American Figurative Expressionist MCM Artist Male Portrait New York Oil Painting

Description: Vintage 18 x 16 inch American Expressionist double-sided oil on canvas, on New York stretchers, depicting a portrait of a man. Unsigned, unframed, and in good unrestored condition. I took my pictures of the painting outside. It looks less orange-brown and more toward white-raw umber in my interior light. I found this painting at an uncataloged NJ country auction. I've posted some internet screen shots to show what 'school' of art and artists I think the painting relates to. It's just what I think, and we can all think what we want. I'm not old enough to know things first hand, but I learned as much as I could through stories told to me back in the early 1990's by an old assistant of the de Koonings, the artist Athos Zacharias. I have no hard copies of the internet pictures I've posted. This sale is for the double-sided painting only. This painting must've been unstretched at one time because the painting on the back extends under the stretcher bars. So, I'm not really sure exactly how old the painting(s) may be. I'd say they're Mid-century Modern era. The style of the painting reminds me of Elaine de Kooning. Her husband was the famous Abstract Expressionist painter Willem de Kooning. Elaine de Kooning's style varied or ranged from portraits like this to abstracts. She's a well known artist but kind of overshadowed by her husband's fame. In trying to think of who the sitter may be, I thought of Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993). I guess it could be Franz Kline, but the man looks more like De Niro, Sr., to me. Elaine de Kooning was known to paint at least one portrait of Robert De Niro, Sr. He was an NY School Abstract Expressionist painter. De Niro was another artist who was pretty much overshadowed by Willem de Kooning. Simply put, Willem was the best. But, he always tried to help the other artists and he was good to them. Willem and Elaine had an open marriage. Life wasn't easy for them, either. They both had a lot of personal problems. I don't think Elaine ever had a thing going with De Niro because, even though he obviously had relationships with women, he liked men. The de Koonings and De Niro were probably just artist-friends, all of the 'New York School'. Portraits by Elaine de Kooning will likely never fetch as much as her abstracts, but she was better known for her portraits since she painted sitters such as President John F. Kennedy. Even though we'll never see anything close to it happen on the sites like this one, an abstract painting titled "Charge" by Elaine de Kooning actually fetched 850K (over a million, including fees) at auction in 2022. The portrait offered here is very painterly. It's almost as if the sitter is shy or maybe he's just nonchalant. I like the painting because it has a good presence to it. I think of it as a New York School painting in the Elaine de Kooning direction, and that makes me appreciate it even more. If you like modern art and male portraits, this oil might be right up your alley.

Price: 395 USD

Location: Pitman, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-01-24T12:46:02.000Z

Shipping Cost: N/A USD