Odd fellows - vintage photographs, underwear and soap advertisements

Courtesy David Ciminello.

Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

The Rocky Twins, circa 1920s.

Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

Alan Thomas and Andrew Kozak, photograph by the Athletic Model Guild, circa 1940-50s.

Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

Jerry Sullivan, photograph by the Athletic Model Guild, circa 1960s.

Courtesy Ralf De Jonge.

The challenging gaze - "The Yellow Glove", by James Cowie, 1928

A portrait of the artist’s second wife, Alice, "The Yellow Glove" was painted in the early days of the couple’s marriage. Apparently, Alice Cowie was quite a clever and socially ambitious woman whose outgoing personality contrasted sharply with that of her rather introverted husband. The clear, direct color and dramatic angles, here, seem a response to the sitter’s strong features and rather aloof - even challenging - expression, resulting in an image that is - as much as anything else - a declaration of his wife's strength of character.

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James Cowie (16 May 1886, Cuminestown – 18 April 1956, Edinburgh), Scottish painter and teacher. Born on a farm in Aberdeenshire, he went on to study English Literature at Aberdeen University, but failed to graduate. He then obtained a teacher training qualification in drawing and took a teaching position, but a few years later he enrolled at the Glasgow School of Art, where he completed his Diploma in two years. Over the next decades he accepted positions at a number of art academies, but didn't have his first solo exhibition until 1935. He continued teaching; his students would include Robert Colquhoun, Robert MacBryde, Robert Henderson Blyth, and Joan Eardley. In 1952 he suffered a severe stroke from which he never fully recovered, and he died four years later at the age of sixty-nine.

Simplifying the sensual ideal - a selection of paintings by Károly Ferenczy

On the Hilltop, 1901.

Boy at the Riverside, 1903.

Study for above.

Cross Hill Near Nagybánya, 1900.

Nagybánya, ND.

Landscape in Springtime with the Flower Hill, 1898.

Adam, 1894.

Autumn Hillside, circa 1900-05.

Chestnut Trees in Nagybánya, 1900.

Summer, 1902.

Study for above.

My Studio in Nagybánya, 1897.

Our House in Nagybánya on Petőfi Street, ND.

Wrestlers, 1912.

Landscape in Spring, 1905.

Landscape, 1909.

Acrobats, 1913.

Athletes, 1915.

Summertime, 1906.

The Edge of the Grove, 1907.

Nagybánya Landscape, ND.

Study for below.

Boys on the Beach, 1912.

Evening (?), 1912.

I'm totally captivated by how the artist, in these last three images - using only these incredibly simplified, even crude, figures - has so beautifully captured the particularity of the waning day, the changing light. One can almost feel the shifting into evening. The play of cool and warm reflected in the skin tones is just exquisite.

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Károly Ferenczy (February 8, 1862, Vienna – March 18, 1917, Budapest), Hungarian painter and leading member of the Nagybánya artists' colony, he is considered the "father of Hungarian impressionism and post-impressionism" and the "founder of modern Hungarian painting." Born into a Hungarian Jewish family in Austria, his mother died soon after he was born. He first studied law and completed a degree from the College of Economy, but his future wife - a painter, herself - encouraged him to study painting. He traveled to Italy and then went to study at the Académie Julian in Paris in 1887. Two years later, he and his wife settled in Hungary; they had three children, all of whom would become artists. In 1893 he took his young family to Munich, where they lived for the next three years while he studied with the Hungarian painter Simon Hollósy and the circle of young artists around him.Upon his return to Hungary, Ferenczy helped found the artists colony in 1896, and became one of its major figures. In 1906, he was offered a teaching position at the Hungarian Royal Drawing School, now the Hungarian University of Fine Arts, but he returned to Nagybánya in the summers to teach. The range of his subject matter was broad, with his style becoming more and more individual as time went on. In his later period, the "reconciliation of the abstract aesthetic ideal with sensual beauty became a central concern of his art."

Self-portrait, 1893.

Soft gold and rough flame - two paintings

Boy in a Cape and Turban (Portrait of Prince Rupert of the Palatinate), by Jan Lievens, circa 1631.

By Candlelight, by Martin Ferdinand Quadal, circa 1780s-90s.

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Jan Lievens (24 October 1607, Leiden – 4 June 1674, Amsterdam), Dutch painter. He is most often associated with Rembrandt; they shared a studio from about 1626 - they were nineteen and twenty - to 1631 and worked in a similar style, so much so that it's caused difficulties in the attribution of their works from this period. He had started his training at a very young age and was working as an independent artist by the age of twelve. His extreme precocity made him something of a celebrity and, while still a teenager, he won many important commissions from royalty, mayors, and city burghers. When he and Rembrandt left their shared studio, Lievens went to work in England. He later worked in Antwerp, and as a court painter in The Hague and Berlin. He married twice, and died not long after the Rampjaar - the political and economic crisis of 1672; among others affected, many artists were ruined - his family having to use any inheritance to pay off his debts.

Martin Ferdinand Quadal (28 October 1736, Niemtschitz – 10 January 1811, St. Petersburg), Moravian-Austrian painter and engraver. He painted animal pieces, as well as military scenes, genre subjects, and portraits. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and lived in that city for several years. Early on, he traveled to London, then visited France and Italy, lived and worked in Vienna again, and then in St. Petersburg from 1797 to 1804. After a second visit to London, he returned to St. Petersburg, where he died at the age of seventy-four.