Walt Kuhn

Portrait of Bert Lahr - Circus Performer - Modernism

1947

Charming portait with Modernest colors. Provenance: Christie's Mercedes Matter, daughter of the artist, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York. Private Collection. Sale: Skinner, Inc...

Broad areas of bold, flat red, magenta, and pink characterize this mid-century painting by Barbara Warren Ebersole ( Barbara Tate Ebersole ). It depicts a block party festooned with balloons and a street organ grinder with a smartly dressed performing monkey. The overall look of a lot mid-century art inspires many of today's most celebrated contemporary artists. Signed and dated upper left. Oil on Masonite. Barbara Warren Ebersole was a painter and an author. She may have been of Native American...

Evergood is decades ahead of his time in shouting out against racial injustice. Painted in the late 1950's KKK is an important work. For Philip Evergood (born Philip Blashki), pain...

Charming portait with Modernest colors. Provenance: Christie's Mercedes Matter, daughter of the artist, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York. Private Collection. Sale: Skinner, Inc...

A modern interpretation of the biblical story Suzanna and the Elders. Signed lower right Ink and wash on paper The Downtown Gallery Felix Landau Gallery Ernest Brown & Phillips, Ltd...

Bob Peak's Lucille Ball, TV guide cover is a seminal work. With its stylized design and use of punchy color, this work constitutes a powerfully innovative pai...

Abram Tromka was born May 1, 1896 in Poland. At the age of seven he immigrated with his family to the United States, settling in New York City. It was on the boat coming to New York where Tromka first became interested in art. Fascinated by a woman who was painting, he decided that he wanted to become an artist. Upon arrival at immigration headquarters, Tromka’s family adopted the surname “Phillips,” which he kept until 1930. Hence the artist’s early works bear the signature — ‘Phillips.’ Having a rough childhood, Tromka left home at 15 and spent the remainder of his teenage years living at the Henry Street...

Presenting a rare, early original oil painting, "Camilla", by American artist Robert McIntosh(1916-2010) McIntosh was extremely prolific and exhibited throughout his lifetime, inclu...

This horizontal painting on canvas contains several layers of color, with textures and transparencies, representing a dreamlike scene where fantastic animals and humans in yellow and...

An original modern abstract portrait of a child by American artist Will Barnet. The work has a letter of provenance from the artist's wife. The i...

Artist: Marshall Goodman, American (1916 - 2003) Title: Young Girl on Couch Year: circa 1960 Medium: Oil on Canvas Size: 24 x 30 in. (60.96 x 76.2 cm) Frame Size: 26.5 x 32 inches

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...