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Moscow - Drawing By Reynold Arnould - 1970
Located in Roma, IT
Moscow is a Color Markers Drawing realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980). Good condition on a sheet of a notebook. No signature,...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Permanent Marker

Still Life - Drawing By Reynold Arnould - Mid-20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Still Life is an Ink and tempera drawing realized by Reynold Arnould (Le Havre 1919 - Parigi 1980). Good condition on a white envelope. Titled on the lower right corner, another s...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink, Tempera

Tree - Pencil Drawing by George-Henri Tribout - Early 20th Century
By Georges-Henri Tribout
Located in Roma, IT
Tree is an original artwork realized by George Henri Tribout in the early 20th Century. Original pencil drawing on paper glued on cardboard (40 x 30 cm). Signed G.T. This interest...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Cardboard, Pencil

Naked Woman Lying - Original Drawing by George-Henri Tribout - Mid-20th Century
By Georges-Henri Tribout
Located in Roma, IT
Naked Woman Lying Head Leaning on Breast is an original artwork realized by George Henri Tribout. Original pencil drawing on paper. Signed G.T. This interesting drawing shows a be...
Category

Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Standing Naked Woman - Original Drawing by G.-H. Tribout - Early 20th Century
By Georges-Henri Tribout
Located in Roma, IT
Standing Naked Woman is an original artwork realized by George Henri Tribout. Original pencil drawing on paper. Signed G.T. This interesting drawing shows a beautiful nude of woma...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Same Woman Standing - Original Drawing by G.-H. Tribout - Early 20th Century
By Georges-Henri Tribout
Located in Roma, IT
Same Woman Standing recto and verso is an original artwork realized by George Henri Tribout. Drawing recto and verso in original unsigned pencil on sheet. This interesting drawing ...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pencil

Landscape with Mountain View Watercolor
By Jehudith Sobel
Located in Lake Worth Beach, FL
Mountain view. Watercolor, artist signed lower right, size 14.5"x19.5" with frame 22"5x26"5 framed under glass. Judith Sobel was born in Lwow Poland in 1924. After World War II, sh...
Category

1960s Impressionist Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

Beek – 18-05-23, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper
By Corne Akkers
Located in Yardley, PA
The Very Spot This graphite pencil drawing ‘Beek - 18-05-23’ follows my previous one of Den Haag. I wanted to do this one for a long time. That’s because I remember the very...
Category

2010s Impressionist Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

"Flowers" Joseph Stella, Vibrant Modernist Flower Composition on Paper
By Joseph Stella
Located in New York, NY
Joseph Stella Flowers Signed lower center Crayon and pencil on paper 13 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches Stella was born June 13, 1877 at Muro Lucano, Italy, a mountain village not far from Nap...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Crayon, Pencil

Untitled - Child Sleeping on Desk, Cubist Gouache on Paper by Benjamin Benno
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
Untitled - Child Sleeping on Desk Benjamin Benno, American (1901–1980) Date: circa 1930 Gouache On Paper Size: 13.75 x 10.63 in. (34.93 x 26.99 cm) Frame Size: 18.75 x 16 inches
Category

1930s Cubist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Gouache

Camille Hilaire - Green Trees - Original Signed Watercolor
By Camille Hilaire
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Camille Hilaire (1916-2004) Green Trees Original Signed Watercolor 43 x 36 cm Framed Camille Hilaire (1916-2004) Camille Hilaire began painting from a...
Category

1970s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Still Life with Mandolin, Modern Cubist Drawing by Benjamin Benno 1953
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
An original oil pastel on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 19 x 25 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the international avant-garde and exhibited with the most significant European artists including Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Hans Arp, and Fernand Léger. Pablo Picasso sponsored Benno's first one-man show in Paris in 1934. Still Life with Mandolin...
Category

1950s Cubist Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Crayon, Board, Laid Paper

Still Life with Harp, Modern Cubist Drawing by Benjamin Benno 1953
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
An original oil pastel on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 19 x 25 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the inte...
Category

1950s Cubist Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Crayon, Board, Laid Paper

Lulu – 21-07-23, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper
By Corne Akkers
Located in Yardley, PA
Relaxing Times This graphite pencil drawing ‘Lulu – 21-07-23 is definite proof of a true and livelong obsession. She’s not in harm’s way though. My love for her is gentle ...
Category

2010s Art Deco Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

Surreal Abstract Mid 20th Century American Modern Woman Artist Work on Paper
Located in New York, NY
Surreal Abstract Mid 20th Century American Modern Woman Artist Work on Paper Juanita Guccione (1904 - 1999) Surreal Abstract 18 x 11 3/4 inches Watercolor and mixed media on paper Signed lower left Framed: 23 x 17 inches Note. We are currently have listed a 1935 oil by Guccione, and in addition to this abstract drawing, we have several other works on paper, along with a major surrealist oil, none of which are currently listed. Inquiries are invited. BIO The following is from Djelloul (Del) Marbrook, son of the artist. Of signatures on paintings by his mother, Juanita first signed as Anita Rice, then as Juanita Rice, Juanita Rice Marbrook, Juanita Marbrook, and finally Juanita Guccione after marrying in the 1940s. Juanita Guccione's life (June 20, 1904-December 18, 1999) spanned all but four years of the 20th Century. Cubist*, realist, surrealist*, automatist* and abstract strains are all to be found in her work, but by 1970 she was painting works in watercolor and acrylic that no longer included the human figure or the observed world. She was the younger sister of the abstract geometric* artist Irene Rice Pereira. The sisters were born in Chelsea, MA, but spent most of their working lives in Manhattan. In the early 1930s, Guccione, then painting as Nita Rice, lived for four years among the Ouled Nail...
Category

1940s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache, Rag Paper

Thinking by Tamara de Lempicka
By Tamara de Lempicka
Located in New Orleans, LA
Tamara De Lempicka 1898-1980 Polish Thinking Signed “Lempicka”(bottom right) Pencil on paper This enchanting pencil on paper by Tamara de Lempicka radiates Art Deco's signature b...
Category

20th Century Art Deco Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Untitled-019 gouache and pencil by Vaclav Vytlacil
By Vaclav Vytlacil
Located in Hudson, NY
Delightful petite abstract work by American abstract artist Vaclav Vytlacil. About this artist: Born in 1892 to Czechoslovakian parents in New York, Vaclav Vytlacil and his parents ...
Category

1930s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache, Cardboard, Pencil

The Dead Tiger
By Dorothy Dehner
Located in Fairlawn, OH
The Dead Tiger Ink and watercolor on paper, 1955 Signed and dated in ink (see photo) Condition: Aging to the entire sheet (it's 78 years old) Image/Sheet size: 18 1/4 x 23 inches On...
Category

1950s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Still Life with Gray, Green, and Violet Cubist Drawing by Benjamin Benno 1953
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
An original pastel on paper by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 19 x 25 inches. Nicely framed to 31 x 36 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation ...
Category

1950s Cubist Still-life Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Archival Paper, Pastel

Berg en Dal – 30-10-23, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Paper
By Corne Akkers
Located in Yardley, PA
Something More Cubist This graphite pencil drawing ‘Berg en Dal – 30-10-23’ is my next one in the series of the same name. Doing the last one I really got the hang of it. That one was rather impressionistic than cubistic but I really don’t mind. I like the result nonetheless. However, a former drawing lingered in my mind, a scenery much more abstracted. That’s how it goes, from a more realistic approach to abstract. Years ago I also drew a cubist forest in the same municipality. It happens to be that I found the perfect reference picture. Therefor I was very eager to turn it into something beautiful. Sparkling Diamonds You see, last weekend I went to the actual place. There I took some pictures of wonderful hillsides with trees in Autumn colors. Not the abovemeant picture though. That one I took in the Summertime. It was in my folder...
Category

2010s Impressionist Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

Feeding the Birds, Colourful 20th Century Oil Painting, Female Artist
By Lena Gurr
Located in London, GB
Oil on board, signed verso Image size: 40 1/4 x 29 inches (102.25 x 73.5 cm) Hand made contemporary style frame Here we see a smartly dressed woman sat on a park bench, feeding a group of pigeons that surround her. Lena Gurr had a prolific career in which she painted landscape scenes and still lifes but her most noted works are ones such as these, showing everyday city scenes that were laced with social commentary. Indeed, Gurr noted that her artwork always aimed to show "the joys and sorrows of everyday life." During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained emotional content as they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Discussing this trend, she once told an interviewer that as her work tended toward increasing abstraction she believed it nonetheless "must have some kind of human depth to it." Lena Gurr  Lena Gurr, born in Brooklyn in 1897, studied at the Brooklyn Training School for Teachers, the Educational Alliance Art School, the Arts Students League with John Sloan, and with Maurice Sterne in Paris as well as in Mentone and Nice, France. Gurr was a member of the Artists League of America, the National Association of Women Artists, the New York Society of Women Artists, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, Audubon Artists and the American Artists Congress. She exhibited in numerous exhibitions held by these organizations as well as the Whitney Studio Club, National Academy of Design, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Brooklyn Museum, and the 1939 World's Fair. Her work is included in the collections of the Biro-Bidjan Museum, Russia and the Library of Congress, where she has been selected as a "Curator's Choice" in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. In addition to her career as a painter, lithographer and serigrapher, she also taught art in the New York City public school system. She had three solo exhibitions at the ACA Gallery in 1935, 1939 and 1945, and a retrospective in 1963. Notable among Gurr's colleagues - many of them WPA artists - were Mary Cecil Allen...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil, Board

The Magere Brug in Amsterdam – 09-11-23, Drawing, Pencil/Colored Pencil on Pap
By Corne Akkers
Located in Yardley, PA
Clueless as to Female Forms This graphite pencil drawing ‘The Magere Brug in Amsterdam – 09-11-23’ is rather realistic looking but let me explain why. Of late I started sket...
Category

2010s Impressionist Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

Materials

Pencil

"Painting Style of 814 BC, " Oil Pastel on Grocery Bag signed by Reginald K. Gee
By Reginald K. Gee
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Painting Style of 814 BC" is an original oil pastel on a grocery bag by Reginald K. Gee. The artist signed the piece lower right. Painting Style of 814 BC, of 1999, is one of Gee’s ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel, Found Objects

Arkadien, Abend am See (Evening at the Lake)
By Markus Lüpertz
Located in Wien, 9
Markus Lüpertz was born in Reichenberg in 1941 and works as a German painter, graphic artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Berlin, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf and Florence and has hi...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Mixed Media, Watercolor

Dessin
Located in PARIS, FR
Philippe Hiquily (1925 – 2013) is a French artist and designer known for biomorphic furniture and sculptures. He was able to combine modernist design, insect physiognomy, and human s...
Category

20th Century Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper

"Jazz Duet"
By Joseph Meierhans
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Meierhans (1890 - 1980) Joseph Meierhans is one of the most important modernist painters associated with Bucks Count...
Category

1930s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Watercolor

"Volcano"
By Joseph Meierhans
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Meierhans (1890 - 1980) Joseph Meierhans is one of the most important modernist painters associated with Bucks Coun...
Category

1940s Abstract Expressionist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

"Dancer"
By Joseph Meierhans
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Meierhans (1890 - 1980) Joseph Meierhans is one of the most important modernist painters associated with Bucks Count...
Category

1970s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

"House on the Hill"
By Joseph Meierhans
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Meierhans (1890 - 1980) Joseph Meierhans is one of the most important modernist painters associated with Bucks Count...
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pastel

"Modern Woman"
By Joseph Meierhans
Located in Lambertville, NJ
Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Joseph Meierhans (1890 - 1980) Joseph Meierhans is one of the most important modernist painters associated with Bucks Count...
Category

20th Century Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

Alexandra Exter Russian Avant Garde work on paper Signed ex-Solomon Shuster coll
Located in New York, NY
Alexandra Alexandrovna Exter Colour Dynamic, 1918 Russian avant-garde watercolor and gouache on paper Signed on the front Collection of Solomon Shuster, Leningrad (with collection la...
Category

1910s Abstract Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor, Gouache

Twins
By Miette Braive
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Belgian artist Miette Braive(1916-2000), was classically trained in Belgium, before moving to Paris to pursue her art career as first a student and then a contemporary of the French ...
Category

1940s Cubist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Graphite, Paper

La Plage
By André Lhote
Located in Los Angeles, CA
ANDRE LHOTE "LA PLAGE" PASTEL, SIGNED FRANCE, C.1927 17.75 X 24 INCHES André Lhote 1885-1962 Lhote was born in Bordeaux, France in 1885. H...
Category

1930s Cubist Figurative Paintings

Materials

Archival Paper, Pastel

La Plage
Price Upon Request
Analytic Session
By Ron Blumberg
Located in West Hollywood, CA
American artist Ron Blumberg was classically trained at La Grande Academie Chaumiere in Paris, 1932, before moving to New York where he became a National Academy artist and a member ...
Category

1940s Cubist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Oil Pastel

Pastoral Landscape with Reclining Odalisque and Fruit
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
This reclining nude portrait of a woman on a picnic makes several different art historical references. The bold, almost neon colors are reminiscent of the tropical paintings rendered by Gauguin at the end of the 19th century. The setting harkens back to "Luncheon in the Grass" by Manetl. And the pose is historically associated with sex workers and the goddess Venus, in paintings like "Olympia" by Manet, "Grande Odalisque" by Inges, and even further back like "Venus of Urbino...
Category

1930s Cubist Nude Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Pastel

Self-portrait
By Gino Severini
Located in Roma, RM
Gino Severini (Cortona 1883 - Paris 1966), Self-Portrait Pencil drawing on paper 25 x 21 cm signed Io G. Severini lower right. Bibliography: Gino Severini before and after the work...
Category

Early 20th Century Cubist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

Self-portrait
Self-portrait
Price Upon Request
Twentieth Century Mask (Red), Modern Drawing by Benno 1948
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
An original crayon on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 30 x 17 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the internat...
Category

1940s Cubist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Crayon, Laid Paper

Long Way Home
By Maurice Green
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Premiering for the first time in three decades, the original paintings of American artist Maurice Green. Born in 1908 in Latvia, Maurice Green studied with prominent artists of the day before settling in Los Angeles in the 1930’s. The artist continued his art education and began exhibiting throughout galleries in Southern California. As with many artists, his earliest style was more academic realistic imagery, transitioning due to his intense fascination with the cubist avant garde movement, into cubist imagery which became the trademark style of painting for the remainder of his life. This is the first presentation of the paintings of Maurice Green since his death in 1993. “Long Way Home...
Category

1940s Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Odalisque, Surrealist Charcoal on Paper Drawing by Benjamin Benno
By Benjamin G. Benno
Located in Long Island City, NY
A black and white charcoal drawing on paper by cubist and surrealist artist Benjamin Benno.Rather than depicting fruit or flowers on a table like a tra...
Category

1930s Modern Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Charcoal

Abstraction #1
By Miette Braive
Located in West Hollywood, CA
Belgian artist Miette Braive(1916-2000), was classically trained in Belgium, before moving to Paris to pursue her art career as first a student and then a contemporary of the famed F...
Category

1940s Abstract Paintings

The Tramp, Watercolour and Pencil Painting by William Roberts, 1945 circa
By William Roberts
Located in Kingsclere, GB
The Tramp, Watercolour and Pencil Painting by William Roberts, 1945 circa Additional information: Medium: Watercolour and pencil 35 x 53 cm 13 3/4 x 20 7/8 in William Roberts was a British artist, sometimes known as the 'English Cubist'. Born in London Fields, Hackney in 1895, Roberts's artistic ability was evident from an early age, the teachers at his primary school allowed him to devote class time to drawing and eventually his art mistress suggested he be transferred to a school with greater art resources. Upon leaving school Roberts was apprenticed to a commercial art firm and he attended evening classes run by William P. Robins at St Martins School of Art. At fifteen years old, Roberts won a London County Council Scholarship to study at the Slade School of Art where his fellow students included Dora...
Category

20th Century Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Untitled - Drawing by Wifredo Lam - Ink and Pencil - 1941
By Wifredo Lam
Located in Roma, IT
This extraordinary and rare drawing by Wifredo Lam is one of the artworks that the artist took with him when he moved from Cuba to France. In Paris, Lam showed Picasso his drawings a...
Category

1940s Surrealist Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Pencil

Untitled - Drawing by Wifredo Lam - 1941
By Wifredo Lam
Located in Roma, IT
This extraordinary and rare drawing by Wifredo Lam is one of the artworks that the artist took with him when he moved from Cuba to France. In Paris, Lam showed Picasso his drawings a...
Category

1940s Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Ink, Pencil

Maurice Estève - Torero - Signed Oil and Collage on Paper
By Maurice Estève
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Maurice Estève (1904-2001) Torero, 1971 Oil and collage on paper signed and dated down to towards the center Dimensions: 65 x 50 cm Bibliography: Estève, collages 1965-1973, Claude B...
Category

1970s Abstract Expressionist Mixed Media

Materials

Oil

On the Meldons Road, Watercolour Painting by William George Gillies, circa 1940s
Located in Kingsclere, GB
On the Meldons Road, Watercolour Painting by William George Gillies, circa 1940s Additional information: Medium: Watercolour 41.5 x 59 cm 16 3/8 x 23 1/4 in Signed William George G...
Category

20th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Head Study, 1930
By John Sloan
Located in Missouri, MO
Head Study, 1930 John Sloan (1871-1951) Signed Lower Right 10.5" x 9" Unframed 19" x 16.5" Framed Born in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, John Sloan became one o...
Category

Early 20th Century Ashcan School Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Conté

May 60 (Duomo Pisa), Watercolour Painting by Ben Nicholson, 1960
By Ben Nicholson
Located in Kingsclere, GB
May 60 (Duomo Pisa), Watercolour Painting by Ben Nicholson 1894-1982, 1960 Additional information: Medium: Watercolour and pencil on paper, mounted on the Artist's board 46.2 x 60.4...
Category

20th Century Landscape Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Watercolor

Guitare sur un guéridon by Pablo Picasso
By Pablo Picasso
Located in New Orleans, LA
Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 Spanish Guitare sur un guéridon (Guitar on a pedestal) Gouache on Western wove paper laid on board Signed “Picasso” (upper left) Picasso’s prolific career has been marked by many grand love affairs, both romantic, intellectual and creative. Beyond his lovers like Olga Khoklova and Dora Maar and his intellectual muses like Georges Braques and Gertrude Stein, Picasso’s greatest love and inspiration was perhaps a humble instrument: the guitar. Whether it be the Old Guitarist from his early blue period, his groundbreaking series of three-dimensional guitar sculptures from his nascent explorations in Cubism, or his Mandolin and Guitar composition’s grander explorations with color and biomorphic shapes, the guitar is an elusive calling card for modern art’s greatest genius. In Guitare sur un guéridon, Picasso intertwines his signature guitar and a bowl of fruit. These two elements are playfully brought together and skillfully anchored on the tabletop by a square positioned at the center of the composition. The result is a captivating and harmonious arrangement that showcases Picasso's artistic ingenuity in blending these everyday objects into a visually striking and cohesive composition. This rare gouache was created during the pivotal summer of 1920. During this time, Picasso lived in Juan-les-Pins, a small coastal resort town in the South of France away from the confines of the city and the fallout of World War I. With this newfound freedom, Picasso entered an exciting and innovative creative period and began to interrogate the connections between Neoclassicism and Cubism. Picasso created a series of gouache paintings characterized by their flat, geometric nature, sinuous contours and strikingly vivid colors. Though not a complete departure from his previous Cubist works, this series showcased the influence of the Surrealists, especially the biomorphic subconscious explorations of Joan Miró, upon Picasso’s oeuvre. While the breadth of his creativity grew, he returned back to a familiar motif — the guitar — with a renewed sense of vigor and excitement. Guitare sur un guéridon’s undulating lines and biomorphic appeal bring Picasso's preoccupation with the guitar into deeper focus. The sinuous lines of guitar mirror...
Category

20th Century Post-Impressionist Abstract Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Gouache, Board

Portrait of Berthe Lipchitz - Modern Portrait Pencil Drawing - Amedeo Modigliani
By Amedeo Modigliani
Located in Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Signed pencil on paper portrait drawing by Italian artist Amedeo Clemente Modigliani. The portrait is of Berthe Lipchitz who was the wife of Modigliani's friend, the sculptor Jacques Lipchitz. This work is a study for "Portrait of Jacques & Berthe Lipchitz" which hangs in the Art Institute of Chicago. Signature: Signed lower right Dimensions: Framed: 26.75"x18.25" Unframed: 18.75"x12.25" Provenance: The collection of Leopold Survage The collection of Dimitri Snegaroff The collection of Leopold Zborowski Galerie Charpentier - Paris 1958 Private french collection Galerie Pierre Levy - Paris Private collection - United Kingdom Exhibited: Galerie Charpentier - Cent Tableaux de Modigliani - Paris, 1958 Les Peintres de Zborowski - ~Foundation L'Hermitage, Lausanne 1994 Amedeo Modigliani Exhibition - Museo d'Arte Moderna, Lugano 1999 Amedeo Modigliani was born into a middle-class Jewish family and was the brother of Eugenio Modigliani, who later became the leader of the Italian socialist workers’ party prior to the rise of fascism. Modigliani suffered from poor health as a child and contracted pleurisy in 1895, followed in 1898 by typhus with pulmonary complications, which culminated in tuberculosis in 1901. He moved to Livorno to study under Guglielmo Micheli, who had himself been a pupil of Giovanni Fattori, one of the Macchiaioli group of painters who worked in strong colour patches (macchie) to achieve vivid light and colour effects; their approach came as a reaction against academic art in Italy and, in much the same way as the French Impressionists, they advocated painting from nature rather than aspiring to communicate any particular message or ideology. In 1902, Modigliani enrolled at the academy of fine arts in Florence. He travelled to Rome and Venice in 1903, where he devoted the bulk of his day to visiting museums. At around this time he started to read Dante, dreaming no doubt of the Vita Nuova; he also devoured the works of Leopardi, Carducci, d’Annunzio, Spinoza and Nietzsche. In 1906, Modigliani moved to Paris, lodging at the Rue Caulaincourt. At that juncture, nothing about him appeared to presage the brilliant career that was to follow. His arrival in the artists’ quarter, then known colloquially as the maquis - the labyrinthine tangle of narrow streets around today’s Avenue Junot in Montmartre - went virtually unnoticed by the artists already living and working there, including Picasso, Braque and Derain. Modigliani’s painting made next to no immediate impact and he was recognised primarily on account of his frail constitution, flashing eyes, innate elegance and intellectual prowess. He was accepted in the community that was Montmartre but never belonged to any particular ‘set’ or circle, and there is no record of his ever having been invited to Pablo Picasso’s studio, the famous ‘wash house’. The literate and highly articulate Modigliani opted instead for the companionship of Maurice Utrillo, an instinctual painter of whom it could charitably have been said that his conversation was, at best, limited. Nonetheless, Modigliani and ‘Litrillo’ (as Utrillo was commonly known to the street urchins - the ‘p’tits poulbots’) began to frequent the cabarets and dance halls of the Butte de Montmartre, and the nefarious hashish dens - post-Baudelaire ‘institutions’, frequented in the main by out-of-work writers and talentless artists. Modigliani developed an addiction, which, compounded by his alcoholism, took its toll. It also transformed him from an artist of limited ability into one devoid of bourgeois scruples. In his monograph, Modigliani: Sa Vie et Son Oeuvre, written in 1926 shortly after Modigliani’s death, André Salmon hinted at a ‘pact with the devil’. While somewhat overstating the case, this rather unpromising painter from Livorno metamorphosed virtually overnight into an artist of rare ability and sensitivity. The turning-point came in 1907, when Modigliani met Paul Alexandre, a doctor who befriended him, took him under his wing and purchased some of his work. The banal paintings he had turned out in Montmartre were suddenly superseded by exceptional works, produced first in Montmartre ( Cellist, 1909), and then in Montparnasse. In Montparnasse, Modigliani started to move in artistic circles, meeting Chaim Soutine, Marc Chagall, Jules Pascin and others, all of whom lived and worked in the building in the Rue Vaugirard known as ‘La Ruche’ (‘the beehive’). Then, in the Cité Falguière, he met the Romanian-born sculptor Constantin Brancusi, who encouraged him to take up sculpture, which he did, between 1909 and 1913. In 1914, several dealers, including the erstwhile poet Léopold Zborowski and the collector Paul Guillaume, tried with little success to market Modigliani’s paintings. From 1914 to 1916, Modigliani was caught up in a tempestuous affair with the English poet and journalist Beatrice Hastings. In 1917, however, he met Jeanne Hébuterne at the Colarossi Academy, who became his constant companion and model, and who gave birth to their daughter Jeanne in 1918. In 1918 and 1919, Modigliani and Jeanne spent time in Nice on the Côte d’Azur but by 1920 he was suffering from tubercular meningitis. His friends, Kisling and the Chilean Ortiz de Zarate, brought him and a pregnant Jeanne back to Paris, where he died on January 20 1920 in the Hôpital de la Charité. His last words were reputed to be: ‘Cara Italia’. Modigliani’s brother, by this time a socialist member of parliament, telegrammed instructions to ‘bury him as befits a prince’. Jeanne Hébuterne, a budding twenty-year-old painter, killed herself and her unborn child on the day of Modigliani’s funeral by jumping to her death from a fifth-floor window. Modigliani’s first paintings were undistinguished portraits in the Impressionist manner. After moving to Paris in 1907, his early work was influenced by the Swiss-born lithographer Théophile Alexandre Steinlen, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Pablo Picasso, the latter then in his ‘blue’ period. From the onset, Modigliani’s principal preoccupation was the human figure. After the artistic (and literal) limbo of Montmartre, when his output was confined to a few Expressionist-like paintings of street life, the theatre and the circus, Modigliani suddenly erupted on the scene in 1909 with Cellist, a robust, well-constructed and vividly coloured canvas that utterly exceeded all prior expectations. He had not taken part in the protracted debates that took place nightly in Picasso’s studio, but he had superficially assimilated the Cubist ideas developed by Picasso and Georges Braque. Above all, Modigliani had been influenced by African art, which was a key feature of the Cubist movement. He succeeded in treading a fine line between the coolly analytical Cubist approach and the all-too-common European perception of African art as a succession of exaggerated facial grimaces. It would appear that Modigliani had always been attracted to sculpture as a discipline. The friendly encouragement he received as of 1909 from Brancusi no doubt intensified his interest and reinforced his attempts to achieve a sustained simplicity of line and form. In 1910, he befriended the Russian artists Alexander Archipenko and Jacques Lipchitz, both of whom recorded Modigliani’s distaste for modelling in clay (which he referred to as ‘mud’), on the grounds that it degraded the art of sculpture. Like Brancusi, Modigliani believed in working directly, carving from wood in the case of two extant pieces, and from (sand)stone in others, with the exception of a few bronzes which were, presumably, modelled in clay before being cast into bronze. His sculpture was influenced by archaic and non-western cultures - early Graeco-Roman, African and Khmer - as well as heads carved on columns adorning the façades of Romanesque and Gothic cathedrals (Modigliani rarely sculpted a rear view of his figures). Up to approximately 1912, his sculptures take the form of tall cylinders, usually with elongated heads and shallow relief indentations or projections to indicate the hairline, facial features and neck. He departed from this style only infrequently, most notably in a small number of pieces believed to have been sculpted in 1913, which are characterised by a compressed, cubistic format and shallower and less distinct features. Modigliani eventually abandoned sculpture, presumably because of his general health and circumstances, and possibly due to the fact that his sculptures sold for even less than his paintings. During the years that he devoted to sculpture, Modigliani is recorded as producing only thirty canvases, although after 1913 his sculpture became reflected in his painting. Following his Montmartre days, Modigliani’s work developed in both quantitative and qualitative terms, presumably helped by the relative stability of his relationship with Jeanne Hébuterne. The first paintings after his short-lived sculptural phase saw him revert briefly to Neo-Impressionist pointillism, followed by a episode marked by Cubism, which was mainly evident in portraits of friends and fellow artists living and working in Montparnasse: Henri Laurens; Juan Gris (1915); Jacques Lipchitz and his Wife; Chaim Soutine; Léopold Sauvage; Paul Guillaume; Max Jacob; Béatrice Hastings con Capello (all 1916); Mlle Modigliani (1917); Léon Bakst; Léopold Zborowski; Concierge’s Son; Adolescent (1918); Mademoiselle Lunia Czechowska; Madame Zborowska; Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1919). A large number of other portraits exist among his drawings, most of which were executed impromptu in the street or cafés. These quickly drawn portraits often exhibit an urgency and surprising lucidity. Examples include Portrait of the Gypsy Painter Fabiano de Castro; André Salmon (1918); Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (1919); and Lada, Author; Mario, Composer (1920). Whatever his shortcomings, Amedeo Modigliani ranks as one of the 20th-century’s greatest painters of the female form. The bulk of his painted nudes were produced in 1915-1916 (prior to that date they were predominantly drawings), and are taken from every walk of life, such as a regular at a Montparnasse café, or a waitress at the soup kitchen where he ate his meagre meals. In each instance, he invested his models with an almost aristocratic hauteur. This is exemplified in a number of paintings (usually based on numerous prior drawings): Flower Girl; Blonde Lady; Sleeping Nude (1917); Blonde Nude; Young Woman; Maria (1918); Pink Nude; Reclining Nude; Nude on a Divan; Woman with a Fan (1919); and Young Woman in a Chemise; Reclining Nude (1920). Modigliani painted his subjects in elongated, elliptic ovals: the swell of a breast, the pronounced curve of the pelvis, the fullness of the thigh, the symmetrically oval face and the graceful arabesque of the body. Facial features are reduced to a bare minimum, with the eyes typically empty, like those of a statue. He employed colour as a constructive material in much the same way as stone in sculpture, juxtaposing muted pinks, ochres and pale browns against discreet background tones supplied by décor and garments. The overall effect is to yield a flat image devoid of chiaroscuro but which captures the essence of a subject. It has often been remarked that his women, with their elongated heads and long, graceful necks, generally tilted to one side, possess a melancholy beauty akin to that of the Siena Madonnas (reproductions of which Modigliani kept pinned on his studio wall), which accounts for Modigliani’s soubriquet as the ‘painter of sorrows’. From 1917, the majority of his nudes, characterised by a more pronounced elongation of the female body and lighter palette, were modelled by Jeanne Hébuterne and Luna Czechowska. Very few artists have been the subject of so many monographs and biographies as Modigliani; the selection appended to this entry indicates only some of the more important of these. Too much, perhaps, has been made of his life as an artiste maudit, of his ‘accursed’ yet colourful life rather than the quality of his work. Some critics have detected in him an artist of great and persistent intellectual curiosity; others emphasise that he was a ‘gentleman to the end’ and stress his physical frailty, ignoring the fact that this was an integral component of his creativity. More seriously, his posthumous fame amongst the public at large acts both for and against him, as if his subsequent popularity has become a yardstick of his artistic ability. The mannerism of his style ensures that a ‘Modigliani’ is instantly recognisable, but his success in adapting Cubism and African art to a language and palette that are entirely his own places him squarely at the heart of the modern movement. Amedeo Modigliani’s work has featured in numerous group exhibitions, including: Paris in 1908, when he showed his Jewess and three other canvases; the Salon des Indépendants in 1910; and the Salon d’Automne in 1912, where he exhibited examples of his sculpture. His posthumous inclusion in the 1922 Venice Biennale was regarded in Italy as a complete fiasco, prompting the critic Giovanni Scheiwiller to paraphrase Charles Baudelaire’s remark to the effect that, ‘we know that precious few will understand us, but that shall be sufficient’. In 1917-1918, the Berthe Weill Gallery organised a one-man show at the instigation of Zborowski but, on the order of the then chief of police, some of Modigliani’s sensual nudes were withdrawn on account of alleged indecency. On 20 December 1918, the Paul Guillaume Gallery exhibited several paintings by Modigliani alongside others by Matisse, Picasso and Derain. All other exhibitions of Modigliani’s work have been held since his death. They include those at the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris (1922); Galerie Bing (Paris, 1925 and 1927); Marcel Benhelm Gallery (Paris, 1931); Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels, 1933); Kunsthalle Basel (1934); American-British Art Center (New York, 1944); Galerie de France (Paris, 1945 and 1949); Gimpels Fils Gallery (London, 1947); Cleveland Museum of Art (1951); Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1951); Cantini Museum (Marseilles, 1958); Palazzo Reale (Milan, 1958); Galerie Charpentier (Paris, 1958); Chicago Arts Club (1959); Cincinnati Art Museum (1959); Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna (Rome, 1959); Boston Museum of Fine Arts (1961); Perls Galleries (New York, 1963 and 1966); Kyoto National Museum of Modern Art (1968); Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, 1970); Musée St-Georges (Liège, 1980); Tokyo Arts Centre (1980); Musée de l’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (1970; a comprehensive exhibition of Modigliani’s sculptures...
Category

1910s Modern Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Pencil

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