500 Gallery’s Affordable Art Affair Features Work After Francis Williams Edmonds, Hans Hofmann, and More

The upcoming sale at 500 Gallery will feature an engraving after Francis William Edmonds’ painting The New Scholar. As a painter who balanced an art and business career during the mid-19th century, Edmonds rose to prominence in New York’s banking, politics, and cultural arenas. Edmonds’ paintings are filled with warmth, humor, tenderness, and a fine sense of detail without being overly sentimental. In addition to scenes of daily life in the countryside, often overshadowed by humorous overtones, Edmonds also painted literary subjects, portraits, and landscapes, typical of American nationalistic art in the 1830s. Taking its inspiration from Dutch genre painting of the 17th century (everyday scenes), The New Scholar illustrates the artist’s moralizing approach, depicting a young boy shrinking behind his mother, engaged in friendly conversation with the schoolmaster carrying the rod of discipline. The available framed work has the artist’s and engraver’s names below it.

Another top lot in this sale is an oil on Masonite abstract composition in the manner of Hans Hofmann. A major figure in Abstract Expressionism, Han Hofmann was also a mentor and teacher to emerging artists. Hofmann’s paintings frequently blur the lines between different schools of Cubism, Fauvism, and others. Interested collectors can also consider a rare, limited-edition lithograph print, titled Bras de Sien Pres Giverny by French Impressionist Claude Monet. To view the complete catalog of the Affordable Art Affair sale and to find other online auctions, visit Bidsquare.