Coral Snake
Watercolor
7.5 x 10.75 inches, overall
$550

Hog-Nosed Snake
Watercolor
7.5 x 11 inches, overall
$550

Massasauga
Pen and ink
7 x 9.75 inches, overall
$250

Charles Liedl (fl. 1920s to 1960s)
Snake Studies
American: c. 1940s
Watercolor or pen and ink on paper, as noted above
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
$250 to $550 each, as noted above

See others available works by Liedl

Natural history watercolors by Charles Liedl of American snakes, shown in their natural habitat, and a vigorous black and white pen-and-ink drawing that may have been a study for a finished watercolor.  The sizes of the paintings vary as indicated.  All are guaranteed authentic from the artist’s estate.  Coral Snake and Hog-Nosed Snake are being sold as a pair; Massasauga may be purchased separately.

Charles Liedl was a renowned and prolific illustrator of hunting, fishing, and wildlife scenes. He was born in Hungary at the turn of the 20th century and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts.  He published illustrations in hunting magazines, and became a soldier during World War I.  Captured by the Russians, he was shipped to Siberia, transferred to American and then Japanese custody.  After escaping around 1919, he found work in Japan painting pictures of orchids for a rich patron. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s, and began his career as an illustrator. In the 1930s and 1940s, he exhibited his works at various galleries and museums, including The American Museum of Natural History, Education Hall and the Heads & Horns Museum Gallery, New York Zoological Park. In 1948, Steuben Glass produced a series of glass game bird figurines after Liedl’s designs.  An avid outdoorsman as well as an artist, he wrote and illustrated two instruction books on animal art: How to Draw Animals (Greenberg, 1953) and Hunting with Rifle and Pencil (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Brunswick Press, 1955). He also did the illustrations for a children’s animal book, Noel and Jimmy-Why by George Frederick Clark (Brunswick Press, 1959).  Liedl oversaw the painting of the landscape backgrounds for the wildlife dioramas at the Seattle Museum of History and Industry in 1963.

Condition: Each generally very good with the usual overall light toning, wear, soiling. Some sheets variously toned to different shades of off-white. Some with minor wear, chips to edges, can be matted out.