he was fourteen, but added a palette knife after suffering an eye injury. He completed eighth grade in the Lancaster Public Schools and there his formal education ended. However, the Department of Public Instruction of the State of Pennsylvania thought so highly of his work as an artist that officials certified him as an art instructor and he taught for a year in the York (PA) public schools. He also was an art instructor under the program for disabled veterans, sponsored by the Veterans Administration, when he gave private instruction to veterans in their homes. In 1947, J. Earle Pfoutz finally earned national recognition as an artist. His painting, Opalescent October, was chosen by the Museum of Art of Dayton Ohio, to travel all over the country for a year with its Group Exhibition. Described as a “very colorful, calm scene, iridescent in color, sweeping in design,” the painting started on its journey around the country early in 1948. In an interview with the Sunday News (Lancaster, PA – Nov 2, 1947), Pfoutz stated that he didn’t know whether he was a “primitive” or an “impressionist.” No master taught him, no school channeled his style. “Sometimes I didn’t eat, but I always managed to paint,” he recalled. Many of his hundreds of canvases -most of them not sold, but given away to friends – found their way to other parts of the country. “I never remember the day when I did not love color,” Pfoutz said. “I was about 12 years old when I saw my first palette – a string of different colored paint paddles that graced the stores of that day. As a boy I had two great desires. One was to be able to eat all the strawberry jam I could, and the other to possess a string of those beautiful paint paddles. Well, I’ve got my fill of jelly, but I’ve never yet got my fill of beautiful colors.” In 1950, Pfoutz’s one man show of paintings made front page headlines in the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal: “Most of the twenty oil paintings on exhibition are landscapes, although there are several interesting figure studies. Colors again, as in all Pfoutziana are rich and full-bodied, but for the most part not as startlingly as in some of the earlier work. Most of the paintings were done during the past year, and also reveal the painter’s characteristic heavy impasto technique, in which the rich swirls of paint carry their own message. Among the figures, The Banjo Picker, and The Magician, are the most provocative. Both are character studies; the first being of a tramp musician whose drab clothing is set-off by a luminous aqua blue background. Modern in feeling and treatment is The Magician, a clown-faced wizard whose spinning ball in the air suggests the fourth dimension – space. The use of the primary colors in this picture serves to emphasize the theme effectively. A large colorful landscape, Opalescent October, depicting rolling hills against a late afternoon sky is new to Lancastrians, as it has just returned from Dayton, Ohio, where it hung in the Dayton Art Institute. Another landscape with soft dreamy colors is Fantasie D’Autumne, and one of the loveliest pictures in the show. Pennsylvania Dutch Country is another with eye appeal, and was one of the works which was hung in the Old Customs House in Philadelphia during Pennsylvania Week, and before that in a collection of Pfoutz work in the same place. In deep contrast to the sunny skies and brilliant foliage of many of the pictures, is the somewhat morbid Worry, in which the center of interest is a tremendous rat. This, the painter explains, was symbolic of 1948 in China, which was ‘The Year of The Rat’ in the Chinese calendar. Background material for the picture was furnished to Pfoutz by author Pearl Buck. Other pictures include Autumn Prelude, Miners Village, painted at Cornwall, PA; Humid Day, Saint Peters Kierch, at Middletown, PA; Lady Pfoutz, inspired by the painter’s wife; Sun Flowers, Sentimental Journey, Gyne, Luzon Woman, Old Bridge, The Cow Path. Lemures, based on Roman mythology, and Ethiopian, painted from an ebony wood carving from Kenya Province, S. Africa.” In 1953, Pfoutz was installed as President of the Lancaster County Art Association. A. Z. Kruse, New York City artist, writer and member of the faculty of the Brooklyn College and the Cartoonists and Illustrators School, Manhattan, was the guest speaker. In January of 1953, thirty-five Pfoutz oils were exhibited at the Old Custom House in Philadelphia, PA under the sponsorship of the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation. Several Lancaster County landscapes and covered bridges were included as well as Katy, a Pennsylvania Dutch scene. Symbolic paintings included End of the Second Day, the artist’s visualization of the second coming of Christ, and Twilight, typifying the grief of mothers of all lands for sons lost in battle. In June of 1953, a Pfoutz oil made history in Lancaster. From the Lancaster New Era: “For the first in local art history, a painting has been withdrawn from an exhibition because of objections from viewers and hostesses serving at the show. The painting, Jeune Fille, a standing nude done by Pfoutz, was one of the paintings in the annual spring exhibition of the Art Association and had become the center of the controversy. Pfoutz said he took the painting down… ‘graciously but reluctantly.’ ‘From an artistic standpoint, there is nothing offensive about the painting,’ Pfoutz said. ‘This community just wants its nudes with clothes on.’ “It is most brilliant in color, and because it is so brilliant I thought it would make a nice lively spot for the show. This is the first time I’ve had to take a picture off the walls. I substituted a seascape for it.’ Pfoutz said he felt the painting brought a lot of viewers to the show because it was so controversial. It had never been exhibited before. ‘If this had been shown in a metropolitan city,’ he commented, ‘people wouldn’t have given it a second glance. But the viewpoint here is more conservative, even though I don’t think moderns would have minded.’ He said he felt the painting was neither ‘objectionable nor pornographic,’ but had complied with the wishes of fellow members of the Art Association who telephoned him to relay the protests they had received. The art controversy was the first to arise here publicly since the showing of Amish Grandmother, an oil by William Gropper which was part of the Gimbel Pennsylvania exhibit at the Griest Building several years ago. — Numerous viewers of Amish Grandmother, [a painting showing an Amish woman holding a white goose], expressed themselves quite vocally, calling it an affront to the Plain Folk. But it stayed on exhibit throughout the length of the Gimbel show. Pfoutz expressed no rancor, implying that if Gropper could take it so could he.” After his death, there were several shows of Pfoutz’ work organized by his son J. Earle, Jr. J. Earle, Jr. also saw to it that President Eisenhower would receive an oil called The Cow’s Path. The president first saw the painting in 1950 when, as president of Columbia University, he visited Lancaster to address a student assembly at Franklin and Marshall College. After his address was over, the then Gen. Eisenhower stopped at the Fackenthal Library on the campus to view an exhibition of Pfoutz’s paintings. The Cow’s Path intrigued him. For some time, as his aides fumed to get him back on his time schedule, Eisenhower and Pfoutz talked, as artist to artist. Prior to his death, Pfoutz requested that The Cow’s Path be given to the President if he wanted it. The painting was presented to Ike at the White House in November of 1959. Mrs. Eisenhower owned a Pfoutz painting titled, In the Manor. Though house painting was his livelihood, he worked for Millersville State Teachers College (now a university) for a time during World War II, and called himself “the Chimney Sweep of MSTC.” During that period he knocked out a dizzying canvas in the surrealist style (he thought it was terrible) and got into the campus newspaper when one of the students spotted it. Earle Pfoutz was not the humble, downtrodden artist, not the Douanier Rousseau type at all. As he developed his skill and style through the years, he also fashioned a resilient confidence in himself as an artist. Whether he was building his own home (he built two) or painting one for somebody else, he never lost faith in his ultimate recognition—though he was never sure he would live to see it. Whether he was working as a rigger for a hoisting company, in the Stehli Silk Mill of Lancaster, carving Cloister-style chairs, decorating old chests, cementing bricks from the old Safe...

1940s Watercolor Painting On Paper Of Asian Woman Wearing Hat Wearing a Nón Lá (traditional Vietnamese hat) Signed Dorothy Dwin Illustration

19th Century portrait of a woman painted in oil on canvas with the frame dated in 1940 Measurements with frame: 69 x 69 x 3 cm.

Nude Portrait of a Young Woman with a Scarf, Maurice Ehlinger, Circa 1940. We present a rare and refined work by a master portraitist of the 20th century. Details of the Artwork: ...

C.P. Initials,Portait of African Girl,Charcoal on Paper,Signed Banzyville 1944,Framed,Signed and Dated

Unsigned. Attributed to Irina Valeryanovna Shtenberg. Period frame. Dimensions (unframed): Height: 13”, width: 11” Dimensions (framed): Height: 15”, width: 12-7/8” All the w...

Kurt Thorsén, Sweden. Oil on canvas. Self-portrait of the artist. Dated 1943. The canvas measures: 93 x 52 cm. The frame measures: 6 cm. In excellent condition. Signed and dated.

Pär Lindblad (b. 1907, d. 1981), Swedish artist. Oil on board. "Modell". Nude study. Dated 1949. The board measures: 40 x 32 cm. The frame measures: 5 cm. Signed and dated. In ve...

Hans Ekegardh (b. 1881, d.1962), Swedish artist. Oil on canvas. Seated nude model, landscape in the background. 1940s. In very good condition. Signed. ...

Montague J Dawson (1895-1973), ‘Valetta Harbour’, oil on board, painted in a grisaille palette with a British Hunt Class Type II destroyer in Valetta Harbour, Malta, signed ‘Montague Dawson’, English, 1940. Footnote: Montague Dawson RMSA, FRSA (1890–1973) was born in West London, in Chiswick in 1895, Montague Dawson was the grandson of Victorian landscape painter Henry Dawson. He studied under the seascape artist Charles Napier Hemy...

Full of energy and vivid color, this atmospheric and charming scene of a small-town carnival, complete with a barker, boys with balloons, a blue tent in the foreground and a sign announcing the "500 LB Lady," was painted by E. Wilder Lincoln in the 1930s or 40s. Painters and sculptors were fascinated with circuses and carnivals...

Jean Thomas (1923-2019) "monkey with camembert" large oil on canvas signed and dated 1949 origin: "sale of Workshop"

1940's Moroccan Oil Painting

This oil painting by English artist Gordon Bennett captures a somber River Thames, its reflective surface juxtaposing the bustling industrial backdrop. ...

This portrait features a blonde lady in a red dress wearing a white beanie. The artwork is an oil painting by an unknown artist. The subject's expression ...

Oil on panel of symbolist and metaphysical inspiration depicting a young man inserted in a strong context of almost geometric composition. The portrait is not meant to be decorative ...

Provenance from Estate of the son of Thomas Garside, who was a very closed friend of Sherriff-Scott. .  

A very attractive Italian oil painting of the head of a young woman. Signed and dated by G. Gianmarco, 1945. Set in French ebonized frame.

Gouache on paper fashion sketch by Ginette Roger, in new custom gilt frame. France, 1940's

Incredible vintage 1941 original oil portrait. A chic composition of a handsome man in a red turban. A great dramatic addition to any room. Signed and dated...

This is beautiful antique oil painting! The colors on this piece as so vibrant and appealing! Lots of green and blue and terracotta hues that pair with the stone work excellently. Th...

1940 young orientalist shepherdess with her sheep, oil on Masonite in the style of Jacques Majorelle.

A lovely continental painting with sailboats. Painted in the 1940s in a period frame. Has name on the reverse as well as on the nameplate, L. ...

1944 original painting by Miller. unframed.