Art by Medium: Laid Paper

With the distinctive medium of post-it notes, Özmenoğlu re-contextualizes everyday objects from something ordinary to a beautiful work of art. The individualized behavior of each pos...

With the distinctive medium of post-it notes, Özmenoğlu re-contextualizes everyday objects from something ordinary to a beautiful work of art. The individualized behavior of each pos...

An original oil pastel on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 19 x 25 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the inte...

An original oil pastel on paper drawing by Benjamin Benno, American (1901 - 1980) measuring 19 x 25 inches. By the early 1930s he had established a reputation as a member of the international avant-garde and exhibited with the most significant European artists including Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, Hans Arp, and Fernand Léger. Pablo Picasso sponsored Benno's first one-man show in Paris in 1934. Still Life with Mandolin...

Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 110C 1968 Acrylic and graphite on paper 15.2 x 20.3 cms (6 x 8 ins) Robert Motherwell's Elegies series represent one of the iconic motifs of Abstract Expressionism.  Based on a 1948 ink illustration the artist executed accompanying a Harold Rosenberg poem, “A Bird for every bird,” the drawing shows the hypnotically repetitive patterning of ovoids and vertical beams.  The stark contrast of the black ink on white paper references the symbolic use of the color black by artists such as Goya, Manet and Matisse to convey death, loss, and tragedy.  Motherwell was quite affected by the turbulence of the Spanish Civil War and alludes to the Spanish republic in his Elegies. Motherwell’s plumbing the depths of poetry, history, and primordial art in the Elegies is considered a hallmark of nascent Abstract Expressionist painting in its desire to "excavate" essential imagery of mankind. Motherwell, who originally trained as a philosophy scholar and later became of the great editors of 20th century art documents, grasped very early on the crucial importance that in order to contribute meaningfully to the canon of modern art, one must create a principle of aesthetics. Through the surrealist concept of automatism, the artist finally found the creative principle that eventually governed his extraordinary artistic output and produced the Elegies, one of the most salient, immediate painterly images of 20th century abstract painting. In fact, he has alluded to the fact that each one of his Elegies begins as an automatic drawing, and certain shapes are then blocked to create the signature armature of the vertical bars and ovals. The Elegies seem to possess the power of an archetypal image, an image the mind already grasps on a subconscious level. Motherwell's play of dualities of black and white as well as other dichotomies—the geometric versus the organic, chaos versus order, death versus life—was a condition of living through a tumultuous period in American history. During an interview, he vividly recalled the 1940s as the time when society was ordered by a set of contradictions.  In Motherwell's Elegies, he not only discovered an incredibly elastic pictorial language that would communicate on multiple levels but also acknowledged these contradictions in a manner that would resonate in abstract form.  The present work served as a model for a painting, Spanish Elegy...

Guiseppe Aureli (1858-1929) "An Opulent Evening" c. 1880s Watercolor on Paper Signed Lower Right Site Size: approx. 30 x 20 inches Framed Size: approx. 37 x 29 inches Giuseppe Aureli (December 5, 1858 in Rome – 1929) was an Italian painter and watercolorist. His work is noted for its historical subject matter, portraits of Italian noble families as well as genre paintings and local scenes, especially work with Oriental themes. He received his early art education at the Academia de San Luca where he was the pupil of Pietro Gabarini and Cesare Maccari.[1] He exhibited in various exhibitions; including: The International Exhibition of 1888 in Munich and the World Fair of 1893 in Chicago, but his Oriental works were rarely included in these early exhibitions. Having his workshop at 48 Via Margutta in Rome, Aureli was in a position to exchange ideas with the most prolific Orientalist artists at that the time. He used the same staircase that led to a rabbit-warren of studios including those of Filippo Bartolini, Enrico Tarenghi...

Colt Type 10, 2016 Mixed media on hand-collaged paper 10 1/2 × 8 in 26.7 × 20.3 cm