Watercolor Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

David Rathman is known for his sensitively rendered paintings of stereotypically male motifs from American history and contemporary culture. He was the recipient of a Bush Foundatio...

Howard Tangye (b.1948, Australia) has been an influential force in fashion for decades. Lecturing at London’s Central Saint Martins for 35 years, including 16 years as head of BA Wom...

This vintage 36" x 56.5" Japanese Byobu screen painting is by an unknown artist from the Tosa School of Art depicting a 'Garaku,' a Noh dance bei...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) Lobstermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts, circa 1943 Watercolor on paper Sight 17 1/2 x 23 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Private Collection, Las Vegas, Nevada In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Charming watercolor of a seated white cat with a rich green background color by California artist Elizabeth Bourdet (American, 1926-1977). Signed "Elizabeth ...

Provocative watercolor, gouache on paper Balinese tribal artwork. Not signed. Circa 1950. Condition is very good. No issues. Finely painted and meticulously detailed artwork of a ta...

This Ink and watercolour masterpiece is featured in Bloomsbury's 2011 publication, showcasing the artist's sketchbook (Note 1). Created en plein air, Shizico Yi painted this piece in...

A really charming view of figures on a street by an Lake Como James T Herve D'Egville (1806-1880) Figures on hilly street with lake Como beyond Signed Watercolour 8 x 5¼ inches with...

Howard Tangye (b.1948, Australia) has been an influential force in fashion for decades. Lecturing at London’s Central Saint Martins for 35 years, includi...

Marta Lebek is a Polish artist born in 1978. She currently lives and works in Spain. She studied at the School of Fine Arts and specialized in the departm...

Anne Diggory (b. 1951) The Racetrack Paddock and Thoroughbred Owners, Saratoga Springs New York, circa 1978 Watercolor on paper 9 x 12 inches Signed and d...

Howard Tangye (b.1948, Australia) has been an influential force in fashion for decades. Lecturing at London’s Central Saint Martins for 35 years, including 16 years as head of BA Womenswear. There, he tutored many contemporary greats, including John Galliano, Stella McCartney, Christopher Kane, Wes Gordon, Zac Posen and Hussein Chalayan. Examples of Tangye’s portraits are held in many important collections, both public and private, including the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), Harvard University and London’s National Portrait Gallery. Throughout his teaching career Tangye quietly developed a particularly idiosyncratic art practice. By employing a decisive line with bold applications of richly layered materials, Tangye explores the nuances of the human form in an effort to expose his subjects’ true essence and energy. — Howard Tangye Natasha (Sitting), 2012 Mixed media on Pergamenata parchment 100 x 70 cm (39.37 x 27.55 in) (signed) (unframed) — This portrait shows Natasha, an ex-student and model. Here she’s posed in Howard’s studio wearing a look from Louise Gray’s S/S 2013 collection. The collection featured headwear by Stephen Jones, the renowned British milliner who created the cut-out plexiglass fascinator Natasha wears here. This work hails from a series commissioned by Dan Thawley, director of “A Magazine Curated By” for the edition guest edition by Jones who dedicated his issue to Anna Piaggi...