Street Cleaners, c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 28 ¾ x 42 inches, Gallery Z labels verso; exhibited in When Artists Became Workers: The People’s Art Movement of the ‘30s & ‘40s, Works by Jewish Artists in California Collections , Judah L. Magnes Museum, University of California, Berkeley, December 8, 1996 to March 30, 1997 (listed in catalog); illustrated (film) Kaufman, Jeffrey, Brush with Life: The Art of Being Edward Biberman , 2007, (DVD release 2010), 85 mi

Landscape , 1937, oil on canvas applied to panel, signed and dated lower left, 24 x 30 inches $7,500 Arthur Durston was one of California’s leading modernist painters of the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Farnsborough, England, Durston immigrated to the United States and in 1921 studied art in San Francisco. In 1924, he returned to Europe and studied in Paris and England. He exhibited at the Berkeley League of Fine Arts in 1927, the San Francisco Art Association in 1927 through 192

Portrait of Pat , 1936, oil on canvas, 14 x 12, signed and dated lower left, exhibited: San Francisco Museum of Art in 1938 (or 1939); label verso from the museum show includes artist’s name, title of painting and accession number; handwriting verso includes the number “103”, the title “Pat” and Mottram’s Palo Alto address $8,500 John Mottram was a Northern California-based painter, printmaker, and educator. Mottram was born in Towle, California, coming from a gold mining fam

Buffalo Harbor in Wartime, 1943, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 36 x 46 inches, newspaper in foreground bears the headline: "Buffalo Evening News 1000 Bombers Leave Berlin a Sea of Flames, Explosions," inscribed verso "Louisa W. Robins, Buffalo, N.Y.", exhibited: 1) Patteran Society January Show , Albright Art Gallery (now Buffalo AKG Art Museum), Buffalo, NY, December 29, 1943 - January 31, 1944 (see Rohr, Nora Lee, Oil Based on Biblical Text Wins Patteran January Show,

Original Sin (Untitled) , c. 1940, oil on Masonite, signed lower left, estate stamp verso, 20 x 24 inches $7,500 Joseph Vorst is best known for his sensitive and sometimes somber depictions of rural and working-class life during the Great Depression. His subject matter often included farmers, laborers, and religious imagery rendered with a blend of realism and stylized expressionism. In Original Sin , Vorst draws on biblical themes to explore the human condition, morality, an

Horseshoes on Uxbridge Common, 1937, oil on canvas board, signed lower right, 19 x 25 inches, inscribed “Horseshoes on Uxbridge Common/Uxbridge Mass. 1937”; provenance includes Vose Galleries, Boston; Collection of Peggy & Arthur Hittner $6000 Louis (Ludvik) Durchanek's Horseshoes on Uxbridge Common depicts the main square of the small 6500 person town outside of Boston during the mid-1930s. The compact composition contains over twenty figures surrounded by community symbols

Moonlight Shanties , c. 1940s, oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches, signed lower right, signed and titled verso $4,500 In Moonlight Shanties , Joachim depicts a lower-class neighborhood sitting along-side an elevated road or railway which crowds out the small nearby houses and structures. Joachim’s use of an expressionist palette and gestural brushstrokes together with the isolated figures obscured in the shadows, create a feeling of unease, isolation and even loneliness. From the

Worker with Shovel (Cigarette), c. 1950, oil on masonite, signed lower right, 46 x 26 inches, titled verso, Gallery Z label verso; Exhibited: i) Exhibition of New Paintings by Edward Biberman , Chabot Gallery, Los Angeles, CA, February 16 to March 7, 1953 (see Miller, Arthur, In the Galleries , The Los Angeles Times , February 22, 1953, part IV - “Less colorful but excellently drawn and full of human notes are several large paintings of workman in such typical actions as that

Los Angeles , 1927, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 19 x 23 inches, ex collection Sullivan Goss An American Gallery, Santa Barbara, CA (label verso) $7,500 Frode Dann’s Los Angeles is a rare American Scene painting depicting Southern California's largest city in the late 1920s. Painted soon after he immigrated to the United States, the present work demonstrates Dann's engagement with the light and terrain of his new home. His practice bridged European academic tr

Six O-Clock , c. 1942, oil on canvas, 20 x 30 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings , March 21 to May 2, 1943, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label ver

The Candidate , 1933, oil on canvas, 21 x 36 inches, signed and dated lower right $5,500 The Candidate shows Norman Thomas campaigning at the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in New York City. Thomas was the six-time socialist party candidate for the presidency of the United States and the HIAS was founded as a non-profit organization devoted to assisting Jewish people fleeing pogroms and other persecution in eastern Europe. Presumably, the scene comes from the 1932 electi

The Hand of Industry, 1944, oil on canvas, 27 x 25 inches, exhibited 56th Annual of the Society of Chicago Painters , July, 1945, Findlay Galleries, Chicago, IL; titled and exhibition history indicated in pencil (verso); remnants of exhibition labels (verso).  Referenced in Jewett, Eleanor, Life on Home Front Theme of Art Show , The Chicago Tribune , July 22, 1945; presented in its original frame $4,500 In 1916, expressing the conventional, pro-industry sentiment of the coun

Arizona Landscape , 1935, oil on canvas, 24 ½ x 19 ½ inches, unsigned, exhibited at the Twenty-Eighth Indiana Artists Exhibition , John Herron Art Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana, Spring, 1935 (label verso). Referenced in New Indiana Art Trend Shown by Canvases at State Exhibit , The Indianapolis News , March 18, 1935; City Association First to Sponsor Project in State, Palladium Item  (Richmond, Indiana), April 6, 1935; and Several Visits Necessary For Full Appreciation of E

Mural Study for The Armistice Letter – Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania Post Office, c. 1938, watercolor on paper, 5 ½ x 10 ½ inches (unframed sheet), 12 ¾ x 16 ½ inches (framed sheet), initialed “EH” lower right, inscribed lower left “11/16 = 1 foot”, inscribed “Eugene Higgins” verso of original backing material $1,250 The Treasury Department's Section of Fine Art (Section) commissioned Eugene Higgins to create a mural for the Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania Post Office. A generation

Knight’s Lodging, 1941, oil on canvas panel, signed and dated lower left, 16 x 20 inches, exhibited: 1) 6th Annual Exhibition , Massilllon Museum November 2 to December 1, 1941, no. 50; 2) 59th Annual , Portland Maine, March, 1942; 3) 4th Annual , Parkersburg, West Virginia, May, 1942; 4) Spring Salon , Butler Art Institute, May, 1943; 5) Canfield Fair , Canfield, Ohio, September, 1944 and 6) USO Exhibition , Youngstown, Ohio; presented in original painted frame $2750 But

The Gripes of Rats , c. 1939, oil on canvas, 36 x 30 inches, verso has label from Exhibition of Works by California Artists, Golden Gate International Exposition , San Francisco, California, May 25 through September 29, 1940, #2021, with Artist’s name (G. Hawthorne Cove), Address (Lomita Park P.O.), Title (Gripes of Rats) and Medium (oil) $4,500 In The Gripes of Rats, Grace Hawthorne Cove introduces the beloved American author, John Steinbeck, to the famous Spanish master Fra

Farm Tragedy (Untitled) , c. 1930s, mixed media on plaster on panel, unsigned, 22 1/8 x 32 inches; label verso reads: "New York Artists Equity Association, New York, NY," provenance includes estate of the artist, the artist's sister, Artist Equity Association $8,500 Louis Goodman Ferstadt was a Ukrainian-born American artist renowned for his work as a painter, muralist, and comics illustrator. Born in Berestechko, then part of the Russian Empire, Ferstadt immigrated to Chicag

Civilization, c. 1948, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 x 24 inches, label verso reads “Eugene M. Dyczkowski / Grand Inland, N. Y. / Civilization,” inscribed verso in the artist’s hand: “Eugene M. Dyckowski / Grand Island N. Y. Price [illegible],” Rochester NY Framer’s stamp verso and titled “Civilization,” exhibited: Buffalo Society of Artist’s Exhibition , Albright Art Gallery (AKG Art Museum), October, 1948 (see Gallery Presents Buffalo as Artists See It; Waterfront Sc

Third Class Carriage (Down South), c. 1942 - 45, oil on canvas, 24 x 29 inches, labels verso read: "Painting by Mervin Honig / #9 Down South / Rhoda Sherbell / 64 Jane Court / Westbury L.I.N.Y / 11590 / 1-516-334-6153" and inscribed verso: "Title: Third Class Carriage / Mervin and sister Phoebe are the children / The adults are his father Joseph & the women [illegible] his mother / Uncle Phil is sleeping" $4,250 Mervin Honig was a New York-based painter and illustrator who is

Jones & Laughlin Mills (Untitled) , 1934, oil on panel, signed lower right, 20 x 24 inches, signed and dated August, 1934 verso, inscribed "Miss Perry" verso, nails from old exhibition label verso; literature: Oh, for the Life of a Carnegie Tech Artist on a Breezy Hilltop This Weather! , The Pittsburgh Press , July 29, 1934 (illustration featuring the artist painting this work (or a study for this work)) SOLD Bernice Perry Sutton was an American painter who worked mainly in P