Dennis Burton

Edge

1958

Oil on masonite. Signed lower right and on verso. 30 x 24 in. 31 x 25 in. (framed) Custom framed in maple. Louis Leon Ribak was born in the Russian empirical governorate of Grodno in 1902. A long-disputed region that is ethnically Lithuanian, at present day, Grodno is located in the western reaches of the Republic of Belarus, near the borders with Poland and Lithuania. At the age of ten, Ribak and his family immigrated to New York City. In 1922, he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, followed by studies at the Art Students League (1923) and the Educational Alliance (1924). Ribak’s oeuvre can be largely delineated between two stylistic phases: social realism and abstraction, the former taking hold during the 1930s and 40s. During that period, he had several solo exhibitions at the A.C.A. Gallery in New York, while also regularly exhibiting with “An American Group Inc.” - a cohort of socially-conscious painters that included Stuart Davis, Reginald Marsh, Maurice Sterne, and Raphael Soyer. In 1933, Ribak assisted Diego Rivera on the mural for the lobby of Rockefeller Center, while also being employed by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a muralist. Louis Ribak met fellow artist Beatrice Mandelman at a dance sponsored by the Artists Union in New York. They were married in 1942, and shortly thereafter, he was drafted for military service in World War II. After his discharge from the service in 1942 due to difficulties with asthma, Mandelman and Ribak traveled west to visit his former mentor John Sloan in Santa Fe, NM. By this time, the couple had become disenchanted with the art scene in New York, and in light of the need to find a healthier climate for Ribak’s asthma - as well as reputed FBI surveillance based on political affiliations with Communist sympathizers - they decided to permanently relocate to the emerging artists’ colony of Taos, NM in 1944. This change of scenery ushered in the second phase of Ribak’s stylistic career, with his work shifting from social realism toward abstraction. He was captivated by the landscape and the diverse cultures of northern New Mexico, the influences of which began to appear in his work. Ribak founded the Taos Valley Art School in 1947, offering no ideology to his students; instead arguing that the adoption of a single approach would lead to academicism. Ribak was an integral force in the development of the Taos Moderns...

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right and on verso. 59 x 54 in. 60 x 55.25 in. (framed) Custom framed in a hickory floater. After World War II, William Quinn...

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower left. 51 x 38 in. 52.5 x 39.25 in. (framed) Framed in maple. Gabriel Godard, a self-taught painter, was born in 1933 in Delouze, France. Hist...

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated lower right; signed, titled, dated verso. 48 x 60 in. 49.75 x 61.75 in. (framed) Custom framed in a solid maple floater, with an heirloom white finish. Provenance Kootz Gallery, New York Collection of John G. and Kimiko Powers, New York/Aspen, CO Prentice-Hall Corporate Art Collection, New York Kyle Morris was born in Des Moines, IA in 1918. After serving in the U.S. Air Force during World War II, he completed M.F.A. programs at both Northwestern and Cranbrook Academy of Art before settling in New York and renting a studio on Mercer Street in downtown Manhattan during the 1950s. Transitioning away from the figurative painting of his formal training, he began to create the bold gestural works that would serve as his hallmark in the ever-growing fraternity of the New York School. Morris’ first major solo exhibition occurred at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in 1952. This show served as the catalyst for his recruitment onto the rosters of the prominent Stable and Kootz galleries in New York. In 1961, he was included in the Guggenheim’s landmark exhibition, American Abstract Expressionists and Imagists, which surveyed the abstract expressionist movement that would come to dominate contemporary American art...

Oil on canvas. Signed and titled verso. 40.25 x 56.25 in. 40.75 x 56.75 in. (framed) Custom framed in a whitewashed cherry closed-corner frame. Aaron Levy was born in New York Cit...

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right, signed and dated verso. 62.25 x 56.25 in. 64 x 58 in. (framed) Custom framed in a natural cherry wood floater. Provenance Washburn Gallery, New York Behnke Doherty Gallery, Washington Depot, CT Born in 1908 in Chicago, John Opper moved with his family to Cleveland, Ohio, in 1916. In high school, he began studying art and attending classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art. After graduation, he enrolled in the Cleveland School of Art (now Cleveland Institute of Art), only to withdraw after a year and move to Chicago, where he took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. He eventually returned to Cleveland, enrolling at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve), receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1931. The Depression has taken hold during this period, so Opper found work by teaching metalworking and sketching classes at the Karamu Settlement House, the oldest African American theater in the United States. In 1933, Opper traveled to Gloucester, Massachusetts, eventually connecting with the artist Hans Hofmann, who was teaching at the school run by Ernest Thurn. Hofmann encouraged Opper to work “in a more modern vein and start finding what it’s all about.” Heeding this advice, Opper relocated to New York, co-founding a mail-order club of American and British prints for dissemination to schools and museums. By the mid-1930s, he joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Easel Division, and also began attending the 57th Street school that Hans Hofmann had established after leaving the Art Students League. Looking back at his time at the school, Opper felt that beyond Hofmann’s teaching, most advantageous was his contact with fellow artists, including Byron Browne, Rosalind Bengelsdorf, and George McNeil. At the time, he also met Giorgio Cavallon and the sculptor Wilfrid Zogbaum. In 1936, Opper became a founding member of the American Abstract Artists, along with Balcomb and Gertrude Greene. The organization was formed to provide an opportunity for artists to show abstract works at a time when such opportunities were scarce. This led to his first solo show in 1937 at the Artists’ Gallery in New York. During his summer in Gloucester in 1933, Opper came to know Milton Avery. Painting in Avery’s informal studio in New York City the following winter, he became acquainted with Adolph Gottlieb and Mark Rothko. Opper participated in a couple of shows during the 1930s of the American Artists Congress Against War and Fascism, whose president was Stuart Davis. About the same period, Opper joined the Artists’ Union and served as the business manager of its publication, Art Front. During World War II, Opper worked for a ship design company creating drawings for piping systems used in PT boats...

Oil, acrylic, resin on masonite

Born in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York abstract expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through sixties, and less frequently but consi...

Born in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York abstract expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through sixties, and less frequently but consi...

Born in Philadelphia, Ben Wilson was a New York abstract expressionist painter. His work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through sixties, and less frequently but consi...

Sylvia Rutkoff (1919-2011) Sr5-1 c.1960s “Crossed Arms” Acrylic on Masonite 36x42 period frame Unsigned Collection acquired from family estate

Ben Wilson Byzantium, 1975 Oil on Masonite painting Hand signed reverse, Titled, "Byzantium", dated 1975 by the artist and also with estate stamp - in addition to Ben Wilson's hand s...