$795.00
Sold
Sold
RODERIC O’CONOR An exact contemporary of Charles Gruppe, O’Conor is listed as both Irish and Irish-American (by Bénézit, in error). His place of birth was Roscommon, Ireland (on 17 October 1860). Regarded as Ireland’s most progressive painter of his time, O’Conor was close to both Gauguin and Armand Seguin in the Pont-Aven region, and he was wealthy enough to purchase paintings by Cézanne, Gauguin, Renoir, Manet, and others. O’Conor studied art in Dublin (1879-83), Antwerp (1883), then in Paris under Carolus-Duran and at the Académie Julian. He was working in Grèz-sur-Loing in the 1880s (Jacobs, 1985, p. 33), and began exhibiting his works at the Salon des Indépendants in 1890. Later he would take part in the Salon d’Automne. O’Conor first came to Brittany in 1890, and two years later he executed Yellow Landscape at Pont-Aven (Barnet Shine Collection, London). At Pont-Aven, O’Conor also did engravings. The Irishman befriended Gauguin there, also in 1892. The latter tried to persuade his “drinking buddy” O’Conor to accompany him to Tahiti. The Irish painter was certainly as avant-garde as Gauguin. Breton Peasant Knitting, already post-impressionistic, was painted in 1893, and The Farm at Lezaven, Finistère (National Gallery of Ireland), a year later. According to tradition, O’Conor inspired the character of Clutton, the failed artist in Somerset Maugham’s Of Human Bondage. The letters between Seguin and O’Conor were published in 1989, as Une vie de bohème. In the introduction, Denys Sutton describes how O’Conor served as Seguin’s “father confessor.” O’Conor’s friend Clive Bell (in Old Friends, 1956, p. 163), pointed out that O’Conor “seems to have known . . . most of the more interesting French painters of his generation — the Nabis for instance.” O’Conor’s use of bold color anticipates the Fauves and the German Expressionists. His knowledge of avant-garde painting had a direct impact on the formalist critics Roger Fry and Clive Bell. O’Conor influenced both Robert Vonnoh and Edward Potthast in Grèz, and he oriented Alden Brooks (1840-1931) to Vincent van Gogh’s innovative techniques. Brooks stated that O’Conor was “considered by all the one genius of the crowd.” (Hill, 1987, p. 14). He died at Neuil-sur-Layon on 18 March 1940.
Biography
James Waltham Curtis (1839-1901) was an eminent Australian colonial artist whose work lives on as a tribute to Australia’s early days of European settlement. His approach is of technical, poetic and historical interest, emphasizing man’s battle with a primeval landscape and nature, his picturesque landscapes being fine examples of the late 19th century period which preceded the Heidelberg School. Curtis was an English painter and illustrator who it is believed, came to Australia during the Gold Rush. Curtis’ work plays an important part in the preservation of Australian history and is an excellent reminder of how life was in the latter part of the 19th century.
The Three Sisters
The Sisters were formed by erosion. The soft sandstone of the Blue Mountains is easily eroded over time by wind, rain and rivers and the cliffs surrounding the Jamison Valley are being slowly broken up. [edit]Aboriginal legends The commonly told legend of the Three Sisters is that three sisters (Meehni', 'Wimlah' and Gunnedoo') lived in the Jamison Valley as members of the Katoomba tribe). They fell in love with three men from a neighbouring tribe (the Nepean tribe), but marriage was forbidden by tribal law. The brothers were not happy to accept this law and so decided to use force to capture the three sisters. A major tribal battle ensued, and the sisters were turned to stone by an elder to protect them, but he was killed in the fighting and no one else could turn them back. This legend is claimed to be an Indigenous Australian Dreamtime legend.[1] However, Dr Martin Thomas, in his work "The artificial horizon: imagining the Blue Mountains",[2] clearly shows that the "aboriginal" legend is a fabrication created by a non-Aboriginal local Katoomba, Mel Ward, presumably to add interest to a local landmark. The story originated in the late 1920s or early 1930s and is unknown prior to that date. The Aboriginal traditional owners, the Gundungurra, have a legend that includes the Sisters rock formation. They are currently[when?] developing a website which will include these traditional stories.
Sold
Biography
Born in 1936 in Yugoslavia, Stupar chose France as his permanent home in 1964 after completing his studies at the Beaux-Arts of Belgrade. Today we find that the art of Marko Stupar is totally integrated into the School of Paris. Although his work continues to be very personal, the graphic nature of his Slavic background is now uniquely combined with the subtlety found in Bonnard.Stupar has participated in juried exhibitions since 1966 when he won the Silver Medal at the Center of Diffusion of the Cote-d’Azur. He regularly participates in the Salon d’Automne, the Salon National des Beaux-Arts, the Salon des Artistes Français, and the Salon Comparaison. Among his other honors, Stupar has won both the Silver and Gold medals of the prestigious Salon des Artistes Français. One-man exhibitions of Stupar’s work have been held in cities all over the world including Paris, Geneva, Lyon, Osaka, Dusseldorf, Strasbourg, Zagreb, Annecy, Havre, New York, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Houston.
Sold
sold
Sold
Artist Biography.
Brought to New York City in 1850, William Keith was apprenticed to a wood engraver in 1856 working for "Harper’s" magazine. In 1858 (or 1859) he visited California for "Harper’s" and then after a trip to Great Britain, settled in California as an engraver in 1862. He began exhibiting paintings in 1864 in San Francisco where he opened his studio, after having been taught painting by his wife. The Northern Pacific Railroad commissioned him to do landscape paintings along its route about 1868. In 1869-70 he studied in Dusseldorf, Germany; in 1871-72, he shared a studio in Boston with William Hahn; and in 1872, he returned to California. A nature lover, he found there was “scarcely a mountain in three-fourths of California where he had not kept vigil for days as a time, studying every detail of color, flower, rock, forge, shadow, and sunshine.” Keith became Thomas Hill’s rival in monumental landscapes, saying, “I’d be satisfied if I could reach the power and success of Tom Hill.” When George Inness visited California in 1890, he worked in Keith’s studio for many weeks, and they made sketching trips together. The result for Keith was an influenced style reflecting the subjective rather than the spectacular. His "Majesty of the Oaks" painting sold at auction in New York City in 1903 for $2,300., and about the same time "Glory of the Heaven" sold at auction in San Francisco for $12,000. Of medium height with unruly curly hair, Keith had his studio next to the live oaks on the Berkeley campus where it was the center of the university-oriented California culture. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed 2,000 of Keith’s works.
Sold
Sold
Sold
Biography
Charles Henry Harmon (1859-1936) was born on December 23, 1859 in Mansfield, Ohio. He moved to San Jose, California with his family in 1874 and at an early age was apprenticed to local portrait painter Louis Lussier. He later spent one year working in a local photography studio re-touching negatives. His youth was spent visiting the art galleries of San Francisco and, with no formal training, he began sketching and painting in 1883 in the beautiful Santa Clara Valley. He painted many landscapes of that area and made trips to the remotest parts of the Sierra and the Monterey Peninsula where he painted many coastal scenes. He began exhibiting in San Jose in the 1880s. By the turn of the century, his works were handled exclusively by Gump's and he was recognized as one of California's foremost painters. In 1905 he established a studio in Denver and for seven years concentrated on the rugged landscape of the Rocky Mountains. While there, the Santa Fe, Western Pacific, and Colorado Midland railroads commissioned him to paint scenes along their routes. After his time in Colorado, he returned to San Jose where he remained for the rest of his life. Harmon died there on October 14, 1936 and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Exhibited: Mark Hopkins Institute, 1897-98; Gump's (San Francisco), 1899; Berkeley League of Fine Arts; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1915; Stanford Art Gallery, 1923; Rosicrucian Art Gallery, 1949 and Triton Museum, 1971 (retrospectives). Works held: San Jose Civic Auditorium; Clarke Museum (Eureka); California State Library; Denver Public Library; Santa Fe Railway. Source : Edan Hughes Artists in California.
Sold
A fine original watercolor painting of Pebble Beach Golf course Carmel California by James March Phillips a renowned California watercolorist. Measuring approx. 12 x 20 inches in excellent condition beautifully framed.
biography
James March Phillips was born in Fresno California in 1913. His art career began in the 1940's while attending Jean Turner Art Academy in San Francisco where is studied under such prominent artists as Louis J. Rogers, Alfred Owles, and J. Paget Fredricks. His paintings were sold in numerous galleries in the west during the 1940's and 1950's. In recent years his paintings have become quite valuable and have reached prices as high as $13,000 at San Francisco auction house Bonhams Butterfields. This is one of a pair please view the other listing of the 7th hole Pebble Beach.
Sold
Sold
Biography
Fred Wagner was born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1864. He received a scholarship to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and in 1884 was made chief Demonstrator of Anatomy there. In 1885, Wagner left the Academy to make a painting tour of San Antonio, Texas, and then went on to Los Angeles, California, where he painted a number of landscapes and portraits. He returned to Philadelphia as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press until 1902, and then moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania to paint full time. In 1912, Wagner opened a Philadelphia studio and taught classes in outdoor painting at Addingham, and later, at the Pennsylvania Academy's summer school in Chester Springs. His reputation grew, and he took on additional classes at his studio in the Fuller Building. In 1913, Wagner exhibited in the now famous Armory Show in New York City. He exhibited frequently at the Pennsylvania Academy's annual exhibitions, and in 1914, was awarded the Fellowship Prize. He was awarded Honorable Mentions from the Pittsburgh International, the Philadelphia Art Club, and the Carnegie Institute in 1922. His paintings are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum; St. Louis Museum, MO; Fort Wayne Museum, IN; Kalamazoo Museum, MI; Rochester Museum, NY; Worcester Art Museum, MA, and the Reading Museum, PA. Fred Wagner died in Philadelphia in 1940.
Sold
sold
Biography
Painter of landscapes and marines. inspired by the landscapes of Brabant Wallon. Deceased about 1945. Exhibited at the Triennial "Exposition of Antwerp "in 1901 ("Mill in Dordrecht"). Lived in Saint-Gilles at that time. Listed in BOTTOM II and "Two Centuries of Signatures of Artists of Belgium". ...
Sold
Biography
Fredrick Wagner was born in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1864. He received a scholarship to study art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins and in 1884 was made chief Demonstrator of Anatomy there. In 1885, Wagner left the Academy to make a painting tour of San Antonio, Texas, and then went on to Los Angeles, California, where he painted a number of landscapes and portraits. He returned to Philadelphia as an illustrator for the Philadelphia Press until 1902, and then moved to Norristown, Pennsylvania to paint full time. In 1912, Wagner opened a Philadelphia studio and taught classes in outdoor painting at Addingham, and later, at the Pennsylvania Academy's summer school in Chester Springs. His reputation grew, and he took on additional classes at his studio in the Fuller Building. In 1913, Wagner exhibited in the now famous Armory Show in New York City. He exhibited frequently at the Pennsylvania Academy's annual exhibitions, and in 1914, was awarded the Fellowship Prize. He was awarded Honorable Mentions from the Pittsburgh International, the Philadelphia Art Club, and the Carnegie Institute in 1922. His paintings are in the collections of the Cleveland Museum; St. Louis Museum, MO; Fort Wayne Museum, IN; Kalamazoo Museum, MI; Rochester Museum, NY; Worcester Art Museum, MA, and the Reading Museum, PA. Fred Wagner died in Philadelphia in 1940.
$695.00
$1200.00
Biography
Born in Northwood, England on June 18, 1902. "Vic" Seward came to the U.S. as a child. He studied at the AIC before moving to Los Angeles in the 1920s. He worked there as an illustrator for the Examiner until moving to San Francisco where he established a studio. His work appeared in Popular Mechanics and World Book Encyclopedia. In his leisure he painted oils and watercolors of landscapes and seascapes. He died in San Francisco on Sept. 9, 1993. Exh: Berkeley Coop Gallery, 1970s; Visitacion Valley Arts Festival (SF), 1987 (1st prize); Press Club (SF), 1987. Source: Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Sold
sold
Known as a California Impressionist influenced by Tonalism and also an early modernist painter, Karl Neuhaus was also an active lecturer and teacher. Neuhaus was born in Barmen (Wuppertal), Germany, in 1879. He apprenticed with a house painter while studying at the Royal Art School in Kassel, graduating in 1899. He proceeded to the Berlin Royal Institute for Applied Arts where he studied under Otto Eckmann, Max Koch and Carl Brunner. Neuhaus moved to San Francisco, California, in 1904 where he established a studio across a hallway from William Keith. While living in San Francisco he exhibited with the San Francisco Art Association and became a member of the Bohemian Club. After the San Francisco Earthquake in 1906 he relocated to the Monterey peninsula, in the town of Pacific Grove. There he was one of the founders of the Del Monte Art Gallery, which was the first gallery in the United States to show exclusively work by California artists. Between 1907 and 1909 he taught at the San Francisco Institute of Art, and from 1908 to 1949 he taught at the University of California, Berkeley. At the University of California, Berkeley he also served as the first chairman of the Department of Art between 1923 and 1925. During the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition Neuhaus served as Chairman of the Advisory Committee for the West and was also an exhibitor. As a California landscapist he was known for his painted scenes of Mendocino, the Sacramento Valley, Santa Barbara, Monterey, and San Luis Obispo. He contributed to the art community by lecturing all over the state and was also known as a writer. During his career his work was exhibited at the Oakland Museum in 1981, and the Del Monte Gallery from 1907-14. Karl Neuhaus died in Berkeley, California in 1963.
$179.00
Sold
Native American sculptor Cliff Fragua, of Jemez Pueblo, New Mexico, IACA Artist of the Year for 2005, has learned the secret of stone through his cultural and ancestral teachings. "My connection with the stone involves spirituality and reverence for the spirit that dwells within. It has been on this earth much longer than man and for this reason the stone becomes the teacher, it is simply what my ancestors believe. I am the mediator between the stone and the tools: the stone and the viewer." "I visualize what the stone wants to become and I strive to help it emerge." Cliff Fragua's sculptures are featured in such public locations as the Albuquerque Sunport International Airport, the National Statuary Hall in Washington DC and in permanent collections throughout the country.
Sold
Biography
Charles Robinson was born in East Monmouth, Maine, and his father, David Robinson, was a theatre producer for Gold Rush mining towns and constructed the first theatres and plays for stage productions in San Francisco. In 1850, his family moved to San Francisco where he was educated in the public schools and grew up sketching harbor scenes. He took lessons at the age of seven from Charles Nahl, a painter of mining genre and landscape, and earned a diploma at age 13 from the Mechanics' Institute for best marine drawing for a juvenile. From 1861 to 1873, he lived in Vermont because the family was forced out of San Francisco by threats resulting from his father being on the Vigilance Committee. On the East Coast, he became the pupil of marine artists William Bradford and M.F.H. De Haas as well as Impressionist George Inness. He was also much influenced by Albert Bierstadt and James Hamilton. He lived in Clinton, Iowa from 1873 to 1874 to court and marry Kathryn Wright, and then returned to San Francisco. He first worked as a retoucher of photos, and he and his wife wrote and did illustrations for "Overland Monthly" and "Century" magazine. By 1876, Robinson was exhibiting regularly as a painter, and in 1880 began making trips to Yosemite Valley. He was also in Paris between 1899 and 1901 and offered the Paris Exposition in 1900 a painting of Yosemite that was 50 x 380 feet and weighed five tons. When the committee rejected the panorama, he cut it into pieces, which he sold for passage money home. In the earthquake and fire of 1906, many of his paintings were destroyed in a warehouse where he had thought they would be safe. In 1921, a fire in his home destroyed twenty years worth of Yosemite paintings. He died May 8, 1933 in San Rafael, California. Source: Edan Hughes,
Inquire for Price
Ida Sedgwick Proper (1873 - 1957)
Rare original oil on canvas by signed lower right measuring 20 x 24 inches in good all original condition. Provenance: The Grandson of the artist.
Biography
Born in Bonaparte, Iowa, into a Baptist minister family, she attended Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas. Then at the Art Student's League in New York, she trained with William Merritt Chase, John Twachtmann, and Frank DuMond. In 1897, she began art studies in Munich and exhibited in European salons. From 1907 to 1911, she had a studio in New York. She is known for her Impressionist palette and diffused compositional elements.
Richard DeTreville was born in Beaufort, South Carolina on November 17, 1864 into a prominent, old family of French ancestry. His grandfather fought with George Washington in the Revolutionary War and at the time of his birth during the Civil War, his father was Lt Governor of South Carolina. Little is known about his art training; he was possibly self-taught. In 1892 he moved to California and settled in Stockton where he established a small newspaper called Det's Magazine. Shortly after 1910 he moved from Stockton to San Francisco where he worked as a cartoonist for the Park Presidio News. In his studio on Clement Street he exhibited his paintings as well as in local department stores and art galleries. His works were handled locally by Schussler Brothers and Sanborn & Vail. The last few years of his life were spent across the bay in Alameda where he died on February 25, 1929. DeTreville worked in oil and, on rare occasions, in watercolor. He was known to be an excellent portraitist although his portraits are rare. The most prolific of early California painters, his thousands of small landscapes are invariably of the San Francisco Bay area, Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, and northern California. He sometimes signed his works "DeT". Member: American Art Bureau. Exhibited: White House Department Store (San Francisco), 1926 (250 oils). Works held: California Historical Society; Oakland Museum; Alameda Historical Society.
sold
$3500.00
Sold
Sold
Sold
Sold
$9500.00
biography
A landscape and marine artist, George Symons was one of America's more noted plein-air painters who combined styles of impressionism and realism. His works are cited for their energy and simplicity, and he often did panoramic views. He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1861, with the name of George Gardner Simon, but he changed his last name to Symons when he returned from study in England because of concern about anti-semitism. Not much is known about his early life. He first studied at the Chicago Art Institute where he became a close, life-long friend of William Wendt. They painted together in California and then in Cornwall, England in 1898. He also studied in Paris, and Munich and London, and joining a colony of artists at St. Ives, adopted the plein-air techniques of Julius Olsson, Adrian Stokes, and Rudolph Hellwag. He worked in Chicago as a commercial artist, and about 1903 returned to California with Wendt and built a studio in Laguna Beach and became active in western art societies including the California Art Club. He returned often, but maintained his primary studio in Brooklyn, New York, and also did a lot of painting in Colerain, Massachusetts. Among the collections where his work can be found is the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences; the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Fleischer Museum in Scottsdale, Arizona. Associations he was a member of include the National Academy of Design, the National Arts Club, the Institute of Arts and Letters, the Lotos, Century, and Salmagundi Clubs. He was also a member of the Royal Society of British Artists and the Union Internationale des Beaux Arts et des Lettres. He painted entirely out-of-doors, frequently working in Arizona, doing desert landscape and the Grand Canyon views, but he is best known for his New England snow scenes, especially of the Berkshire Mountains. He died in Hillside, New Jersey in 1930.
$400.00
$1800.00
Biography
SIMONPIETRI, Alfred H. (1916-2001). Painter. Born in Puerto Rico on June 20, 1916. While serving in the Army during World War Two, Simonpietri was in a plane crash. After the war he settled into a home in the Sunset District of San Francisco where he remained until his demise on December 2, 2001. A talented artist, he created hundreds of paintings, mostly nudes and still lifes. Biography provided courtesy of Edan Hughes Author Artists in California 1850-1940
$1295.00
sold
Sold
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth was born on September 17, 1880 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. A student of such renowned artists as Auguste Rodin and Gutzon Borglum, Frishmuth's reputation and career grew steadily throughout the first several decades of the twentieth century, with exhibitions at the National Academy of Design, the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Salon in Paris, the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-1940) and the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. Her favorite models were dancers, especially Desha Delteil - immortalized in Frishmuth's most famous work, The Vine - a model particularly popular with artists for her ability to hold difficult poses for long periods of time. The final exhibits of Frishmuth's work took place in New York City in 1929, but she remained active in the art world for many years following. Frishmuth passed away in 1980 at the age of 99. A proponent of the Beaux Arts style - Frishmuth was exceptionally critical of modern art, often calling it "spiritless" - her works can now be seen in some of the world's leading museums and collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Dallas Museum of Art, and Ohio University's Kennedy Museum of Art.
Biography
Painter, etcher, and muralist, Will Sparks became one of California's premier artists, known for his mission and nocturnal adobe scenes. He was highly prolific, completing about three-thousand oil paintings. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and showed art talent as a youngster, selling his first painting when he was age twelve. He became a doctor, but his love of art prevailed. He attended the St. Louis School of Fine Arts and then went to New York and then Paris to the Academies Julian and Colarossi where he studied with Gerome, Harpignies, and Bouguereau. In Paris he earned money as an assistant to biologist Louis Pasteur for whom he made anatomical drawings. He was also much influenced by the Barbizon painters and Cezanne. He returned to St. Louis and in 1886 exhibited in the St. Louis Expo where he met Mark Twain whose stories of California inspired him to head West. He stayed briefly in Cincinnati and Denver and then California, where he did newspaper illustrations in Stockton and Fresno. In 1891, he settled in San Francisco, establishing a studio at 163 Sutter Street. He combined illustration work and writing for the San Francisco Evening Call with easel painting including all of the California missions. He was a member of the Bohemian Club, a free-spirited, fun loving group that lived "hand-to-mouth" for their art. He also painted in Arizona, and a painting Tucson was done in 1894. In 1904, he joined the faculty of the University of California, doing anatomy drawings for medical classes, and in 1907, he was a founder of the Del Monte Art Gallery. He died in San Francisco on March 30, 1937. His paintings are in the collections of the Huntington Library in San Marino and the Crocker Museum in Sacramento. Source: Edan Hughes,
Sold
A beautiful oil of an early California landscape of wild flowers lupine and poppies. Oil painting on canvas board signed lower right measuring approx. 12 x 16 inches. Framed in a contemporary gallery frame overall 20x24 inches. In excellent condition a fine early piece would be a fine addition to any collection.
Biography
Born in Oakland, California, Ramona Froyland, known as Mona, was a painter of still lifes, portraits, landscapes, marines and later in her life, Madonnas. Her parents were Mabel and Manuel Valencia, both artists who gave Ramona her early instruction. She later attended the California School of Fine Art and the Art Institute of Chicago. Ramona Valencia was a paternal descendant of General Gabriel Valencia, the first governor of Sonora, Mexico under Spanish rule, and the great granddaughter of a man who arrived in California in 1774 and became administrator of the Presidio in San Francisco where the family received many land grants. When she was six years old, in 1906, she and her family moved to San Jose because of the destruction of the San Francisco earthquake and fire. However, the family kept close ties to San Francisco where her father kept his studio. Beginning in the 1960s, Ramona Valencia taught art classes to children and adults from her studio in Castro Valley, California, and she died there on September 22, 1988. She was a member of the Hayward art Association and exhibited at Alameda County Fairs.
Sold
Sold
Auction
Sold
Sold
Biography
William ADAM 1846 - 1931 William Constable Adam (1846-1931) was born in Tweedmouth, England on August 29, 1846. He studied under Delecluse in Paris, Brydall and Greenlees in Glasgow, and in Buenos Aires before immigrating to Boston in 1893. After moving to California in 1898, he soon settled in Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. Known as "Professor" Adam, he gave art lessons in his rose-covered cottage at 450 Central Avenue. With a bright and colorful palette of both oil and watercolor, he specialized in views of the Monterey area such as sand dunes, cottage and garden scenes, and the local flora. Adam died in Pacific Grove on October 17, 1931. Member: Boston Art Club; Lowell (MA) Art Club; Glasgow Art Club. Exhibited: Royal Scottish Academy; California State Fairs (medals); Del Monte Art Gallery (Monterey), 1907-12; Berkeley Art Ass'n, 1908; Sorosis Club, 1913; California Artists, Golden Gate Park Museum, 1916; Rabjohn & Morcom Gallery (San Francisco), 1916. Works held: City of Monterey Collection; Santa Cruz City Museum; Silverado Museum (St Helena, CA); Shasta State Historical Monument.
sold
Inquire for Price
$3,000.00
Artist Biography Austrian sculptor was born in Vienna in 1865. His teachers were Karl Waschmann (1848-1905), known for his ivory sculptures and portrait plaquettes of contemporary celebrities, and Stefan Schwartz (1851-1924), who exhibited in Paris, including the Exposition Universelle of 1900 where he won a gold medal. Kauba’s intricate bronzes, imported to the United States between 1895 and 1912, were cast at the Roman Bronze Works. Kauba was part of the nineteenth-century tradition of polychrome bronze sculpture. There were several types of patinas on a single statue: he could render the color of buckskin, variously tinted shirts, blankets, feathers, as well as beaded moccasins. Reportedly, Kauba came to America around 1886. Inspired by the Western tales of German author Karl May, he traveled to the West and made sketches and models. Critics, however, pointed out inaccuracies of costume and other details. For instance, the guns that his “mid-nineteenth-century” figures use are models produced after 1898. Apparently he did all of his works back in Vienna. Besides the variety of color, Kauba’s bronzes show a great range of textures and his style is highly naturalistic. The sculptor loved ornament, some of which he rendered with coiled wire for reins, rope and feathers in headdresses. He successfully rendered figures in motion and often executed compositions with more than one figure. Berman (1974) illustrates non-Western subjects by Kaula, such as the pendants Where? and There (ca. 1910), a seated Scottish couple, impressive in the expressions and the details on patterned fabrics of both sitters. Another genre piece is Buster Brown, ca. 1910, and Nude on Vase shows Kauba’s versatility even further. The smooth skin contrasts with the stylistic, plant-like vase.