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

Howard Schleeter
Madonna of the Picture, 1930s Framed Figural Devotional New Mexico Oil Painting

May 16, 1939

About the Item

Original 1939 oil painting by New Mexico modernist, Howard Schleeter (1903-1976), Madonna of the Picture includes a santo of the Virgin Mary, a still life of flowers in a vase and a crucifix. Presented in a custom hand-carved frame, outer dimensions measure 21 x 17 x 2 inches. Image size is 16 x 12 inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a complete condition report. Provenance: Private Collection, California Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Howard Schleeter, the son of a commercial artist, studied formally at the Albright Art School in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. However, his studies at Albright were brief and the artist considered himself to be primarily self-taught. He later met Charles Lindbergh while working as an airplane mechanic. However, he soon chose to make his living entirely as an artist and, in 1929, he traveled to New Mexico. The following year he married and the couple made New Mexico their permanent home. Schleeter studied under Brooks Willis during the 1930's and worked in several mediums including gouache, watercolor, oil, scratchboard and engraving. The Great Depression took its toll on Schleeter who occasionally found work digging ditches to make ends meet. In 1936, his financial status greatly improved when he received the first of several commissions from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Though he worked primarily in abstraction, the five murals he completed for a WPA commission in the Melrose Public School library are realistic depictions of the West. He worked on several more New Deal commissions during the years of 1936 and 1942 in locations including Santa Fe, Clayton, and Washington D.C. During this time, Schleeter furthered his income by teaching at a Las Vegas, New Mexico, art gallery during 1938 and 1939. In 1945, the Encyclopedia Britannica referred to Schleeter as "an artist's artist." He also received local attention when he became one of the first artists chosen by Peter Hurd and Jane Mabry for his significant contributions to New Mexico's art. Schleeter taught at the University of New Mexico during 1950-1951 and 1954. Member: Art League of New Mexico Exhibited: Kansas Art Institute, 1936-1938; New Mexico State Fair, 1939 (prize); New Mexico Art League, 1939 (prize); Cedar City, New Mexico, 1941-1946; Philadelphia Artist Alliance, 1945 (solo); deYoung Memorial Museum, 1946; Art Institute of Chicago, 1947; Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe, 1951 (purchase prize), 1955 (purchase prize); Vienna, Austria, 1952; Guggenheim Museum, 1954; Karlsruhe Museum, Germany, 1955; Stanford University, 1955 (solo); New Mexico Highlands University, 1957 (purchase prize); Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1958; Swope Art Gallery Works Held: A&M College, New Mexico (mural); Art League of New Mexico; Cedar City Institute of Religion; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Miners Hospital, Raton, New Mexico (mural); Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe; Research Studio, Maitland, Florida; University of New Mexico Further Reading: Artists of 20th-Century New Mexico: the Museum of Fine Arts Collection, Museum of New Mexico Press for the Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, 1992.; The Illustrated Biographical Encyclopedia of Artists of the American West, Peggy and Harold Samuels, Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New York, 1976.; Taos and Santa Fe: the Artist's Environment, 1882-1942, Van Deren Coke, University of New Mexico Press for the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, TX and the Art Gallery, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM: 1963.; Treasures on New Mexico Trails: Discover New Deal Art and Architecture: Kathryn A. Flynn ed., Sunstone Press, Santa Fe, NM: 1995.; Who Was Who in American Art 1564-1975: 400 Years of Artists in America, Vol. 1. Peter Hastings Falk, Georgia Kuchen and Veronica Roessler, eds.,Sound View Press, Madison, Connecticut, 1999. 3 Vols. ©David Cook Galleries, LLC
  • Creator:
    Howard Schleeter (1903-1976, American)
  • Creation Year:
    May 16, 1939
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 21 in (53.34 cm)Width: 17 in (43.18 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    very good to excellent vintage condition.
  • Gallery Location:
    Denver, CO
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: DCG 153711stDibs: G14010527344
More From This SellerView All
  • Still Life with Masks, Vintage Semi-Abstract Painting, Red, Pink, Yellow, Green
    By Edward Marecak
    Located in Denver, CO
    "Still Life with Masks", vintage original semi-abstract painting by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecak (1919-1993) from 1983. Oil Paint on board with a mid-century modern fe...
    Category

    1980s American Modern Abstract Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • 1940 Modernist Still Life with Flowers, Framed Floral Oil Painting, Red Yellow
    By John Edward Thompson
    Located in Denver, CO
    An original modernist still life oil painting by John E. Thompson (1882-1945), table is draped in red cloth and flowers in vase are red, yellow, blue/purple and white with green stem...
    Category

    1940s American Modern Interior Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Canvas

  • Shovel Handles, 1950s Framed American Modernist Oil Painting, Green Bronze Blue
    By Paul Kauvar Smith
    Located in Denver, CO
    "Shovel Handles" is an original vintage 1953 modernist oil painting by mid 20th century Denver artist, Paul K. Smith (1893-1977). Signed dated by the artist in the lower margin, titl...
    Category

    1950s American Modern Figurative 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

  • Masks And Flowers, Semi Abstract Vintage 1984 Painting, Red Yellow Green Pink
    By Edward Marecak
    Located in Denver, CO
    Masks And Flowers, vintage original 1984 oil painting on board by Edward Marecak (1919-1993), semi abstract, cubist style painting of tribal mas...
    Category

    1980s Abstract Abstract Paintings

    Materials

    Board, Oil

  • American Modernist Abstract Still Life Painting with Zinnia Flowers, Red Orange
    Located in Denver, CO
    Oil on board painting by Paul Kauvar Smith (1893-1977) of a still life of flowers on a table in an interior scene with a mirror in the background. American Modernist still life painting with zinnias and abstract paintings in an artists studio. Presented framed, outer dimensions measure 27 ⅝ x 31 ¾ x 1 ⅛ inches. Image size is 19 ½ x 23 ½ inches. Painting is clean and in very good vintage condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Provenance: Private collection, Denver, Colorado Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: In 1915, Paul Kauver Smith studied commercial art and design at the St. Louis School of Fine Art for two years. His studies were interrupted by World War I during which he served as a corporal in the U.S. Army. After the war he returned to the School of Fine Art and also studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts in St. Louis with Fred G. Carpenter, himself a student of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Colarossi Academy in Paris. Carpenter was known as a marvelous colorist who "thought every inch of a painting should be fascinating…and should be as interesting close up as from a distance." His approach is reflected in many of Smith’s paintings, both representational and abstract in style, done later in Colorado. In 1921, Smith relocated to Denver where he studied for two years at the Denver Academy of Fine and Applied Arts, formerly located in Brinton Terrace on 18th Street in Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. His teacher was John E. Thompson, another important influence as a pioneer of modernism in Denver. The Academy hired Smith as an instructor in 1923 and that same year the Denver Art Museum included his work for the first time in its 29th annual juried exhibition. He later had two solo shows at the museum, which added his work to its Anne Evans Collection. In 1959 the museum reproduced Houses at Victor, for its Western Heritage Exhibition catalog. During the year of 1928 he witnessed the Articles of Incorporation of the Denver Artists Guild, comprising most of the city’s professional artists. He also belonged to the American Artists Professional League, also organized in 1928 by fifteen members of the Salmagundi Club in New York to protect artists’ interest and promote traditional American art. He was one of some two dozen Colorado artists designated to participate in the Public Works of Art Program (PWAP, 1933-34), the first federally-sponsored program for artists during the Great Depression. Around 1928 Smith became the "Hermit of Stuart Street," and remained a life-long bachelor. One painting, View from My Window, depicts his immediate neighborhood. Living for more than thirty years at 1039 Stuart Street in West Denver, he gave up creature comforts that most people take for granted to have the freedom to devote his life to the pursuit of art. In the first twenty-five years of his career, his paintings focused on the Colorado landscape and its mining towns with their decaying buildings as relics of the past. His piece, Miner’s House at Victor, Colorado illustrates the description of his work in this genre as described by Denver artist and art writer, Arneill Downs, "The jewel-like shapes and colors the artist uses gives the most decrepit objects style. The decaying buildings of ghost towns, grouped together on canvas, glow like a patchwork quilt." Smith described his technique as "I start lean and finish fat." He worked first with turpentine as a medium and ended up with pure pigment put on with a palette knife. In addition to Colorado scenes...
    Category

    20th Century Abstract Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

You May Also Like
  • “Bouquet in Porcelain Pitcher”
    By Nicolai Cikovsky
    Located in Southampton, NY
    Oil on artist board painting of a bouquet in porcelain pitcher by the American artist Nicholai Cikovsky. Signed lower right. In good condition. In contemporary gold leaf frame 27 b...
    Category

    1950s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • "Still Life with Fruits" Russian-American Modern Colorful Oil Painting on Board
    By Ben Benn
    Located in New York, NY
    A strong modernist oil painting depicted in 1927 by Russian-American painter Ben Benn. With a highly recognizable modern style, fast brush stroke and expressive use of color, shape, ...
    Category

    1920s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Board, Oil

  • Still Life (double-sided)
    By Alfred Henry Maurer
    Located in Concord, MA
    ALFRED MAURER (1868-1932) Still Life (double-sided), n.d. Oil on board 22 x 13 ½ inches Signed verso: A. H. Maurer PROVENANCE Estate of Gaston Lachaise [Salander-O'Reilly...
    Category

    1920s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Flowers in a Blue Vase
    By Robert Kulicke
    Located in New York, NY
    Inscribed lower left: For Barbara + Ernie; signed and dated upper right: Kulicke 58
    Category

    Mid-20th Century American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Enid Munroe Mid Century Modernist Oil Painting Still Life with Fruit and Bread
    By Enid Munroe
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Genre: Modern Subject: Kitchen still life with pineapple, sourdough bread and lemons Medium: oil paint, done in a sgraffito, impasto somewhat brutalist technique Surface: board Country: United States Dimensions: 18 X 24 Being sold unframed Enid Munroe re-establishes the aesthetic worth of ordinary manufactured objects within the basic form language of Cubism. In her painting the artist uses trompe-l'oeil to render her composition, involving realistic imagery in order to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions. Enid Munroe is an artist and teacher who is well known regionally for her paintings, works on paper and Gold leaf, silver leaf, trompe l’oeil collage and assemblage series. She has been included in numerous invitational and juried exhibitions both nationally and regionally. Her works are in leading public, corporate and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the National Museum of American Art. Munroe cites painter Georgia O’Keeffe as one her influences and sources of inspiration. “Georgia O’Keeffe really helped lift the concept of women as artists,” stated Munroe. Munroe lived and worked in Mexico, Japan and Italy before settling in Connecticut. She is the author of An Artist in the Garden: A Guide to Creative and Natural Gardening (Henry Holt & Co, 1994) and has been active in regional art events including the founding of the annual Pequot Library...
    Category

    20th Century American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

  • Mid Century Modern Calla Lily in Bloom Still-Life
    By Agnes Stoklosa
    Located in Soquel, CA
    Gorgeous Mid Century Modern still life of Calla Lily with orange background by Agnes Stoklosa (American, 20th Century). Signed lower right. Image size, 27"H x 19"W. Agnes studied a...
    Category

    1960s American Modern Still-life Paintings

    Materials

    Oil, Board

Recently Viewed

View All