Clive Fredriksson Art

This is a possible self portrait by the famed female surrealist artist. It is also strikingly similar in style with it's exaggerated eyes to her portrait of Jean Genet, ( Leonor F...

Acrylic on masonite. This is a pivotal work in deep and radiant cobalt blue from 1950. It dipicts calligraphic and hieroglyph structures over a grid and pyramidal base by the first generation abstract expressionist. Provenance: Skinner: November 13, 1992 [Lot 00219}, The entry in the Skinner catalog indicates that the painting came directly from the artist to the family of the consignor to Skinner. Kaminsky Auctions. There is an unbroken paper trail that traces the ownership of the painting from the current owner, through two auction houses to the artist. Perfect unbroken provenance. Pousette-Dart was among the most inventive of the Abstract Expressionist generation, His uncanny talent was to expand the nature of abstraction and still make each mark each element very much his own; a reflection of what he called   "the concealed power of the spirit," he said, “not of the brute physical form."   His was not aiming for a singular, realized aesthetic formula but to expand the possibilities of painting; the transcendental in painting. Typical of such invention and exploration is this  painting  Untitled 1950 when the artist was only 34 years old and represented by one of the champions of the new American painting, Betty Parsons.  
A banner year for Pousette-Dart, the Museum of Modern Art acquired their first painting by the Minnesota born artist.  He worked on easel size works such as this painting an oil on masonite. At the same time Pousette-Dart was also working on larger scale works such as Path of the Hero, running over ten feet in length now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Both contain fields of color articulated by a highly sophisticated white hieroglyphic vocabulary. Rather than demonstrate an expressionist sensibility, Pousette-Dart harnesses his more cerebral ideas transforming thick areas of paint into a more refined composition of geometric forms akin to the pattern and forms of say a stained glass window. In a way he is looking back at Fugue, 1940 a black and white composition which makes use of a similar format of painting albeit smaller. Color and form are minimal, but what Pousette-Dart has maximized is the rhythmic and syncopated character of painting casting his ideas into purely symbolic terms that one might link to the pictograms of Adolph Gottlieb. Nonetheless, nature is always at the core of Pousette-Dart’s thinking and dreaming. Here he has transformed the local Ramapo Mountains—where he will eventually move with his family to live and work— into a complex series of articulated fragments linked by style, scale and color.  The painting’s imagery built on two large triangles and reduced to just two colors, cobalt blue and white all outlined in black.  Pousette-Dart symbols stacked in horizontal and vertical rows:  blue is ground, white is language, symbolic of light, consciousness and awareness . The painting maintains a mystical character images compounded that formulate a secret code and linked to the series of white paintings Pousette-Dart authored in the first half of the 1950s. Get up close to the picture and you discover images within images a kind of picture puzzle...

Provenance: Charles H. and Virginia Baldwin, Claremont, Colorado Springs, Colorado ca. 1907-1934; thence by descent until sold in 1949 to: Charles Blevins Davis, Claremont (renamed Trianon), Colorado Springs 1949 -until gifted in 1952 to: The Poor Sisters of Saint Francis, Trianon, Colorado Springs, 1952 until acquired, 1960, by: John W. Metzger, Trianon, renamed as the Trianon School of Fine Arts, Colorado Springs, 1960-1967; when transferred to: The Metzger Family Foundation, Trianon Art Museum, Denver, 1967 - 2004; thence by descent in the Metzger Family until 2015 Exhibited: Trianon Art Museum, Denver (until 2004) The present work is a spectacular jewel-like canvas by Amigoni, rich in delicate pastel colors, most likely a modello for an altarpiece either lost or never painted. In it the Madonna stands firmly upon a cloud in the heavens, her Child resting on a delicate veil further supported by a cloud, as he gently wraps his arm around his mother’s neck. From above angels prepare to lower flowers and a wreath, while other angels and seraphim surrounding the two joyfully cavort. Dr. Annalisa Scarpa, author of the forthcoming monograph on Jacopo Amigoni...

Provenance: Torres Family Collection, Asunción, Paraguay, ca. 1967-2017 While the genre of portraiture flourished in the New World, very few examples of early Spanish colonial portraits have survived to the present day. This remarkable painting is a rare example of female portraiture, depicting a member of the highest echelons of society in Cuzco during the last quarter of the 17th century. Its most distinctive feature is the false beauty mark (called a chiqueador) that the sitter wears on her left temple. Chiqueadores served both a cosmetic and medicinal function. In addition to beautifying their wearers, these silk or velvet pouches often contained medicinal herbs thought to cure headaches. This painting depicts an unidentified lady from the Creole elite in Cuzco. Her formal posture and black costume are both typical of the established conventions of period portraiture and in line with the severe fashion of the Spanish court under the reign of Charles II, which remained current until the 18th century. She is shown in three-quarter profile, her long braids tied with soft pink bows and decorated with quatrefoil flowers, likely made of silver. Her facial features are idealized and rendered with great subtly, particularly in the rosy cheeks. While this portrait lacks the conventional coat of arms or cartouche that identifies the sitter, her high status is made clear by the wealth of jewels and luxury materials present in the painting. She is placed in an interior, set off against the red velvet curtain tied in the middle with a knot on her right, and the table covered with gold-trimmed red velvet cloth at the left. The sitter wears a four-tier pearl necklace with a knot in the center with matching three-tiered pearl bracelets and a cross-shaped earing with three increasingly large pearls. She also has several gold and silver rings on both hands—one holds a pair of silver gloves with red lining and the other is posed on a golden metal box, possibly a jewelry box. The materials of her costume are also of the highest quality, particularly the white lace trim of her wide neckline and circular cuffs. The historical moment in which this painting was produced was particularly rich in commissions of this kind. Following his arrival in Cuzco from Spain in the early 1670’s, bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo actively promoted the emergence of a distinctive regional school of painting in the city. Additionally, with the increase of wealth and economic prosperity in the New World, portraits quickly became a way for the growing elite class to celebrate their place in society and to preserve their memory. Portraits like this one would have been prominently displayed in a family’s home, perhaps in a dynastic portrait gallery. We are grateful to Professor Luis Eduardo Wuffarden for his assistance cataloguing this painting on the basis of high-resolution images. He has written that “the sober palette of the canvas, the quality of the pigments, the degree of aging, and the craquelure pattern on the painting layer confirm it to be an authentic and representative work of the Cuzco school of painting...

This superb British realist portrait oil painting is by noted artist Gerald Leslie Brockhurst. It was painted in 1952 when Brockhurst was in his sixties and living in America since 1939. The sitter is Hope G. Simpson. The painting is a half length portrait of a striking blonde woman in a blue buttoned up Chinese style garment. It is a strong portrait with bold colours and confident brushwork and an excellent example of his work. Signed and dated 1952 lower right. Provenance. Hiram Hoelzer New York label verso. Portraits Inc. East Street new York. Label verso. Condition. Oil on canvas, 30 inches by 25 inches and in good condition. Frame. Housed in its original wooded frame, 37 inches by 32 inches and in good condition. Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (1890-1978) was a British painter and etcher. Brockhurst was born in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham on 31 October 1890, son of a coal merchant called Arthur Brockhurst, he soon showed precocious drawing skills and entered the Birmingham School of Art at the age of twelve. A pupil at the Royal Academy Schools in 1907, he won the gold medal and a travelling scholarship in 1913, enabling him to visit both France and Italy. This led to a closer study of such 15th-century artists as Piero della Francesca, Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, whose work had an abiding influence on him. In 1914 he married for the first time to a Frenchwoman, Anaïs Folin, whom he used as the model for most of his early etchings of young womanhood (especially from 1920 till 1934). From 1915 to 1919 Brockhurst and his wife Anaïs lived in Ireland, where they were friendly with the artist Augustus John and his circle. Though he tried his hand at etching in 1914, it was not until 1920 that he began his career as an etcher in earnest, eventually achieving success as both a printmaker and society portraitist. Brockhurst held his first important exhibition in 1919, in London, and after it was well received returned to live there. In 1921 he was one of the early members of the newly-formed Society of Graphic Art and exhibited with them. Throughout the 1930s he continued an increasingly successful career as a portrait artist, with notable sitters including the film stars Merle Oberon and Marlene Dietrich, as well as the Duchess of Windsor, whose husband commissioned her portrait. In 1937 Brockhurst was elected to the Royal Academy and was able to command a price of 1,000 guineas for a portrait. In the same year however details of his relationship with his young model Kathleen Woodward, whom he had renamed Dorette, were made public after she gave an interview to the Sunday Express. Brockhurst's marriage had previously come under strain in 1922 when his wife discovered his adultery with her sister, Marguerite, and now broke down acrimoniously, with Brockhurst counter-suing on the grounds of his wife's adultery. In August 1939 Brockhurst and Dorette moved to the United States, and he was eventually divorced from his first wife in 1940. He married Kathleen in 1947. In New York City, Brockhurst became both famous and rich with a series of society portraits but his printmaking output diminished, especially his etchings. He produced a few lithographs at the end of his career (around 1945). In 1951, he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member. In 1958, he appeared as a guest challenger on the TV panel...

Léon François Comerre 1850-1916 French L'odalisque à l'éventail (The Odalisque with the Fan) Signed "Léon Comerre" (upper left) Oil on canvas Combinin...

Bruce Adams was a painter, art educator, and writer. Born in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1952, he received a B.S. in 1976 and an M.A. in 1983 from Buffalo State College. Adams’s work is includ...

19th Century Italian Orientalist Masterpiece Painting "Four Women In The Harem" circa 1880, in the Circle of Rudolf Ernst. Oil on canvas. "The O...

Inscribed, upper left: “Miss Laura Keppel” Provenance: Commissioned from the artist and by descent in the Keppel family estate, Lexham Hall, Norfolk, to: Major Bertram William Arnol...

The son of the legendary Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoléon François Charles Joseph, takes a spirited stance in this remarkable oil painting attributed to the Austrian portraitist Johann Peter Krafft. Believed to have been exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, this work stands as a testament to both Austrian artistry and the legacy of one of the most powerful men in history. After Napoléon's exile to the island of Elba in 1814, his son was seen by many of his supporters as the last hope of France. The child was named the ruler of half of Europe, holding the titles of Napoléon II...

Giovanni Maria DELLE PIANE, known as IL MULINARETTO (Genoa, 1660 – Monticelli d'Ongina, 1745) Portrait of a man Oil on oval canvas H. 108 cm; L. 83 cm Provenance: Nino Ferrari Colle...

Sassoferrato (Giovanni Battista Salvi) 1609-1685 Italian Madonna Addolorata Oil on canvas Celebrated Italian artist Sassoferrato and his moving religious imagery are the epitome ...