Clars is now seeking Important Fine Art consignments for our upcoming Fall auction. Schedule your private and confidential appointment now to speak to one of our Fine Art Specialists to determine your item’s auction potential.

Clars is pleased to offer the Art & Photography Collection from the Estate of Professor Raymond Lifchez (Berkeley, California).

Lifchez was Professor Emeritus of Architecture and City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley for over 50 years. Lifchez made a deep and lasting impact on teaching, advocacy for accessible design and was a pioneer in incorporating accessibility/disability justice into design education.

Photographers to be featured include: Ruth Bernhard, Manual Alvarez Bravo, Harry Callahan, Robert Capa, Keith Carter, Robert Doisneau, Horst P. Horst, Michael Kenna, Joanne Leonard, Sally Mann, Nicholas Nixon, Bill Owens, Man Ray, Leo Rubinfien, Anna Draper Shaw, Garry Winogrand, and Max Yavno.

Clars is excited to present our Important Summer Fine Art Sale on June 20th, commencing at 10 AM PDT. The sale is bursting with exceptional artwork from iconic creators such as Salvador Dalí, Roy Lichtenstein and Aaron Douglas.

One of the most exciting pieces in this month’s Important Summer Fine Art Sale is a never-before-sold oil on canvas painting by world-renowned Spanish Surrealist, Salvador Dalí. Over the course of the early to mid-twentieth century, Dalí established himself as perhaps the most celebrated of the Surrealist painters, famous for both his instantly recognizable visual style and for his eccentric personality and antics. The painting in this month’s sale, titled Portrait of Mrs. Luther Greene, is an oil on canvas that was commissioned by the sitter’s husband in New York City in 1942 — the year of the artist’s first retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art.

The portrait depicts the patron seated in the foreground, wrapped in a red robe. Behind her is a classic, Dalíesque desert landscape with two figures standing in the distance. An amorphous hill on the far right is dotted with buildings — resembling a forgotten ghost town — and a small boat sits beached by the shore on the far left. This exemplary piece is accompanied by the preliminary sketches done by the artist in preparation for the painting.

Another noteworthy piece in the sale is a serigraph by American Pop art pioneer, Roy Lichtenstein. Lichtenstein was one of the most prominent figures to come out of the Pop Art movement and is most known for his comic strip-inspired paintings, prints, and sculptures. The print featured in the June sale is titled Reverie and dates to 1965. Pictured is a young woman with blonde hair and a melancholy expression, holding a microphone while a speech bubble over her head reads the lyrics, “The melody haunts my reverie.” This lyric — taken from the song Stardust by Tin Pan Alley musicians Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish — was written in 1927 and popularized during the 1930s big band era. The retro feel of the imagery is characteristic of Lichtenstein’s work, as is the comic-style dot work, bold color, and thick, black lines. Reverie was created for a portfolio, titled 11 Pop Artists published by Original Editions, that included 2 other prints by the artist as well as prints by Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman, and other major names in the Pop Art movement.

A third striking highlight in our sale is an oil on canvas painting by key Harlem Renaissance figure, Aaron Douglas. Douglas is widely known for the murals he was commissioned to paint in several high-profile locations. These locations included several Historically Black Colleges and Universities, the Harlem YMCA, and one of his most acclaimed works, Aspects of Negro Life, at the New York Public Library in Harlem. Douglas worked with writers Alain Locke and W.E.B. Du Bois, and had illustrations included in publications like Vanity Fair, the NAACP journal The Crisis, and Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life among others. Douglas developed a distinctive, graphic style that combined the aesthetic exploration of modernism with more traditional African subject matter. He often used bold color and evocative light sources with leafy foliage and human figures in silhouette. These figures are at times depicted in an African village or tribal setting, dancing, holding spears, or traversing a jungle-like landscape.

In other instances, figures are shown in American cityscapes, holding industrial tools with skyscrapers looming in the distance, or playing brass instruments in bands. The work in our June sale shows three silhouetted human figures holding spears and chasing five bison-like animals through an abstracted environment that uses the interplay between color and light to mimic an earthly landscape while remaining nonobjective. Douglas’s approach marries the celebratory aspects of Harlem Renaissance figuration with an Orphism-inspired understanding of color theory that creates a composition in which movement and light become as intrinsic to the material as paint and canvas.

In addition to the aforementioned works, we are also pleased to offer abstract sculptures by Claire Falkenstein, a life-size bronze gown by Karen LaMonte, a suite of six bullfighting paintings by LeRoy Neiman, an abstract expressionist oil by Tancredi Parmeggiani, and much more in our Important Summer Fine Art Sale on June 20th.

This May at Clars we are proud to present a collection of works by master caricaturist — Albert Hirschfeld — who is known for his depictions of twentieth-century pop culture icons.

Hirschfeld was born in 1903 and was raised in New York City, where he studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design. Hirschfeld furthered his artistic studies in Europe, and upon returning to the United States he was commissioned by the New York Herald Tribune to create cartoons to accompany their articles. This early exposure led to a long career of illustration in publications, including The New York Times, TV Guide, American Mercury, and Life Magazine.

Perhaps Hirschfeld’s most well-known work is his illustrations of theater and film actors, often featured on Broadway playbills. Some of Hirschfeld’s credits include playbills for productions of Annie Get Your Gun, My Fair Lady, and Hello, Dolly!. Hirschfeld’s most famous actor portraits include those of Marilyn Monroe, Groucho Marx, Liza Minelli, and Barbara Streisand. In 2023, Clars offered the collection of iconic performer Rita Moreno, which included personalized illustrations by Hirschfeld of the actress in the films West Side Story and The Ritz. Hirschfeld also drew many popular musicians of the mid-twentieth century, including Ella Fitzgerald, Jerry Garcia, The Beatles, and Elvis Presley.

Hirschfeld was known for his sense of humor and the playfulness in his art. With the birth of his daughter Nina in 1945, he started including her name hidden in many of his highly circulated drawings. After he decided to stop what he called the “harmless insanity” of camouflaging her name is his cartoons, The New York Times was inundated with letters demanding he continue the practice, and it became a pop culture phenomenon in itself. In the 1999 animated Disney film Fantasia 2000, a segment inspired by Hirschfeld’s work includes a hidden “NINA” in a tube of toothpaste.

He was commissioned to design the 1991 USPS stamp collection featuring American comedians, including a favorite subject of his, the comic pair Laurel and Hardy. This month’s collection includes a lithograph depicting the duo, as well as a number of other prints, ink drawings, and rare gouache portrayals of political figures. The gouaches were created as cover illustrations for Colliers and American Mercury Magazine, and the figures include Dwight Eisenhower, Josef Stalin, Harry Truman, Joseph McCarthy, and others. Join us on May 17th to bid on these exclusive pieces.

One of our featured artists this April is German-born American sculptor, Adolph Alexander Weinman. Weinman’s work embraces both the storied past of his influences and predecessors as well as the developing aesthetic of the modern era.

Weinman immigrated to the United States at age 14 and studied art at Cooper Union and the Art Students League of New York — where he was influenced by the work of Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Weinman later assisted several notable sculptors in their studios, including Daniel Chester French, the sculptor of the Lincoln Memorial monument in Washington, D.C. French’s impact on Weinman’s style is apparent in many of his public works, including his own statue of Lincoln at the Kentucky State Capitol, and in Neo-Classical decorative sculptures like Fountain of the Centaurs, located at the Missouri State Capitol.

Weinman is also known for his architectural sculptures, some of which grace the facades of the most prominent buildings in Washington, D.C. Weinman designed and sculpted the pediment scenes on both the National Archives Building and the Jefferson Memorial, with the latter featuring an iconic portrayal of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Weinman is remembered as a celebrated medalist as well. His designs on the Mercury dime and Walking Liberty half dollar circulated in the early 20th century and were later used on commemorative coins. Weinman’s skill in metallurgy can be seen in the bronze sculpture in the April sale, a nude female figure dancing with a hoop. The hoop motif was popular for bronze statuettes during the Art Deco period, but Weinman added his own Neo-Classical touch by making the figure nude — with great concentration on anatomy — as opposed to the flapper-like depictions of the era.

This January at Clars we are pleased to offer two paintings by American Impressionist, Paul Sawyier.

Sawyier was born in Ohio in 1865 and raised in Frankfort, Kentucky. He traveled first to The McMicken School of Design (now the Art Academy of Cincinnati) to study under Frank Duveneck, and later to New York to study under William Merritt Chase at the Arts Students League of New York.

Early in his career, Sawyier excelled in portraiture, painting the likenesses of well-known figures in his community. Although he sometimes included figures in his subsequent paintings, they mostly focused on rural landscapes. Known primarily for his watercolor depictions of scenery in Kentucky and New York, Sawyier gained enough recognition in art circles to exhibit work at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

After his professional painting career ended, Sawyier retired to a houseboat in the New York Catskills. He was known to paint in the area en plein air, both in oils and watercolor. Sawyier is notable not only for being one of the only painters from Kentucky working in the Impressionist style during the turn of the century, but also for his ability to capture the atmosphere and tranquility of his surroundings. Although distinctly impressionistic, Sawyier’s work does retain aspects of Realism and Romanticism, perhaps preserved from his years studying in arts academies. Sawyier remains one of Kentucky’s most celebrated artists, and his work is collected in several large museums nationwide.

Exploring Intimacy and Connection: Henrietta Berk’s Oil on Canvas Portrait of Phyllis Diebenkorn

In the illustrious realm of the Bay Area Figurative Movement, where artists sought to rekindle a connection with the human form, Henrietta Berk’s artistic prowess stood out as she delved into the intricacies of human emotion and intimacy. One of her most enigmatic works was an oil on canvas portrait of Phyllis Diebenkorn, the wife and muse of acclaimed artist Richard Diebenkorn. This captivating portrait not only immortalizes Phyllis but also offers a glimpse into the personal connections within the artistic community of the mid-20th century Bay Area.

In the 1950’s, the Bay Area Figurative Movement emerged as a reaction against the prevailing abstract expressionism. The movement emphasized figurative and representational art, and it sought to reconnect with the human form, exploring a more tangible and recognizable approach to artistic expression. Fueled by the desire to break away from abstract expressionism, artists like David Park, Wayne Thiebaud, Raimonds Staprans, James Weeks, and Richard Diebenkorn sought to reintroduce representational art — infusing it with an emotive and personal touch.

Henrietta Berk was an American painter known for her significant contributions to the Bay Area Figurative Movement. She was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and pursued her passion for art from an early age. Berk’s artistic journey was deeply intertwined with the movement and the artists who shaped it. She studied under the tutelage of Richard Diebenkorn at the California College of the Arts. She was a part of the “Bridge Generation” of the Bay Area Figurative movement, which included the artists: Nathan Oliveira, Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, and Frank Lobdell.

Phyllis Diebenkorn played an essential role in Richard’s life and work. As a muse and a pillar of support, she provided invaluable insight into Richard’s creative process. A frequent model in Richard’s work, she appears in many of his paintings and drawings. Through Berk’s lens, we get a glimpse of Phyllis as more than just a subject — her portrait reveals a woman of depth, grace, and secretive allure.

In Berk’s oil on canvas portrait of Phyllis, she captures an intimate and tender moment. The deft brushstrokes emphasize Phyllis’ ethereal presence. The interplay of light and shadow add a sense of mystery, inviting the viewer to delve deeper into the subject’s thoughts and emotions.

Berk’s portrait of Phyllis Diebenkorn not only serves as a testament to her artistic skill but also as a window into the lives of influential figures within the Bay Area Figurative Movement. The painting stands as a poignant reminder of the connection between art and personal relationships. Through this portrait, we are invited to explore the intimacy and emotions that underpin the relationships between artists and their muses, weaving a captivating tale of people who defined the Bay Area Figurative Movement.

Percy Gray was an American artist known for his landscape and still life paintings. Born 1869 in San Francisco, California, Gray became a prominent figure in the California plein air movement. He studied at the California School of Design and later taught there as well.

Gray’s artwork often depicted the natural beauty of California, particularly its coastal and mountainous landscapes. He had a keen eye for capturing the interplay of light and shadow in his paintings, showcasing a strong sense of atmosphere and mood. Gray’s brushwork was characterized by loose, impressionistic strokes that conveyed a sense of spontaneity and vitality.

Path to the Foothills captures the serene beauty of nature with its delicate brushstrokes and vibrant hues. The way Gray skillfully portrays the winding path leading through the foothills is simply mesmerizing. Gray’s mastery of watercolor shines through in this piece, as he effortlessly captures the essence of the Californian landscape with lush foliage and distant mountains.

Throughout his career, Gray exhibited his works extensively — both locally and nationally. He was a member of various art societies, including the Bohemian Club and the California Art Club. Today, Percy Gray’s paintings can be found in private collections and museums, contributing to the legacy of California Impressionism.

Born in Germany, William Wendt started his artistic practice making furniture in his home country. Upon emigrating to the United States, he turned his focus to painting.

Wendt was among the landscapists who comprised the Eucalyptus School of painters, named for the trees commonly seen in California. These artists applied the looseness of French Impressionism to renderings of the unique geography of California. Wendt was also associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in the state, which espoused a belief in making art in harmony with nature. Among his peers, Wendt was known as the “Dean of Southern California landscape painters,” and his commitment to celebrating the natural beauty of his surroundings continues to inspire generations of West Coast painters.

An exciting addition to our July 14th sale is an oil on canvas painting by California artist William Wendt. Largely self-taught, Wendt often employed a plein-air method while painting his naturalistic landscapes. For the piece in our sale, Wendt traveled north of his Laguna Beach studio to capture an overcast day at the beach in Monterey. The image includes his trademark painterly brushstrokes and prominent use of green tones. Along with his wife, sculptor Julia Bracken Wendt, and a host of other prominent artists, Wendt founded the California Art Club in 1909, which remains an active fine arts organization in the state.

William Keith was born in Scotland and emigrated to the United States as a child, eventually settling in San Francisco. After studying watercolor techniques, he began painting with oils, and by 1870, he was working as a full-time fine artist.

Keith is known for his dramatic California landscapes, particularly his depictions of Yosemite National Park and other locations in the Sierra Nevada mountains. His work combines realism with romanticism, capturing the detailed topography of California intimately and monumentally.

Keith’s artistic prowess shines through in his captivating depiction of the Yosemite Valley, featuring majestic horses that add an extra touch of dynamism and wonder to the scene. With meticulous brushstrokes and a keen eye for detail, Keith transports us into the heart of Yosemite’s natural splendor.

Through his artwork, Keith not only immortalizes the raw beauty of Yosemite but also invites us to appreciate the symbiotic relationship between nature and the human spirit. Keith’s paintings played a significant role in shaping public perception of the Sierra Nevada mountains and the serene beauty of Yosemite. Along with those of other artists, his paintings helped inspire the conservation movement and ultimately contributed to the establishment of Yosemite as a national park in 1890.