Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Janice Haefner
'Blue Pierrot', Large Figural Oil, California Modernist, Woman Artist, Los Altos

Circa 1960

About the Item

Signed lower right, 'Haefner' for Janice Haefner (American, 1919-2002) and painted circa 1960; additionally signed, verso, and with artist address. This life-time member of the Pacific Art League lived in Los Altos, Palo Alto and Carmel where she painted and exhibited with success for over fifty years. A substantial figural oil showing a dramatic frontal view of a young man dressed in the costume of the stock member of the Commedia dell'arte. The artist offers us a bold, forward perspective on this traditional theatrical character that successive art movements over the centuries have adapted in different ways to fill their evolving needs. The Symbolists saw Pierrot as a lonely fellow-sufferer, crucified upon the rood of soulful sensitivity, his only friend the distant moon; the Modernists converted him into a Whistlerian subject for canvases devoted to form and color and line. Over time, Pierrot has become an alter-ego of the artist, specifically of the famously alienated artist, and caustic observer, of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Pierrot's often frustrated pursuit of Columbine, coupled with his never-to-be-vanquished unworldly naïveté—have conspired to lift him out of the circumscribed world of the Commedia dell'arte and into the larger realm of myth inhabited by Everyman.
  • Creator:
    Janice Haefner (1919 - 2002)
  • Creation Year:
    Circa 1960
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 38 in (96.52 cm)Width: 26 in (66.04 cm)Depth: 0.75 in (1.91 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    minor marks, restored split to lower stretcher bar, shows well; unframed.
  • Gallery Location:
    Santa Cruz, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU3446699882
More From This SellerView All
  • 'Women with Flowers', Early Los Altos California Modernist, Floral Still Life
    By Janice Haefner
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed verso, on stretcher bar, 'Janice Haefner' (American, 1919-2002) and painted circa 1960. A substantial mid-century, Expressionist figural abstraction showing two women seated ...
    Category

    1960s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • 'Still Life, Roses with Figure Approaching', German Expressionist, Robert Graves
    By Karl Goldschmidt
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed lower left, 'Karl Goldschmidt' (Anglo-German, 1912-1995) and painted circa 1930. Photo of Karl Goldschmidt (Kenneth Gay) with Robert Graves courte...
    Category

    1930s Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • 'Still Life with Florist', Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Large Post-Impressionist
    By Guily Joffrin
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed upper right, "Joffrin" for Guily-Jeanne Joffrin (French, 1909-2007) and painted circa 1965. Photo of the artist in her studio, 1995. Courtesy of Wikipedia. Born in Paris, Joffrin first attended the École Supérieure Sophie-Germain before, in 1928, studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, initially in the studio of Lucien Simon. She continued her studies there for several years in the studios of Jacques Despierre and Lucien Fontanarosa. After receiving her diploma, Joffrin was appointed Professor of Drawing and taught in Paris until 1945, when she began to devote herself exclusively to her career as a fine artist. Over the course of a long career, she exhibited internationally with success including at more than forty exhibitions in France (Paris, Aurillac, Rennes, Strasbourg, Reims, Rodez, Toulouse, Barbizon, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Cannes) as well as in Geneva, Vevey, San Francisco and Tokyo among other cities. The human face was of particular interest to Joffrin and she created many portraits of academic notables including Paul Guth...
    Category

    1960s Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • 'Self Portrait with Orchids', National Association of Women Artists, AWS
    By Leonebel Jacobs
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    An enigmatic and psychologically penetrating self-portrait in vivid shades of yellow, green and red. Signed lower right, 'Leonebel Jacobs' (American, 1883-1967) and painted circa 1945. Writer, sculptor, teacher and portrait painter Leonebel Jacobs first studied under Brush and Charles Hawthorne at the University of Oregon. A well traveled artist, Jacobs lived and painted in China, Hawaii, New York City and Los Angeles. She was a member of the American Watercolor Society, the American Federation of Arts, the Municipal Art Commission of New York, the National Association of Women Artists, the New York Watercolor Club and the Pen & Brush Club. Jacobs spent her early years in the Foreign Colony in Peking, China as a portrait artist to nobles and visiting foreigners, including Rabindranath Tagore. Notably, Jacobs painted several portraits of the Emperor and Empress after they fled to Tianjin when Christian General Feng Yu-Hsiang came to power. Additionally, Jacobs's paintings include Hawaiian notables, former First Ladies Grace Coolidge...
    Category

    1940s Surrealist Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil, Foam Board

  • 'Woman Reclining', Paris, Louvre, Salon d'Automne, Académie Chaumière, LACMA
    By Victor Di Gesu
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed lower right, "Di Gesu" for Victor Di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and painted circa 1965. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attended the Los Angeles Art Cen...
    Category

    1960s Post-Impressionist Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Oil

  • 'Bentwood Chair, High-waist Gown', California Woman Post-Impressionist, Sonoma
    By Jill Davenport
    Located in Santa Cruz, CA
    Signed lower left, 'Davenport' for Jill Davenport (American, 1930-2019) and dated 1987; titled, verso, 'Attic Series - Pink Dress'. Framed dimensions: 31 x 1.5 x 25 inches Born in Kansas, Jill Davenport moved to California in 1963. A lifelong artist and art enthusiast, she raised a family before focusing, in her early forties, on her vocation as an artist. In 1976, she graduated from Sonoma State University with a Bachelors in Art, subsequently continuing her studies with the California Post-Impressionist, Maury Lapp. During this period, her work was primarily representational and her favored medium was oil. In the late 1980's, however, she became an early exponent of computer-aided design and worked with some of the earliest Mac computers...
    Category

    1980s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

You May Also Like
  • The Green Boat
    By Elaine Badgley Arnoux
    Located in Burlingame, CA
    Mid century modern masterwork, 'The Green Boat', by celebrated American woman artist, Elaine Badgley Arnoux. Painted in 1958 in the artists's unique style, ...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Cotton Canvas, Oil

  • Post Impressionist Oil Painting Still Life with Fruit William Meyerowitz WPA Art
    By William Meyerowitz
    Located in Surfside, FL
    William Meyerowitz (1887 - 1981) Oil painting on canvas Depicting a still life scene with fruit bowl, bananas, flowers and quilt. Post Impressionist oil painting. Hand signed low...
    Category

    1930s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • Still Life Oil Painting Betsy Podlach American Post Feminist Modernist Art
    By Betsy Podlach
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Betsy Podlach (American, born 1964.) Still life with Tin Cup, 1996 17.5 X 16.5 inches. Framed it measures 18.25 X 17.25 Betsy Podlach graduated from Harvard, cum laude, (she studied at Harvard with Alfred Decreido and William Reimann as well as Carlos Fuentes continuing her studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, Ms. Podlach was awarded an art fellowship and residency at The International School of Art in Umbria, Italy. Betsy Podlach is an American painter who considers the Italian Venetians and the american abstract expressionist painters her mentors. The two painters she is most inspired by are Titian and Jackson Pollock, Both use the picture plane and abstraction and space, light, movement and form to communicate a physicality built entirely on the principals of painting, in the “classical” sense of a flat plane and lines, color, shape, space and light applied to that flat surface to create magic – light, space, form, emotion, force, movement, the physical and the spiritual. She describes her work as a figurative version of abstract expressionism. She was influenced by many of the abstract expressionists from the NY school...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Henry Ernst Schnakenberg, (Still Life with Scull)
    By Henry Ernst Schnakenberg
    Located in New York, NY
    Henry Schnakenberg is mostly known for New York City scenes. This is clearly a departure. It is signed at the lower left and dated '4-53' on the r...
    Category

    1950s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Surrealist Still Life with Apples, Mid 20th Century Cleveland School Artist
    By Clarence Holbrook Carter
    Located in Beachwood, OH
    Clarence Holbrook Carter (American, 1904-2000) Still Life with Apples, 1940 Oil on canvas Signed and dated upper right 18 x 24 inches Clarence Holbrook Carter achieved a level of na...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • 1940s Still Life with Flowers Oil Painting, Red, Yellow, Blue, Purple
    By John Edward Thompson
    Located in Denver, CO
    Original vintage 1945 oil painting with an interior still life with a vase of flowers, tea cup, and drapery by 20th century Colorado modernist, John E. Thompson (1882-1945). Oil on c...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

Recently Viewed

View All