Ralph Mayer Sold at Auction Prices

Attr. Ralph Toch Mayer (American, 1895-1979) Oil Painting

Small portrait of a boy on board. Signed Toch lower right, includes frame. Measures 5"L x 1"W x 6"H including frame. Artist: Ralph Toch Mayer Dimensions: 5"L x 1"W x 6"H Country of Origin: United States

Ralph Toch Mayer American, 1895-1979 Noone Mill, NY State Signed Ralph Mayer (ll) Oil on canvas 34 x 4...

Ralph Toch Mayer American, 1895-1979 Noone Mill, NY State Signed Ralph Mayer (ll) Oil on canvas 34 x 42 inches Provenance: Private collection Born in New York, Mayer was educated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute as a chemical engineer, and began his career researching the chemistry of color in a paint factory founded by his grandfather in the 1840s. He took up painting as an avocation. Finding little technical information about the materials artists used, he studied the craft of painting, publishing an influential handbook in 1940 on artists' materials and techniques. In 1948, he produced The Painter's Craft and in 1969, Dictionary of Art Terms and Techniques. Mayer taught classes in painting materials and techniques at Columbia University, the New School, and the Art Students League. From 1961 until his death, he was technical editor for the magazine American Art. His work, as exemplified by this painting, was in the Precisionist mode, portraying factory buildings, urban streetscapes, and industrial waterways in spare, quasi-geometric compositions. Devoid of people, his canvases emphasize architectural structures, which seem to give shape to their surrounding landscapes. C The Spanierman Gallery, LLC Collection of American Art

Ralph Toch Mayer American, 1895-1979 Landscape with Haystack

Ralph Toch Mayer American, 1895-1979 Landscape with Haystack Artist's estate stamp on the reverse Oil on masonite 16 x 26 inches Trained as a chemical engineer, Ralph Toch Mayer was the author of The Artist's Handbook of Matrials and Techniques [Viking Press, 1940]. More than sixty years later, Mayer's work is still considered a classic reference book on the tools and trade of the artist.

Ralph Mayer (1895-1979)

The Firehouse USA, c. 1935

RALPH MAYER (American b. 1895) LOOKING SOUTH