Catalog (165)

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.

William Keith original oil painting wooded landscape with cattle by a lake. Oil on panel signed lower right canvas measuring Approx 14 x 22 a magnificent example of this famed California and American artists work. William Keith rivalled Thomas Hill as the most accomplished and successful landscape painter working in California during the 19th century. After two years spent studying art in Düsseldorf, Paris and Boston, Keith returned to California in 1872 as a sophisticated painter whose work drew on several prevailing styles popular in the cultural centers of the world. Many of his paintings reflect the influence of the "Hudson River School" and depict sublime mountain scenery à la Church or Bierstadt. But at the same time as he was painting alpine panoramas, Keith also focused on the more intimate landscapes of the French Barbizon movement that had come to the forefront of Parisian art appreciation during the 1860s. Barbizon painters adopted a more natural and impressionistic style than that of the academic painters; their works often communicate a rougher and stronger presence of nature than sweeter, more sentimental academic landscapes. Major works of the English painter John Constable, exhibited at Paris Salons of the 1820s, influenced the Barbizon painters in the direction of this stronger style. Works held: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Metropolitan Museum; Crocker Museum (Sacramento); Art Institute of Chicago; Oakland Museum; Stanford University; Boston Museum; De Young Museum San Francisco; California State Capitol.

Pair of original antique botanical Fern lithographs prints circa 1867. Edward J. Lowe’s Ferns: British and Exotic. this print was published in London by Groombridge & Sons in 1867. This work was one of the earliest works to concentrate solely on the subject of the fern. Lowe used his botanical expertise and money to produce this work. He hired A. F. Lydon as the artist for the work and Benjamin Fawcett created the lithograph plates. Presented archival matted and framed. overall size 12.5" x 15.5".