Max Andrews

British, 21st Century abstract oil painting 'Moonlit Horses'

2019

Marcel Louis Baugniet (Belgian, 1896 – 1995) Sigale de Mer (Cicada of the sea) Oil on board with scraffito Signed ‘M L BAUGNIET / 47’ (upper right) 17.3/4 x 13.1/2 in. (45 x 34.3 cm.) Marcel-Louis Baugniet was born in Liege on the 18th March 1896. Painter, theorist, furniture designer, creator of posters, costumes and stage sets, he was one of the main defenders of the notion of Pure Plastic Arts. Baugniet studied painting at the Royal Academy of Beaux-Arts in Brussels where he mixed with Paul Delvaux, René Magritte, Victor Servrancks and Pierre-Louis Flouquet. He spent some time in Paris and decided that he would become an iconoclastic and avant garde artist. He discovered abstract art with Kandinsky, Kupka, Mondrian and Delaunay and with wonder and stupeur he also learnt of the constructivist movement, which was born in Russia with Malevitch and Lissitsky. In 1922, Baugniet then 26 years old returned to Brussels and married the Russian danser Akarova for whom he designed costumes and stage sets. M-L Baugniet painted, designed and engraved some superb series of dansers and sportspersons (the « Kaloprosopies »), works entrenched with impeccable lines of constructed art. He painted with contemplation geometric compositions which mixed a grace of colours with the rigour of shapes. Baugniet wrote articles on esthetics and applicated arts in the magasine 7 Arts and edited, with the Dutch architect Van Tonderen, the manifesto of the movement that they called « Le beau, C’est l'utile » (beauty is useful) Towards the end of the 20s, he separated from Akarova and in 1927 he opened his own Home Decor shop. With regret Baugniet laid down his paint brushes and threw himself into interior design and the creation of tubular furniture, everyday objects and carpets. He remarried the Russian Olga Reich. He created a circle of ideas that included artists, writers, politicians and intellectuals of all kinds. Throughout his career, Baugniet participated in numerous international exhibitions of decorative art. In 1977 abstraction, constructivism and Marcel-Louis Baugniet were rediscovered. Decorated and lauded, Baugniet began to paint once more and co-founded the magasine Mesures with Jo Delahaut...

Margaret Dora Mendlessohn Benecke (1876 – 1962) Catnaps Oil on canvas, circa 1950s 26.7/8 x 33 in. (68.4 x 83.8 cm.) Provenance: ex-property of Harold Mockford Born in London Beneck...

A vibrant and expressive marine painting by Sula Repani, this artwork features a richly colored fish rendered in oil on wood. The brushwork is loose and atmospheric, blending bold re...

Jim’s of Lambertville is proud to offer this artwork by: Vaclav Vytlacil (1892-1984) He was born to Czechoslovakian parents in 1892 in New York City. Living in Chicago as a youth, he took classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, returning to New York when he was 20. From 1913 to 1916, he enjoyed a scholarship from the Art Students League, and worked with John C. Johansen (a portraitist whose expressive style resembled that of John Singer Sargent), and Anders Zorn. He accepted a teaching position at the Minneapolis School of Art in 1916, remaining there until 1921. This enabled him to travel to Europe to study Cézanne’s paintings and works of the Old Masters. He traveled to Paris, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, and Munich seeking the works of Titian, Cranach, Rembrandt, Veronese, and Holbein, which gave him new perspective. Vytlacil studied at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, settling there in 1921. Fellow students were Ernest Thurn and Worth Ryder, who introduced him to famous abstractionist Hans Hofmann. He worked with Hofmann from about 1922 to 1926, as a student and teaching assistant. During the summer of 1928, after returning to the United States, Vytlacil gave lectures at the University of California, Berkeley, on modern European art. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the Art Students League faculty. After one year, he returned to Europe and successfully persuaded Hofmann to teach at the League as well. He spent about six years in Europe, studying the works of Matisse, Picasso, and Dufy. In 1935, he returned to New York and became a co-founder of the American Abstract Artists group in 1936. He later had teaching posts at Queens College in New York; the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California; Black Mountain College in North Carolina; and the Art Students League. His paintings exhibit a clear inclination toward modernism. His still lives and interiors from the 1920s indicate an understanding of the art of Cézanne. In the 1930s, his works displayed two very different kinds of art at the same time. His cityscapes and landscapes combine Cubist-inspired spatial concerns with an expressionistic approach to line and color. Vytlacil also used old wood, metal, cork, and string in constructions, influenced by his friend and former student, Rupert Turnbull. He eventually ceased creating constructions as he considered them too limiting. The spatial challenges of painting were still his preference. During the 1940s and 1950s, his works indicated a sense of spontaneity not felt in his earlier work. He married Elizabeth Foster in Florence, Italy, in 1927 and they lived and worked in Positano, Italy for extended periods of time. Later on, they divided their time between homes in Sparkill, New York and Chilmark, Massachusetts, where Vyt, as he was affectionately called, taught at the Martha's Vineyard Art...