Fiberboard Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

'Midcentury Biomorphic Abstract', NYMoMA, Paris, XXXII Venice Biennale, MALI, Lima, Peru Signed, lower right, 'E.R. Larrain' for Emilio Rodríguez Larraín (Peruvian, 1928-2015), and inscribed 'Roma, Nov 1963, Enero 1964'. (Rome, Nov 1963-January 1964). Verso titled, "L'Homme C'est Sujet à Errer" (Man Tends to Wander), and bearing the artist's self-portrait in india ink and wash. Exhibited: XXXII Venice Biennale, 1964. (original exhibition label verso) Previously with Staempfli Galleries, New York. This painting is registered in the Archives of American Art as 'Staempfli Gallery, inventory #775'. A monumental and historically distinguished work by this groundbreaking Peruvian Modernist who drew inspiration from Peruvian indigenous and pre-colonial culture. The paintings of Emilio Rodríguez Larraín are held in the permanent collections of museums worldwide including the Musée de la Ville de Paris, Peru's Museo de Arte de Lima and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This painting was selected by the Peruvian Government for exhibition at the XXXII Venice Biennale in 1964 and is the largest single recorded work by the artist. Emilio Rodríguez Larraín received his Bachelors of Architecture in 1949 from Peru's Universidad Nacional de Ingeniería and held his first solo exhibition in Lima after visiting Europe in 1950. In 1951, he returned to Europe in the company of the artists Alfredo Ruiz Rosas and Joaquín Roca Rey...

Signed lower right, 'Herbert Lewis' (American, 1893-1962) and inscribed 'Caques 1928 and Tucson 1950'. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Herbert Taylor Lewis was known as a painter of abstracts, still lives and figure studies painted with a vivid palette in a bold Modernist style. Lewis first studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, and, subsequently, in Europe including at the Academie Julian in Paris during the birth of Modernism and Cubism in the early part of the 20th century. Upon his return to the United State, he kept a studio in New York City for several years but, by 1920, was living and painting in Arizona. In the late 1920s and 1930s, Lewis was working as an art instructor at Rockford College, Illinois, and, from 1943 to 1954, was a resident of Tucson. By the early 1930s, he lived part time in California...