Amalia Polleri

Untitled (Children Sleeping)

1943

Robert Riggs, 'Children's Ward', 2-color lithograph, c. 1940, edition c. 50, Beall 11, Bassham 76. Signed, titled, and numbered '14' in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A su...

Robert Blackburn, Untitled (Reclining Nude), brush and ink, c. 1948, unsigned. A fine, spontaneous work, on cream wove paper. Slight toning to the sheet edges; otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 18 3/4 x 23 1/2 inches (476 x 597 mm). Provenance: Adrienne E. Wheeler Collection, acquired from the artist. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Blackburn (1920 - 2003) participated in the rich mix of art programs and creative groups available in Harlem as he grew up, including Charles Alston's Harlem Arts Workshop, the Harlem YMCA, and later the Harlem Artist's Guild. In 1937 he joined the WPA at the Harlem Community Art Center, the largest New York center for instruction in the arts. There he was exposed to Harlem's most prominent artists, Aaron Douglas, William Henry Johnson...

Ian Hugo, 'Together', from the portfolio 'Ten Engravings'. engraving, 1946, edition 50. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '22/50' in pencil. A fine impression, with delicate overall plate tone, on cream wove paper, the full sheet with wide margins (2 7/8 to 5 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. With the blind stamp 'madeleine-claude jobrack EDITIONS', in the bottom right margin. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 5 7/8 x 4 7/8 inches (149 x 124 mm); sheet size 15 x 11 1/8 inches (381 x 283 mm). Collection: Indianapolis Museum of Art. Ian Hugo originally created "Ten Engravings" in 1945 and the portfolio included a foreword by his partner and collaborator, Anais Nin. In 1978, Hugo republished the portfolio with Madeleine-Claude Jobrack, an American master printmaker who studied under Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17, Paris, and with Johnny Friedlaender. When Jobrack returned to the States she managed the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Studio in New York before opening her own printing studio, Madeleine-Claude Jobrak Editions. “The sign of the true artist is one who creates a complete universe, invents new plants, new animals, new figures to transfer to us a new vision of the universe in which dream and reality fuse. Ian Hugo's plants have eyes, the birds have the delicacy of dragonflies, their feathers have the shape of fans. Humor is apparent in every gesture. He uses a fine spider web to give a feeling of flight, speed, lightness. The body of a woman reveals the structure of a leaf, a plant. Wings are moving in a world unified by mythological themes. This is an animated world, humorous and levitating, elusive and decorative, which by its unique forms and shapes gives us the sensation of a rebirth, a liberation from the usual, the familiar, a visit to a new planet.” —Anais Nin, from the forward to the portfolio ‘Ten Engravings’ ABOUT THE ARTIST Ian Hugo was born Hugh Parker Guiler in Boston, Massachusetts, on February 15, 1898. His childhood was spent in Puerto Rico—a "tropical paradise," the memory of which stayed with him and surfaced in both his engravings and his films. He attended school in Scotland and graduated from Columbia University where he studied economics and literature. Hugo was working with the National City Bank when he met and married author Anais Nin in 1923. The couple moved to Paris the following year, where Nin's diary and Guiler's artistic aspirations flowered. Guiler feared his business associates would not understand his interests in art and music, let alone those of his wife, so he began a second, creative life as Ian Hugo. Ian and Anais moved to New York in 1939. The following year he took up engraving and etching, working at Stanley William Hayter’s experimental printmaking workshop Atelier 17, established at the New School for Social Research. Hugo began producing surreal images often used to illustrate Nin's books. For Nin, his unwavering love and financial support were indispensable—Hugo was the "fixed center, core... my home, my refuge" (Sept. 16, 1937, Nearer the Moon, The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, 1937-!939). Fictionalized portraits of Higo and Nin appear in Philip Kaufman's 1990 film drama of a literary love triangle, Henry & June. Inspired by comments that viewers saw motion in his engravings, Hugo took up filmmaking. He asked the avant-garde filmmaker Sasha Hammid for instruction but was told, "Use the camera yourself, make your own mistakes, make your own style." Hugo embarked on an exploration of the film medium as a vehicle to delve into his dreams, his unconscious, and his memories. Without a specific plan, He would collect resonant images, then reorder or superimpose them, seeking a sense of self-connection through the poetic juxtapositions he created. These intuitive explorations resembled the mystical evocations of his engravings, which he described in 1946 as "hieroglyphs of a language in which our unconscious is trying to convey important, urgent messages." In the underwater world of his film ‘Bells of Atlantis,’ the light originates from the world above the surface; it is otherworldly, out of place, yet essential. In ‘Jazz of Lights,’ the street lights of Times Square become in Nin's words, "an ephemeral flow of sensations." This flow that she also calls "phantasmagorical" had a crucial impact on Stan Brakhage, who said that without Jazz of Lights (1954), "there would have been no Anticipation of the Night" his autobiographical film which ushered in a new era of experimental modernist filmmaking. Hugo lived the last two decades of his life in a New York apartment high above street level. In the evenings, surrounded by an electrically illuminated man...

Federico Castellon, 'Body and Soul', 1938, lithograph, edition 30, Freundlich 3. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower left. A fine, richly-inked, atmospheric impression on cr...

Pencil drawing realized by mino Maccari in the 1930s. Not signed. Drystamp "Tiziano" in the lower right corner. Lightly worn in the upper left corner.

"This is a portrait of a sweet girl, the daughter of my friend, who I was visiting." said Anna about this portrait. "The little one played with me for a long time until she got tired...

This oil painting on panel by Jan Sluijters depicts a peaceful domestic scene of a sleeping child surrounded by scattered toys on a soft blanket. The work radiates tenderness, with Sluijters’ characteristic use of light and color lending warmth and intimacy to the composition. The baby’s serene expression highlight Sluijters’ mastery of capturing everyday life with emotional depth. Jan Sluijters (1881–1957) was a pioneering Dutch painter who significantly modernized Dutch art in the early 20th century. His style evolved from luminism to fauvism, expressionism, and eventually realism, with his works often celebrating modern life and domestic intimacy. Known for his vibrant use of color and light, Sluijters produced a wide range of works, including portraits, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life. His contributions to modern Dutch art...

Mother and Child is an original Pen Drawing realized by Mino Maccari in mid-20th Century. Good condition on a yellowed paper. Hand-signed by the artist with pencil. Mino Maccari (...