Enrique Kico Govantes

Untitled, Man on a Chair with Sun

c.1990

Artist: Enrique Kico Govantes (Cuban, born 1957) Title: Untitled, Two Personages Year: 1989 Medium: Oil on hardboard panel Panel size: 24 x 47.75 inches Signature: Signed and dated 11/21/89 on the back by the artist Condition: Very good Frame: Unframed About the artist. Enrique (Kico) Govantes was born in Havana, Cuba in 1957 surrounded by art. His grandfather was the Minister of Public Works, his father an architect. Paul Smart wrote in his article on Govantes, “Ace of Cups,” (Ulster Publishing. April 28, 2005) that although they did not support the Batista regime, the Govantes were exiled from Castro’s Cuba with only the art they could carry in their suitcases. He has presented solo shows at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy; Nicole Fiacco/MODO Gallery in Hudson; Hunter’s Point...

This artwork titled "Two Figures" is an oil on canvas, by artist Enrique (Kico) Govantes, Cuban born 1957. It is signed, at the lower right corner, also s...

This artwork "Nude with Chair and Fruit" c. 1980 is a large oil painting on canvas by noted German/American artist Norbert Schlaus, 1927-2009. It is signed at the lower right corner ...

This artwork, Girl in an Armchair c.1980 is an original color lithograph by Italian/Israeli artist Mario Doretti, born 1929. It is Hand signed and numbered 157/200 in pencil by the a...

"Seated Figure" is a painting by Philadelphia born Expressionist painter Bernard Harmon. The 48" x 35.75" oil on board portrait is painted in energetic and bold brushstrokes, with vi...

Nahum Tschacbasov was born in Baku, in the southeast of Russia. When he was eight years old, he came to America, where his family settled in Chicago. His career, spanning more than five decades from the 1930’s to the 1980’s, is a kaleidoscope of influences, from modernism to the Byzantine style and expressionism of his Russian roots. Tschacbasov’s paintings of the 1930’s reflect the social and political preoccupations of the times. He received considerable critical attention for his powerful dramatic satirical depiction of social injustice. In the 1940’s he gained wider recognition when his style evolved into a fusion of Cubism and Surrealism. Through the influence of Jung, as well as currents brought to America by the newly arrived group of European Surrealists, he created a powerful personal iconography in which the inner workings of the psyche are revealed as myth and metaphor. His first encounters with modern art are the works of Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Rouault. 1932-33 Tschacbasov moves for a short time to New York City in order to be in a modern art center and then to Paris, where he adopts the name Tschacbasov, an anagram of different family names. He studies with Leopold Gottlieb for eight months, then with Marcel Gromaire, who teaches him pictorial structure, and briefly with Fernand Leger. Working in his studio on the edge of Montmartre and later in the Hotel de Sante in Montparnasse, he produces a large body of work, retaining fifty paintings. After trips to North Africa, Spain, and the Balearic Islands, he travels often from Paris to New York City, where he spends six months painting a series of Depression-inspired pictures after finding that his American business has gone bankrupt in his absence. 1934 In Paris, Galerie Zak exhibits landscapes from his trip to Majorca in the first one-man exhibition of Tschacbasov paintings; Salon de Tuileries also exhibits his work. His savings exhausted, he returns to New York via Tunisia in the midst of the Depression. 1935 Living on Pineapple Street in Brooklyn Heights, Tschacbasov works on the WPA Federal Arts Project, Easel Division, where he meets other artists and becomes politically involved. His works are shown at Galerie Secession with those of Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, and other modernist and expressionist painters. Tschacbasov, Rothko, Gottlieb, Joseph Solman and others from Galerie Secession form a group called The Ten combining common aims of social consciousness with an expressionist and abstract style. Themes of social injustice are more dominant in Tschacbasov's work than in that of others of The Ten, as he draws on his own childhood experiences of the harsh realities of immigrant life in industrial Chicago. In the summer, a one-man exhibition of his non-objective paintings is held at Galerie Secession, and in December, Montross Gallery in New York City holds the first exhibition of The Ten, including two works by Tschacbasov, "Handout" and "Three Graces." 1936 In January, an exhibition of The Ten is held at Municipal Art Galleries in New York City, and later in the fall an exhibition, also of The Ten, is held at Galerie Bonaparte in Paris. 1936-38 Among the paintings exhibited in the "Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting" at the Whitney Museum of American Art are Tschacbasov's "Deportation", "Clinic", "Friday Night", "Harbor Sunset", and "The Matriarch". 1936-37 Tschacbasov is appointed business manager of Art Front Magazine, a publication associated with the Artists' Union. His circle of friends at this time include Philip Evergood, Milton Avery, Stuart Davis, David Burliuk, William Gropper, the Soyer brothers, Robert Gwathmey, Marsden Hartley, and Max Weber. Due to cut-backs in WPA funding, he teaches at his 38 West 22nd Street studio and at the American Artists' School. On the faculty are David Burliuk and the Soyer brothers, as well as Elaine de Kooning and other artists with similar aesthetic and social points of view. Personal and artistic crises lead to his entering into Jungian psychoanalysis, which provides new impetus and direction to his painting. Under the influence of analysis, he starts to write portions of a surrealistic autobiography, The Moon is My Uncle. His paintings, "Refugees" and "Friday Night" are shown with works by Avery, Burliuk, and DeHirsh Margules in a group exhibition at Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. In September, the Berkshire Museum in Pittsfield, Massachusetts focuses on themes of social criticism in an exhibition entitled "The World Today", curated by Elizabeth McCausland, which includes Tschacbasov's, "Little Red School House". 1940 Tschacbasov takes up photography. Photographing the works of friends and other artists, he builds a collection of color slides...

"Personaje" (seated) acrylic on canvas painting by Southern California artist Mike Rivero. Personaje (sitting) is painted in blue, green, pink, red, black white, orange, set on a tau...

Natalya Nesterova has created her own enormous world and has found her own angle of vision in the reality that surrounds us. As an artist, she sees this world in a way that we cannot. The air of mystery permeates Nesterova's works; the surrealistic impulse is definitely present in her paintings. But neither it or any other terminologically defined influence predominates over the freedom and talent of the personality in choosing an independent style and organization of creative ideas. Natalya Nesterova is recognized as one of the most important and internationally acclaimed contemporary Russian artists.