LIFE BEYOND FIRST CLASS
ARTS & COLLECTIBLES
UNIVERSAL DREAMS
A Curated Tribute to the Pulse of 20th-Century Modernism
Sybil Andrews CPE (British/Canadian, 1898-1992)
The New Cable
1931 12 x 16 1/2 inches
Color linocut
Signed, titled, inscribed
‘Second State’, and numbered 13/60 in pencil
Framed: 19 x 24 inches
Helicline Fine Art’s newest exhibition, Universal Dreams: Modernism in Oil, Paper and Bronze, is a richly layered journey through the radical spirit of modernism—where ideology, innovation, and artistic daring collided to reshape the visual language of the 20th century. On view now through June 26 via HeliclineFineArt.com, as well as Artsy and 1stDibs, this online showcase is a collector’s dream: focused, thoughtful, and reverent of the overlooked. For those who still believe in the tactile magic of art, select works are available to view by appointment at the gallery’s Midtown Manhattan showroom.
Max Arthur Cohn (1903-1998)
6th Avenue El at 8th Street
13 x 18 inches Watercolor on paper, c. 1930
Singed lower left
Framed 21 x 25 1/2 inches
Arthur Dove (1880-1946)
Through the Trees
5 x 7 inches
Watercolor on paper, 1938
Signed lower center
Curated with a collector’s eye and a scholar’s heart, gallerists Keith Sherman and Roy Goldberg have assembled a trove of paintings, works on paper, and sculpture that reflect the vibrant multiplicity of modernist movements—spanning American Scene painting, surrealism, art deco, Vorticism, and WPA-era works. As Sherman and Goldberg note, “We embrace the niche. And we’ve found that many collectors and curators appreciate niche.” It’s this devotion to the overlooked edges of the canon that gives Universal Dreams its heartbeat.
The exhibition balances household names with rediscoveries. Two watercolors by Arthur Dove—a pioneer of American abstraction—anchor the show in quiet authority, while Maurice Guirard-Riviere’s dynamic bronze La Comète lends a sleek, theatrical flair. There’s intimacy in the human-scaled scenes by Isabel Bishop, social realism in the bold WPA-era mural study by Louise Ronnebeck, and sharp wit in Al Hirschfeld’s original drawing of Gwen Verdon from Redhead. Juanita Guccione’s surrealist abstraction and Jo Cain’s 1948 UN poster underscore the political and psychic undercurrents that ran through the midcentury aesthetic.
Bernard Gussow (1881-1957)
Morning Beneath the EL
24 1/4 x 30 inches
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
Juanita Guccione (1904 - 1999)
The Faces We Wore
20 x 16 inches
Oil on canvas
Signed, dated 1935 and titled verso
Heusing
High School Dance
27 x 32 inches
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right 1947
New York, too, has its moment. From Tony Bennett’s luminous Chrysler Building to Ernest Fiene’s cityscapes and Bernard Gussow’s elevated train, the city emerges as muse and monument, its architecture mirrored in the ambition of its artists.
Universal Dreams is not about grand proclamations—it’s about dialogue. Between Europe and America. Between figuration and abstraction. Between the canonical and the nearly forgotten. The show invites collectors to look closely, to find joy in detail, and to reconsider the art historical record not as fixed, but as open-ended—still breathing, still in flux.
New York, too, has its moment. From Tony Bennett’s luminous Chrysler Building to Ernest Fiene’s cityscapes and Bernard Gussow’s elevated train, the city emerges as muse and monument, its architecture mirrored in the ambition of its artists.
Universal Dreams is not about grand proclamations—it’s about dialogue. Between Europe and America. Between figuration and abstraction. Between the canonical and the nearly forgotten. The show invites collectors to look closely, to find joy in detail, and to reconsider the art historical record not as fixed, but as open-ended—still breathing, still in flux.
Al Hirschfeld (1903 – 2003)
Gwen Verdon in Redhead
Sight: 14 1/2 x 19 inches
Ink on board
Signed lower Hirschfeld, Philadelphia
Noted at bottom: Gwen Verdon cavorts in “Redhead”
Framed 22 1/2 x 27
Agnes Hart (1912-1979)
Union Square, New York City
Sight: 14 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches
Gouache on board, 1940
Signed lower right. Signed, titled and dated verso
Louise Ronnebeck (1901-1980)
Oil Riggers
Proposed Post Office Mural Study, Amarillo, Texas
6 1/2 x 37 inches
Watercolor and tempera on paper mounted on board, c. 1937 Unsigned
Maurice Guirard-Riviere (1881 - 1947)
La Comete
Silvered bronze
23 inches wide x 19 3/4 inches high x 5 1/2 inches wide on a 1 1/4h black marble base
Signed in the bronze Guiraude Riviere and stamped Etling, Paris
USA Work Program - WPA
Color lithograph poster on paper
31½x31½ inches.
U.S. Government Printing Office. 1936.
This is modernism reframed not as an era, but as a spirit: restless, exploratory, and unafraid of contradiction. In Universal Dreams, Helicline Fine Art reminds us that collecting modern art is not just about acquiring objects—it’s about curating perspective, preserving dialogue, and honoring the dreams that shaped a century.
Explore the full exhibition online at HeliclineFineArt.com, Artsy, and 1stDibs. Appointments to view select works in person may be arranged upon request.