Tony Khawam

Ledge at West Point

1993

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

Framed drawing with a choice of black or white frame (please write a message to seller of your preferred frame color). Mat opening, width: 11 1/2 " - Mat opening, height: 15 ¼ " Fram...

An original, fine art, abstract painting, "Drowning Out the Crowd" is a neutral, contemporary work with mixed media layers of intrigue. Featuring a primarily monochromatic cream pale...

An original, fine art, abstract painting, "The Instructions are Missing" is a playful, contemporary, mixed media work. The painting features a vibrant primary color palette in red, p...

Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110C 1968 Acrylic and graphite on paper 15.2 x 20.3 cms (6 x 8 ins) Robert Motherwell's Elegies series represent one of the iconic motifs of Abstract Expressionism.  Based on a 1948 ink illustration the artist executed accompanying a Harold Rosenberg poem, “A Bird for every bird,” the drawing shows the hypnotically repetitive patterning of ovoids and vertical beams.  The stark contrast of the black ink on white paper references the symbolic use of the color black by artists such as Goya, Manet and Matisse to convey death, loss, and tragedy.  Motherwell was quite affected by the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War and alludes to the Spanish republic in his Elegies. Motherwell’s plumbing the depths of poetry, history, and primordial art in the Elegies is considered a hallmark of nascent Abstract Expressionist painting in its desire to "excavate" essential imagery of mankind. Motherwell, who originally trained as a philosophy scholar and later became of the great editors of 20th century art documents, grasped very early on the crucial importance that in order to contribute meaningfully to the canon of modern art, one must create a principle of aesthetics. Through the surrealist concept of automatism, the artist finally found the creative principle that eventually governed his extraordinary artistic output and produced the Elegies, one of the most salient, immediate painterly images of 20th century abstract painting. In fact, he has alluded to the fact that each one of his Elegies begins as an automatic drawing, and certain shapes are then blocked to create the signature armature of the vertical bars and ovals. The Elegies seem to possess the power of an archetypal image, an image the mind already grasps on a subconscious level. Motherwell's play of dualities of black and white as well as other dichotomies—the geometric versus the organic, chaos versus order, death versus life—was a condition of living through a tumultuous period in American history. During an interview, he vividly recalled the 1940s as the time when society was ordered by a set of contradictions.  In Motherwell's Elegies, he not only discovered an incredibly elastic pictorial language that would communicate on multiple levels but also acknowledged these contradictions in a manner that would resonate in abstract form.  The present work served as a model for a painting, Spanish Elegy...

Estate stamp, verso, for Victor di Gesu (American, 1914-1988) and painted circa 1955. Winner of the Prix Othon Friesz, Victor di Gesu first attended the Los Angeles Art Center and t...

Initialed lower right in pencil, 'B.R.' for Barbara Rainforth (American, 20th century) and dated 1989. Additionally signed in pencil, verso, 'Barbara...

Original oil pastel with underlying graphite drawing lines by the well known Russian/American artist Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed and dated by the artist lower right, 1971. Condition is excellent. Provenance: Estate of the artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Overall matted and in a contemporary narrow blond maple frame 17.5 by 15 inches. Nahum Tschacbasov Biography : Russian-American artist Nahum Tschacbasov (1899-1984) is known for his cubo-surrealistic works which feature a strong psychological element. Some of his work bears a resemblance to work of another Russian-American artist--David Burliuk. He was somewhat of a late starter, moving to Paris in 1932 to study under Adolph Gottlieb, Marcel Gromaire and Fernand Leger. He had his first exhibition in Paris in 1934. He then returned to the US where he joined Rothko and Gottlieb at the Galery Seccession. He was one of the co-founders of The Ten, a group of social conscious abstract painters which included Rothko, Gottlieb, Joseph Solman and Ilya Bolotowsky, among others. In 1944, he began to work at Stanley Hayter's Atelier 17, a center for surrealistic ideas. Between 1936 and 1943, he had five one-man exhibitions at the ACA Galleries and participated in five group shows. He also exhibited at the Whitney, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, the Knox Albright Museum, the Chicago Institute of Fine Art and Corcoran, among others. His work can be found in the permanent collections of the Met, the Whitney, the Brooklyn Museum and the Jewish Museum. Tschacbasov has been the subject of two recent retrospective at Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, NY and Arthur Kalaher...