June Groff

Untitled (Abstract Composition)

1961

Words and Deeds Oil and collage on wood panel, c. 1990 Signed recto lower right (see photo) Verso: See photo Signed, verso: Ben Wilson Dated: c. 1990 Titled: Words and Deeds Condition: Excellent Image/panel size: 23 1/4 x 19 inches Frame size: 26 1/4 x 21 1/4 inches To gain exposure to a wider range of styles, he also studied at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Admired by critics throughout his long career, Wilson was singled out as a “discovery” by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewel even before his rst one-man show at the Galerie Neuf in 1946. His paintings of the ’30s and ’40s were expressionistically rendered, often Biblical parables, lled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable” and reecting an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Holocaust to the Spanish Civil War. A WPA artist who identied strongly with the plight of the Jews in Europe, he relentlessly explored themes of war, torment, and futility in his early decades of painting. When times changed and social pressures subsided, Wilson’s mood lifted. He spent 1952-54 in Paris working at the Academie Julien. During the ’50s his involvement with specic imagery persisted but became more psychological and mythic in orientation. Inuenced by Cubism, he created a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early gurative expressionism and his later abstract constructivist concerns. Towards the end of the decade Wilson reached a crossroads, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” By 1960, inuenced by the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson turned to abstraction. Reexamining the basic elements of painting, he evolved his own personal vocabulary and structure, fusing the cerebral and the emotive. He became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked from all directions, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. He employed elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays to create the transparent, multi-layer development of space that characterizes his later paintings. A consummate draftsman, Wilson lled notebook after notebook with drawings that he amplied in his paintings. Eschewing popular movements, Wilson was always one to pursue a personal aesthetic. Despite more than 30 one-man shows and 50 years of teaching, he increasingly withdrew from the gallery scene but continued to paint daily until his death at age 88 in 2001 in Blairstown, New Jersey, where he and his sculptor wife Evelyn Wilson...

Untitled (Abstraction) Oil on canvas, date unknown Signed lower left corner: Zayon Canvas size: 13 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches Frame size: 19 3/4 x 25 1/2 inches Condition: Very good Born i...

Untitled Mixed media on paper, 1979 Signed and dated ‘79 lower right (see photo) Sheet size: 31 1/2 x 48" Frame: 34 1/4 x 50 1/4" Provenance: Members Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Galle...

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...

Mirtha Moreno Born in Havana, Cuba, in the late 70s during a well-documented time of religious and political oppression, abstract expressionist artist Mirtha Moreno, immigrated to th...

Signed & Dated LR Vaclav Vytlacil (Vas-lav Vit-la-chil) was born in New York City in 1892 to Czech parents, but was raised in Chicago. He was an artist since boyhood, becoming the y...

Samuel Sigaloff (1895-1987) " Untitled: A Cubist Landscape" Signed Abstract/ Cubist Oil on Canvas Painting, 27 x 31.75, Mid to Late 20th Century Colors: Blue, Green, Yellow, Red, Or...

A highly textural abstract expressionist painting with square patches of varied color, shape, and texture by Kathryn Stowell (American, 20th Century). Signed "K. Stowell" lower right...