Boris Margo

"Cave Drama" Boris Margo, Abstract Surrealism, Surrealist landscape, Modernist

1938

Fernando de Szyszlo El Innombrable, 1980 Titled inscribed dated verso: Orrentia 1980 "El Innombrable" Signed lower bottom edge center "Szyszlo" Oil on canvas 59 1/2 x 59 inches Fernando de Szyszlo was a Peruvian painter...

David Hare Cronus View from the Cave, 1971 Graphite, Ink wash, Paper Collage on Paper on Board 25 x 33 inches “Freedom is what we want,” David Hare boldly stated in 1965, but then he added the caveat, “and what we are most afraid of.” No one could accuse David Hare of possessing such fear. Blithely unconcerned with the critics’ judgments, Hare flitted through most of the major art developments of the mid-twentieth century in the United States. He changed mediums several times; just when his fame as a sculptor had reached its apogee about 1960, he switched over to painting. Yet he remained attached to surrealism long after it had fallen out of official favor. “I can’t change what I do in order to fit what would make me popular,” he said. “Not because of moral reasons, but just because I can’t do it; I’m not interested in it.” Hare was born in New York City in 1917; his family was both wealthy and familiar with the world of modern art. Meredith (1870-1932), his father, was a prominent corporate attorney. His mother, Elizabeth Sage Goodwin (1878-1948) was an art collector, a financial backer of the 1913 Armory Show, and a friend of artists such as Constantin Brancusi, Walt Kuhn, and Marcel Duchamp. In the 1920s, the entire family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and later to Colorado Springs, in the hope that the change in altitude and climate would help to heal Meredith’s tuberculosis. In Colorado Springs, Elizabeth founded the Fountain Valley School where David attended high school after his father died in 1932. In the western United States, Hare developed a fascination for kachina dolls and other aspects of Native American culture that would become a recurring source of inspiration in his career. After high school, Hare briefly attended Bard College (1936-37) in Annandale-on-Hudson. At a loss as to what to do next, he parlayed his mother’s contacts into opening a commercial photography studio and began dabbling in color photography, still a rarity at the time [Kodachrome was introduced in 1935]. At age 22, Hare had his first solo exhibition at Walker Gallery in New York City; his 30 color photographs included one of President Franklin Roosevelt. As a photographer, Hare experimented with an automatist technique called “heatage” (or “melted negatives”) in which he heated the negative in order to distort the image. Hare described them as “antagonisms of matter.” The final products were usually abstractions tending towards surrealism and similar to processes used by Man Ray, Raoul Ubac, and Wolfgang Paalen. In 1940, Hare moved to Roxbury, CT, where he fraternized with neighboring artists such as Alexander Calder and Arshile Gorky, as well as Yves Tanguy who was married to Hare’s cousin Kay Sage, and the art dealer Julian Levy. The same year, Hare received a commission from the American Museum of Natural History to document the Pueblo Indians. He traveled to Santa Fe and, for several months, he took portrait photographs of members of the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni tribes that were published in book form in 1941. World War II turned Hare’s life upside down. He became a conduit in the exchange of artistic and intellectual ideas between U.S. artists and the surrealist émigrés fleeing Europe. In 1942, Hare befriended Andre Breton, the principal theorist of surrealism. When Breton wanted to publish a magazine to promote the movement in the United States, he could not serve as an editor because he was a foreign national. Instead, Breton selected Hare to edit the journal, entitled VVV [shorth for “Victory, Victory, Victory”], which ran for four issues (the second and third issues were printed as a single volume) from June 1942 to February 1944. Each edition of VVV focused on “poetry, plastic arts, anthropology, sociology, (and) psychology,” and was extensively illustrated by surrealist artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy; Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp served as editorial advisors. At the suggestion of Jacqueline Lamba...

William Scharf Untitled, 1962 Signed lower left; signed and dated verso Oil on canvas 48 x 50 inches A visionary painter with ties to the avant-garde artistic community in New York at midcentury, William Scharf nevertheless defies art historical categorization. His abstracted compositions of organic and geometric formal elements recall the free associations of Surrealism and the all-over grandeur of Abstract Expressionism, and at the same time embody a very individual and immediately recognizable pictorial sense. Scharf combines virtuoso paint handling, vibrant color, and rich symbolic language in canvases that engage the viewer in a transcendent and emotional dialogue. This dialogue is accomplished in part through recurring symbols, which allude to hidden, mysterious narratives. Scharf plumbs the psychological wells of collective myths for symbolic content: the crown of thorns, the ladder, the fish, and the cross can be found throughout, functioning not, as one might expect, as religious symbols, but rather as a means through which to access a deeper, symbolic level of visual communication. Born in 1927 in Media, Pennsylvania, an early friendship with renowned artist N.C. Wyeth encouraged Scharf’s artistic efforts from a very young age. After a time with the Army Air Corps in the mid-1940s, Scharf formalized his art studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts under Franklin Watkins...

David Hare Cronus Asleep in the Cave, 1971 Acrylic on linen 55 x 67 inches “Freedom is what we want,” David Hare boldly stated in 1965, but then he added the caveat, “and what we are most afraid of.” No one could accuse David Hare of possessing such fear. Blithely unconcerned with the critics’ judgments, Hare flitted through most of the major art developments of the mid-twentieth century in the United States. He changed mediums several times; just when his fame as a sculptor had reached its apogee about 1960, he switched over to painting. Yet he remained attached to surrealism long after it had fallen out of official favor. “I can’t change what I do in order to fit what would make me popular,” he said. “Not because of moral reasons, but just because I can’t do it; I’m not interested in it.” Hare was born in New York City in 1917; his family was both wealthy and familiar with the world of modern art. Meredith (1870-1932), his father, was a prominent corporate attorney. His mother, Elizabeth Sage Goodwin (1878-1948) was an art collector, a financial backer of the 1913 Armory Show, and a friend of artists such as Constantin Brancusi, Walt Kuhn, and Marcel Duchamp. In the 1920s, the entire family moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and later to Colorado Springs, in the hope that the change in altitude and climate would help to heal Meredith’s tuberculosis. In Colorado Springs, Elizabeth founded the Fountain Valley School where David attended high school after his father died in 1932. In the western United States, Hare developed a fascination for kachina dolls and other aspects of Native American culture that would become a recurring source of inspiration in his career. After high school, Hare briefly attended Bard College (1936-37) in Annandale-on-Hudson. At a loss as to what to do next, he parlayed his mother’s contacts into opening a commercial photography studio and began dabbling in color photography, still a rarity at the time [Kodachrome was introduced in 1935]. At age 22, Hare had his first solo exhibition at Walker Gallery in New York City; his 30 color photographs included one of President Franklin Roosevelt. As a photographer, Hare experimented with an automatist technique called “heatage” (or “melted negatives”) in which he heated the negative in order to distort the image. Hare described them as “antagonisms of matter.” The final products were usually abstractions tending towards surrealism and similar to processes used by Man Ray, Raoul Ubac, and Wolfgang Paalen. In 1940, Hare moved to Roxbury, CT, where he fraternized with neighboring artists such as Alexander Calder and Arshile Gorky, as well as Yves Tanguy who was married to Hare’s cousin Kay Sage, and the art dealer Julian Levy. The same year, Hare received a commission from the American Museum of Natural History to document the Pueblo Indians. He traveled to Santa Fe and, for several months, he took portrait photographs of members of the Hopi, Navajo, and Zuni tribes that were published in book form in 1941. World War II turned Hare’s life upside down. He became a conduit in the exchange of artistic and intellectual ideas between U.S. artists and the surrealist émigrés fleeing Europe. In 1942, Hare befriended Andre Breton, the principal theorist of surrealism. When Breton wanted to publish a magazine to promote the movement in the United States, he could not serve as an editor because he was a foreign national. Instead, Breton selected Hare to edit the journal, entitled VVV [shorth for “Victory, Victory, Victory”], which ran for four issues (the second and third issues were printed as a single volume) from June 1942 to February 1944. Each edition of VVV focused on “poetry, plastic arts, anthropology, sociology, (and) psychology,” and was extensively illustrated by surrealist artists including Giorgio de Chirico, Roberto Matta, and Yves Tanguy; Max Ernst and Marcel Duchamp served as editorial advisors. At the suggestion of Jacqueline Lamba...

Artwork sold with American box in black color Danielle Maillet-Vila is a French artist born in 1945 who lives and works in Barbizon, France. She first moved into fashion industry an...

His first name sounds like a concerto. Vivacious, its name is reminiscent of an aperitif or a cyclist. The addition of the two evokes the Italianate. Indomitable and unavoidable. Mor...

Artist: Oskar Maria D'Amico, Italian (1923 - 2003) Title: Untitled Year: 1967 Medium: Oil on Canvas, signed Size: 54 x 60 in. (137.16 x 152.4 cm)

Marc Janson Surrealist Landscape Oil on convas Handsigned bottom right Signed again on the back On canvas 46 x 55 c m (c. 18 x 22 in) Very good condition, light defects at the edge