Sheila Stafford

"Campions, " Lithograph Still Life by Sheila Stafford

1985

This is the back cover of "Chagall Lithographe III," M 577". It is an original Lithograph by Marc Chagall. This print is a glorious black and red bouquet, most of the foliage is shown by black leaves and stems where as the flowers and blooms are red. Also on the top right one can see a tiny red bird. Image: 12.5 x 10 in Frame: 25.5 x 21.5 in Marc Chagall was born in Liozno, near Vitebsk, now in Belarus. The eldest of nine children in a close-knit Jewish family. His father Khatskl (Zakhar) Shagal, a herring merchant, and his mother, Feige-Ite. This period of his life, described as happy though impoverished, appears in references throughout Chagall's work. The family home on Pokrovskaya Street is now the Marc Chagall Museum. He began studying painting in 1906 with a local artist, Yehuda Pen. In 1907, he moved to St. Petersburg. There he joined the school of the Society of Art Supporters and studied under Nikolai Roerich. It was here that he was exposed to experimental theater and the work of such artists as Gauguin. From 1908-1910 Chagall studied under Leon Bakst at the Zvantseva School of Drawing and Painting. This was a difficult period for Chagall; at the time, Jewish residents were only allowed to live in St. Petersburg with a permit, and the artist was jailed for a brief period for an infringement of this restriction. Despite this, Chagall remained in St. Petersburg until 1910, and regularly visited his home town where, in 1909, he met his future wife, Bella Rosenfeld. After gaining a reputation as an artist, Chagall left St. Petersburg to settle in Paris to be near the burgeoning art community in the Montparnasse district, where he developed friendships with such avant-garde luminaries as Guillaume Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, and Fernand Léger. In 1914, he returned to Vitebsk and, a year later, married his fiancée, Bella. While in Russia, World War I erupted and, in 1916, the Chagalls had their first child, a daughter named Ida. Chagall became an active participant in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Although the Soviet Ministry of Culture made him a Commissar of Art for the Vitebsk region, where he founded Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art and an art school, he did not fare well politically under the Soviet system. "Chagall was considered a non-person by the Soviets because he was Jewish and a painter whose work did not celebrate the heroics of the Soviet people."[6] He and his wife moved back to Paris in 1922. During this period, Chagall wrote articles, poetry and his memoirs (in Yiddish,) which were published mainly in newspapers (and only posthumously in book-form). Chagall became a French citizen in 1937. With the Nazi occupation of France during World War II and the deportation of Jews, the Chagalls fled Paris, seeking asylum at Villa Air-Bel in Marseille, where the American journalist Varian Fry assisted in their escape from France through Spain and Portugal. In 1941, the Chagalls settled in the United States where he lived until 1948 (his wife Bella died in 1944.) His wife Bella, who appears in many of his paintings, bore him one child, Ida and then died on September 2, 1944. Bella and Ida appeared in many of his early and most famous paintings. In 1945, he began a relationship with his housekeeper Virginia Haggard McNeil, with whom he had a son, David. In the 1950s, they moved to a villa in Provence. Virginia left him in 1952, and Chagall married Valentina Brodsky (whom he called "Vava"). Jewish influence: Chagall had a complex relationship with Judaism. On the one hand, he credited his Russian Jewish cultural background as being crucial to his artistic imagination. But however ambivalent he was about his religion, he could not avoid drawing upon his Jewish past for artistic material. As an adult, he was not a practicing Jew, but through his paintings and stained glass, he continually tried to suggest a more "universal message," using both Jewish and Christian themes...

"Boldest Native" is an original color lithograph by Michael Knigin. This piece features a pile of apples with abstract textures. The artist signed the piece lower right and titled it...

"La Peine Perdue (The Wasted Effort)" is a color lithograph after original 1962 painting by Rene Magritte. Two blue curtains are parted on either side. Two curtain shaped mirrors show a sky and clouds. A ball sits right to the left of the mirrors. Art: 12 x 9.75 in Frame: 22.75 x 20.38 in René-François-Ghislain Magritte was born November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium and died on August 15, 1967 in Brussels. He is one of the most important surrealist artists. Through his art, Magritte creates humor and mystery with juxtapositions and shocking irregularities. Some of his hallmark motifs include the bourgeois “little man,” bowler hats, apples, hidden faces, and contradictory texts. René Magritte’s father was a tailor and his mother was a miller. Tragedy struck Magritte’s life when his mother committed suicide when he was only fourteen. Magritte and his two brothers were thereafter raised by their grandmother. Magritte studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1918. After graduating he worked as a wallpaper designer and in advertisement. It was during this period that he married Georgette Berger, whom he had known since they were teenagers. In 1926, René Magritte signed...

"Bodegon - Still Life: Apple, Pear & Funnel in Box" is an original color lithograph by Armando Morales. The artist signed the piece and this piece is the presentation proof for the e...

"Fruit & Flowers" is an original hand-colored lithograph by Nathaniel Currier. It features a still life with grapes, roses, and other botanical objects. The colors are muted blues and yellows. The artist signed the piece in plate lower left. 11 3/4" x 8 1/2" art 22 1/8" x 18" frame Nathaniel Currier was born March 27, 1813 to Nathaniel and Hannah Currier in Roxbury, Massachusetts. At the age of fifteen he was apprenticed to William S. and John Pendleton of Boston who had set up the first lithographic establishment in America. His apprenticeship served him well as he went on to be the largest publisher of lithographs. Mr. Maurer described Nat Currier as being very gentlemanly and liberal. As is evident to the success of the firm of Currier & Ives he was very devoted to his business. Nat Currier had many friends including Horace Greely and P.T. Barnum. He was well known for his sense of humor and Harry T. Peters tells one story about P. T. Barnum. "Currier had heard that one day his friend, the great showman, had rushed into the barber shop of the old Park Hotel, at Beekman and Nassau Streets, to get a shave. Barnum had hurried up to Tom Higginson, the barber, and said, 'Tom, I'm in a hurry.' 'Sorry for it,' said Tom, 'but it's that gentleman's turn next.' 'That gentleman' was an unshaven irshman waiting for a ten-cent shave. Barnum turned to him and said, 'My friend, if you will let me have your turn, I'll pay for what you have done.' The gentleman consented, and, as Barnum found out later, had a full job done - absolutely everything the house had. The check was for a dollar and sixty cents. When Currier heard this story he found the very Irishman and had him pose. The result was the famous cartoon, "The Man that Gave Barnum 'His Turn.'" Nathaniel was married twice; his first wife was Miss Eliza West of Boston. He had one son with Eliza, Edward West Currier. In 1847 he married Miss Laura Ormsbee of Vermont. Laura and Nathaniel are memorialized in the famous N. Currier lithograph The Road Winter...

'Lobsterman's Wharf, Maine' is an original lithograph signed by Malvin Marr "Zsissly" Albright. While Malvin Marr – along with his better-known identical twin Ivan Albright – was known for his meticulous and unsettling magic realist compositions, he and his brother were also prolific in capturing landscapes of the coast of Maine where the two spent several consecutive summers away from Chicago over their lives. Sometimes these Maine landscapes and views would be painterly and seemingly antithetical to the careful realism of his other work; but in this example, however, the wharf is treated with the same macabre decay as his human subjects. In the composition, the shack...

Printer: Gemini, G.E.L., Los Angeles Publisher: Gemini, G.E.L., Los Angeles Catalogue raisonné: Axsom 213 Edition size: 30, plus proofs Signed and numbered in pencil, lower right

Portfolio: Twelve Leaves Printer and Publisher: Gemini, G.E.L., Los Angeles Edition size: 20, plus proofs Signed, titled, and numbered in pencil, lower right Catalogue Raisonné: Axso...

Printer and Publisher: Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles Edition size: 20, plus proofs Catalogue Raisonné: Axsom 176 Signed, titled, and numbered in pencil, lower margin

Lithograph in colours, on grey Magnani Pescia paper. Published in 2018. Limited edition 20/20. Co-published in 2018 by WKS Editions and Hamilton Press, Los Angeles. Hand signed and n...

'Schomburgkia leuddemani', orchid, native to Venezuela. Antique botanical lithograph with original hand-colouring , 1912, lithographed by John Nugent Fitch (1840–1927) after the watercolour by Matilda Smith (1854–1926). From Curtis' Botanical Magazine. Fold-out plate with two vertical folds as issued. 240mm by 300mm (sheet) Matilda Smith (1854–1926) was a botanical artist whose work appeared in Curtis's Botanical Magazine for over forty years. She became the first artist to depict New Zealand's flora in depth, the first official artist of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and the second woman to become an associate of the Linnaean Society. John Nugent Fitch was a British botanical...

'Eriopsis Helenae', native orchid of Peru. Antique botanical lithograph with original hand-colouring , 1912, lithographed by John Nugent...