Catalog: Fine Art: Drawings (11)

Modern charcoal drawing of a cosmic abstract. Signed indistinctly lower right and dated 2003. Presented in a minimalist blonde wood frame. Image size: 22 x 30”, overall dimensions: 27 x 34”.

Antique French pencil drawing of a woman. This original portrait comes from an artists portfolio dated 1847. Presented in an exquisite French mat with finest quality 24k gold leaf frame. Image 14"L x 11"W. Framed size 23" L x 19" W

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."

Original Vintage Art Nouveau Drawing of a Lady by Charles Sheldon c.1930. Presented matted and framed. Acquired with a group of art from the estate of the artist. Charles Gates Sheldon (b. 1889 / d. 1960) Charles Sheldon was born in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1894. He spent most of his life in Springfield. In high school, he contributed to the artwork in the yearbook. Sheldon studied at the Arts Students League. He then studied under Alphonse Mucha in Paris. He started working for Ladies Home Journal doing artwork of hats, gloves and fashion work. Sheldon moved into advertising doing creative advertising for clients such as, Fiberloid hair brushes, Fox Shoe Company, La Vogue lingerie and Gainsbourough. The ads had many stars features such a Zigfeld Follies. By 1921, Sheldon was working for high fashion companies. In 1924 and 1925, Sheldon created cover art for the Christmas issue of Colliers and a Halloween issue cover for Saturday Evening Post. By the late 1930's, magazines started to moving towards photography for their covers. However, Sheldon continued to produce his his delicate, dreamy, pastel portraits for the Breck Shampoo Company. Sheldon retired in the late 1950's. In 1960, he died at his home is Springfield. When his home was torn down in 1978, a hidden room was found full of "artwork by his contemporary illustrators such as J.C. Leyendecker, Howard Chandler Christy, Maxfield Parrish, and Charles Dana Gibson".

An original vintage Chinese ink painting of a Running Horse in the manner of Xu Beihong signed to the center right. Ink on a mottled colored paper presented matted and in a thin wood frame. Overall framed size 16.5" W x 23.5" H x 1.0" D. In good condition minor surface wear and very light crease to the paper. The most influential Chinese artist and art educator in twentieth-century China, Xu Beihong is widely known as the father of modern Chinese painting. Born into a poor family in 1895 in Yixing, Jiangsu Province, he learned Chinese classics and traditional Chinese painting from his father, a self-taught artist. Xu Beihong gained a government scholarship to study in France and attended the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. Between 1919 and 1927, he studied sketching and oil painting in France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland. Returning to China in 1927, he successfully integrated Western painting methods and techniques with traditional Chinese painting in order to develop Chinese painting. He demonstrated two fundamental ways to improve Chinese painting: “focusing on human activities” and rejuvenating the tradition of “learning from nature.” His creative work and extensive teaching offered a new direction for Chinese artists and art educators. He was the first to systematically incorporate high-standard Western sketching from life and oil painting into the curricula at China’s major art institutions. From 1927 until his death in 1953, Xu Beihong trained several generations of students. Many became accomplished artists and leading art educators who have continued to influence Chinese art in the twenty-first century. Since 1954, more than 1200 of his original drawings, sketches, oils, and Chinese ink brush paintings have been kept and displayed by the Xu Beihong Memorial Museum in Beijing.

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

Serge Ivanhoff Nude at her Dressing Table. Conte Crayon Drawing signed and dated Paris 1945. image 9"x12". Serge Petrovitch Ivanoff was born in Moscow in 1893 and showed artistic ability from a young age. On the family’s move to St. Petersburg, he took the opportunity to further his artistic studies by enrolling at the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1917, at the height of the Russian Revolution. The turmoil of the aftermath of these events prompted Serge Ivanoff, with his wife and two young children, to move permanently to Paris in 1922. A talented portraitist, he quickly established himself in Paris and soon had the celebrities of the day commissioning him to paint their portraits, including Pope Pius XI, the dancer and choreographer Serge Lifar, poet Paul Valery, composer Arthur Honegger, and many notable Russian exiles now making their home in Paris. Between 1930 and 1950, he also regularly provided illustrations for the French journal L’Illustration, and painted a series of luminous and lyrical nudes. In 1950 Serge Ivanoff moved to the U.S.A., again specialising in portraiture, including Eleanor Roosevelt and the diplomat Jefferson Caffery amongst his subjects. However, by the 1960s he had returned to Paris where he continued to exhibit regularly at the Salon des Indépendants, receiving a Gold Medal from the Minister of Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, in 1966. Serge Ivanoff died in Paris in 1983.

Original Vintage French Nude Female Drawing by Aristide Maillol (1861 - 1944) Pastel Pencil Conte Crayon on paper signed lower right with the artists monogram as was typical of his drawings. Presented matted and framed in a quality gallery gold gilt frame. Drawing measuring sight 7.5" x 13.5" overall framed size 14.5" x 20". Aristide Maillol (1861 - 1944) was active/lived in France. Aristide Maillol is known for Female figure drawing, sculpture, painting, woodcut illustration. Aristide Maillol was born in Banyuls, France in 1861. Maillol's early career was spent mainly as a tapestry designer, but he also painted. In 1881, Aristide Maillol moved to Paris, where he first attended a drawing course at the École des Beaux-Arts as a student of the painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme. In the meantime, he took classes in sculpture at the arts college, before returning to the Academy, where he remained until 1893. Maillol's recognition as a sculptor grew only gradually, forcing him to earn his livelihood with the restoration of stucco work. Success ensued after an exhibition in 1902, in which Ambroise Vollard presented 33 of Maillol’s works. Two years later, he was included in a publication by Julius Meier-Graefe and made the acquaintance of his most important patron, the German art collector Harry Graf Kessler, with whom he traveled on several occasions and executed important commissions. In 1913, Maillol had his first exhibition abroad, in Rotterdam. This was followed by exhibitions at the Armory Show in New York and later at the Berlin gallery of Alfred Flechtheim, the Kunsthalle Basel, and the Petit Palais in Paris on the occasion of the World Exhibition in Paris. Maillol initially devoted himself to painting, was a member of the Nabis group, and created tapestries. From the mid-1890s on, he created primarily sculptures in plaster, wood, and bronze. The main theme of his sculptural oeuvre is the female body. Today Maillol's works can be found at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Neue Pinakothek in Munich.

Original French master portrait of a woman wearing braids from a portfolio of drawings dated 1847. Displayed in a giltwood frame.

A beautiful original 18th century drawing of a woman gazing upward Attributed to Francois Boucher measuring 24.5 x 31 cm. on wove paper mounted at corners to matte board. A beautiful drawing would be a fine addition to any collection.

Biography

François Boucher (September 29, 1703 - May 30, 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, and intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture. He also painted several portraits of his illustrious patroness, Madame de Pompadour. Born in Paris, the son of a lace designer Nicolas Boucher, François Boucher was perhaps the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century, with most of his work reflecting the Rococo style. At the young age of 17, Boucher was apprenticed by his father to François Lemoyne, however after only 3 months he went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars. Within 3 years Boucher had already won the elite Grand Prix de Rome, although he did not take up the consequential opportunity to study in Italy until 4 years later. On his return from studying in Italy in 1731, he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as a historical painter, and became a faculty member in 1734.

Original drawing a portrait of a man possibly a self portrait 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 Sotheby's lot 7767, Impressionist and Modern Art, New York, Thursday, February 21, 2002