PAINTINGS / WORKS ON PAPER:

An important and historically unique portratit of Benjamin Franklin done by means of an experimental electrical process.

With Franklin putting lightning in a bottle, electricity was one the most experimented forms of science in the Age of Enlightenment. Already revered as a Scientist worldwide, Franklin served as a diplomat to France following the American Revolution where he was known as “The Great American.”

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This deceptively simple work is subtle but remarkably indelible. It is attributed to "The Checkerboard Artist" of Somerset County, PA and relates to a small group of wall boxes and chests that share a common aesthetic and craftsmanship of incised, geometric design and a harmonious color palette of red, green, yellow, and black. This panel is the only non-utilitarian work associated with this maker.

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A collection of four works by Lee Cordova Spooner. Spooner was a visionary inventor of self-propulsion and self-defense. Two of these works are from Blue Mound, Illinois and two from St. Charles, Missouri (one on the back of a St. Charles hotel stationary).

From the WLD Foundation’s website: Little is known about the life of this highly original artist. L.C. Spooner's work, created between 1911 and 1935, is comprised entirely of plans of machines or everyday-life objects based on the principle of self-propulsion (self-propelled motors, self-propelled trash cans, self-propelled scales, self-propelled finger-lifter, etc.).

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Beautifully painted and detailed dog portrait in its original gilt metal pendant case.

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A favorite Branchard landscape with divided fields over Putnam Valley, NY. Has a bit of a Grant Wood feel to it. Branchard's work is currently included in the traveling museum exhibit, Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America.

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Edwin Lawson, a professor of architecture who died in 1980, left behind a cache of drawings he created in the 1970s that revealed a fantasy world his wife was unaware of. The large-scale pencil and crayon drawings illustrate Lawson cross-dressed as a woman in historic fashions from the 1880s to the 1960s.

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Exceptional Folk Art portrait of a pug wearing an orange bow-tied harness on flowered carpet in front of a red velvet curtain. One of the very best folk art dog paintings I have seen.

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Around 1900, this pioneering woman, California artist, had an experience that changed the direction of her painting from portraits to more personal, spiritualist paintings. “An inspiration born… [unto her], she sat, half asleep and half a-wake....she seemed, a dream figure, looking into space, into the future, the mother-heart questioning the Fates as to the future of her child.”

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Striking in its modern composition and brilliant color, this large pastel drawing by Henry Dousa depicts a herd of cattle shown at World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

Henry Dousa is known for his iconic Folk Art painting, “The Farm of Henry Windle,” where he illustrates an out-of-scale giant steer. In this masterwork, Dousa arranges five cattle like pips on a die. A single sire, named, “Gay Harry,” is surrounded by four heifers, “Kitty Walls,” “Kitty Mayo,” “Cherry May,” and “Model.” Gay Harry won second place at the Grand Sweepstakes.

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This remarkable watercolor from 1822 is one of the earliest American asylum works extant and likely the earliest in private hands. Further, it is attributed to Richard Nisbett (1753-1823), a published author and poet of note, and a patient at Philadelphia Hospital's asylum ward.

The painting is inscribed on the lower left, "1822. Painted by a maniac confined in the cells of the Alms House—the design his own." It is initialed "J.P.H" for John Pennington Hopkinson (1801-1836). Dr. John P. Hopkinson was a Philadelphia physician, author, and professor and was the son of Congressman Joseph Hopkinson, and Francis Hopkinson's grandchild, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

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Ida Ella Jones, the daughter of a former slave, had ten children and at the age of seventy-two began painting. Self-taught, her work focuses on local (Chester County, PA) landscapes, still-lifes and Biblical stories. Mockorange, (Philadelphus), is a shrub with a citrus scent and has white blossoms that bloom in the late spring to early summer.

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A beautiful, small work with a compelling composition of two mountain peaks. The verso with an equally beautiful landscape.

Room 521 in the expanded and rehung Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to past director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and his groundbreaking exhibit of 1938, "Masters of Popular Painting." The show focused on self-taught and artists removed from the mainstream market or as they were called then, "folk artists, or naives," today we may term them as "outsiders." Emile Branchard was one of the artists represented in that seminal exhibit.

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A sensitively painted small work with a very specific light quality to the early night sky.

Room 521 in the expanded and rehung Museum of Modern Art is dedicated to past director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., and his groundbreaking exhibit of 1938, "Masters of Popular Painting." The show focused on self-taught and artists removed from the mainstream market or as they were called then, "folk artists, or naives," today we may term them as "outsiders." Emile Branchard was one of the artists represented in that seminal exhibit.

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This extraordinary and ambitious painting is by an unidentified painter named, "Rodriguez" (signed lower right).

The hedonistic painting illustrates several nude women embracing a capital vice (lust, vanity, greed, wrath, sloth, and envy) while a gluttonous man drinks wine and gorges on watermelon bananas.

The cavernous landscape hints at death with grottos that mimic the shape of human skulls with dark, vacant eye sockets.

While not all the vignettes are precise, which sin they portray, some like the woman transforming into a Jaguar in front of a bifurcated snake is quite remarkable—as is the woman straddled on a large flying dragon.

The whole has the feeling of Gustave Dore illustrations for Dante’s Inferno and The Divine Comedy.

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In 1946 Forrest Bess found himself as a painter. Although Bess had produced works in the 1930’s, it was not until 1946 that Bess, at the urging of his psychiatrist had he began to record the colorful visions that were troubling him. The visions were likely brought on from the trauma he suffered from being beaten by a fellow Army mate as a consequence of his homosexuality. In this year, Bess produced a wide range of work; representational, abstract and symbolic paintings. About this period, Bess expressed to his dealer, Betty Parsons, “Only by painting the goddamned thing out have all my symptoms of anxiety disappeared.” It was these works that got him through his PTSD and on his way to the visionary painter he would become.

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Though created for scientific purposes, this striking image of the male body with its stark composition and delicate tonal ranges of cyan has an unintentional air of reverence—a haunting witness mark—not unlike the Shroud of Turin or a Buddhist scroll.

In a recently published essay by Lita Tirak, Tirak reveals that the innovative radiographs were created by a General Electric technologist named Harold Mahoney. Mahoney was a formally trained artist by way of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Arts Students League of New York and became a radiologist during WWI.

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Though created for scientific purposes, this image of a male inner torso is strikingly beautiful with its deep blue tonal range and confrontational subject.

In a recently published essay by Lita Tirak, Tirak reveals that the innovative radiographs were created by a General Electric technologist named Harold Mahoney. Mahoney was a formally trained artist by way of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Arts Students League of New York and became a radiologist during WWI.

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So very 1960s. Bold yarn textile of a VERY BIG EYE.

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A collection of over one hundred variations of the cross painted by Clara Bella Dunham (1901-1967). Though the cross is now primarily associated with Christianity, it is an ancient symbol used by past cultures throughout time and the world over. 84 shown here - there are about 125 total. Displayed together they make a powerful installation.

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A rare John Kane double-sided pencil sketch. Kane is regarded as one of the masters of self-taught American artists.

On the above or recto, note how Kane makes room for the hands to complete the sketch—he ran out of room while drawing the figure's arms, so he placed them to the lower left. Above the hands, Kane lists 18th-19thC English painters that he must have been studying.

The verso illustrates a young boy in a Highlander outfit (Kane would use this figure in a few finished paintings). The writing on this side lists the colors of the rainbow (Roy G. Biv).

Provenance: Galerie St. Etienne

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Painted on a window shade mounted on early plywood with original artist painted frame. A Virginia Housescape with couple on Bench looking at a dog barking up a tree. Wonderfully flat and folky.

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Super graphic early watercolor on paper of a German Folk Art family tree. Have not done the research into the family - some of the names observed are Hoffman; Steiner; Pabst; and Haberman.

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Unusual tole painting on a tin substrate (maybe a tray). The bear is strikingly (and maybe a bit unsettling) anthropomorphic.

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This is a remarkable illustration by an as of yet unidentified artist. The adeptly rendered nude figure and intricate design are masterfully worked and executed. It appears that the male figure to the center-left is a self-portrait and the large woman in the center and little vignettes are the same woman. A key is illustrated to the bottom center-left.

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This large Tichý monotype adds an element of art history beyond Tichý's persistant subject of the female. The apple adds a Biblical element and possibly represents Eve as a temptress.

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This small monotype is one of my favorites, as it exemplifies Tichý's improvisational process as it is clear he used a shard of broken plastic or glass as the etching ground—the image is hazy and has a dark vignette much like his photographs.

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In 2005 Stephen Brown had a stroke and a pulmonary embolism. In 2006, while driving home past an orchard, he noticed a pear tree in the exact shape of his stroke on the x-ray he had brought home. He instantly knew that the pear tree's pruning and regrowth duplicated the shape in his brain. Thus began his small series of paintings and pastels of this pear tree—a catharsis of healing. Writing in the 2012 "Legacy" catalog, colleague and dear friend Walter Hall wrote "These paintings are about rising above the daunting forces that threaten or obstruct one's way; both defiant and life-affirming, the vitality of the new branches, shooting up from the gnarled, suffering trunks, presents a noble and exhilarating image of the irrepressibility of the will to live."

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The large memory painting calls to mind the work of George Morgan, who composed memory paintings from a bird's-eye's perspective. Intuitively we use this aerial device as a method of recall.

A massive wave of Latvian immigrants came to the United States after World War II. Having Suffered through Soviet and Nazi occupations, hundreds of thousands fled and spent years in European refugee camps before some of them immigrated to the United States in the early 1950s.

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This unsigned, but dated group of folk art drawings, completed over a few weeks in July and August 1936, capture the quaint insight into the world of an unknown artist.

The unknown, but proudly Texan artist illustrates a family gathering, the interior, and exterior of a small home, church, school, farm life and a couple in a field of bluebonnets. The renderings are drafted with a good sense of composition, perspective, and handling of the graphite.

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(ul) Hudson River Brick Factories; (ur) Meatpacking District; (ll) Brooklyn Bridge; (lr) Westside Passenger Piers.

Kronengold was born in New Orleans and studied at New York’s Art Student League and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In the late 20’s and 30’s he was a leading cover illustrator for the New Yorker.

These four small, en plein air, paintings exhibit an assured handling of paint with broad strokes and blocks of color that readily define the space and light of scenes in and around New York City.

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A striking example of Clark's work with a female alien named "Desire" in the center panel. Unusually Clark uses loosened ink, similar to watercolor and a couple of the sections surrounding the figure. Titled on top, "MY NAME IS DESIRE FROM THE PLANET CALLED PLEASURE I AM HERE TO SERVE YOU WITH WHATEVER YOU WISH."

His street name was "The Magnificent Pretty Boy," because of his good looks and intense blue eyes. Armed with a sixth grade education, a life of drug dealing and hustling, Clark found himself in and out of the Texas penitentiary system until an assault landed him there on an extended stay.

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Byrne came into painting at 87 years of age and while living at a rest home like George E. Morgan. He got his inspiration from newspaper clippings and local real estate advertisements. Although known for his semi-abstract architectural works, Byrne loved to paint animals as well.

This work with its stark composition reminds one of Bill Traylor’s animal paintings.

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A highly engaging work with insight into a San Francisco Bay Area tattoo parlor. Though the subjects and tattoo artists are unknown, they likely represent real people. I find the use of the ancient technique of reverse painting on glass a surprising, but effective choice.

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Early portrait of a good-looking, young African_american man holding a walking stick and wearing a fine black suit and a sharo blue bowtie.

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Provenance: Peter Brams from Diego Cortez.

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A unique work of a carved "photo" album with carved panels inset with oval paintings of various landscapes. Story is that this was made as a loven token from a husband to his his wife, as a memory of the various places that they had traveled.

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Iconic old growth oak tree on the Vineyard.

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Washington occasionally did wood block prints - they are the perfect compliment to his sculpture - the carved lines of the wood block echo his carving of stone.

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