Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 14

Paul Kauver Smith
Colorado Hill Town with Storm Clouds, 1940s Modernist Landscape, Green Blue

circa 1940

About the Item

WPA era signed framed modernist oil painting of houses and trees in summer with a stormy cloud in Colorado by Paul K. Smith in shades of green, yellow, gray, blue and brown. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 29 x 33 x 1 ¼ inches. Image size is 23 ¾ x 28 inches. Provenance: Estate of Paul K. Smith About the Artist: Paul Kauver Smith studied commercial art and design at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts from 1915-16 with a brief interruption during World War I. After the war, he returned to the School of Fine Arts and went on to the study at Washington University in St. Louis. In 1921, Smith moved to Colorado to study under John E. Thompson at the Denver Academy of Fine and Applied Arts. Thompson, who is considered to be the pioneer of modernism in Denver, was a strong influence on Smith. In 1923, Smith was hired by the Academy as an instructor. That same year, his work was accepted for the first time for display at the Denver Art Museum and he was also awarded two solo exhibitions. The museum later added his work to their Anne Evans collection. In 1959, the Denver Art Museum also reproduced one of his paintings titled Houses at Victor for their Western Heritage exhibition catalogue. Smith became a permanent resident of Denver and was a member of the American Artists Professional League, as well as the Colorado and the Denver Art Guilds. He also joined a Denver group called The Colorado Fifteen. “The Fifteen” came into existence in 1948 as an association of professional artists dedicated to the avant-garde. The group was well known and considered to be an important contribution to Denver's cultural landscape. Expedited and International Shipping is available; please contact us for an estimate.
  • Creator:
    Paul Kauver Smith (1893 - 1977, American)
  • Creation Year:
    circa 1940
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 29 in (73.66 cm)Width: 33 in (83.82 cm)Depth: 1.25 in (3.18 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Painting is clean and in good vintage condition - condition report available upon request.
  • Gallery Location:
    Denver, CO
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: DCG-129221stDibs: LU273914473
More From This SellerView All
  • Twilight of History, Figurative American Modernist Oil Painting, Gold Green Red
    By Frederick Shane
    Located in Denver, CO
    "Twilight of History" is an original oil on board painting by Frederick Shane (1906-1992) from 1947. Shane's reflection of the twilight of our existence is shown with three creatures...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • City Park, Denver, Colorado, Large Semi Abstract Colorful Oil Landscape
    By Edward Marecak
    Located in Denver, CO
    Large format oil painting on canvas of City Park in Denver, Colorado by 20th century Denver modernist, Edward Marecak. Semi-abstract park scene with various types of trees, figures, ...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • Autumn Harvest, Original Semi-Abstract Landscape and Figurative Oil Painting
    By Edward Marecak
    Located in Denver, CO
    Original framed oil painting on burlap by Edward Marecak (1919-1993) titled "Autumn Harvest" from 1987. Signed and dated by the artist in the lower right corner. Presented in a custom framed, outer dimensions measure 20 x 29 x 1 ⅜ inches. Image size is 19 x 28 inches. Provenance: Estate of the Artist, Edward Marecak Painting is clean and in good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of “Peter and the Wolf,” awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier oeuvre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s, he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish...
    Category

    1980s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Storm Over Victor (Colorado Mountain Town), 1940s WPA Era Landscape Oil Painting
    Located in Denver, CO
    Oil on board painting by George Vander Sluis (1915-1984) titled Storm Over Victor (Colorado Mountain Town) from 1946. WPA Era Mountain Landscape wi...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Near Watsonville, California, Mid Century Landscape Oil Painting House Trees
    By Jon Blanchette
    Located in Denver, CO
    Mid 20th Century oil on artist board of a white house near Watsonville, California. 1950s landscape painting with house and trees. Presented in a...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Victor, Colorado, 1940s Modernist Mountain Landscape with Town, Mining Town
    By Martyl Suzanne Schweig Langsdorf
    Located in Denver, CO
    'Victor, Colorado', 1942 oil painting on masonite by Martyl Suzanne Schweig (1918-2013). This classic Colorado landscape was painted overlooking a ghost town with the Rocky Mountains visible across the background, completed in rich tones of green, gold, and brown. This painting was completed on a trip with fellow artist, Adolph Dehn...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Masonite, Oil

You May Also Like
  • "Little House Lambertville, Public Sale"
    By Joseph Barrett
    Located in Lambertville, NJ
    Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork. Signed lower middle. Artist designed frame. Joseph Barrett (b. 1936) Joseph Barrett was born in Midland, North Carolina, in ...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

  • Park Spring (Impressionistic Figurative Painting of Figures in a Park Landscape)
    By William Clutz
    Located in Hudson, NY
    Modern impressionist style figurative painting of a family in a colorful park landscape “Park Spring” painted by William Clutz in 1996 60 x 50 inches in a natural wood floater frame ...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Linen

  • Villa Schifanoia, Florence.
    Located in San Francisco, CA
    This colorful artwork ""Villa Schifanoia, Florence" 1984 is an oil painting on paper by American artist Patrice Lombardi. It is signed and dated at t...
    Category

    Late 20th Century American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Subway Construction
    Located in Los Angeles, CA
    This painting is part of our exhibition American Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Subway Construction, c. 1928, oil on board, 19 x 15 ¾ inches, signed upper left, artist and tit...
    Category

    1920s American Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Riders Through the Canyon, Mid-Century Western Landscape
    By Frank Wilcox
    Located in Beachwood, OH
    Riders Through the Canyon, c. 1941 Oil on board Signed lower right 24 x 32.25 inches "Also, on this second trip the significant colors of the Southwest became apparent - the prep...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Oil

  • Till the Clouds Roll By 1945 Frank Sinatra Mid Century Modern Hollywood Film WPA
    By Richard Whorf
    Located in New York, NY
    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...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Landscape Paintings

    Materials

    Canvas, Oil

Recently Viewed

View All