Ben Shahn

Monumental Alphabet

1966

#90 Strange Creature Oil and pencil on board, 1932 Signed and dated in the image lower right (see photo) Provenance: Joseph M. Erdelac, Cleveland, OH Condition: excellent Archival framing Image size: 10 1/2 x 11 3/4 inches Frame size: 25 x 24 inches Painter, illustrator and commercial artist Norbert Lenz was born in Norwalk, Ohio and received his artistic training at both the Huntington Polytechnic Institute and the Cleveland School of Art. During his career Lenz exhibited his paintings and drawings at such institutions as the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Butler Institute of American Art. Today the art of Norbert Lenz is held by the Columbus Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Butler Institute of American Art. Lenz was also a very highly regarded commercial designer of stamps. He worked for a number of years at the House of Farman, a leading vendor of first day covers...

Chaco Canvas, fabric, pigment and collage elements, 1985-1995 Signed lower left corner in red paint Title and signed in pencil on the verso on the top of the stretcher Condition: Excellent Canvas size: 18 x 18 inches Provenance: Estate of the Artist By descent Chaco is a Native American culture of Ancestral Puebloan peoples, thriving in New Mexico between 850 CE and 1250 CE. Some of the motifs in this work was inspired by Chaco Canyon wall art. This mixed media work was created after the artist moved from New York to Santa Fe in 1985. It combines many Southwestern and Native American motifs. This is one of a small group of similar works combing collage and mixed media. (See photo of native pictographs) that inspired this work. Virginia Dehn From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Virginia Dehn Virginia Dehn in her studio in Santa Fe Virginia Dehn (née Engleman) (October 26, 1922 – July 28, 2005) was an American painter and printmaker. Her work was known for its interpretation of natural themes in almost abstract forms. She exhibited in shows and galleries throughout the U.S. Her paintings are included in many public collections. Life Dehn was born in Nevada, Missouri on October 26, 1922.] Raised in Hamden, Connecticut, she studied at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri before moving to New York City. She met the artist Adolf Dehn while working at the Art Students League. They married in November 1947. The two artists worked side by side for many years, part of a group of artists who influenced the history of 20th century American art. Their Chelsea brownstone was a place where artists, writers, and intellectuals often gathered. Early career Virginia Dehn studied art at Stephens College in Missouri before continuing her art education at the Traphagen School of Design, and, later, the Art Students League, both located in New York City. In the mid-1940s while working at the Associated American Artists gallery, she met lithographer and watercolorist Adolf Dehn. Adolf was older than Virginia, and he already enjoyed a successful career as an artist. The two were married in 1947 in a private ceremony at Virginia's parents house in Wallingford, Connecticut. Virginia and Adolf Dehn The Dehns lived in a Chelsea brownstone on West 21st Street where they worked side by side. They often hosted gatherings of other influential artists and intellectuals of the 20th century. Among their closest friends were sculptor Federico Castellón and his wife Hilda; writer Sidney Alexander and his wife Frances; artists Sally and Milton Avery; Ferol and Bill Smith, also an artist; and Lily and Georges Schreiber, an artist and writer. Bob Steed and his wife Gittel, an anthropologist, were also good friends of the Dehns. According to friend Gretchen Marple Pracht, "Virginia was a glamorous and sophisticated hostess who welcomed visitors to their home and always invited a diverse crowd of guests..." Despite their active social life, the two were disciplined artists, working at their easels nearly daily and taking Saturdays to visit galleries and view new work. The Dehns made annual trips to France to work on lithographs at the Atelier Desjobert in Paris. Virginia used a bamboo pen to draw directly on the stone for her lithographs, which often depicted trees or still lifes. The Dehns' other travels included visits to Key West, Colorado, Mexico, and countries such as Greece, Haiti, Afghanistan, and India. Dehn's style of art differend greatly from that of her husband, though the two sometimes exhibited together. A friend of the couple remarked, "Adolf paints landscapes; Virginia paints inscapes." Virginia Dehn generally painted an interior vision based on her feelings for a subject, rather than a literal rendition of it.] Many of her paintings consist of several layers, with earlier layers showing through. She found inspiration in the Abstract Expressionism movement that dominated the New York and Paris art scenes in the 1950s. Some of her favorite artists included Adolf Gottileb, Rothko, William Baziotes, Pomodoro, and Antonio Tapies. Dehn most often worked with bold, vibrant colors in large formats. Her subjects were not literal, but intuitive. She learned new techniques of lithography from her husband Adolf, and did her own prints. Texture was very important to her in her work. Her art was influenced by a variety of sources. In the late 1960s she came across a book that included photographs of organic patterns of life as revealed under a microscope. These images inspired her to change the direction of some of her paintings. Other influences on Dehn's art came from ancient and traditional arts of various cultures throughout the world, including Persian miniatures, illuminated manuscripts, Dutch still life painting, Asian art, ancient Egyptian artifacts...

Nature's Printing Press Gouache, tempera, pigments and ink on masonite board, 1967 Signed lower left corner (see photo) Thompson was part of the late 1960’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition along with Benny Andrews The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition Inc. (BECC) was organized in January 1969 by a group of African American artists in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Harlem on My Mind" exhibit, which omitted the contributions of African American painters and sculptors to the Harlem community. Part of a series of works the artist created in 1967. The tree motifs vary as does the color of the background. Please see photo of another work from the series. Condition: Excellent/very good Three tiny while flecks in the green border of the painting Image size: 10 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches Painting board size: 20 x 16 inches Frame size: 25 1/2 x 21 1/2 inches Russ Thompson (Born 1922- Jamaica Part of the late 1960’s Black Emergency Cultural Coalition along with Benny Andrews The Black Emergency Cultural Coalition Inc. (BECC) was organized in January 1969 by a group of African American artists in response to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's "Harlem on My Mind" exhibit, which omitted the contributions of African American painters and sculptors to the Harlem community. Members of this initial group that protested against the exhibit included several prominent African American artists, including Benny Andrews and Clifford R. Joseph, cofounders of the BECC. The primary goal of the group was to agitate for change in the major art museums in New York City for greater representation of African American artists and their work in these museums. Studied: Pratt Inst.; Carlyle College; NY Sch. Mod. Photography Exhibited: MoMA; BM, 1968; Nordness Gals., NYC; Phila. Civic Center; Ruder & Finn FA, 1969; Smithsonian Inst.; Mount Holyoke College, 1969; BMFA, 1970; RISD, 1969; Mem. Art Gal., Rochester, NY, 1969; SFMA, 1969; Contemp. Arts Mus., Houston, TX, 1970; NJ State Mus., 1970; Roberson Center for the Arts & Sciences, Binghampton, NY, 1970; UC Santa Barbara, 1970; Plaza Hotel, NYC; Westchester Art Soc. Gal. (prize); Nassau Community College; Brooklyn Pub. Lib.; Allentown (PA) Art Festival; Quinnipiac College, CT; Parrish Art Mus.; NY State Pavillion; Huntington Township Art Lg. Awards: Mitchell College, CT; BM; Armonk Lib. Show Award; Bedford Hills Lib. Show Award. Sources: Cederholm, Afro-American Artists. Public Collections: Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Brooklyn Museum Museum of Modern Art, New York Smithsonian American Art Museum Exhibitions: MOMA Brooklyn Museum, 1968 Nordness Galleries, NYC Smithsonian Institution Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1970 Rhode Island School of Design, 1969 San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969 Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1970 Parrish Art Museum Courtesy of Afro-American Artist; a biographical directory THOMPSON, RUSS (Born Jamaica, 1922) Painter. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, 1922. Studied at the Pratt Institute; Carlyle College; New York School of Modern Photography. Works: Cloud Flowers ; My Breath Is One with the Clouds ; The Acrobats; Relatives; Thoreau; Clothes to the Body; America- Amer- ica; Hanging Garden; Poor Room, Rich Room; Epigram a Bromide; Passage, 1969 (wood, epoxy, iron). Exhibited: Museum of Modern Art; Brooklyn Museum Fence Show, 1968; Nordness Gal- leries, NY; Phila. Civic Center; Ruder & Finn Fine Arts, 1969; Smithsonian Institution; Mount Holyoke College, 1969; Boston Museum of Fine Arts, 1970; Rhode Island School of Design, 1969; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, 1969; San Francisco Museum of Art, 1969; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1970; NJ State Museum, 1970; Roberson Center for the Arts & Sciences, Binghamton, NY, 1970; Art Galleries, Univ. of Cal. at Santa Barbara, 1970; Plaza Hotel, NYC; Westchester Art So- ciety Gallery; Nassau Community College; Brooklyn Public Library; Allentown (Pa.) Art Festival; Quinnipiac College; Parrish Art Mu- seum; NY State Pavillion; Huntington Town- ship Art League. Collections: Frederick Douglass Institute, Wash- ington, DC; Spiro & Levinson Corp.; Mr. William Haber; Mr. & Mrs. B. Friedman; Mr. & Mrs. Samuel J. Rosen; Mr. David Scribner; Unigraphic Corp.; Mr. Benny An- drews; Jeanne Paris; Mr. & Mrs. Joseph Strauss. Awards: Westchester Art Society; Mitchell College, Conn.; Brooklyn Museum; Armonk Library Show Award; Bedford Hills Library Show Award. Sources: Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Afro- American Artists: New York/ Boston, 1970; Nordness Galleries. 12 Afro-American Artists, 1969; Mount Holyoke College. Ten Afro- American Artists, 1969; Ghent, Henri. “The Community Art Gallery,” Art Gallery, April 1970; Paris, Jean. “Black Art Experience in Art,” Long Island Press, Jamaica, NY, June 14, 1970; Ruder & Finn Fine Arts. Contemporary Black Artists’, Brooklyn College. Afro-Amer- ican Artists: Since 1950, 1969; Walker, Roslyn. A Resource Guide to the Visual Arts of Afro- Americans, South Bend, Ind., 1971. NEW YORK (NY). Acts of Art, Inc. Rebuttal to Whitney Museum Exhibition: Black Artists in Rebuttal at Acts of Art Gallery. 1971. Unpag. (20 pp.) exhib. cat., 54 b&w illus., brief biogs. of 48 artists. The text consists of an unsigned foreword (probably by Nigel L. Jackson, director of Acts of Art); a reprint of Z. D. Allen's review of the exhibition, "Rebuttal to the Whitney," from Chelsea Clinton News (Apr. 15, 1971). The catalogue was published after the show opened. Artists included: Benny Andrews, James Belfon, Betty Blayton, Lynn (Chuck) Bowers, Vivian Browne, Calvin Burnett, Jo Butler, Robert Carter, Art Coppedge, Adger Cowans, Joseph Delaney, J. Brooks Dendy, III, James Denmark, Reginald Gammon, Moses Paul Groves, Lester Gunter, Byron Hall, William Charles Henderson, II, Leon Hicks, Nigel L. Jackson, Kenneth Vrook Johnson, Cliff Joseph, Philip Martin, Kenneth Matthews, Richard Mayhew, Dindga McCannon, Alexander S. McMath, Ademola Olugebefola, William Payne, James Phillips, Kenneth Radcliffe, Junius Redwood, Enid Richardson, Gregory Ridley, Jr., Haywood (Bill) Rivers, Donald J. Robertson, Philippe G. Smith, Ann Tanksley, Bob Thompson, Russell Thompson, Robert Threadgill, Lloyd Toone, Bennie White, Timothy Wilkins, Walter H. Williams, Ed Wilson, Frank W. Wimberley, Hale Woodruff. Sq. 8vo, stapled tan wraps, lettered in brown, illus. of wire sculpture by James Denmark.. BOSTON (MA). Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists. Afro-American Artists: New York and Boston. May 19-June 23, 1970. 92 pp. exhib. cat, 67 b&w illus. of work by 69 artists, exhib. checklist. Intro. by Edmund B. Gaither. Important early exhibition. Includes Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Ellsworth Ausby, Malcolm Bailey, Ellen Banks, Romare Bearden, Robert Blackburn, Betty Blayton, Ronald Boutte, Lynn Bowers, Frank Bowling, Marvin Brown, Calvin Burnett, Dana C. Chandler, John Chandler, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Eldzier Cortor, Ernest Crichlow, Emilio Cruz, Avel DeKnight, Henry DeLeon, Stanley Pinckney, James Denmark, Reginald Gammon, Felrath Hines...

Spiral of Time II Mixed media with acrylic on paper, 1986 Signed lower right (see photo) Condition: Excellent Image size: 35 x 15 1/2 inches Provenance: Peter Marciniak, New Hampshire Distinguished Midwest Private Collection Select Exhibition: 1991 Franz Bader Gallery, Washington, D.C. (solo) 1980 Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY 1974 Bertha Schaefer Gallery; New York, NY (solo) 1972 Childe Hassam Purchase Show, National Institute of the Arts and Letters 1971 "The Turkish Bath of Ingres,” Louvre Museum, Paris, France 1971 Guest Artist, Tamarind Institute; Albuquerque, NM 1970 “American Drawings of the Sixties,” New School Art Center; New York, NY 1966 Dorsky Gallery, New York, NY (solo) 1962 Dwan Gallery; Los Angeles, CA (solo) 1959 Dwan Gallery, Los Angeles, CA (solo) Museum Collection: Smithsonian American Art Museum Albuquerque Museum, Albuquerque, NM Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI Fine Arts Museum, Santa Fe, NM Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM Oklahoma Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT Harwood Museum of Art, Taos "An abstract painter who lived in New York City; Amagansett, Long Island, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, Harry Nadler is described as a "formalist abstract painter of the 1960s-90s whose works were marked by their rich colors, transparencies, and labyrinthine constructions. —The attempt to capture in a purely abstract imagery the quintessential quality of light and contour that emanate from a particular landscape is a hazardous pictorial ambition, but Mr. Nadler has met the challenge of this problem with remarkable success.˜ (Hilton Kramer, The New York Times, April 27, 1974) Noted Fine Print Publications: Lincoln Center/Fine Art Prints,1990, "Live From Lincoln Center", screen print,edition72 Harry Nadler Biography DESCRIPTION WITHOUT PLACE A story Harry told me that he felt was a metaphor for his life and work was about his "golden bird." One day, when he was eight, he was walking home from school, a dangerous task for a Jewish boy in East Los Angeles in the '30s. He carried a painting he had made in school. He had to walk through a dark tunnel and was afraid. His painting of a beautiful, golden bird, radiating tropical colors, shone in the dark and he lost all his fear. The image of beauty, flight, darkness, and the power of his own image-making, stayed with him his whole life. He discovered a kind of freedom in school; he graduated when he was 16, went to art school, supported himself as an illustrator for a newspaper; then discovered a wide new world of literature and fine arts at the University of California, Los Angeles. He earned a B.A. and an M.A., and his talent as an artist manifested itself in teaching assistantships and in painting awards and early shows. His affinity for European painting was strong, and he yearned to go to New York and immerse himself in the museums and in the current work being done by the abstract expressionists. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Spain in 1960, Harry fulfilled his dream of traveling to Europe and studying Goya's Disasters of War at the Prado. His commitment to finding a visual language to express his deep ethical concerns began at this time. He produced a series of works dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust and called the Buchenwald Landscapes and exhibited this body of work at the end of his year in Spain. He agonized over it, feeling that the imagery was too literal. He was searching for something--a formal instrument that reached a meaning beyond the obvious horror of the subject matter. On his return to the United States, he relocated to New York City, believing that his artistic roots lay there. He first made a living by teaching extension courses, while studying great paintings in the city's museums, participating in the current art world and developing his own work. Between 1961 and 1965, Harry made paintings of strange spaces filled with autobiographical objects. The poetry of Wallace Stevens powerfully affected him especially. For Harry, the activity of painting was a way of connecting separate realities. The work of imagination, metaphor, or "seeming" as Stevens described it, takes place in the gap between disparate elements, making connections of meaning on a deeper level. In this gap, he struggled to formulate with precision his understanding of his tools: his materials, his knowledge of philosophy and art history, his religious tradition, his life experience. In this gap, he lived with the anxiety of knowing, with faith in a process larger than himself. And he worked. Geometry became a way of speaking about ultimate purity, wholeness, relatedness; the sensuous material of paint and the particular way he combined those materials became a way of expressing the quality of his own experience. He named a painting series Description Without Place, in honor of Stevens. In this series, windows and boxes hold images of experience (painted objects, that both separate and merge the spaces of the painting. He combines images of crucifixion and blackness, with the vitality of life in both object and color. The breaking of edges and boundaries, merging the spatial and the temporal, continued throughout his life. In 1965, he was offered a teaching position at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. There he began his series, Homage to Ingres, shown in New York City in 1969, followed by a sports series...

Unknown Russian Artist Russian Orthodox Church, Middle 19th century Unsigned Illuminated in red, yellow blue and green pigments and gold leaf on paper An Illuminated manuscript folio...

Signed lower center edge Annotated verso: “5 Juin 1966 _____ et de soleil, de et d’oseille” Image: 6 3/4 x 4 5/8" Frame: 14 1/2 x 12 3/4" Finishe...

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections, national and international. Several exhibitions in galleries and public spaces have attracted public attention, allowing expose his work abroad, including France, Germany, Canada and USA. "Agora Gallery" in New York, writes about his "strong bold colors figures populate the paintings of JParames. strange characters evolve in mysterious scenes, triggering a clash of primary colors. This type of palette and composition, resemble the latest works of Matisse and Miró, "quoted in the prestigious newspaper Express. "The Magical Colors...

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon....

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections, national and international. Several exhibitions in galleries and public spaces have attracted public attention, allowing expose his work abroad, including France, Germany, Canada and USA. "Agora Gallery" in New York, writes about his "strong bold colors figures populate the paintings of JParames, strange characters evolve in mysterious scenes, triggering a clash of primary colors. This type of palette and composition, resemble the latest works of Matisse and Miró, "quoted in the prestigious newspaper Express. "Family Life...

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections, national and international. Several exhibitions in galleries and public spaces have attracted public attention, allowing expose his work abroad, including France, Germany, Canada and USA. "Agora Gallery...

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon. His work is represented in numerous private and public collections, national and international. Several exhibitions in galleries and public spaces have attracted public attention, allowing expose his work abroad, including France, Germany, Canada and USA. "Agora Gallery...

JParames is considered one of the most talented and promising Portuguese artists of his generation. Born in Lisbon in 1978, he studied at the National Society of Fine Arts in Lisbon....