Original Work on Paper by Irving George Lehman, Russian-American   B. 1900 D. 1982.

Goauche on heavy paper.

THIS IS BY FAR ONE OF THE BEST WORKS ON PAPER WE HAVE EVER ENCOUNTERED.  PLEASE SEE OUR OTHER LISTINGS FOR MORE FANTASTIC WORKS.

Unmatted, Unframed

Sheet: 26" x 20"

This is an exceptionally fantastic Construction Scene with a grappling hook, most likely in Lower Manhattan.  There is typical minor to moderate corner and edge damage. The corners have tack holes.  All damage will fall out of view once matted. 

Original Estate Condition.

Unsigned with estate stamp verso.

Original Work on Paper by Irving George Lehman. Who was a Russian-American W.P.A Era Artist.  He grew up amidst Revolutionary Soviet Avant Garde movements and moved to New York in the 1920's.  He studied at Cooper Union and had solo painting and sculpture exhibitions at ACA gallaries in Manhattan.  He worked as a WPA artist during the Depression.  During the 1930's he lived in Greenwich Village and moved to Brooklyn in the 1940's.  During World War II he worked at the Brooklyn Naval Yard which influenced not only his subjects by his use of industrial materials in his Sculptures.  Prior to WWII his studio work was done in Woodstock and at the end of WWII he began working in Columbia County, NY.  He was included in dozens of solo and group exhibitions in New York, Nationally and Internationally.  In the 1950's he began to execute increasingly larger canvases.  While his style began as Social Realism in the thirties he eventually moved on to Cubist inspired Modernist Figurative Abstraction.  His work also included Jewish subject matter in a number of compositions.  He is included in museum collections in the US and Israel.

Most works have a studio or estate stamp, of which there are two varieties. A large type face stamp, done in New York by an appraiser that appears on a few works on paper, and a small typeface stamp that was applied after the works passed to her heirs, appearing on the prints and also most remaining works on paper. Some works also were signed by the artist on the front. Details of stamp or signature are as noted above. Several of her paintings have sold for significant sums at auction, however as is sometimes encountered with artists that come to prominence simultaneously in New York and elsewhere, no one auction price reporting database appears to be inclusive of all sales, however, he has been widely offered and sold.

From ASKART:

Born in Kiev, Irving Lehman studied at the Art Students League and Cooper Union in New York City, eventually becoming a Member of the American Artists Congress, American Abstract Artists and other contemporary avant-garde groups. With many others he worked on the WPA.

Exhibitions: Whitney Museum, National Academy, Albany Institute, Brooklyn Museum PAFA, and numerous important American and European institutions and galleries.

Awards: His work won international acclaim from England - Israel - Paris, while he is primarily accorded a permanent place in American Art History as member of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism.

Irving George Lehman, painter, printmaker, designer, engraver and teacher, was born in 1900 in Russia, later coming to Brooklyn, New York.  He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art, and National Academy of Design, both in New York City.  He worked as a W.P.A. (Works Progess Administration) artist during the Depression.  He was a member of the American Art Congress. He exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; National Academy of Design; and Brooklyn Museum.

Lehman is listed in Who Was Who in American Art, and Mallett's Index of Artists.

He died in September 1983 in a nursing home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.