Joseph O'Sickey Art
American, 1918-2013
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, has been a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which retains one of his paintings in its permanent collection, and the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he received a Bachelor's degree in 1940.
He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art) in 1940 and taught at Ohio State University (1946-47), Akron Art Institute (1949-52), Western Reserve University School of Architecture (1956-64), and Kent State University (1964-89).
Among the most honored painters active in the region, O'Sickey won the Cleveland Arts Prize in Visual Arts in 1974, and was called "a dean of painting in Northeast Ohio" by Steven Litt, art and architecture critic of the Plain Dealer.
However, his work continued to develop through his 20s, strongly influenced by post-impressionism.
O'Sickey was represented in New York by Jacques Seligmann Galleries during the 1960s and 1970s (which presented seven one-person shows of his work) and by Kennedy Galleries in the 1980s and 1990s. In Ohio, notable exhibitions include a Distinguished Alumnus one-person show at the Cleveland Institute of Art (1982); a one-person show at the Canton Museum of Art (1995); exhibition in 24 May Shows at the Cleveland Museum of Art between 1938 and 1977.
O'Sickey's work is also in the collections of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Canton Museum of Art, Ohio; Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg, Pennsylvania; Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, Ohio; and Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia.(Biography provided by WOLFS)
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Artist: Joseph O'Sickey
Untitled (Hot Air Baloon Ascent and Spectators)
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Untitled (Hot Air Balloon Ascent and Spectators)
Sepia wash on wove paper, 1985
Signed and dated in ink lower right corner
From the artist's 1985 sketchbook
Probably a view of Cape C...
Category
1980s American Modern Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Ink
Plum Branches and Flowers
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Plum Branches and Flowers
watercolor on wove paper, 1985
Signed and dated in pencil lower right corner
From the artist's 1985 sketchbook
Inspired by O'Sickey's love of Japanese and Chinese art and calligraphy.
Provenance: Estate of the artist
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 13 5/8 x 17 inches
Joseph B. O’Sickey, Painter
1974 CLEVELAND ARTS PRIZE FOR VISUAL ARTS
The title conferred on him by Plain Dealer art critic Steve Litt in a 1994 article, “the dean of painting in northeast Ohio,” must have pleased Joseph O'Sickey. It was more than 30 years since he had burst onto the local (and national) art scene. O’Sickey was already in his 40s in that spring of 1962 when he had his first one-man show at the Akron Art Museum and was signed by New York’s prestigious Seligmann Galleries, founded in 1888. In the decade and a half that followed, he would have seven one-man shows at Seligmann, which had showed the work of such trailblazing figures as Seurat, Vuilliard, Bonnard, Leger and Picasso, and appear in all of the group shows.
O’Sickey took the Best Painting award in the 1962 May Show at the Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA). He and would capture the same honor in back-to-back May Shows in 1964 and ’65, and again in 1967. The remarkable thing, noted the Plain Dealer’s Helen Borsick, was that he accomplished this sweep in a variety of painterly styles, even using that most hackneyed of subjects, flowers. “The subject doesn’t matter,” he told her, “what the artist brings to it is the important thing.” O’Sickey’s garden and landscape paintings were big and bold, eschewing delicate detail in favor of vitality and impact. The great art collector and CMA benefactor Katherine C. White, standing before one of O’Sickey’s vivid garden paintings, compared the sensation to “being pelted with flowers.”
Though he might represent an entire blossom with one or two smudged brush strokes or a stem with a simple sweep of green, O’Sickey rejected the moniker of Impressionist—or Pointillist or Abstract painter or Expressionist. “My work,” he said, “is a direct response to the subject. I believe in fervor and poetic metaphor. I try to make each color and shape visible and identifiable within the context of surrounding colors and shapes. A yellow must hold its unique quality from any another yellow or surrounding color, and yet read as a lemon or an object, by inference. It does not require shading or modeling—the poetic evocation is part of the whole.”
“The subject,” O’Sickey used to tell his students at Kent State University, where he taught painting from 1964 to 1989, “has to be seen as a whole and the painting has to be structured to be seen as a whole.” He liked to think of it as “a process of controlled rapture.”
When, in the 1960s, fond childhood memories drew him to the zoo, he found himself responding to the caged animals in their lonely dignity (or indignity) with sharp-edged, almost silhouette-like forms that evoked Matisse’s paintings and cut-paper assemblages. One observer was left with the impression that the artist had “looked at these animals, past daylight and into dusk when they lose their details in shadow and become pure shapes, with eyes that are seeing the viewer rather than the other way around. This is a world of shape and essence,” wrote Helen Borsick. “All is simplification.”
O’Sickey attributed his ability to capture his subjects with just a few strokes—in an almost iconographic way—to a rigorous exercise he had imposed upon himself over a period of several months. Limiting his tools to a large No. 6 bristle brush and black ink, he set himself the task of drawing his pet parakeet and the other small objects in its cage (cuttlebone, feeding dish, tinkling bell) hundreds of times. The exercise gave him “invaluable insights into painting. . . . Because of the crudity of the medium, every part of these drawings had to be an invention and every mark had to have its room and clarity.” Then he began adding one color at a time—“still with the same brush and striving for the same clarity”—and headed off to the zoo where “the world opened up to me. I learned how little it took to express the subject.”
Born in Detroit at the close of the First World War, O’Sickey grew up in St. Stanislaus parish near East 65th and Fleet on Cleveland’s southeast side. (The apostrophe was inserted into the family’s proud Polish name by a clerk at Ellis Island.) An early interest in drawing and painting may have been kindled by the presence on the walls of Charles Dickens Elementary School, one of only three grade schools in the district with a special focus on the arts, of masterful watercolors by such Cleveland masters as Paul Travis, Frank N. Wilcox and Bill Coombes.
As a youngster O’Sickey took drawing classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and he and his brother spent hours copying famous paintings; while a student at East Tech High School in the mid-’30s, he attended free evening classes in life drawing with Travis and Ralph Stoll at the John Huntington Art and Polytechnic Institute, and Saturday classes at the Cleveland School (later the Cleveland Institute) of Art, where he earned his degree in 1940 under the tutelage of Travis, Stoll and such other legendary figures as Henry Keller, Carl Gaertner, William Eastman, Kenneth Bates...
Category
1980s Contemporary Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor
Mountain and Sky, Deer Island, Maine
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Mountain and Sky, Deer Island, Maine
Watercolor on paper, 1985
Signed in ink lower right corner
From the artist's 1985 sketchbook
Done while at their summer home in Deer Island, Main...
Category
1980s Abstract Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor
20th Centry Still Life with Fruit Bowl watercolor painting, Cleveland artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life with Fruit Bowl
Watercolor and ink on paper
Signed lower left
11 x 14 inches
...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor, Ink
Untitled 20th Century Still Life w/ Table & Flowers by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Untitled, 1994
Pastel and oil on paper
Signed and dated lower right
19.5 x 25.5 inches
...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil, Pastel
20th century abstract still life by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life
Oil and graphite on paper
Signed lower left
12.25 x 18.75 inches
Joseph O'Si...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil, Graphite
Summer Trees, 20th Century Landscape Watercolor Painting by Cleveland Artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Summer Trees
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower right
11.5 x 15.5 inches
Joseph O'Sickey...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor
Horseback Riders in Sunny Landscape, 20th Century, Cleveland Artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Horseback Riders
Pastel on brown paper
Signed lower left
9.5 x 12.5 inches
Joseph O'S...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Pastel
20th Century Industrial Cityscape Oil painting, Cleveland School Artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Industrial Cityscape
Oil on paper
Signed lower left
13.75 x 16.5 inches
Joseph O'Sicke...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Horses in Landscape, Late 20th Century Watercolor by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Horses in Landscape
Watercolor and graphite on paper
Signed lower right
15 x 22 inches
...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Graphite, Watercolor
Stable Scene, 20th century horse and barn watercolor by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Stable Scene
Watercolor and graphite on paper
Signed lower right
9 x 12.25 inches
Josep...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Graphite, Watercolor
20th Century Interior Still Life with Chair and Flowers pastel & oil painting
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Interior Still Life with Chair and Flowers
Pastel and oil on green paper
Signed lower ri...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil, Pastel
Picnic, 20th Century Watercolor Table Outdoor Still Life, Cleveland Artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Picnic
Watercolor and ink on paper
Signed lower left
14.75 x 22 inches
Joseph O'Sickey,...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor, Ink
Mid-20th Century abstract geometric oil painting by Cleveland School artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Untitled, c. 1950
Oil on paper
Signed lower right
12.5 x 19 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, bo...
Category
1950s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Sunflowers and Horses in Field, 20th Century Landscape Watercolor
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Sunflowers in Field
Watercolor on paper
Signed lower left
12.5. x 19 inches
Joseph O'Si...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Watercolor
Still Life with Oriental Instrument and Cat, Vibrant 20th Century Interior scene
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life with Oriental Instrument and Cat, 1998
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower r...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Autumn Garden Still Life, Large Landscape Tablescape, Ohio artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Autumn Garden Still Life, 1990
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
54 x 72 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Still Life with Table and Pheasant & Owl, Blue Exterior & Interior tablescape
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life with Pheasant and Owl
Oil and pastel on canvas
Signed lower left
60 x 72 inch...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Pastel, Oil
Still Life with Fruit & Patterned Blanket, Exterior Landscape and Table scene
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life with Fruit & Blanket
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
50 x 42 inches
52.5 x 4...
Category
Late 20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
October Terrace, Colorful Landscape Still Life with Trees, Flowers
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
October Terrace, 1992
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
72 x 62 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Horses Prepared to Perform and Circus Truck, Contemporary American Modern
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Horses Prepared to Perform and Circus Truck, Circus Series, 1991
Oil on canvas
Signed an...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Still Life with Wine Bottle, Interior scene of tablescape
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Still Life with Wine Bottle, c. 1980
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
24 x 30 inches
...
Category
1980s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Terrace in Shade, Summer Garden Still Life Scene
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Terrace in Shade, 1980
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated upper right
48 x 60 inches
Joseph...
Category
1980s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Two Owls, 20th Century Purple & Green Owls
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Two Owls
Oil on board
15 x 10.5 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a ...
Category
20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Hats, Vibrant 21st century turquoise, pink, purple still life interior scene
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Hats, 2000
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
48 x 54 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, ...
Category
Early 2000s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Vases with Sunflowers, Interior Colorful Still Life w/ Chair
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Vases with Sunflowers, c. 1980
Oil on canvas
60 x 72 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art...
Category
1980s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Horse and Sulky, Stable and Jockey Scene
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Horse and Sulky, 1982
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
24.5 x 29.5
Exhibited: Canton Mus...
Category
1980s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
At the Stable, Landscape Scene with Horse and Jockey
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
At the Stable, 2000
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
29 x 36 inches
Joseph ...
Category
Early 2000s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Garden Series: Garden Behind Studio, Vibrant Landscape Still Life with Guitar
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Garden Series: Garden Behind Studio, 1991
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
36 x 42 inch...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Autumn Riders and Red Wing Black Birds, 1993 - Horse & Riders in Landscape
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Autumn Riders and Red Winged Black Birds, 1993
Oil ...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Still Life Interior with Green Chair, 1996 - Post-Impressionist Ohio Artist
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Interior with Green Chair, 1996
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
36 x 30 inche...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
April, 1965 - Colorful Man with Kite
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
April, 1965
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
30 x 24 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in D...
Category
1960s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Still Life Interior with Indian Cloths and Mandolin, 1990
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Work sold to benefit the CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Interior with Indian Cloths, 1990
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
34 x 30 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art...
Category
1990s Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Colorful Landscape Still Life, 20th Century Post-Impressionism
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Landscape with Blue Chair
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
23 x 18 inches
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher throughout his career. As a child he attended Saturday classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which retains one of his paintings in its permanent collection, and the Cleveland Institute of Art, where he received a Bachelor's degree in 1940.
He graduated from the Cleveland School of Art (now the Cleveland Institute of Art) in 1940 and taught at Ohio State University (1946-47), Akron Art Institute (1949-52), Western Reserve University School of Architecture (1956-64), and Kent State University (1964-89).
Among the most honored painters active in the region, O'Sickey won the Cleveland Arts Prize in Visual Arts in 1974, and was called "a dean of painting in Northeast Ohio" by Steven Litt, art and architecture critic of the Plain Dealer.
However, his work continued to develop through his 20s, strongly influenced by post...
Category
20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Large Colorful Backyard Landscape Still Life
By Joseph O'Sickey
Located in Beachwood, OH
Joseph B. O’Sickey (American, 1918–2013)
Backyard Landscape
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
5'10" x 6'7"
Joseph O'Sickey, born in Detroit in 1918, was a painter and teacher through...
Category
20th Century Post-Impressionist Joseph O'Sickey Art
Materials
Oil
Joseph O'sickey art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Joseph O'Sickey art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Joseph O'Sickey in paint, oil paint, watercolor and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Post-Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Joseph O'Sickey art, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Donald Roy Purdy, Charles Levier, and Georges Henri Manzana Pissarro. Joseph O'Sickey art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $950 and tops out at $34,500, while the average work can sell for $4,935.
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