Original Art from the Grand Age of American Illustration
The WPA artist and art deco designer Vladimir Yoffe created this smart and modern machine age commercial illustration as advertising for Pan Am World Airways. The imagery shows a dizzying map of the earth highlighted by the routes the early commercial airline offered. Today, the Russian/American artist is best remembered for his work for the New Deal […]
Artist: Vladimir Yoffe
Public art in the 1930s is today synonymous with the Works Progress Administration–a New Deal Federal program that underwrote regionalist and modernist fine artists by commissioning their work for murals that can still be seen throughout the United States. Less often remembered is how private industries during the Great Depression and World War II became patrons of the […]
For sale is a lovely tonalist oil on canvas painting by the well regarded Chicago area artist and muralist Otto Hake.
Artist: Otto Hake
The bustling post-war world of New York City – the exciting art scene, the sometimes grimy underbelly of street life, and even the everyday, seemingly mundane, daily activities of its residents – were what drew photojournalist and painter Alfred Statler back to his home city after an extended trip abroad to refine his artistic skills. […]
From a recent east coast estate auction, Grapefruit Moon Gallery is delighted to have acquired a previously unseen collection of American Expressionist oil paintings dating to the 1940s and executed in a WPA, Regionalist, and often times stark Ashcan School design aesthetic. These are the work of the important American photo-journalist Alfred Statler, […]
Artist: Alfred Statler
Evoking both French impressionism and the regionalist spirit of the WPA, this Dewey Albinson oil on canvas shows a pair of figures (seemingly father and daughter) walking through a country lane on a summer afternoon. With their backs to the viewer, the pair walk from the shadows towards the sunshine, but further down their path […]
Artist: Dewey Albinson
One of two 1930s oil on stretched canvas paintings we have acquired by Robert T. Riley, a New York state fine artist and illustrator who worked in a social realist / WPA bleak stylized Regionalist aesthetic. In this expressive work, Riley evokes the anxieties caused by a football injury as a player is carted off the field, capturing the multitude of pained expressions on the faces of those gathered. This somber, painting was created during the depths of the Great Depression and it offers bleak commentary on the hardships endured by all men.
Artist: Robert Riley
This period 1930s signed oil on stretched canvas painting was created by the New York state fine artist and illustrator Robert T. Riley. With a social realist / WPA styled grittiness, Riley captures the hardscrapple life of deck hands hard at work, while eluding to the anxieties of the Great Depression. The stylized rigging suggests the mechanization of the Industrial revolution, and the sailors pulling up the sails find their muscles strained to the point of breaking in an homage to John Henry.
Artist: Robert Riley
This signed 1936 watercolor by an unidentified artist presents a haunting look at the life of an urban bohemian in Greenwich village New York. Mixing the malaise and grit of Great Depression-era NY with romantic nostalgia for the artist’s communities that flourished during the Ashcan school-period of the early 20th century, this scene presents a view of an artist attempting to find inspiration at the sight of his muse, a sensuously posed nude model, but sinking into debauchery as he cradles a drink in one hand with a tawdry book titled Eros laying on his table. On his wall, unseen by either the artist or model, are his previous creations, including a likeness of the napping dog at his feet. This is an inspired work of urban realism, that dates to the WPA period where unflinching looks at the hidden corners pf life were becoming an increasingly popular topic for the finest American artists.
Artist: Unknown
Working within the gritty and near-apocalyptic style of the ashcan school, Paul Raphael Meltsner captures here the shimmying decadence of movement that defined Depression-era burlesque, as well as the art form’s manner of dehumanizing both performer and patron. Though brazenly showcasing her human form, the dancer in the foreground hides her face from the canvas, and the audience recedes into the merest suggestion of faces represented merely as forms. This is a moving and masterful artwork, reminiscent of the works of Everett Shinn, a contemporary of Meltsner’s.
Artist: Paul Meltsner
