Anton Refregier Figurative Paintings

A Muse - Figurative Study in Oil on Canvas A nude man wearing a sailor hat while he looks down at a woman sitting on sheets of red and blue by American painter, Patricia Gren Hayes ...

Till the Clouds Roll By 1945 Frank Sinatra Mid Century Modern Hollywood Film WPA TILL THE COULDS ROLL BY (Film Set), oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches signed “Richard Whorf” lower right and signed and dated on the verso “R. Whorf/ Dec. 21, 1945. Frame by Hendenryk. ABOUT THE PAINTING This painting is from the collection of Barbara and Frank Sinatra, dated December 21, 1945 (just nine days after Frank Sinatra’s 30th birthday), and depicts the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Culver City backlot during the filming of Till the Clouds Roll By, the direction of the film having been taking over by Richard Whorf in December 1945. It is not presently clear if Whorf gave the Sinatras this painting as a gift, as the presence of the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries label on the verso indicates the painting may have been sourced there. Frank and Nancy Sinatra acquired a number of works from Dalzell Hatfield Galleries during the 1940’s, or perhaps they framed it for the couple. Sinatra performed “Old Man River’ in the film. Sinatra and June Allyson are depicted in the center of the painting. PROVENANCE From the Estate of Mrs. Nancy Sinatra; Dalzell Hatfield Galleries, Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles. An image of the Dalzell Hatfield label and the back of the original frame (which we replaced with a stunning Heydenrk frame) are attached. Nancy Sinatra was Fran's first wife. Nancy Rose Barbato was 17 years old when she met Frank Sinatra, an 18-year-old singer from Hoboken, on the Jersey Shore in the summer of 1934. They married in 1939 at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Jersey City where Frank gave Nancy a recording of a song dedicated to her titled "Our Love" as a wedding present. The young newlyweds lived and worked in New Jersey, where Frank worked as an unknown singing waiter and master of ceremonies at the Rustic Cabin while Nancy worked as a secretary at the American Type Founders. His musical career took off after singing with big band leaders Harry James and Tommy Dorsey...

August Frederick Biehle (1885-1979) Farm in Berlin Heights, c. 1930 Oil on masonite Signed lower right 22 x 30 inches 27.75 x 36 inches, framed A versatile painter who worked in a v...

Neighbors, 1939, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, 22 x 26 inches Norman Barr was an American Scene painter and muralist known for his poignant depictions of working-clas...

Sally Michel Biography American, 1902-2003 Sally Michel Avery was an American painter known for her lyrical depictions of everyday life. Though she used techniques and stylized form...

When I think of where McCauley fits into American art, as a contemporary painter, sculptor and naturalistic interpreter, I place him in the same philosophical tribe as Walton Ford, A...

Abram Tromka ( Polish/ Russian American 1896-1954 ) Hand signed upper center right. Bears label from Marbella Gallery, New York verso "Two Men Praying" (Davening) Dimensions: Sight- ...

Coney Island, Fourth of July, c. 1940s, oil on canvas applied to Masonite, signed upper right, 26 x 21 1/2 inches, presented in its original frame During the 1930s and 40s, Coney I...

When I think of where McCauley fits into American art, as a contemporary painter, sculptor and naturalistic interpreter, I place him in the same philosophical tribe as Walton Ford, A...

Adelaide Lawson Gaylor New York Skyline, circa 1925 Oil on canvas 48 x 45 inches Modernist artist Adelaide Jaffrey Lawson Gaylor was born in New York City and studied at the Art St...

Hans Burkhardt The Artist's Wife (1930) Oil on canvas, 20" x 16" 24" x 20 ½" x 1 ½" framed Dated 1930 lower right recto. Annotated "To Elsa HB Louise Burkhardt 1930. HB" verso. ...

Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 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 from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...