Benavente Solis Landscape Paintings

Watercolour and gouache on paper of sailing boats at a quay side. The painting is signed bottom right but as yet undeciphered and dated 1945. Presented in a patinated wood custom fra...

"Three Colored Hibiscus" is an abstract expressionist painting by Romina Milano where a dance of black gestures unfolds across colorful brushstrokes infused with raw emotion. Romin...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1971 by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wonderful representation of his landscape paintings, with expressive use of color, shape, and form. Later in his career, Baxte explores Expressionism, infusing both European and North American stylistic trends. This piece is from later in his career, but we can feel this underlying style throughout. Art measures 18 x 21.75 inches Michael Posner Baxte was born in 1890 in the small town of Staroselje Belarus, Russia. For the first half of the 19th century it was a center of the Chabad movement of Hasidic Jews, but this group was gone by the middle of the 19th century. By the time the Baxte family immigrated to the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, the Jewish population numbered only on the hundreds. The native language of the Baxte family was Yiddish. It is likely that the death of Michael Baxte’s father triggered the family’s immigration. Three older brothers arrived in New York between 1903 and 1905. Michael and his mother, Rebecca, arrived in 1907. By 1910 Michael, his mother, and brother, Joseph, were living in New Orleans and may have spent some time on a Louisiana plantation. Around 1912, Michael Baxte returned to Europe to study the violin. In 1914 he, his mother, and Joseph moved to New York City. Meanwhile, in Algeria, a talented young woman painter, Violette Mege, was making history. Since for the first time, a woman won the prestigious Beaux Art competition in Algeria. At first, the awards committee denied her the prize but, with French government intervention, Mege eventually prevailed. She won again 3 years later and, in 1916, used the scholarship to visit the United States of America. When Violette came to New York, she met Baxte, who was, by then, an accomplished violinist, teacher, and composer. Baxte’s compositions were performed at the Tokyo Imperial Theater, and in 1922 he was listed in the American Jewish Yearbook as one of the prominent members of the American Jewish community. As a music teacher he encouraged individual expression. Baxte stated, “No pupil should ever be forced into imitation of the teacher. Art is a personal experience, and the teacher’s truest aim must be to awaken this light of personality through the patient light of science.” By 1920 Michael Baxte and Violette Mege were living together in Manhattan. Although they claimed to be living as husband and wife, it seems that their marriage did not become official until 1928. On their “unofficial” honeymoon around 1917, in Algiers, Baxte confided to her his ambition to paint. There and later in New Mexico where the wonderful steeped sunlight approximates the coloring of Algiers, she taught him his heart’s desire. He never had any other teacher. She never had any other pupil. For ten years she devoted all her time, energy, and ambition to teaching, encouraging, inspiring him. Then in 1928, their mutual strivings were rewarded, as his works were being chosen as one of the two winners in the Dudensing National Competition for American Painters. Out of 150 artists from across the country participated in the Dudensing, and Michael Posner Baxte and, Robert Fawcett, were the winners. In his 1924 naturalization application, he indicated that he was sometimes known as “Michael Posner Baxte.” One of the witnesses to his application was Bernard Karfiol, a Jewish American artist. That’s when Michael may...

'Notre Dame de Paris II', gouache on paper, by Lucien Génin (circa 1930s). One of two paintings of Notre Dame by this artist held by our gallery, it is also an absolutely charming and now, historic depiction from the 1930s, of the most famous cathedral in France. This version uses more exaggerated brushstrokes with strong colours attesting to its expressionist roots. Notre Dame is one of the most widely recognised symbols of the city of Paris and the French nation. As the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Paris, Notre-Dame contains the cathedra of the Archbishop of Paris. Approximately 12 million people visit Notre-Dame annually, making it the most visited monument in the city. While undergoing renovation and restoration, the roof of Notre-Dame caught fire on the evening of 15 April 2019. Burning for around 15 hours, the cathedral sustained serious damage. The government of France hopes the reconstruction can be completed by Spring 2024, in time for the opening of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Unlike the actual cathedral, this artwork is in good condition, is newly framed and glazed and signed by the artist in the lower right hand corner. Upon request a video may be provided. About the Artist: After the devastation of the First World War, Lucien Génin (1894 - 1953) left his provincial home in the autumn of 1919 to find his fortune among the lively Parisians in the heart of Montmartre. Génin befriended the painters Frank Will, Gen Paul, Émile Boyer, Marcel Leprin...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the Mid Century by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wond...

Dzidra Bauma (1930) Dzidra Bauma works in watercolor technique. She paint figural compositions, portraits, landscapes, flowers and still life. She is one of the most productive wate...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1962 by Russian painter Michael Baxte. Mostly known for his abstracted figures on canvas or street scenes, this piece is a wonderful repre...

A fine expressionist oil on canvas by Paullette Fedarb, 'Cedar of Lebanon'. oil on canvas circa 1970's. The painting has an allover medative, rhythmic...

In the picturesque Charlevoix region of northern Quebec sits a string of villages on the St. Lawrence River. Bruno Cote has captured a classic scene of a sm...

'Row of Plane Trees In Winter - Maussane-les-Alpilles', Provence, watercolour and pencil on art paper, by Yves Brayer (1946). A line of Plane trees greets visitors to almost every vi...

In a small town. 1969, paper, watercolor, 36x48 cm Dzidra Bauma (1930) Dzidra Bauma works in watercolor technique. She paint figural compositions, portraits, landscapes, flowers an...

Sterling Strauser (1907-1995). Dorothy and Jasper, Crystal Street Station, 1970. Oil on masonite panel, 11.5 x 22.25 inches. Signed and dated lower right. Very good condition with no damage or conservation. Unframed. Framing services available. Image depicts the artist's wife, Dorothy Strauser, walking the beloved family cat, Jasper. In the background can be seen the East Stroudsburg Pa Train Depot on Crystal Street. Provenance: Estate of the artist's Granddaughter, Princeton NJ. Often called a romantic expressionist and American intimist, self-taught Pennsylvania artist Sterling Strauser (1907-1995) completed his first oil painting in 1922- inspired by frequent visits to the collection of American folk art at the Everhardt Museum in Scranton. Throughout the following seven decades of his career, Strauser’s artistic pursuit was based on his own intuition and determination to paint what he saw, rather than adhering to the conventional pictorial structures prescribed by prevailing styles at the time. Strauser rejected pretension, believing instead that art should work from life as it was lived. His oeuvre therefore serves as an extremely personal record of his observations and experiences from his lifetime painting in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. Beginning early in his career, Strauser took his inspiration from American regionalists and traditional realists in the Ashcan style, as well as European movements such as Fauvism and Cubism, yet he eventually developed his own fluid realism based on subject matter beloved and familiar to him- family and friends, local landscapes and floral still lifes. Known for his distorted pictorial space, exaggerated with vivid color, heavy impasto and an intensity of emotion, Strauser was adept at altering and rearranging the details and aspects of any given form to create a new kind of beauty. "All a painting has to do, or a piece of sculpture, or whatever, is to entertain the critical eye. You have to have a fresh seeing eye… to look at things like a child, as if looking at the world for the first time (seeing) something that somebody else doesn’t see, something you want to identify with… Painting is largely a matter of evaluation. (It) doesn’t matter how much it looks like the subject matter. It just depends on how interesting you have made it so that it pleases the critical eye." STERLING STRAUSER, STERLING STRAUSER: A MODERNIST REVISTED, P. 23 Sterling exhibited his work extensively throughout the country and drew the attention of many notable fellow artists including Milton Avery, Louise Nevelson, David Burliuk, Chaim Gross and Red Grooms. Sterling was also extremely influential within the arts community of Pennsylvania through his discovery and promotion of self-taught American Folk artists such as Justin McCarthy, Jack Savitsky, Joseph Gatto...