Ellwood Graham Paintings & Artwork for Sale | Ellwood Graham Art Value Price Guide

Feb. 03, 2024
Ellwood Graham (1911-2007)
Est: $100 - $200
Artist: (signed lower left) Graham Description/title: Abstract painting with fields of pink, green, yellow, orange, and white. Medium: Oil on board Dimensions: (sight size) 24" x 13 1/2", (frame size) 30 1/2" x 20" Condition: Good
Turner Auctions + Appraisals
Oct. 07, 2023
Ellwood Graham, California, Oregon (1911 - 2007), View, abstract, oil on masonite, 12 3/4"H x 15 3/4"W (sight), 18 3/8"H x 21"W (frame)
Est: $800 - $1,200
Ellwood Graham California, Oregon, (1911 - 2007) View, abstract oil on masonite Signed lower right, signed and titled verso. Biography from the Archives of askART: The following information is from ART (unknown volume, unknown date. However, by reference to artist's age it is somewhere around 1991-2) "Art Notes" Rick Deregon 'Memories of a 'modernist' Pebble Beach artist Ellwood Graham has entered his eighth decade of painting, and recently paused to reflect on the good and bad times, the trials and triumphs of a career that has taken him throughout the United States, Mexico and the Caribbean. Besides the sudden discoveries made while painting in new and enchanting lands, over the years, Graham has befriended numerous distinguished figures who have filled these moments of reflection with rich memories. "I'm in my period of anecdotage," he says with a gleam in his eye. "I had an early success because I was considered -- I shouldn't have been but I was -- the first modernists painter on the West Coast," recalls Graham. "I arrived to stay on the Monterey Peninsula in 1937. I was lured by John Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts, who came to visit me in L.A. and told me about Monterey. They liked my painting, and they became good friends and benefactors. "There weren't any galleries here except for the Carmel Art Association which was at the time nothing more than a room with a pot-bellied stove. I established an area on the hill above Monterey called Huckleberry Hill. I bought five lots; I got Bruce Ariss his lot, I helped others there with their lots. There were mostly artists, the studios were big, it was very baronial for me," remembers Graham with a smile. However, before Graham settled on the Peninsula, there were dues to pay. He came to California after leaving Washington University in St. Louis, watching the gas gauge of his Ford roadster closely as he traversed Route 66, and eating just the bag of oranges his sympathetic mother had given him at his departure. Graham along with the people later immortalized as "Oakies" by Steinbeck, arrived in 1933, only to discover there were no jobs. "I retreated to the desert, near Victorville, and slept in a sleeping bag next to my car, ate rattlesnakes and vegetables for food, I painted away, then went up and down Sunset Boulevard and sold four paintings fore $4 each. I was rich!" Before long, Graham entered a competition for a Ventura Post Office mural. Although he came in second to Gordon Kenneth Grant, he was quickly hired by Grant to help and the two completed, from 1935-1936, the 1400-foot egg tempera project. "I received $100 a month for the mural; and I went immediately to the bank to deposit $25 of it and lived off the remainder," remembers Graham. He soon parlayed these earnings and savings into his successful Monterey real estate venture, mixing opportunity with generosity. "A psychologist friend at the time said I had a Jesus Christ complex, as far as helping people out, but John (Steinbeck) referred to my helping people as my "magnificent obsession." Graham's "modernist" painting is an elegant blend of linear elements and color that suggests space and atmosphere while retaining the tactile presence of pigment. Much of his painting rests on the blurry line between non-representation and figuration. In their evocation of specific forms and the plethora of rhythms and painterly energy, Graham's paintings caught the eye of collectors, art show judges and curators throughout the country. Major museums count Graham paintings among their collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Chicago Art Institute, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the DeYoung Museum of San Francisco, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Oakland Museum. "I am a creative painter, the grist for the mill can come from anything at all - a love affair, a book, a poem, a conversation, anything. I like profound painting, although I'm not always capable of doing it, I want a painting to breathe; I like to orchestrate color, playing with the various tones to create an amalgam of color," reflects the artist. One ongoing series, "pictographs," was inspired by diverse sources, such as Mayan wall carvings, Navajo symbology and the Rosetta Stone. These works, that at times recall Klee, are filled with personal symbols and painterly verve. Each image/symbol in the dense grids of these paintings has a fresh, vital linear quality, full of the immediacy of discovery and the storyteller's compulsion.
Ripley Auctions
Mar. 03, 2023
Ellwood Graham, View, Oil on Artist Board
Est: $800 - $1,200
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), titled "View", oil on artist board, signed, 13" x 16", framed 18" x 21". Provenance: Lafayette, Colorado collection.
Kaminski Auctions
Mar. 03, 2023
Ellwood Graham, Evocation, Oil on Canvas Board
Est: $1,600 - $2,400
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), titled "Evocation, oil on canvas board, signed Graham, inscribed 54 Eight Ave N.Y. City, 28" x 22". Provenance: Lafayette, Colorado collection.
Kaminski Auctions
Jan. 07, 2023
Ellwood Graham, View, Oil on Artist Board
Est: $800 - $1,200
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), titled "View", oil on artist board, signed, 13" x 16", framed 18" x 21". Provenance: Lafayette, Colorado collection.
Kaminski Auctions
Jan. 07, 2023
Ellwood Graham, Evocation, Oil on Canvas Board
Est: $1,600 - $2,400
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), titled "Evocation, oil on canvas board, signed Graham, inscribed 54 Eight Ave N.Y. City, 28" x 22". Provenance: Lafayette, Colorado collection.
Kaminski Auctions
Apr. 19, 2020
Ellwood Graham, Daffodils in Vase, Oil on Canvas
Est: $800 - $1,000
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), daffodils and greens in tall vase, oil on canvas, image 21 1/2" x 28", frame 27 1/4" x 33 1/4". Provenance: From a Cathedral City, California collection.
Kaminski Auctions
Jan. 27, 2018
ELLWOOD GRAHAM (AMERICAN, 1911-2007) EMBLAZONMENT, CIRCA 1949 Oil on Masonite: 35 3/4 x 27 3/4 in.
Est: $500 - $700
ELLWOOD GRAHAM (AMERICAN, 1911-2007) EMBLAZONMENT, CIRCA 1949 Oil on Masonite: 35 3/4 x 27 3/4 in. Framed; upper left signed: Graham; verso signed and titled: ELLWOOD GRAHAM/ EMBLAZONMENT
Potomack Company
Sep. 23, 2017
ELLWOOD GRAHAM (AMERICAN, 1911-2007) EMBLAZONMENT, CIRCA 1949 Oil on masonite: 35 3/4 x 27 3/4 in.
Est: $600 - $900
ELLWOOD GRAHAM (AMERICAN, 1911-2007) EMBLAZONMENT, CIRCA 1949 Oil on masonite: 35 3/4 x 27 3/4 in. Framed; upper left signed: Graham; verso signed and titled: ELLWOOD GRAHAM/ EMBLAZONMENT
Potomack Company
May. 22, 2016
ELLWOOD GRAHAM, DRAWING OF JOHN STEINBECK
Est: $5,000 - $7,000
Sight- 9 1/2" x 13" Overall- 17 1/2" x 21" Descended from the family of Beth Steinbeck Ainsworth
Robert Slawinski Auctioneers, Inc.
Mar. 19, 2016
Painting, Ellwood Graham
Est: $300 - $500
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), "Alameda Snow 2," oil on board, signed upper left, gallery label Pat Wall Gallery (Monterey, CA) affixed verso, overall (with frame): 14.5"h x 18"w
Clars Auctions
Feb. 20, 2016
Painting, Ellwood Graham
Est: $600 - $900
Ellwood Graham (American, 1911-2007), "Alameda Snow 2," oil on board, signed upper left, gallery label Pat Wall Gallery (Monterey, CA) affixed verso, overall (with frame): 14.5"h x 18"w
Clars Auctions
Oct. 04, 2011
Ellwood Graham (AMERICAN, 1911-2007)
Est: $3,000 - $5,000
Ellwood Graham (AMERICAN, 1911-2007) Emblazonment signed 'GRAHAM' (upper left) oil on masonite 35¾ x 27¾ in. (90.8 x 70.5 cm.) Executed circa 1949.
Christie's