Untitled (Boats in a Harbor)
This ink wash drawing depicts a serene harbor scene with several moored sailboats rendered in loose, gestural brushwork. The composition features a multi-masted vessel on the right, smaller boats scattered across calm waters, and delicate linear studies of sailing vessels in the upper portion. Executed in warm grays and blacks against a beige ground, the work exemplifies the spontaneous, observational approach characteristic of mid-twentieth-century American regional painting, particularly the Provincetown School's emphasis on maritime subjects and plein-air sensibility.
- Medium
- Ink wash
- Dimensions
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Eldred's
🔨 Auction Lot
Provincetown Art Association & Museum Benefit Auction
May 16, 2026
Estimate: $700 to $900
Lot 24
Collectors with works by Herman Maril
Artists in conversation
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
American (Japanese-born) · b. 1889
Kuniyoshi painted figurative and animal subjects with bold simplified forms and earthy modernist tones, combining cubist influenced abstraction with representational imagery in a distinctly American mid century context very similar to this wrestling scene.
William Gropper
American · b. 1897
Gropper depicted muscular physical subjects including wrestlers and laborers using bold dynamic figuration with flattened forms and strong earthy color, making his figurative oil paintings closely parallel in subject matter and simplified modernist treatment to this work.
Joseph Hirsch
American · b. 1910
Hirsch painted figurative American subjects including sporting and physical confrontation scenes with bold muscular forms rendered in an earthy post war modernist palette that bridges representational and abstracted figuration in a manner directly comparable to this wrestling composition.
Start the Discussion
Request access to join the discussion