Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 16

Lena Gurr
American Woman Artist Modernist Large Oil Painting Cubist Influenced Landscape

c.1940s

About the Item

A beautiful wooded landscape scene with houses and trees. Painted on a masonite board. hand signed lower right. with framers label verso. Framed to 40 X 55 inches. 33 X 48 without the frame and mat. It is not dated. Lena Gurr (1897–1992), was an American woman artist who made paintings, prints, and drawings During the course of her career Gurr's compositions retained emotional content as they evolved from a naturalistic to a semi-abstract cubist style. Born into a Russian-Jewish Yiddish speaking immigrant family, she was the wife of Joseph Biel, also Russian-Jewish and an artist of similar genre and sensibility. Gurr used Lena Gurr as her professional name. After marrying Joseph Biel she was sometimes referred to as Lena Gurr Biel. Biel had been born in Grodno, Poland (later absorbed into Russia) and had lived in England, France, and Australia before coming to New York. An artist, he specialized in landscape paintings and silkscreen printing as well as photography. He studied art at the Russian Academy in Paris. After immigrating to the United States, he studied under George Grosz at the Arts Students League. Gurr was born in Brooklyn and, apart from brief stays in Manhattan and in Paris, lived there her whole life. This painting bears the influence of Lyonel Feininger an influential German American artist. Gurr began studying art at a young age. In 1919 she studied painting and printmaking at the Educational Alliance Art School and between 1920 and 1922 she won a scholarship to attend the Art Students League where she took classes with John Sloan and Maurice Sterne. In 1926 and 1928 Gurr participated in group shows at the Whitney Studio Club in Greenwich Village and in 1928 she also participated in the 12th annual exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists at the Waldorf Roof in New York. (Reviewing this show, Helen Appleton Read, the critic for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, said "I made three discoveries on my first visit, Thomas Nagel, Eugenie McEvoy and Lena Gurr with two figure compositions which have something of Marie Laurencin or Helene Perdriat quality of naive sophistication.") The Waldorf Roof was a set of rooms on the top floor of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, one of which had glass sides and a glass roof. The rooms were used for concerts, dances, benefits, and exhibitions.From 1929 to 1931 Gurr took a leave of absence from her teaching position to travel in France with Joseph Biel, an artist whom she had met while studying at the Art Students League. They spent time in Nice and Mentone but mainly in Paris. During the early months of 1931, while she was still abroad, her work appeared in group exhibitions held at the R. H. Macy department store and the Opportunity Gallery (opened by Gifford Beal). In 1932 she participated in three shows: a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, an annual exhibition of the New York Society of Women Artists, ( Its first president was Marguerite Zorach. Founding members included Agnes Weinrich, Anne Goldthwaite, Blanche Lazzell, Henrietta Shore, Louise Upton Brumback, Margaret Wendell Huntington, Marjorie Organ, and Sonia Gordon Brown), and a group exhibition at the G.R.D. Studio. Her work drew critical attention three years later when, commencing what proved to be a long and productive relationship, she made her first appearance at the A.C.A. Gallery. (The A.C.A. Gallery was founded in 1932 by Herman Baron and the artists, Stuart Davis, Adolf Dehn, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Oriented toward American contemporary art, it had a distinctive left-wing point of view and its exhibitions tended to display works of social conscience. In the early 1940s, it was the first gallery to show silkscreen prints using the technique developed by Harry Gottlieb.) In 1936 Gurr joined National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors. During 1936, 1937, and 1938 she participated in group shows of the Salons of America (Salons of America was an organization founded in 1922 by Hamilton Easter Field. Members included Oscar Bluemner, George Luks, Rockwell Kent, and Stefan Hirsch), the American Artists School (The American Artists School had a radical orientation similar to that of the A.C.A. Gallery. Its director was Harry Gottlieb. The secretary was Henry Billings. Arnold Blanch, Lincoln Rothschild, Waylande Gregory, Louis Lozowick, John Cunningham, Alexander Brook, George Picke, H. Glintenkamp, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Niles Spencer, and Philip Reisman were members of the board.) and the Municipal Art Gallery. Her group shows in 1938 included the annual exhibition held by the New York Society of Women Artists, a benefit show called "Roofs for 40 Million" held at Maison Francaise in the new Rockefeller Center, and another benefit show, put on by the Joint Distribution Committee at Studio Guild Galleries. In the Spring of 1945 the A.C.A. Gallery gave Gurr her third solo exhibition. During the following decades, Gurr's work continued to be shown at exhibitions of the National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, the Brooklyn Society of Artists, the New York Society of Women Artists, and the A.C.A. Gallery. She also showed at the World's Fair (1939), the Metropolitan Museum (1942), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1944), the Artists League of America (1945), the National Academy of Design (1946), the Serigraph Society Galleries (1947), and the American Federation of Arts (1951). In 1950 she made murals and mobile decorations in the ballroom of Hotel Astor in preparation for a benefit event sponsored by Artists Equity to raise money for ill and destitute artists and in 1952 she became Artists Equity's recording secretary. ( Formed in 1947, the Artists Equity Association aimed to promote the welfare of American artists and protect their economic interests. Its president was Yasuo Kuniyoshi and its membership included American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists including Will Barnet, Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley, Edward Hopper, Louise Nevelson, and John Sloan.) During her artistic career, Gurr mostly made easel art in oil and casein and also lithograph and silkscreen prints and some watercolors and drawings. Her subjects included still lifes, city scenes, vacation settings, and depictions of war and persecution. Memberships: Gurr was a member of the American Artists Congress, Artists Equity Association, Artists League of America, Artists Union, Audubon Artists, Brooklyn Society of Artists, National Association of Women Painters and Sculptors, and New York Society of Women Artists. In the summer of 1945, Gurr taught in the city's parks in a program sponsored by the Civilian Defense Volunteer Office. Her sessions at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden proved to be a popular part of the program.
  • Creator:
    Lena Gurr (1897 - 1992, American)
  • Creation Year:
    c.1940s
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 40 in (101.6 cm)Width: 55 in (139.7 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    good. frame has minor wear and loss to silvering commensurate with age and wear.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU3825748942
More From This SellerView All
  • Modernist Colorado Oil Painting Abstract Cityscape Harbor Scene Pawel Kontny
    By Pawel Kontny
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Urban landscape of city harbor, marine scene, (North Africa?) bearing the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee. Modernist Cityscape 24" x 36" sight. oil on ...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Large Hudson River Figurative Modernist Landscape Oil Painting Edward Avedisian
    By Edward Avedisian
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Edward Avedisian ( 1936-2007 ) Gouache or oil on paper, 3 guys around a car, hand signed in paint lower left, Measures 30"x 22.5" Edward Avedisian (June 15, 1936, Lowell, Massachusetts – August 17, 2007, Philmont, New York) was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By the late 1950s he moved to New York City. Between 1958 and 1963 Avedisian had six solo shows in New York. In 1958 he initially showed at the Hansa Gallery, then he had three shows at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and in 1962 and 1963 at the Robert Elkon Gallery. He continued to show at the Robert Elkon Gallery almost every year until 1975. During the 1960s his work was broadly visible in the contemporary art world. He joined the dynamic art scene in Greenwich Village, frequenting the Cedar Tavern on Tenth Street, associating with the critic Clement Greenberg, and joining a new generation of abstract artists, such as Darby Bannard, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons. Avedisian was among the leading figures to emerge in the New York art world during the 1960s. An artist who mixed the hot colors of Pop Art with the cool, more analytical qualities of Color Field painting, he was instrumental in the exploration of new abstract methods to examine the primacy of optical experience. One of his paintings was appeared on the cover of Artforum, in 1969, his work was included in the 1965 Op Art The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and in four annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His paintings were widely sought after by collectors and acquired by major museums in New York and elsewhere. He has been exhibited in prominent galleries, such as the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and the Berry Campbell Gallery in New York City. Edward Avedisian was known for his brightly colored, boldly composed canvases that combined Minimalism's rigor, Pop art exuberance and the saturated tones of Color Field painting. Roberta Smith of the NYT writes of Avedesian: "Edward Avedisian helped establish the hotly colored, but emotionally cool, abstract painting that succeeded Abstract Expressionism in the early 1960s. This young luminary harnessed elements of minimalism, pop, and color field painting to create prominent works of epic proportions that energized the New York art scene of the time." In 1996 Avedisian showed his paintings from the 1960s at the Mitchell Algus Gallery, then in SoHo. His last show, dominated by recent landscapes, was in 2003 at the Algus gallery, now in Chelsea. Selected Exhibitions: Op Art: The Responsive Eye, at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum’s Young America 1965 Expo 67, held in Montreal, Canada. Six Painters (along with Darby Bannard, Dan Christensen, Ron Davis...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Gouache, Archival Paper

  • Modernist Abstract Expressionist Watercolor Painting Bauhaus Weimar Pawel Kontny
    By Pawel Kontny
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Abstract watercolor composition bearing the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee. Pawel August Kontny, (Polish-German-American artist) He was born in Laurahuette, Poland, in 1923, the son of a wealthy pastry shop owner. In 1939 he began studying architecture in Breslau where he was introduced to the European masters and to the work of some of the German Expressionists, soon afterward banned as "degenerate artists" and removed from museums throughout Germany by the Nazi regime. His studies were interrupted by World War II. Drafted into the German army, traveling in many countries as a soldier, he sketched various landscapes but in 1945, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Italy. After the war, he studied at the Union of Nuremberg Architects to help design buildings to replace ones destroyed in the war. He recorded his impressions of the local population and the landscapes through his watercolors and drawings. Pawel Kontny thereafter moved to Nuremberg, Germany, becoming a member of the Union of Nuremberg Architects and helping to rebuild the city's historic center. He soon decided to concentrate on his professional art career. He married Irmgard Laurer, a dancer with the Nuremberg Opera. Pavel Kontny 's career as an artist was launched with his participation in an all German exhibition, held at the Dusseldorf Museum in 1952. He held one-man shows in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. During his trip to the United States in 1960, Kontny became instantly enamored with Colorado, and decided to relocate to Cherry Hills with his wife and two children. He quickly established himself in the local art community, being affiliated for a time with Denver Art Galleries and Saks Galleries. His subject matter became the Southwest. During this time he received the Prestigious Gold Medal of the Art Academy of Rome. His extensive travel provided material for the paintings he did using his hallmark marble dust technique. he also worked equally in pastel, watercolor, charcoal and pencil-and-ink. in a style which merged abstraction and realist styles, influenced by Abstract Expressionist painting and South Western American landscapes. In the early 1960s he was one of only a few European-born professional artists in the state, a select group that included Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), a member of the prewar Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, and Roland Detre (1903-2001), a Hungarian modernist painter. As a Denver, Colorado resident, Pavel Kontny exhibited at galleries and museums throughout the United States, Germany and Japan. There, he was inspired by frequent trips to Native American pueblos in the Southwest, as well as by the study of the Plains Indians of Montana and Wyoming. Over the years Kontny had a number of students and generously helped young artist by hosting exhibitions at his Cherry Hills home. For many years he generously donated his paintings to support charitable causes in Denver. Influences during his European years included German pastelist C.O. Muller, German Informel painter Karl Dahmen and Swiss artist, Hans Erni. In the early 1950s his painting style showed the influence of the Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905 who had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the twentieth century in Germany. By the middle of the decade his style incorporated more referential abstraction and total abstraction, resulting in part from his study of Hans Hartung, a German artist based in Paris who exhibited his gestural abstract work in Germany. The American moon landing in 1969 inspired Paul Kontny...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Untitled Abstract Landscape Oil Pastel Painting Figurative Abstraction
    By John Evans
    Located in Surfside, FL
    John Evans (American, b. 1945), Untitled oilstick on paper, signed in pencil lower center, gallery label (Allan Stone Gallery, New York) affixed verso, sheet: sight size is 22"h x 3...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Oil Pastel

  • Mod Abstract Expressionist Modernist Oil Painting Edward Avedisian Color Figure
    By Edward Avedisian
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Edward Avedisian ( 1936-2007 ) 8 X 9 Oil paint on wood plank panel with gold and purple figure This is not signed on front. It bears his name verso. Provenance: Hudson, N.Y. estate of noted Art Collector Albert Burnette Roberts (1932-2021) Edward Avedisian (June 15, 1936, Lowell, Massachusetts – August 17, 2007, Philmont, New York) was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By the late 1950s he moved to New York City. Between 1958 and 1963 Avedisian had six solo shows in New York. In 1958 he initially showed at the Hansa Gallery, then he had three shows at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and in 1962 and 1963 at the Robert Elkon Gallery. He continued to show at the Robert Elkon Gallery almost every year until 1975. During the 1960s his work was broadly visible in the contemporary art world. He joined the dynamic art scene in Greenwich Village, frequenting the Cedar Tavern on Tenth Street, associating with the critic Clement Greenberg, and joining a new generation of abstract artists, such as Darby Bannard, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons. Avedisian was among the leading figures to emerge in the New York art world during the 1960s. An artist who mixed the hot colors of Pop Art with the cool, more analytical qualities of Color Field painting, he was instrumental in the exploration of new abstract methods to examine the primacy of optical experience. One of his paintings was appeared on the cover of Artforum, in 1969, his work was included in the 1965 Op Art The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and in four annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His paintings were widely sought after by collectors and acquired by major museums in New York and elsewhere. He has been exhibited in prominent galleries, such as the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and the Berry Campbell...
    Category

    1960s Abstract Expressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Wood Panel

  • Mod Abstract Expressionist Modernist Oil Painting Edward Avedisian Biomorphic
    By Edward Avedisian
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Edward Avedisian ( 1936-2007 ) 7 X 13 Oil paint on wood panel with pink, red and green abstract. This is not signed on front. It bears his name verso. Provenance: Hudson, N.Y. estate of noted Art Collector Albert Burnette Roberts (1932-2021) Edward Avedisian (June 15, 1936, Lowell, Massachusetts – August 17, 2007, Philmont, New York) was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction and Abstract Expressionism. He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. By the late 1950s he moved to New York City. Between 1958 and 1963 Avedisian had six solo shows in New York. In 1958 he initially showed at the Hansa Gallery, then he had three shows at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and in 1962 and 1963 at the Robert Elkon Gallery. He continued to show at the Robert Elkon Gallery almost every year until 1975. During the 1960s his work was broadly visible in the contemporary art world. He joined the dynamic art scene in Greenwich Village, frequenting the Cedar Tavern on Tenth Street, associating with the critic Clement Greenberg, and joining a new generation of abstract artists, such as Darby Bannard, Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, and Larry Poons. Avedisian was among the leading figures to emerge in the New York art world during the 1960s. An artist who mixed the hot colors of Pop Art with the cool, more analytical qualities of Color Field painting, he was instrumental in the exploration of new abstract methods to examine the primacy of optical experience. One of his paintings was appeared on the cover of Artforum, in 1969, his work was included in the 1965 Op Art The Responsive Eye exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art and in four annuals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His paintings were widely sought after by collectors and acquired by major museums in New York and elsewhere. He has been exhibited in prominent galleries, such as the Anita Shapolsky Gallery and the Berry Campbell...
    Category

    1960s Abstract Expressionist Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Wood Panel

You May Also Like
  • Blue UFO
    By C. Dimitri
    Located in Brooklyn, NY
    Oil, acrylic, gesso on panel. One of a series. The UFO image has a compelling way of summing up or reflecting these norm-breaking times. These are also about composition, color, and ...
    Category

    2010s American Modern Abstract Paintings

    Materials

    Gesso, Oil, Acrylic, Wood Panel

  • Poco Jugo - Vibrant Orange Blue Southwest Inspired Pop Art Cactus Painting
    By Will Beger
    Located in Los Angeles, CA
    Will Beger and his contemporary-minimalist paintings, take on an entirely unique approach to southwest art. Influenced by his youth and inspired by nature, he effortlessly captures a...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

  • Lil Yeller- Vibrant Yellow Blue Southwest Inspired Pop Art Cactus Painting
    By Will Beger
    Located in Los Angeles, CA
    Will Beger and his contemporary-minimalist paintings, take on an entirely unique approach to southwest art. Influenced by his youth and inspired by nature, he effortlessly captures a...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

  • Lavanda- Vibrant Purple Red Southwest Inspired Pop Art Cactus Painting
    By Will Beger
    Located in Los Angeles, CA
    Will Beger and his contemporary-minimalist paintings, take on an entirely unique approach to southwest art. Influenced by his youth and inspired by nature, he effortlessly captures a...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

  • Sapphire- Vibrant Blue Southwest Inspired Pop Art Cactus Painting
    By Will Beger
    Located in Los Angeles, CA
    Will Beger and his contemporary-minimalist paintings, take on an entirely unique approach to southwest art. Influenced by his youth and inspired by nature, he effortlessly captures a...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Resin, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Wood Panel

  • Moon Glow by Robert Terry
    Located in Brookville, NY
    Born 1955 in Broken Bow, Nebraska. Lives and works in New York. AWARDS
 National Endowment for the Arts, Major Grant Robert Terry was best noted in his depictions of romantic moons...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

Recently Viewed

View All