Abraham Walkowitz

Abstraction

1932

Signed and dated center right edge; Annotated "48" lower left Provenance: Estate of the artist One of a suite of 120 drawings that the artist did in 1 month. Most were sold thro...

Signed and dated lower left Provenance: Estate of the artist Michael and Alan Lipton (sons) Wilkes University, Wilkes Barre, PA De-accessed 2017 Note: Lipton did a large number of preliminary...

Signed and dated in ink lower center Provenance: Charlotte Bergman, noted collector and patron of Walkowitz. See photo for additional information.

Signed and dated "1962" by the artist lower right. Mixed media on heavy paper. Done for a show to fund a trip to Italy.

Untitled (Inspired by a Chinese scroll painting) Collage with ink on 6 paper elements Unsigned Provenance: Estate of the Artist Condition: Excellent Image size: 4 x 12 inches Support...

Black and White Cat Ink and watercolor on paper, c. 1970 Unsigned Provenance: Estate of the artist (Estate No. 737) Condition: Excellent Image/Sheet size: 4 3/4 x 6 1/4 inches Sam Spanier (1925-2008) Born in Brooklyn New York, Sam Spanier studied painting with Hans Hofmann (1949–50) and also at the Taos Valley Art School (1951). His formative years as a working artist were spent in Paris (1951–52), where he also became involved with the work of G. I. Gurdjieff, through his disciple, Mme. Jeanne de Salzmann. By 1953, Spanier’s work had already begun to meet with critical acclaim. That year, he had his first solo gallery show, and was selected by Milton Avery and Hans Hofmann to receive the prestigious Lorian Fund Award. His second solo exhibition, in 1955, was curated by renowned museum director, Gordon Washburn. Spanier’s early work was reviewed by Dore Ashton, Donald Judd, Fairfield Porter, Stuart Preston, and Irving Sandler, among other significant critics of the period. Spanier’s spiritual path increasingly became the central focus of both his life and his art. In 1960, he was introduced to the teachings of Sri Aurobindo, which led to visits to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, in 1962 and 1964, during which he was inspired to leave New York City and found Matagiri (in 1968)—a spiritual center in Woodstock, New York—with his lifelong partner, Eric Hughes. The work he embarked upon there bifurcates his life as an artist, separating him from New York’s art world, and radically altering the trajectory of his career. From that point forward, it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, to consider his artistic endeavor apart from the life of dedication he had undertaken, and to which he remained committed. As early as 1954, Dore Ashton had recognized in Sam Spanier a “haptic visionary;” in 1960, Irving Sandler wrote that the people in Spanier’s paintings “seem to have witnessed some transfiguring event.” In his later paintings—usually worked in oil pastel on panel or paper—made during intermittent creative periods, from the mid-1970s to the final years of his life, the artist’s inner life remains always apparent in his subject matter; and from the portraits and abstract Buddha-like figures and heads, to the fantasy landscapes, the paintings are redolent with a rich intensity of color and light that can only be described as inspired. Sam Spanier’s works are in the collections of the Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, and the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum. He received the Woodstock Artists Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. Selected Solo Exhibitions: Urban Gallery, New York (1954, 1955, 1956); Wittenborn Gallery, New York (1958); Gallery Mayer, New York (1958, 1959, 1960); Unison Gallery, New Paltz (1986, 1995, 2009); Limner Gallery, New York (1988); Fletcher Gallery, Woodstock, New York (1999). Selected Group Exhibitions: Salon des Comparaisons, Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris, France (1952); October Exhibition of Oil Paintings, New York City Center Gallery, New York (1954); Salon de Mai, Musée d’Art moderne de la ville de Paris, Centre Culturel de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Paris, France (1954); Carnegie International, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1955); Les Plus Mauvais Tableaux, Galerie Prismes, Paris (1955); Première Exposition Internationale de l’Art Plastique Contemporain, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (1956); Recent Paintings USA: The Figure, The Museum of Modern Art (1960); Winter’s Work, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1985); Juried Group Show, Woodstock Artists Association, Woodstock, New York (1986); Woodstock Artists, Self-Portraits, Historical Society of Woodstock Museum, Woodstock, New York (1988); Portraits, Albert Shahinian Fine Art, Poughkeepsie, New York (2003); The World We Live In, Upstate Art, Phoenicia, New York (2003); Show of Heads, Limner Gallery, Phoenicia, New York (2004). Selected Writings on the Artist: Dore Ashton, “Sam Spanier,” Art Digest (May 1, 1954) and “Sam Spanier,” The New York Times (March 16, 1960); Cassia Berman, “Sam Spanier: A Divine Calling,” Woodstock Times (February 7, 2008); Lawrence Campbell, “Sam Spanier: Exhibition of Paintings at Urban Gallery,” Art News...

James Siena "This is for Nadine", signed drawing, 2005 Original drawing done in black marker, bound in the title page of softcover PACE Gallery catalogue with stiff wraps hand signe...

Polly Apfelbaum Color Circle and Star, 2004 Fabric Marker and Fabric Dye on Velvet Cotton Signed and dated in ink by the artist on the front with artist's inkstamp. Frame Included Si...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view cannot be fixed. Optical games stand in for her struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tools...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view cannot be fixed. Optical games stand in for her struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tools...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view can not be fixed. Optical games stand in for the struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tools and paper, she engages a systematic process that branches into new forms as they meet if / else junctures in the work. The series grow iteratively, engaging perception as a subject and a means. To begin, she creates a grid of converging lines in perspective to establish a basic unit of pictorial space. That bound unit: lines and perspective; becomes the foundation for building complexity. Variables such as repetition, color, incremental rotation, inversion, concentration and dispersion are applied. Properties of the initial unit are subverted and transformed. Play between solidity and transparency, mass and lightness, concentration and diffusion, slows down perception. A build up of marks aggregates into optical mixtures and resolves into patterns created by processes of rotation and layering. These patterns and binary relationships emerge slowly. The networks of lines converge and disperse creating multiple visual paths through fields of structured accumulation. Her very human hand leaves behind texture that animates the final artifacts of this process. Sara Eichner is a graduate of Kenyon College (BA) and Syracuse University (MFA). She has had solo exhibitions at PPOW and Sears Peyton...

Sara Eichner wants to create a space where point of view can not be fixed. Optical games stand in for the struggle to comprehend the complexities of seeing. Using simple drawing tool...