Gerome Kamrowski

"Blue Fossil" Gerome Kamrowski, Abstract Surrealist, Biomorphic Expressionism

1960

Enrico Donati Aswan IV, 1984 Signed, dated and inscribed as titled on the reverse Oil and sand on canvas 36 x 42 inches Provenance: Gimpel & Weitzenhoffer Gallery, New York Doyle, October 12, 2022 Enrico Donati, a surrealist and abstract expressionist painter, was born in Milan, Italy in 1909 and died in Manhattan on April 25, 2008. He was known for his association with the surrealist movement of the 1940's, but his artwork continued to transform itself through the many trends that have occurred during his long career. In Italy he attended the Universita degli Studi in Pavia where he studied economics. In 1934, he moved to the United States settling in New York where he studied at the New School for Social Research and the Art Students' League. Considered the surviving dean of the Surrealist Movement and a member of the New York School, Donati painted with Ernst, Matta and Tanguy in the thirties and forties, and in particular with Andre Breton, regarded by many to be the grand master of Surrealism. He helped organize the Exposition Internationale du Surrealisme in Paris in 1947 where he exhibited three of his pieces. The Surrealists were known to avoid presenting or representing reality, and put the emphasis on invention and creativity by uncovering the poetic aspect of life with its kaleidoscopic multidimensional images, using reality only to enhance imagination. Donati survived the decline of Surrealism in the late 1940's by adapting his style to current art trends as he worked with new materials and textures throughout the 1950's. One trend with which he became involved was Abstract Expressionism, which originated in the 1940s, and became popular in the 1950s. It was a movement in which artists typically applied paint, rapidly and with force, to large canvases, in an effort to show feelings and emotions. Paint might be applied with large brushes, sometimes dripping or even throwing it onto canvas. Abstract Expressionist work is characterized by a strong dependence on what appears to be accident and chance, although it is actually highly planned. Donati held a retrospective at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1961 and went on to exhibit at the Betty Parsons Gallery with other forerunners of American Abstract Expressionism: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, and Jackson Pollock. It was at this time that Donati created some of his most inventive and extraordinary work, some of which was featured in a survey exhibition at the Alter & Gil Gallery, Beverly Hills, California, in January 2000. He has held many teaching positions and has been an active lecturer, while continuing to add to his artistic repertoire. From 1960 to 1962 he was a Visiting Lecturer at Yale University, and from 1962 to 1972 a Member of the Yale University Council for the Arts and Architecture. He has had seventy-five one-man shows, among them an exhibit of new paintings at the Maxwell Davidson Gallery (57th St., New York) in the fall of 1997. Donati's work is held in collections throughout the world, and his work has appeared in over 300 articles and publications, two hard cover books...

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...

Edna Andrade Mirage (de-accessioned from the Reader's Digest Art Collection), 1988 Original Collage painting on board Signed, titled & dated on the front; the back bears labels from Marian Locks Gallery & Readers Digest Association with inventory (RDA) number Original frame included with collection and gallery labels verso This is a unique work Exquisite 1980s collage on board painting (framed) titled "Mirage" by renowned female Op artist Edna Andrade...

David Hare Summer Land, 1970 Acrylic or oil paint and collage on board Dimensions: 26 X 36 inches. Framed measuring 29 x 38 inches. Hand signed, dated and titled on tape to verso 'Summer Land 1970 Hare'. Provenance: Hamilton Gallery of Contemporary Art, New York David Hare (1917 – 1992) was an American artist, associated with the Surrealist movement. He is primarily known for his sculpture, though he also worked extensively in photography and oil painting. The VVV Surrealism Magazine was first published and edited by Hare in 1942. Born March 10, 1917 in New York City, New York to father Meredith Hare, a lawyer and mother Elizabeth Sage Goodwin, an art collector. In the 1920s the family moved first to Santa Fe, New Mexico and later to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in hope that the fresh air would help heal Meredith Hare's tuberculosis. His mother founded the Fountain Valley School, where David attended high school. After high school Hare married and moved to Roxbury, Connecticut where he worked as a color photographer. He attended Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson from 1936 to 1937, studying biology and chemistry. In the late 1930s, with no previous artistic training, he began to experiment with color photography. Using his previous education in chemistry Hare developed an automatist technique called "heatage" in which he heated the unfixed negative from an 8 by 10-inch plate, causing the image to ripple and distort. Hare's Surrealist experiments in photography were only one of his many projects. In 1938 he met Susanna Winslow Wilson and the couple soon married. Both David and Susanna pursued their interests in Surrealism and regularly attended Surrealist gatherings in New York Larre French restaurant on 56th street and at Breton's Greenwich Village apartment. In 1940 he received a commission from the American Museum of Natural History to document the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest, for which he eventually produced 20 prints developed using Eastman Kodak's then-new dye transfer process (a time-consuming and complicated technique). In the same year, he also opened his own commercial photography studio in New York City and exhibited his photographs in a solo show at the Julien Levy Gallery. In the next few years, through his cousin the painter Kay Sage, he came into contact with a number of Surrealist artists who had fled their native Europe because of World War II. Hare became closely involved with the émigré Surrealist movement and collaborated closely with them on projects such as the Surrealist journal VVV, which he co founded and edited from 1941 to 1944 with André Breton, Max Ernst, and Marcel Duchamp. With numerous illustrations by Breton, Leonora Carrington, Marc Chagall, Roberto Matta, Giorgio de Chirico, MarcelDuchamp, Max Ernst, Andre Masson, Joan Miro, Enrico Donati, Dorothea Tanning, and others. Published in only four issues between 1942-44, VVV was an experimental New York-based magazine devoted to the dissemination of Surrealism. Edited by David Hare, the short-lived magazine featured contributions from some of the leading avant-garde artists of the period. David and Susanna divorce in 1945 and Breton’s wife Jacqueline Lamba...