Jack Levine

American Modernist "Feast of Pure Reason" Aquatint Mezzotint Etching WPA Artist

1970

"Qui a raison?" Chassidic boy, Yeshiva student with open book. Judaica, Jewish scenes from a ghetto. Saul Yaffie, a.k.a. Paul Jeffay, (1898–1957) was a Scottish Jewish artist. Known for his charming French street scenes as well as his judaica work. This is signed in the plate and dated 1931 in the print. This is done in a style similar to the works of the early Bezalel School artists Hermann Struck and Jakob Steinhardt. This lithograph, by artist Paul Jeffay depicts a Judaic Shtetl interior scene with great charm and sensitivity. Saul Yaffie was born in Blythswood, Glasgow on 29 April 1898. His mother was Kate Yaffie (née Karkonoski), and his father, Bernard Yaffie, was a master tailor. Like many Russian Jews, Kate and Bernard Yaffie fled persecution in Russia during a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms triggered by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Saul's father was naturalised as a British citizen by the time that Saul himself was three; a Bernard Yaffie is recorded as living at Abbotsford Place in the old Gorbals, where the young Saul spent the early years of his childhood. The Yaffies were not unique in their situation: the Gorbals was the centre of Scotland's Jewish community and home to a large proportion of Glasgow's immigrants throughout the early 20th century. Over time, there was a movement to some of the more affluent communities in Glasgow, such as Pollokshields and Garnethill, as many Jewish families gradually improved their social and economic situation. Like these, the Yaffies also experienced a time of good fortune, moving to a more agreeable address on Sinclair Drive, Cathcart as Bernard's tailoring business prospered. Saul attended day classes in drawing and painting, modelling, and life drawing at The Glasgow School of Art from 1912 to 1919. During the First World War, he was required to interrupt his studies to serve in the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1916/17. Although subject to military conscription, Yaffie reached the rank of corporal during his service. Prior to his conscription Yaffie engaged in munitions work, something that was recorded in the GSA's student registers. The post-war economic depression that affected the country during the 1920s, also affected the Yaffie family directly: Bernard Yaffie's business suffered greatly, and the family eventually emigrated to Canada. Saul did not emigrate with his family, choosing instead to stay in Europe, and relocate to jazz age Paris where he continued his artistic practice. Now married, Saul sought to escape persecution in Europe by returning to the UK before the Second World War with his wife, Estusia. The two settled in Manchester, but returned to France after the war. In his memoires ‘Bronze in My Blood’, German-born sculptor Benno Schotz describes a Saul ‘Yaffe’, one of only three other Jewish students who attended The Glasgow School of Art at the time. (Schotz himself was exempt from joining the forces because he was ‘not yet a British subject’, and was engaged in war work in the drawing office of John Brown’s shipyards). On the outbreak of the war, Schotz writes, Yaffie won a poster competition to be displayed in Glasgow tramcars at the beginning of the 1914-18 war – his winning design depicted a woman with a child in her arms, fleeing from a fire behind her. While on leave from service, the young Saul told Schotz he had briefly been stationed in the same unit as Jewish American sculptor Jacob Epstein. This was most likely the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, also known as ‘the Jewish Legion’, one of five Jewish battalions raised during WW1. ‘He told me how incongruous it was’, remembers Schotz, ‘to See Epstein scrubbing the floor of their hut, with a large diamond ring on his finger’. His work is included in the collection of the Ben Uri Museum in London along with Lucian Freud, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Josef Herman, Jankel Adler, Feliks Topolski...

Older Chassidic rabbi learning with open book, Judaica, Jewish scenes from a ghetto. Saul Yaffie, a.k.a. Paul Jeffay, (1898–1957) was a Scottish Jewish artist. Known for his charming French street scenes as well as his judaica work. This is signed in the plate and dated 1931 in the print. This is done in a style similar to the works of the early Bezalel School artists Hermann Struck and Jakob Steinhardt. This lithograph, by artist Paul Jeffay depicts a Judaic Shtetl interior scene with great charm and sensitivity. Saul Yaffie was born in Blythswood, Glasgow on 29 April 1898. His mother was Kate Yaffie (née Karkonoski), and his father, Bernard Yaffie, was a master tailor. Like many Russian Jews, Kate and Bernard Yaffie fled persecution in Russia during a wave of anti-Jewish pogroms triggered by the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Saul's father was naturalised as a British citizen by the time that Saul himself was three; a Bernard Yaffie is recorded as living at Abbotsford Place in the old Gorbals, where the young Saul spent the early years of his childhood. The Yaffies were not unique in their situation: the Gorbals was the centre of Scotland's Jewish community and home to a large proportion of Glasgow's immigrants throughout the early 20th century. Over time, there was a movement to some of the more affluent communities in Glasgow, such as Pollokshields and Garnethill, as many Jewish families gradually improved their social and economic situation. Like these, the Yaffies also experienced a time of good fortune, moving to a more agreeable address on Sinclair Drive, Cathcart as Bernard's tailoring business prospered. Saul attended day classes in drawing and painting, modelling, and life drawing at The Glasgow School of Art from 1912 to 1919. During the First World War, he was required to interrupt his studies to serve in the King's Own Scottish Borderers in 1916/17. Although subject to military conscription, Yaffie reached the rank of corporal during his service. Prior to his conscription Yaffie engaged in munitions work, something that was recorded in the GSA's student registers. The post-war economic depression that affected the country during the 1920s, also affected the Yaffie family directly: Bernard Yaffie's business suffered greatly, and the family eventually emigrated to Canada. Saul did not emigrate with his family, choosing instead to stay in Europe, and relocate to jazz age Paris where he continued his artistic practice. Now married, Saul sought to escape persecution in Europe by returning to the UK before the Second World War with his wife, Estusia. The two settled in Manchester, but returned to France after the war. In his memoires ‘Bronze in My Blood’, German-born sculptor Benno Schotz describes a Saul ‘Yaffe’, one of only three other Jewish students who attended The Glasgow School of Art at the time. (Schotz himself was exempt from joining the forces because he was ‘not yet a British subject’, and was engaged in war work in the drawing office of John Brown’s shipyards). On the outbreak of the war, Schotz writes, Yaffie won a poster competition to be displayed in Glasgow tramcars at the beginning of the 1914-18 war – his winning design depicted a woman with a child in her arms, fleeing from a fire behind her. While on leave from service, the young Saul told Schotz he had briefly been stationed in the same unit as Jewish American sculptor Jacob Epstein. This was most likely the 38th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, also known as ‘the Jewish Legion’, one of five Jewish battalions raised during WW1. ‘He told me how incongruous it was’, remembers Schotz, ‘to See Epstein scrubbing the floor of their hut, with a large diamond ring on his finger’. His work is included in the collection of the Ben Uri Museum in London along with Lucian Freud, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Josef Herman, Jankel Adler, Feliks Topolski...

Hand signed, limited edition on BFK Rives French art paper. I believe the title is Honeymoon. Jan Balet (20 July 1913 in Bremen – 31 January 2009 in Estavayer le Lac, Switzerland), was a German/US-American painter, graphic artist and illustrator. Affected by the folk art style of naive art he worked particularly as a graphic artist and as an Illustrator of children's books. His works exhibit a dry wit and refreshingly candid, whimsical, satirical view of life. His uncle was the famous painter and illustrator Benno Eggert. Many well-known personalities of the time were friends of his grandfather, i.e. the painters Hans Purrmann, Karl Caspar, Maria Caspar-Filser (cousin of his mother), the writer Martin Andersen Nexo, the Swabian poet Wilhelm Schussen as well as the poet and writer Oskar Wöhrle. In 1929, at the age of 17, he moved to Berlin at the invitation of his father and studied Drawing at the college of Arts and Crafts (Kunstgewerbeschule Ost am Schlesischen Bahnhof). A year later, he went to live with his mother and his grandmother, in Munich. Balet transferred his studies to the Munich College of Arts but was dismissed in 1932. He went on to study with Professor Ege, at a private school for commercial art. During this time he also worked at an institute for lithography and for the art gallery Wallach. Balet rented his first small studio at the age of nineteen, where he manufactured and sold hand colored Bavarian woodcuts. 1934 he passed the entrance examination to the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München and undertook further studies with Olaf Gulbransson. His work is of a popular style similar to Michel Delacroix, Charles Fazzino and James Rizzi. In early 1938 Balet was recruited by the German military and because his ancestor's passport was not complete, he was forbidden to associate further with the Akademie der Bildenden Künste München. Later that year Balet emigrated to the USA, settled in New York and painted rustic furniture for a living. One winter he jobbed as a skiing teacher in Vermont and occasionally jobbed as an advertising commercial artist. Among other projects, he painted the cafeteria of the largest of New York's department stores R.H. Macy. From time to time Balet's designs appeared in the fashion magazine Mademoiselle and in 1943 he became Art Director at the magazine. Balet became so successful as a commercial artist that he was able to give up paid employment and start his own business. He worked for the radio station CBS, magazines such as Vogue, House and Garden, House Beautiful, The Saturday Evening Post, Glamour, Good Housekeeping, This week. After the war ended in 1945 he acquired U.S. citizenship. Balet commuted between his studio in New York and an old, boat house in the dunes of Montauk, Long Island, which he had converted to a studio where he painted and drew. His first children's book Amos and the Moon was published in 1948. Despite what was regarded in the USA as fashionable art Abstract, Op-art and Pop Art, Balet continued to paint in his own naif style. Art work (Children books and sketchbooks) 1948 Amos and the moon, Henry Z. Walck Verlag New York 1949 Ned, Ed and the lion 1951 What makes an orchestra 1959 The five Rollatinis, J. B. Lippincott Co. Verlag New York 1965 Joanjo, Pharos Verlag Basel 1966 Das Geschenk Eine portugiesische Weihnachtsgeschichte, Betz-Verlag München 1967 Der König und der Besenbinder, Betz-Verlag München 1969 Der Zaun, Otto Maier Verlag München 1969 Ladismaus, Betz-Verlag München 1979 Ein Skizzenbuch, Windecker Winkelpresse 1980 Katzen-Skizzen, Windecker Winkelpresse 1981 Skizzen-Paare, Windecker Winkelpresse 1981 Die Leihkatze oder Wie man Katzen lieben lernt, Windecker Winkelpresse (Author: Otto Schönberger) 1982 Paris-Skizzen, Windecker Winkelpresse 1984 Hellas-Skizzen, Windecker Winkelpresse 1993 Wasser-Skizzen, Edition Toni Pongratz 1994 Die Zeppeline des Jan Balet, Zeppelin-Museum Friedrichshafen (Taschenbuch) 2008 Angekommen: Gedichte (Author: Hans Skupy) Publicationen, which Jan Balet illustrated 1945 Alarcon, P.A.: Tales from the Spanish, Allentown 1948 Hanle-Zack, D.: The golden ladle, Chicago-New York 1952 Wing, H.: Rosalinda, Chicago 1953 Wing, H.: The lazy lion...

Still life with (thomas) Sully and (Andy) Warhol, (French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)) Hand signed in pencil, dated 1994 bears gallery label from OK Harris Gallery in New Yor...

Pencil signed and dated, Russian Soviet Judaica Lithograph. Anatoli Lwowitch Kaplan was a Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker, whose works often reflect his Jewish origins. His...

Baruch Nachshon, was born in Mandatory Palestine in 1939, in the city of Haifa. Nachshon began to paint in early childhood, and developed his relationship to art and to artists throu...

A faithful architectural rendering of the earliest Ashkenazi synagogue constructed in London; built about 1690, and subsequently destroyed in the Blitz, 1941. London: Rudolph Ackerm...

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...

Reif 20.IIc(of e). 10 5/8 x 9 3/4 (sheet 19 X 12 3/4). Slight scattered foxing in the margins, away from the image. A rich, tonal impression printed on sturdy wove paper. Proof aside...

Viewers are always curious about this image. I count 20 people seated -- all men. Why? Three of the men are looking over their shoulders toward the back. Are they impatient to see ...

"Sew What" is a color mezzotint with burin engraving created in an edition of 35. This impression is #6. I love sumptuously designed textiles in both real life and art. Patterns metamorphosing over fabric folds appeal to my interest in modulating rhythmic forms, particularly the swells and swirls of calligraphic stripes. I’m also fascinated by articulated wooden hand models, which appear in many of my paintings. Combining these passions with sewing paraphernalia from my seamstress days provided inspiration for my color mezzotint engraving "Sew What". Carol Wax originally trained to be a classical musician at the Manhattan School of Music but fell in love with printmaking. Soon after she began engraving mezzotints she was asked by the renowned print dealer...

Jukka Vanttinen (Finn, b. 1954) Jukka Vanttinen was introduced to the medium of mezzotint through a book by Sir Frank Short on British mezzotints. He learned through experimentatio...