Guntars Sietins Art

Aquating Engraving Image Size: approx. 20 1/4 x 13 3/8 Framed Size: 28 x 20.5 inches Pencil Signed Lower Right Louis Justin Laurent Icart was born in Toulouse in 1890 and died in Paris in 1950. He lived in New York City in the 1920s, where he became known for his Art-Deco color etchings of glamourous women. He was first son of Jean and Elisabeth Icart and was officially named Louis Justin Laurent Icart. The use of his initials L.I. would be sufficient in this household. Therefore, from the moment of his birth he was dubbed 'Helli'. The Icart family lived modestly in a small brick home on rue Traversière-de-la-balance, in the culturally rich Southern French city of Toulouse, which was the home of many prominent writers and artists, the most famous being Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Icart entered the l'Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Toulouse in order to continue his studies for a career in business, particularly banking (his father's profession). However, he soon discovered the play writings of Victor Hugo (1802-1885), which were to change the course of his life. Icart borrowed whatever books he could find by Hugo at the Toulouse library, devouring the tales, rich in both romantic imagery and the dilemmas of the human condition. It was through Icart's love of the theater that he developed a taste for all the arts, though the urge to paint was not as yet as strong for him as the urge to act. It was not until his move to Paris in 1907 that Icart would concentrate on painting, drawing and the production of countless beautiful etchings, which have served (more than the other mediums) to indelibly preserve his name in twentieth century art history. Art Deco, a term coined at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, had taken its grip on the Paris of the 1920s. By the late 1920s Icart, working for both publications and major fashion and design studios, had become very successful, both artistically and financially. His etchings reached their height of brilliance in this era of Art Deco, and Icart had become the symbol of the epoch. Yet, although Icart has created for us a picture of Paris and New York life in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked in his own style, derived principally from the study of eighteenth-century French masters such as Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard. In Icart's drawings, one sees the Impressionists Degas...

In "Late Night", Frederick Mershimer created a winter scene where Berkeley Place meets Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn's Park Slope. This image, the seventh in t...

Cherry is etching on paper, realized by the French artist and print-maker master Mario Avati (1921-2009). Hand-signed on the lower right and numbered on the lower left in pencil. Ed...

Jack Levine, American, 1915–2010 The Feast of Pure Reason, 1970 Etching, mezzotint and aquatint on copper in black ink. 20 w. 25 in., sight overall: 27 x 31.75 in., matted. Depict...

Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a New Orleans landmark at 941 Bourbon St. Like most New Orleans legends, history of Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop is a gumbo of tru...

Art Deco signed Print from the Louis Icart era of 'Les Elegantes' Signed in pencil by the artist and Numbered 67 Original print produced for the artist ...

"Red Poppies, Gray Target" is an etching and woodcut in red and silver inks, printed on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper in an edition of 20. Artist's signature, title, date and edition ...

This mezzotint was created by Laurent Sckolnyk and was meant as an homage to the movie stars of yesteryear -- in this case Marlene Dietrich. Dietrich was an icon in the gay community...

"Cranes and Concrete" is Frederick Mershimer's mezzotint of the construction scene on Broadway between 13th and 14th streets. Mershimer is no strang...

Flower and Pot Color mezzotint, 1983 Signed, numbered, and dated in pencil John Szoke Graphics blindstamp, lower right Edition: 150 (100/150) Image si...

"Silk Stocking Poppies" is an etching and aquatint in orange and black inks, printed on Hahnemühle Copperplate paper in an edition of 20. Artist's signa...

According to Gesine Tosin, Richard Hamilton irritated contemporary critics in the 1970s with a series of works -- romantic images of flowers, still lifes and landscapes, interspersed with scatological motifs. "Once exhibited, the critics regarded the paintings as evidence either of a kinky sexual aberration or an early onset of senility." (Hamilton 1982, p.79. ) Trichromatic flower-piece is one of these works, which questioned the categories of high and low art through its appropriated imagery. In the words of Richard Hamilton: “The Shit and Flowers series was was inspired in a sense by Barcelona, walking on the Ramblas where thousands of postcards are displayed. (…) I bought three pictures of flowers. I took them back to Cadaqués and began to play about with them, at first by putting a little paint on the surface.” According to Andrew Kim Tyler: “Working at Atelier Crommelynck, Paris in 1973-4, Hamilton used a traditional still life subject, a bouquet of flowers, to pursue his interest in the combination of photographic images with planes of color and hand-drawn aspects, but subverting the image with addition of a large turd. Perversely he set out to produce by manual means an etching with the characteristics of a commercially made reproduction resulting in Trichromatic flower-piece.” In addition to the edition of Trichromatic Flower-piece, Hamilton printed...