Catalog (164)

A beautiful antique oil painting by T. Walter of a French landscape titled "Autumn in the Ccvennes" a mountain range in the south central France. 19th century signed lower left oil on canvas. Presented in a the original magnificent antique gold leaf frame. Frame 39.5 X 34.25 canvas size 28.75 X 22 in

A Beautiful and important historic original oil painting by Leland Curtis from the Antarctica Expedition of 1939 - 40. The scene is of Adelaide Island at Marguerite Bay. Oil on canvas signed lower right and noted from the Antarctic Exp. A historical and beautiful painting.

Biography

Born in Denver, CO on Aug. 7, 1897, Curtis was a resident of Seattle before moving to Los Angeles in 1914. He was inspired to become an artist by his teacher Rob Wagner at Manual Arts High School. After working as a bank teller and serving in WWI, he soon was able to support himself as an illustrator. He served as official artist of the U.S. Antarctica Expedition in 1939-40 and again in 1957. About 1960 he changed his residence from Los Angeles to Twenty Nine Palms, California, with summers in Moose, Wyoming. An avid mountain climber, his studio in the Grand Tetons was a rustic log cabin. In 1972 he moved to Carson City, Nevada, where he remained until his demise on March 17, 1989. He is best known for his landscapes of the High Sierra, Grand Tetons, and Antarctica. His works won dozens of medals and prizes from the early 1920s in southern California shows. Member: Carmel Art Association; Artland Club. Exh: California Art Club, 1923-27; Laguna Beach Art Association, 1924; California State Fair, 1926; Cannell & Chaffin Gallery (Los Angeles), 1926; Ebell Club (Los Angeles), 1926; Painters & Sculptors of Los Angeles, 1926-31; National Academy of Design, 1930; Toledo Museum, 1931; American Painters & Sculptors, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1931, 1937 (solo), 1946 (solo); Oakland Art Gallery, 1932; Tuesday Afternoon Club (Glendale), 1934; Golden Gate International Exhibition, 1939; California Palace Legion of

An original vintage charcoal drawing of Christmas Carolers in winter snow by William Gropper. Charcoal on paper signed lower right presented matted and framed. Image size 13 x 17" overall framed size 19 x 25". Biography: William Gropper was a painter and political cartoonist who is best remembered for his striking social commentary. He was born in 1897 on the Lower East Side in New York City to a large, poor immigrant family. Due to the family's financial difficulties, Gropper was forced to leave school at a very young age and work in a garment sweatshop with his mother and siblings. Several years later, he enrolled in art classes at the socially progressive Ferrer School where he received instruction from noted Ashcan artists Robert Henri and George Bellows. Gropper later recalled the influence of these men saying, "Right then, I began to realize that you don't paint with color—you paint with conviction, freedom, love and heartaches, with what you have." Following his time at the Ferrer School, Gropper continued his education at the Chase School, later known as Parson's School of Design. After graduation, Gropper briefly illustrated for the New York Tribune, during which time he began contributing to socialist publications, such as The New Masses, Labor Defender and The Nation. In 1924, he began a long career as a regular cartoonist for the Freiheit, a left-wing Yiddish daily newspaper. As his career progressed in the 1930s, Gropper turned his attention more towards painting. In addition to the early influence of Henri and Bellows, he also looked to Cubism for inspiration and incorporated sharp angles and exaggerated figures in his paintings. In the 1930s and 1940s, Gropper completed several murals for New York businesses, and for post offices in Detroit and on Long Island. In 1937, Gropper was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship which he used to travel to the Great Plains and to the Southeast. In 1942, he painted Field Workers, based on sketches made while in the South. It was completed during the height of his career as a painter and the saturated coloring and exaggerated angles are characteristic of his mature painting style. Though Gropper worked in different mediums his subject was always people, and he is often referred to as "the workingman's protector." In an interview, Gropper explained his motivations for exposing the wrongs committed against workers, "That's my heritage. I'm from the old school, defending the underdog. Maybe because I've been an underdog or still am. I put myself in their position. I feel for the people . . . . I become involved."

A fine and rare antique Native American North West Coast Haida or Tlingit tribe carved large horn spoon or ladle. The handle depicts a totem pole design of an Eagle and Bear with mother of pearl inset eyes. Measuring approx. 13.5" inches long 6" deep and 4.5"wide. In very good antique condition minor imperfections with age.

Vintage print titled "Gathering" an original hand drawn stone lithograph by Raphael Soyer, the renowned Russian-born American realist painter, draftsman, and printmaker. Hand proofed and printed in 1977 by master printer Joseph Kleineman, JK Fine Art Editions Co. NY using ink on Arches paper 100% acid free, from a traditional lithographic stone (which Joseph recalls carrying himself to Soyer's studio on Manhattan's Upper West Side). Gathering depicts a sensitive, realistic NYC group portrait of young people, one couple entering the scene from the left holding hands, another couple making out in the background, and three women each facing a different direction in the foreground create an animated get-together that keeps the viewers attention. Soyer's masterly drawing style possesses a dynamic graphite pencil quality and quiet intimacy. GATHERING is a fine example of superb hand lithography printmaking at its best! Image size - 19" x 14" inches overall framed size 24" x 28".

Original Acrylic on Canvas titled "Vertigo" measuring 30" x 24" signed verso. Tom Christopher is an American artist known for his expressionist urban paintings, mostly of New York City. Christopher began as a commercial artist, and has become a notable artist with worldwide galleries and exhibitions.

A Beauriful vintage American Impressionist oil painting of a wooded stream landscape by Harry Leslie Hoffman. Oil on canvas presented in a quality gallery frame stamped with the artists estate stamp on verso. Oil on canvas measuring 20 x 24" overall size 30ʺW × 3ʺD × 32ʺH. In excellent vintage condition. Artists Biography; Harry Leslie Hoffman was born 16 March 1871 at Cressona, Pennsylvania. He was long associated with the Old Lyme Colony at Old Lyme, Connecticut, and had a reputation for American Impressionism. Hoffman studied at the Art Students League, New York City, Yale Art School, and Academie Julien, Paris. In 1902 he visited Old Lyme and for the rest of his life was associated with the Connecticut art colony. In the 1920s Hoffman accompanied the Smithsonian Institution's naturalist, William Beebe (1877-1962) to British Guiana, Galapagos Islands, and Bermuda, to document the flora and fauna of those regions. During that time he perfected a method of painting undersea vistas. Using a bucket with a glass bottom, he was able to view the aquatic life of coral reefs and shallow tidal pools. Hoffman wed the painter, Beatrice Pope, and they had an active collaboration throughout their lives. He worked in a variety of media, including watercolors, oils, and clay sculpture, and found success throughout his life. In 1915 he won a gold medal at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, and was awarded prizes in Connecticut for his painting and sculpture. In addition to his long painting career, Hoffman was a writer, actor, and musician. He was active in the historic preservation of the Florence Griswold House, the intellectual center of the Old Lyme Colony, as a museum. Hoffman died at Old Lyme, Connecticut, 6 March 1964

Original antique watercolor floral botanical painting of a yellow flowering plant 19th century c.1850. This lovely original watercolor is from a mid 19th century botanical watercolor album. Although unsigned it was clearly done by a highly skilled artist. The paper is Whatman watermarked and dated. . Presented matted with archival materials and framed.

An original North West Native American Haida Indian carved cedar panel. With Eagle and Bear tribal design motif initials carved into the wood on the verso R D attrubited to Robert Davidson. 24.5" W x 35.25" H x 1.5" D. A beautiful example of North Coast Native Indian art.

A fine antique portrait of a Race horse in a stable with a dog. Signed lower center indistinctly measuring 16" x 20" oil on canvas.

Oil on canvas Taos Pueblo by Thadeus Welch painted in 1898. A Rare glimpse into time a historical painting of the Taos Pueblo oil on canvas measuring 18 x 24 inches in excellent all original condition. Welch studied art with Virgil Williams and was an apprentice in the studio of J. W. Ogilvy in exchange for art lessons. While there, he made the acquaintance of a wealthy patroness who financed a four-year scholarship for further study in Europe. In 1874 he sailed for Munich where he entered the Royal Academy under Dietz, Piloty, and Leibl. While in Munich he became close friends with Frank Duveneck (who painted his portrait), William Merritt. Chase, and John Twachtman. Leaving Germany, he spent nearly four years in Paris where he continued studying while living on a houseboat on the Seine. Member: Bohemian Club; San Francisco Art Association. Exhibited: Munich Academy, 1876 (bronze medal); Paris Salon, 1880. Works held: Oakland Museum; San Diego Museum; Frye Museum (Seattle); California Historical Society.

An original antique French Art Nouveau bronze statue of a glamorous woman by Georges Van der Straeten c.1905. Bronze mounted to a marble base signed on verso with the stamp medallion of Original Bronzes Society Paris France. Measurements 4.25ʺW × 3.25ʺD × 7.5ʺH. Georges Van der Straeten was a Belle Epoque sculptor born in Ghent, Belgium, on December 21, 1856. He studied under the Neo-Baroque sculptor Jef Lambeaux (1852-1908). In 1883, at the twenty-seven years old, Van der Straeten moved to Paris. While living in Paris he befriended Jean Marie Constantin Joseph "Jan" van Beers, a fellow painter and son of the Romantic poet Jan van Beers. He lived at 9 Hoche Avenue, Paris. Van der Straeten showed at his first Paris Salon in 1885 and continued to show until 1912. He won many awards for his work, including the silver medal at the 1900 World's Fair, Paris and a knight of the Legion of Honor in 1903. Van der Straeten's figures are detailed and inspired by the French artist Antoine Watteau (1684-1721) and similar in style to the Italian sculptor Emmanuel Villanis (1858-1914). The work is Art Nouveau with an emphasis on the figure. His works have been produced in large numbers by French foundries Paris Bronzes Society, Pinedo and by ceramsist Friedrich Goldscheider. The artist died in Ghent in 1928.

An original oil painting on board by Cecil C. Bell signed lower center and on reverse. Measuring 22 x 30 inches. The painting of a New York nocturne featuring a Westside cowboy of the The New York central line. West Side Cowboys were employed by the City to ride in front of street-level freight trains and wave pedestrians out of the way. This was the City’s stopgap measure to stop the carnage on what was known as “Death Avenue.” The Cowboys were phased out after the High Line was built, raising train traffic to the third story of industrial buildings.

Biography

Bell was born in Seattle, WA in 1906, and he later moved to Staten Island, NY. It was in New York City where he found the inspiration for his work, the city and its people, focusing on daily life subjects. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Art Students League with John Sloan. Exhibition venues include the Corcoran Gallery, Museum of Modern Art and the Tacoma Art Museum.

Vintage Modernist Watercolor Americas Cup Yacht Sailing Races by Willard Bond. Presented matted and framed. Biography By DENNIS HEVESI Published: June 10, 2012 In First Around, one of Willard Bond's best-known paintings, two towering yachts are caught in a roiling sea. The one to the fore is rounding a mark, sharply heeled in the wind, its crew crammed by the upper rail to keep it from capsizing. It has not yet raised its spinnaker, the balloonlike sail toward the bow. Perilously close by, the other boat has just turned the marker, its billowing spinnaker a virtual rainbow of iridescent pink, blue, maroon and white. All this is captured in Mr. Bond's bold, swirling strokes that verge on the abstract. "Bond creates paintings, not around what boats look like, but what it feels like to be aboard or nearby, watching them move fast — big, speeding boats, often only inches apart," J. Russell Jinishian wrote in his 2003 book, Bound for Blue Water, a comprehensive study of marine art. "Crews scramble, sails drop and raise in a flurry of activity," Mr. Jinishian wrote. "The tension is high, adrenaline pumps, orders are yelled, spray flies, seas and heads pound, your whole world spins as you are unconscious of everything else around you. If you want to know what it is like to be in the heat of a yacht race, just look at a painting by Willard Bond." Mr. Bond, whose images line the walls of thousands of homes — particularly those of avid sailors — died of congestive heart failure on May 19 in Yountville, Calif., his daughter, Gretchen Bond de Limur, said. He was 85. Until moving to California several months ago to be near his daughter, Mr. Bond had divided his time between his apartment in Brooklyn Heights and the 30-foot-high geodesic dome he built decades ago as a second studio near Barryville, N.Y., in the Catskills. Even there, he could conjure up images of sailing vessels and the sea. In Knarr Class, Mr. Bond depicted the copious mast of a wooden racing boat. Against a glowering sky, with perhaps a storm on the horizon, the boat is tilted toward its port side. Subtle blues, greens and grays blend in the water and the clouds, with white dots hinting of structures on the distant coast. Over five decades as a marine artist, Mr. Bond created hundreds of watercolor and oil paintings, "everything from cruising sailboats to America's Cup yachts," said Jeffrey Schaub, owner of the Annapolis Marine Art Gallery in Maryland and a longtime representative of Mr. Bond. He said Bond originals sell for up to $30,000, his limited-edition lithographs for up to $1,000, and his posters for up to $45. "Willard Bond was an original," said Jeanne C. Potter, director of the Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. "Willard would often hear from the sailors who raced that that is the way it is out there, and that he was the only artist that got it." He found his passion as a teenager sailing on Lake Coeur d'Alene in Idaho, where his grandparents owned a houseboat. Willard Gordon Bond was born in Colfax, Wash., on June 7, 1926, to Arthur and Hallie Gilleland Bond. The family later moved to Lewiston, Idaho. When not sailing on Lake Coeur d'Alene, the young man worked for several summers as a fire spotter for the United States Forest Service. After serving in the Navy in the Pacific from 1944 to 1946, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago, then moved to New York to study at the Pratt Institute, from which he graduated in 1949. In a loft on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Mr. Bond began creating large-scale abstract oil paintings and ceramic murals while supporting himself as a set designer, lighting technician and occasional actor in Off Broadway theaters. In the early 1970s he went to the island of Jamaica, where, inspired by Buckminster Fuller, he built geodesic-dome homes in the jungle, as well as two large domes for a school, commissioned by the Peace Corps. It was after returning to New York in 1976 and becoming a pier master at the South Street Seaport — he welcomed the tall ships of Operation Sail to New York Harbor for the bicentennial celebration — that Mr. Bond turned to marine art. His works began selling at galleries. At the same time, his daughter said, he sailed his own small boat off Long Island before graduating to a Chesapeake Bay skipjack, which had long been used for oyster dredging. In addition to his daughter, Mr. Bond is survived his longtime partner, Lois Friedel Bond (they were once married, then divorced and then began living together again in Brooklyn), and two grandchildren. His first two marriages also ended in divorce. Not all Mr. Bond's paintings reflect a turbulent sea. There is an almost palpable peace to his "Running Home," an oil painting that depicts four yachts far in the distance, their sails — black and white, red and white, blue and white, and pure red — full as they head to port at the end of a day of racing. "Running" means that the wind is behind them

A original antique Chinese Stoneware with white glaze (Cizhou ware) jar let from the Song Dynasty (960-1279) Measuring approximately 2.5" high and 3" wide. In very good antique condition. This fine quality Chinese celadon jarlet was probably exported to South East Asia from mainland China to Southeast Asia from mainland China. This particular piece has a good shape and glaze. The glazed ware was made extensively in China by the fourth century AD, and it was exported to South-East Asia from the time of the Song Dynasty (AD 960-1279).

Oil painting on canvas of a nude female figure signed A Brook lower right- Alexander Brook (1898 – 1980) . Image size 22"x 30", overall dimensions 26.5" x34.5". Lightly textured. In Good Condition. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Alexander Brook was a realist painter, whose works consisted mostly of still-life subjects, landscapes, and figures, often of women. He was very successful in his day, winning second prize to Picasso's first prize at the Carnegie Institute International Exhibition of Modern Painting in 1930. In New York, he studied at the Art Students League between the years of 1914-1918. It was at the Art Students League that Brook developed significant relationships with Niles Spencer, Reginald Marsh, Kenneth Hays Miller, Yasuo Kuniyoshi and, perhaps most significantly, Peggy Bacon, whom he married in 1920. Along with Kenneth Hayes Miller, Brook studied with John C. Johansen, Frank V. DuMond, George Bridgeman and Dimitri Romanofski. Within this group lay the foundations of American Realism. Brook was a member of the Society of Independent Artists, who rebelled against the strictures of the National Academy of Design. In 1938 Brook traveled to Savannah, Georgia, there he did some of his most provocative work. After two years in the South, Bacon and Brook were divorced. Brook later married the painter Gina Knee. During the years 1928 through 1939, Alexander Brook had works in over one-hundred exhibitions, fifteen of which were one man shows. By 1942, Brook had resumed teaching at the Art Students League. Demand for the artist's work kept him in significant collections, galleries, and museums, including the Downtown Gallery (New York), the National Academy of Design, the Rehn Gallery, the Larcada and the Knoedler galleries. Brook received awards at the Art Institute of Chicago (1929), the Pennsylvania Academy (1931), the Guggenheim Fellowship (1931), and the San Francisco Art Association (1938).

Original pencil drawing a portrait of a man by Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, signed monogram lower right. Best known as Balthus, a French painter in the second half of the 20th century, famous for his somewhat disturbing paintings of pubescent girls and for his association with some of the greats in modern art, including Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali. Balthus painted figures and landscapes in a more traditional style than his cubist and surrealist contemporaries, and throughout his career was supported primarily by other artists and dealers. He claimed to be a count, but he was also known to be a prankster who fabricated biographical details while keeping his real life story a mystery. Image site measures 8 x 10 Inches overall paper 11 x 17 inches. Minor staining top left. Provenance a private collection and sold at Sotheby's lot 7767, Impressionist and Modern Art, New York, Thursday, February 21, 2002

A beautiful antique art nouveau era portrait of a woman seated in a classical setting. Gouache on art board signed lower right J. Ramsperger. Presented matted and framed in a contemporary gallery frame. The image measures 15.5 x 20" and overall framed size 21" x 25". In very good antique condition.