Abram Krol

Polish French Ecole de Paris Mid Century Modernist Oil Painting Clown Juggler

c.1950s

Shabbat Evening Large Israeli masterpiece painting. Hand signed lower right Provenance: Sara Kishon Gallery Naftali Bezem (Hebrew: נפתלי בזם‎‎; born November 27, 1924) is an Israeli painter, muralist, and sculptor. Bezem was born in Essen, Germany, in 1924. His early adolescence was spent under German Nazi oppression, in constant fear for the safety of his parents, who perished in the Holocaust in the Polish Auschwitz concentration camp. Naftali emigrated to Mandate Palestine in 1939, at the age of fourteen with a Youth Aliyah group. From 1943 to 1946, he studied art at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem with Israeli painter Mordecai Ardon. He then spent three years studying in Paris. His most famous public works include a mural wall relief sculpture at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum and commemoration in Jerusalem and the ceiling painting mural in the main reception room at the President's Residence, Jerusalem, Israel. He is also known for his stained glass windows and Aubusson style flat weave tapestry in many public and private places around the world. In 1957, Bezem was a co-recipient of the Dizengoff Prize for Painting. Exhibitions: General Exhibition, Art in Israel 1960 Tel Aviv Museum of Art Artists: Naftali Bezem, Nachum Gutman, Shraga Weil, Shraga, Marcel Janco, Ruth Schloss Yad Labanim Museum, Petach Tikva with David Azuz, Nachum Gutman, Moshe Gat, Shraga Weil, Lea Nikel, Ruth Schloss, Yosl Bergner, Anna Ticho, and Menashe Kadishman. Old and New in the Museum Collection, Yad Labanim Museum, Petach-Tikva Jacob El Hanani, Naftali Bezem, Yosl Bergner, Yossef Zaritsky, Yohanan Simon, Reuven Rubin, David Rakia...

Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Abram Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the University of Caen. In 1939 at the beginning of World War II he joined the Foreign Legion. After he was demobilized, he became a mechanic in a garage in Avignon. Although Jewish, he survived the war with a false identity. In 1943, Krol started studying to be an artist, taking courses in sculpture at the city’s School of Fine Art. He also began studying painting and self-described himself as a “Sunday painter.” Krol moved to Paris in 1944. The first exhibition of his work was in 1946 in the Katia Granoff Gallery in Paris. After the war, Krol took up engraving, studying that art form with an engraver he met in Paris. Krol reflected his Hasidic childhood often using Biblical themes in his art works. He said, During all my years of childhood I had read the Bible endlessly. I came back to the Bible because I was on solid ground there. It was part of the assertion of my own truth after a time of complacency. It seemed to me that in painting or engraving there were so many reefs to avoid, so many possibilities of setback, that I had to have all the odds in my favor do what I could—say what I had to say. Krol illustrated over 20 literary works from the late 1940s through the 1960s. He also engraved medals for the Paris mint and painted murals for schools in France. He designed tapestries and painted approximately 200 enamels. Museums and libraries which own Krol’s art works include the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the British Museum; Houghton Library, Harvard; Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Krol has had numerous one-man shows throughout Europe, Brazil, and in California. In 1960, Krol was invited to the Venice Biennale. He was awarded the Critics Prize in 1958. He also won the Feneon Prize among other honors. Krol died on October 9, 2001. The School of Paris, Ecole de Paris, was not a single art movement or institution, but refers to the importance of Paris as a center of Western art in the early decades of the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940 the city drew artists from all over the world and became a centre for artistic activity. School of Paris was used to describe this loose community, particularly of non-French artists, centered in the cafes, salons and shared workspaces and galleries of Montparnasse. Before World War I, a group of expatriates in Paris created art in the styles of Post-Impressionism, Cubism and Fauvism. The group included artists like Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Piet Mondrian. Associated French artists included Pierre Bonnard, Henri Matisse, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. The term "School of Paris" was used in 1925 by André Warnod to refer to the many foreign-born artists who had migrated to Paris. The term soon gained currency, often as a derogatory label by critics who saw the foreign artists—many of whom were Jewish—as a threat to the purity of French art. Art critic Louis Vauxcelles, noted for coining the terms "Fauvism" and "Cubism", Waldemar George, himself a French Jew, in 1931 lamented that the School of Paris name "allows any artist to pretend he is French. it refers to French tradition but instead annihilates it. The artists working in Paris between World War I and World War II experimented with various styles including Cubism, Orphism, Surrealism and Dada. Foreign and French artists working in Paris included Jean Arp, Joan Miro, Constantin Brancusi, Raoul Dufy, Tsuguharu Foujita, artists from Belarus like Michel Kikoine, Pinchus Kremegne, and Jacques Lipchitz, the Polish artist Marek Szwarc and others such as Russian-born prince Alexis Arapoff. A significant subset, the Jewish artists, came to be known as the Jewish School of Paris or the School of Montparnasse. The core members were almost all Jews, and the resentment expressed toward them by French critics in the 1930s was unquestionably fueled by anti-Semitism. Jewish members of the group included Emmanuel Mané-Katz, Chaim Soutine, Adolphe Féder...

Pinchas Litvinovsky (Russian/Israeli, 1894-1985) A group of people, Jerusalem Types Hand signed indistinctly (lower right) in English and in Hebrew Verso. Oil on canvas Dimensions 16 1/8 x 51 1/16in Pinchas Litvinovsky (1894-1985) was a prominent Israeli painter, born in the Russian Empire (now Belarus) in Novo-Georgiyevsk, Russia. As a student he visited the Bezalel exhibition in Odessa and met Boris Schatz, the founder of the Bezalel School of Arts and Crafts. Schatz persuaded the young, talented student to study art in Jerusalem at Bezalel. He immigrated to Palestine in 1911, where he became a key figure in the local art scene and was among the pioneers of Israeli art. Litvinovsky studied art in Odessa and later in Paris at the Académie Julian. In the 1930’s he traveled to Paris, France where he encountered the art of Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and artists of the Ecole Juif Jewish School of Paris. (Marc Chagall, Modigliani, Chaim Soutine). Litvinovsky worked in many modernist styles, especially Cubism as reflected in the Russian constructivist paintings of the 1920’s His work, which includes landscapes, portraits, and biblical scenes, reflects a blend of European influences and Middle Eastern motifs. He was a member of the Bezalel group of artists and participated in the establishment of the Tel Aviv Artists' House. Throughout his career, Litvinovsky's art evolved, but he remained dedicated to exploring the unique light and landscapes of Israel, contributing significantly to the cultural fabric of the young nation. Select Group exhibitions Jewish Artists Association, Levant Fair, Tel Aviv, 1929 Artists: Arie Allweil, Ludwig Blum, Nachum Gutman, Itzhak Frenel Frenkel, Reuven Rubin, Shmuel Schlezinger, Eged - Palestine Painters Group, Allenby Street, Tel Aviv, 1929 Artists: Chana Orloff, Abraham Melnikoff, Sionah Tagger, Elias Newman, A Collection of Works by Artists of the Land of Israel The Bezalel National Museum, Jerusalem, 1940 Artists: Moshe Mokady, Jakob Steinhardt, Anna Ticho, Joseph Budko, Mordecai Ardon, Moshe Castel, Abel Pann, Hermann Struck, Rina Gallery, Jerusalem Artists: Motke Blum, Efraim Fima (Roytenberg, Ephraim) Zelig Segal, David Sharir, Joseph Halevi, David Caftori, Menashe kadishman, Dedi Ben Shaul, Raffi Lavie Exposition des Artistes de Jérusalem Grand Palais, Paris, France Artists: Samuel Ackerman, Marek Yanai, Zvi Tolkovsky, Zvi Miron Sima...

Richard Marshall Merkin (American, 1938-2009) Gladys and Half-Pint Hand signed 'Merkin' (center right), Titled, inscribed, dated, and initialed 'GLADYS BENTLEY AND FRANKIE 'HALF-PINT' JAXON 1997/R.M.' verso. Oil on canvas 37 1/2 x 72 in. (95.3 x 182.9 cm) framed 39 1/4 x 74 x 2 in. Gladys Alberta Bentley (August 12, 1907 – January 18, 1960) was an American blues singer, pianist, and entertainer during the Harlem Renaissance. Her career skyrocketed when she appeared at Harry Hansberry's Clam House, a well-known gay speakeasy in New York in the 1920s, as a black, lesbian, cross-dressing performer. She headlined in the early 1930s at Harlem's Ubangi Club, where she was backed up by a chorus line of drag queens. She dressed in men's clothes (including a signature tailcoat and top hat), played piano, and sang her own raunchy lyrics to popular tunes of the day in a deep, growling voice while flirting with women in the audience. On the decline of the Harlem speakeasies with the repeal of Prohibition, she relocated to southern California, where she was billed as "America's Greatest Sepia Piano Player" and the "Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Songs". She was frequently harassed for wearing men's clothing. She tried to continue her musical career but did not achieve as much success as she had had in the past. Bentley was openly lesbian early in her career, but during the McCarthy Era she started wearing dresses and married, claiming to have been "cured" by taking female hormones. Frankie "Half-Pint" Jaxon, born Frank Devera Jackson was an African American vaudeville singer, stage designer and comedian, popular in the 1920s and 1930s. He was born in Montgomery, Alabama, orphaned, and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. His nickname of "Half Pint" referred to his 5'2" height. He started in show business around 1910 as a singer in Kansas City, before travelling extensively with medicine shows in Texas, and then touring the eastern seaboard. His feminine voice and outrageous manner, often as a female impersonator, established him as a crowd favorite. By 1917 he had begun working regularly in Atlantic City, New Jersey and in Chicago, often with such performers as Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters, whose staging he helped design. He served slightly less than a year in the United States Army in 1918–1919 and rose to the rank of sergeant. In the late 1920s he sang with top jazz bands when they passed through Chicago, working with Bennie Moten, King Oliver, Freddie Keppard and others. He performed and recorded with the pianists Cow Cow Davenport, Tampa Red and "Georgia Tom" Dorsey, recording with the latter pair under the name of The Black Hillbillies. He also recorded with the Harlem Hamfats. In the 1930s, he was often on radio in the Chicago area, and led his own band, titled Frankie "Half Pint" Jaxon and His Quarts of Joy. Jaxon appeared with Duke Ellington in a film short titled Black and Tan (1929), and with Bessie Smith in "St. Louis Blues" (1929). Cab Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" (1931) is based both musically and lyrically on Jaxon's "Willie the Weeper" (1927). Richard Merkin, Sometimes described as Rhode Island’s most famous New York artist, Richard Merkin has led a dual life for nearly 40 years - teaching at RISD while enjoying a celebrated painting career based in New York City. He has exhibited in countless gallery and museum shows in the US and abroad and is represented in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, the RISD museum and many others. In addition to contributing drawings and paintings to The New Yorker (along with, Art Spiegelman, Saul Steinberg, Harper’s, The New York Times Sunday Magazine and several books on Erotica and Baseball, he is a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and a former style columnist for GQ. Merkin’s honors include a Tiffany Foundation Fellowship and the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Museums and Selected Collections : The American Federation of Arts, New York, NY Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA First city Bank, Chicago, Ill Fisk University Art Gallery, Nashville, TN Hallmark Collections, Kansas City, MO Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Maimi-Dade Junior College, Miami, FL Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Minnesota Museum of Art, Minneapolis, MN Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, RI McClung Museum, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN Pennsylvania Acadamy of the Arts, Philadelphia PA Prudential Insurance Company, Boston, Ma Prudential Insurance Company, Newark, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Sara Robey Foundation, New York, NY Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC State University of Brockport, Brockport, NY Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Selected Publications : 1986-Present Contributing Editor, Vanity Fair ..1988-Present, New Yorker... 1988-Present, style column, GQ...1997, Text and Illustration for The Tijuana Bibles, published by Simon & Shuster, 1995, Illustrated book, Leagues Apart: the Men and Times of the Negro Baseball Leagues published by Morrow. 1967 Cover of the Beatles “Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” Album (Mr. Merkin appears in the back row, right of center) RISD: MFA in Painting, 1963; Professor, Department of Painting special skill: Merging his role as flaneur (connoisseur of city life) with his role as painter and social historian, Merkin retrieves lost cultural artifacts – a Turkish cigarette, a gangster, a bowler and generally “things most people don’t know about” – and reconstitutes their Jazz Age virtues on canvas in cubist, comic-laced landscapes of tropical color. (ala Robert Crumb and Ben Katchor) breaking in: Perpetually on the fly from his middle-class Brooklyn background, Merkin found the perfect escape in the mid ‘60s in George Frazier, a dapper Boston columnist who inspired the emerging New York painter’s overnight reinvention of himself. The elements of structure, stability and surprise he admired in this well-dressed dandy – a cool linen suit, a splash of suspender, a polka dot scarf and pearl-handled walking stick – soon surfaced in paintings peopled by impeccable underdogs of café society along with his personal pop heroes: William Burroughs, Bobby Short and Krazy Kat...

Mortimer Borne, Printmaker, painter, sculptor, and educator was born in Rypin, Poland in 1902 and emigrated to the US in 1916. He studied at the National Academy of Design, The Art Students League, The Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and with Charles Webster Hawthorne, founder of the Cape Cod School of Art in Provincetown. Painted in a thick impasto style similar in technique to Samuel Rothbort and David Burliuk. Borne himself taught at The New School for Social Research in New York City from 1945-1967. From the 1920s through the 40s he was a prolific producer of New York City cityscapes and genre scenes. In later decades, he adopted a more modernist style apparently influenced by Picasso, producing color drypoints of abstracted figures. His works were widely exhibited in museums in the U.S. and abroad from 1931 and later, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Institute of Graphic Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, New York Public Library, Carnegie Institute, and Royal Society of Painters, Etchers and Engravers in London. He taught at The New School for Social Research in New York City from 1945-1967, and at the Tappan Zee...

Genre: Modern Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: United States Sabina Teichman: (1905-1983) Studied at Columbia Univ. (BA, MA), also with Charles J. Martin and A...

Vintage American modernist abstract piano painting. Oil on canvas, circa 1940. Signed. Framed. Image size, 24"L x 20"H.

Ashley John is proud to offer this artwork by: Gershon Benjamin (1899 - 1985) Gershon Benjamin is a painter of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene. He had a pro...

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Louisa Lizbeth Chase was born in 1951 to Benjamin and Wilda Stengel Chase in Panama City, Panama, where her father, a West Point graduate, was stationed. The family moved to Pennsylv...

Amitabh Sengupta - Non Places 1 - 36 x 48 inches (unframed size) Acrylic on Canvas ** This work will be shipped in roll form to save on shipping cost. Mythscape Series : This se...

Amitabh Sengupta - Void Dancer - 48 x 48 inches (unframed size) Oil on canvas ** This work will be shipped in roll form to save on shipping cost. Mythscape Series : This series eme...