General Idea

East Wall

1983

Harold Town (1924-1990) remains one of the most noted and fascinating characters from the "Painters Eleven" group. While Town coined the group's name (based on the number of artists who simply attended their first meeting) his output was diverse ever-changing. Despite being a major contributor to developments in 20th century Canadian abstraction, he also completed a significant amount of figurative works beginning in the 1970's. Town worked on the series "French Postcards...

With his unmistakable version of contemporary Surrealism, Marcel Dzama is one of the most successful Canadian artists. Born in Winnipeg in 1974, Dzama had an international reputat...

Harold Town (1924-1990) is the ultimate chameleon of Canadian art. One of the founders of Painters Eleven, he remains one of the most fascinating characters from this important colle...

Harold Town (1924-1990) remains one of the most accomplished and fascinating characters from the "Painters Eleven" group. While Town coined the group's name (based on the number of...

Joyce Wieland (1931-1998) is one of the most accomplished and versatile Canadian artists. She achieved a level of commercial and critical success in her lifetime that was exceptional for a woman during an era in a male-dominated field. Notably, she was the first female artist to have a solo exhibition at the National Gallery (Ottawa) in 1971 and the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto) in 1987. Although Wieland was an artist who was always drawing, she launched her career as a painter. Always experimenting, her art practice expanded to incorporate a range of media and materials, from textile works to film. In New York City, she was best known as an experimental filmmaker. In the mid 1960s Wieland began to embrace more representational and narrative elements in her work. Inspired by comic books, and her background in film as an animator, Wieland embraced figuration albeit clearly influenced by Pop Art. One of the reoccurring motifs in Wieland's oeuvre is playing with and subverting icons of femininity. In this work Wieland presents icons inspired by the French Queen Marie-Antoinette: a jewelry or hat box, a hairbrush, a medallion. The artist seems to be willing to give a make-over to the Queen. In the "nice medallion painting...

In 1967, General Idea was founded in Toronto by AA Bronson (b. 1946), Felix Partz (1945-1994), and Jorge Zontal (1944-1994). Over 25 years, they made a significant contribution to po...

Lydia Viscardi is best known for her representational mixed media collages that combine highly detailed realistic painted and drawn imagery with flat shapes cut out from patterned pa...

"Family Portrait" is an original gouache and pencil piece on paper by Thomas Smith. The artist uses pure, unmixed color in flat planes, shading only on the faces of the figures, which makes them stand out from the rest of the image. The three figures sit in a triangular formation. The tallest figure looms over the other two with a dark black cloak...

Meticulously rendered art deco illustration of a stylized woman ( perhaps Asian ) having a dialog with a small monkey perch on her outstretched arm. ...

Panthère dans les bambous, 1926 Gouache, or et traits de crayon sur papier Signé et daté en bas à droite 15 x 15 cm (sujet) Panther in the bamboos, 1926 Gouache, pencil and gold on paper Signed and dated to the lower right Provenance Collection particulière, France - Private collection, France Bibliographie/Literature : Emmanuel Bréon "Gaston Suisse, splendeur du laque art déco", Somogy Editions d'art, Paris 2013, oeuvre décrite et reproduite page 104. (l’oeuvre décrite et reproduite est la lithographie tirée d'après l’oeuvre originale que nous présentons.) Nous présentons ici l'oeuvre originale à la gouache, or et crayon de la panthère noire. L’artiste en réalisa une gravure sur bois dont il tira lui-même une vingtaine d’épreuve. Ces épreuves ne furent pas commercialisées telles quelles, Gaston Suisse reprit chacune des épreuves en utilisant des lavis d’encre de Chine et des ors de différentes couleurs, afin d’obtenir des effets différents pour chaque épreuve, qui sont donc des œuvres originales uniques. We present here the original work in gouache, gold and pencil of the black panther. From this original, the artist made a wood engraving of which he made about twenty prints himself. These proofs were not marketed as they were, Gaston Suisse reworked each of the proofs using Indian ink washes and golds of different colors, in order to obtain different effects for each proof, which are thus unique original works. Born in 1896 in a family of artists, his father Georges was a close friend of Siegfried Bing and a great lover of Japanese art and a bibliophile. He passed his taste for art to his son whom he often took to draw at the Botanic Garden . Around 1910, Gaston Suisse, who hasn't entered yet the artistic school, met Paul Jouve, then 18 years his elder, who was already famous. In 1911, at the age of 17, he entered the National School of Decorative Art where he followed the teachings of Paul Renouard. Thanks to his knowledge and taste for the Japanese art, he chose lacquer painting as his specialty. His practice of this noble and demanding subject were so much appreciated that he was awarded with two gold medals in 1913 and 1914. Mobilized during the war , he joined the army and go in Salonika where he found his friend Jouve. In 1918, he finished his studies at the School of Applied Arts in order to perfect his training. He learned in particular the techniques of gilding and oxidation of metals. The first productions of Gaston Suisse, furniture and objects in lacquer with geometrical patterns, were an instant success and Suisse was appointed as member of Salon d'Automne in 1924, the very year of his first exhibition. Considered as an artist-decorator, his sincere and deep friendship with Jouve linked him in parallel with the groups of the animaliers of the Jardin des Plantes and became a close friend of Edouard-Marcel Sandoz. When travelling to Maghreb and Middle-East between 1923 and 1925, he produced numerous drawings representing antelopes, apes and fennec foxes...

Moses With the Ten Commandments by Sir Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) Pencil and watercolor on paper 22 x 16 ⅝ inches unframed (55.88 x 42.24 cm) 28 ½ x 23 inches framed (72.39 x 58.42 cm) Signed on bottom left Description: In this figurative watercolor painting, Jacob Epstein depicts Moses holding two tablets, one in each arm, that are inscribed with the ten commandments. This is a visualization of the traditional biblical story in which Moses goes to Mount Sinai and has the ten commandments revealed to him by God which he inscribed onto two tablets and keeps in the Ark of the Covenant...

Signed lower left, 'Denis Paul Noyer' (French, b. 1940) and created circa 1975. An exceptionally finely-detailed, silver point and colored pencil drawing showing a view of a Parisia...