Fay Singer

Man with Red Tie

1975

Biography from the niece of the artist from during his lifetime. Paintings acquired from the artist.s estate. Max Turner 1925 - 2019 Max Lamar Turner Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author. Max Turner was born in Omaha, Nebraska on July 28, 1925. His father was Lance Howard Turner and his mother Mary Irene Turner. In 1927, his family moved to Bingham Canyon, Utah where Max's father extracted copper from a creek that he had diverted to pass through his garage. The town was located in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. In 1938, when Max was 13, his family moved to Midvale, Utah. After completing high school, Max went to work laying rail until he was inducted into the U.S. Navy to serve during W.W. II. There he took an aptitude test and was initially assigned to the medical corp., later transferring to the dental unit. Max was stationed at Port Hueneme, Ventura County, California through the end of the war. When he was discharged in 1946, he remained in Southern California, living in the Los Angeles area. He met a man named Larry Torres and they formed a partnership to do silk screen work primarily for the Colby Poster Printing Company. This lasted about 10 years until the Colby building caught fire and burned down. In 1958, Max began working for Slade Novelty company that made doll parts using a product called plastisol. A year later, Max began producing plastic parts through his own business. One day, a couple of kids brought in a shrunken skull they had made and asked Max if he could reproduce it. Max said he could and he looked around for a business to work with for this task. He ultimately decided he could create his own machine shop to make molds. As a result, Max purchased a lathe, drill press, grinder and other tools to create his own machine shop and went into business making molds. He built a clientele and in 1973, he moved his machine shop to Glendale, California. Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author: Max recalls the day when his interest in art took a new direction. He happened to be in a paint store to purchase some supplies when he saw a card posted on a wall that read, "Come paint with Connie Marlo". Max had been interested in art since his youth and he was frequently impressed with paintings displayed by local artists at various community events. Consequently, he decided to go to Connie's Saturday morning art class at a studio on North La Brea Avenue (between Sunset and Hollywood) in Los Angeles. But, as fate would have it, he immediately took a detour from this class when he found a piece of paper on the floor of the studio referencing another art class dealing with compositions, patterns, rhythms and color harmony. The instructor's name was Hal Reed, a former art student of the Russian/American Master, Nicolai Fechin. Hal owned the building (previously the Will Foster Studio) and had founded the Art League of Los Angeles. When Max found Hal, he asked Hal if he could join his class. Hal said "No, the class was full" but he said Max could monitor the class in the back of the classroom. Max took him up on the offer and began observing the weekly class. During the class, Hal told his students that they should practice what they were learning by going to "live model" classes. Max began attending these classes where he learned how to draw figures. After a few months, Hal and Max became good friends. Hal was so impressed with Max's work that he offered Max the opportunity to teach at another location that Hal was opening in the San Fernando Valley. Max accepted the offer and began teaching his own art class. For Max, it was a quick jump from learning to teaching. Max then found that several of his students had to commute to his art class from the west end of the "Valley". To better serve this group of students, Max decided to relocate to another studio in Calabasas. Max continued teaching, and at this time he was producing very impressive portraits, both oil paintings and charcoal drawings from live models (Max never worked from photos). Max demonstrated real talent, and the style of his drawings and paintings were being compared to those of Nicolai Fechin. And, like Fechin, Max also had an interest in sculpting. One day, Max decided to design and cast a bronze owl sculpture to put in his Calabasas Fine Art Gallery. Later, someone approached Max when he was at the foundry and asked him about his success selling the owl sculpture. The individual who asked this question was convinced that there was a broader market for these sculptures and he ordered a dozen of the owl sculptures from Max. This encouraged Max to do more castings. Some of the new castings were antique sculptures he found and reproduced. As this new business grew, he decided to establish his own foundry, employing up to 15 workers. The business continued for many years, up until the late 1990's when Max got tired of the foundry business and sold it. Max, who was now in his 70's, decided to move on to his next venture as an artist, dedicating himself to doing the actual sculpting of original art. He loved the creativity of sculpting and he had his sculptures cast at local foundries, ironically the same ones that used to be his competition. Max was now fully engaged in his new artistic direction and, over time, he produced a large body of work. He created very impressive sculptures, including about 100 full-size sculptures. He sold some of these to high-end clientele, the Foundry at SLS Las Vegas, and to Hollywood studios. Even though Max now seemed to be totally in his element, he somehow also found time to continue to teach painting classes at the California Art Institute in Westlake Village in Los Angeles. At the institute, he specialized in figure work. Max continued to draw, paint and teach, but he says he stopped sculpting when he turned 90. Max produced four books showcasing his drawings and paintings. The first is "Faces, The Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2000, that showcases nearly 100 of his portrait drawings. Within the "Acknowledgements" section, he lists Hal Reed and Joseph Nordmann, two former students of Nicolai Fechin. In 2006, Max produced his second book titled "Figures and Faces", reflecting not only portraits but also figure drawings and paintings. It is a wonderful book of Max's work, but it is currently difficult to find. The third book is titled "Faces 2, The Paintings and Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2009, which includes 75 portrait paintings and drawings. In the "Preface" of this book, Max describes growing up in a small and isolated mining town during the Great Depression. He states that as a kid, he had little exposure of any culture or view of what the rest of the world was like. His neighbor was the trash collector and Max would sometimes go through his truck looking for anything of value. Among other things, he found magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Red Book, with covers that frequently showed drawings or paintings of faces. Max states that these images were the very first source of inspiration for him. He says that he began looking more carefully at people's faces and if they had character, he would draw them. By drawing them, Max says that he was making them part of his world, his world of "Faces". In 2018, Max published his newest book showcasing his drawings and paintings. It is titled "Max Turner's Figure Sketches". This softbound book includes 76 pages and over 120 drawings and paintings. In the Introduction, Max explains "I have found that when approaching the figure, one should begin with the gesture. After having captured the essence or feeling of the pose, one can then proceed to build on it." The figure sketches in this wonderful book reflect a Master's work that consistently captures the "gesture"-showing the emotion, movement and expression. Two more books are on the horizon for Max, both dealing with his passion for sculpting. His first, "The Sculpture of Max Turner" is a compilation of his commercial and noncommercial pieces throughout his career. The second, "Terra Cotta Sculpture by Max Turner" is a complete collection of figures done at the California Art Institute. These much anticipated books should be out later in 2018. Max now considers himself primarily a sculptor. But others in the art world are more than impressed with his drawings and paintings as well. His portraits are often described as having a Fechin-esque appearance, referring to the style of Nicolai Fechin. When Max observed those first art classes given by Hal Reed, it should be noted that Hal had previously been a student of the Russian/American Master Nicolai Fechin in the early to mid-1950's. In fact, Hal was a student in the last art class that Fechin taught before he unexpectedly died in 1955. Hal was so strongly influenced by Fechin that he later produced two 30-minute art instruction videos as part his Art Video Productions wherein he specifically described Fechin techniques that he learned in Fechin's class. The Fechin style and techniques were in play when Max later met Hal. Over the years, many of Max's art students, art collectors, gallery owners, as well as the Director of the Monterey Museum of Art have commented on the Fechin-esque qualities of Max's wonderful charcoal drawings and paintings. So, while Max may consider himself primarily a sculptor, his drawings and paintings are also impressive and very much sought after. When Nicolai Fechin died in 1955, three of the nine students in his last art class became life-long friends. Max subsequently became friends with not only Hal Reed, but also with prior Fechin students Joseph Nordmann and Albert Londraville...

Biography from the niece of the artist from during his lifetime. Paintings acquired from the artist.s estate. Max Turner 1925 - 2019 Max Lamar Turner Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author. Max Turner was born in Omaha, Nebraska on July 28, 1925. His father was Lance Howard Turner and his mother Mary Irene Turner. In 1927, his family moved to Bingham Canyon, Utah where Max's father extracted copper from a creek that he had diverted to pass through his garage. The town was located in a narrow canyon on the eastern face of the Oquirrh Mountains. In 1938, when Max was 13, his family moved to Midvale, Utah. After completing high school, Max went to work laying rail until he was inducted into the U.S. Navy to serve during W.W. II. There he took an aptitude test and was initially assigned to the medical corp., later transferring to the dental unit. Max was stationed at Port Hueneme, Ventura County, California through the end of the war. When he was discharged in 1946, he remained in Southern California, living in the Los Angeles area. He met a man named Larry Torres and they formed a partnership to do silk screen work primarily for the Colby Poster Printing Company. This lasted about 10 years until the Colby building caught fire and burned down. In 1958, Max began working for Slade Novelty company that made doll parts using a product called plastisol. A year later, Max began producing plastic parts through his own business. One day, a couple of kids brought in a shrunken skull they had made and asked Max if he could reproduce it. Max said he could and he looked around for a business to work with for this task. He ultimately decided he could create his own machine shop to make molds. As a result, Max purchased a lathe, drill press, grinder and other tools to create his own machine shop and went into business making molds. He built a clientele and in 1973, he moved his machine shop to Glendale, California. Painter, Sculptor, Teacher and Author: Max recalls the day when his interest in art took a new direction. He happened to be in a paint store to purchase some supplies when he saw a card posted on a wall that read, "Come paint with Connie Marlo". Max had been interested in art since his youth and he was frequently impressed with paintings displayed by local artists at various community events. Consequently, he decided to go to Connie's Saturday morning art class at a studio on North La Brea Avenue (between Sunset and Hollywood) in Los Angeles. But, as fate would have it, he immediately took a detour from this class when he found a piece of paper on the floor of the studio referencing another art class dealing with compositions, patterns, rhythms and color harmony. The instructor's name was Hal Reed, a former art student of the Russian/American Master, Nicolai Fechin. Hal owned the building (previously the Will Foster Studio) and had founded the Art League of Los Angeles. When Max found Hal, he asked Hal if he could join his class. Hal said "No, the class was full" but he said Max could monitor the class in the back of the classroom. Max took him up on the offer and began observing the weekly class. During the class, Hal told his students that they should practice what they were learning by going to "live model" classes. Max began attending these classes where he learned how to draw figures. After a few months, Hal and Max became good friends. Hal was so impressed with Max's work that he offered Max the opportunity to teach at another location that Hal was opening in the San Fernando Valley. Max accepted the offer and began teaching his own art class. For Max, it was a quick jump from learning to teaching. Max then found that several of his students had to commute to his art class from the west end of the "Valley". To better serve this group of students, Max decided to relocate to another studio in Calabasas. Max continued teaching, and at this time he was producing very impressive portraits, both oil paintings and charcoal drawings from live models (Max never worked from photos). Max demonstrated real talent, and the style of his drawings and paintings were being compared to those of Nicolai Fechin. And, like Fechin, Max also had an interest in sculpting. One day, Max decided to design and cast a bronze owl sculpture to put in his Calabasas Fine Art Gallery. Later, someone approached Max when he was at the foundry and asked him about his success selling the owl sculpture. The individual who asked this question was convinced that there was a broader market for these sculptures and he ordered a dozen of the owl sculptures from Max. This encouraged Max to do more castings. Some of the new castings were antique sculptures he found and reproduced. As this new business grew, he decided to establish his own foundry, employing up to 15 workers. The business continued for many years, up until the late 1990's when Max got tired of the foundry business and sold it. Max, who was now in his 70's, decided to move on to his next venture as an artist, dedicating himself to doing the actual sculpting of original art. He loved the creativity of sculpting and he had his sculptures cast at local foundries, ironically the same ones that used to be his competition. Max was now fully engaged in his new artistic direction and, over time, he produced a large body of work. He created very impressive sculptures, including about 100 full-size sculptures. He sold some of these to high-end clientele, the Foundry at SLS Las Vegas, and to Hollywood studios. Even though Max now seemed to be totally in his element, he somehow also found time to continue to teach painting classes at the California Art Institute in Westlake Village in Los Angeles. At the institute, he specialized in figure work. Max continued to draw, paint and teach, but he says he stopped sculpting when he turned 90. Max produced four books showcasing his drawings and paintings. The first is "Faces, The Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2000, that showcases nearly 100 of his portrait drawings. Within the "Acknowledgements" section, he lists Hal Reed and Joseph Nordmann, two former students of Nicolai Fechin. In 2006, Max produced his second book titled "Figures and Faces", reflecting not only portraits but also figure drawings and paintings. It is a wonderful book of Max's work, but it is currently difficult to find. The third book is titled "Faces 2, The Paintings and Drawings of Max Turner", copyright 2009, which includes 75 portrait paintings and drawings. In the "Preface" of this book, Max describes growing up in a small and isolated mining town during the Great Depression. He states that as a kid, he had little exposure of any culture or view of what the rest of the world was like. His neighbor was the trash collector and Max would sometimes go through his truck looking for anything of value. Among other things, he found magazines like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Red Book, with covers that frequently showed drawings or paintings of faces. Max states that these images were the very first source of inspiration for him. He says that he began looking more carefully at people's faces and if they had character, he would draw them. By drawing them, Max says that he was making them part of his world, his world of "Faces". In 2018, Max published his newest book showcasing his drawings and paintings. It is titled "Max Turner's Figure Sketches". This softbound book includes 76 pages and over 120 drawings and paintings. In the Introduction, Max explains "I have found that when approaching the figure, one should begin with the gesture. After having captured the essence or feeling of the pose, one can then proceed to build on it." The figure sketches in this wonderful book reflect a Master's work that consistently captures the "gesture"-showing the emotion, movement and expression. Two more books are on the horizon for Max, both dealing with his passion for sculpting. His first, "The Sculpture of Max Turner" is a compilation of his commercial and noncommercial pieces throughout his career. The second, "Terra Cotta Sculpture by Max Turner" is a complete collection of figures done at the California Art Institute. These much anticipated books should be out later in 2018. Max now considers himself primarily a sculptor. But others in the art world are more than impressed with his drawings and paintings as well. His portraits are often described as having a Fechin-esque appearance, referring to the style of Nicolai Fechin. When Max observed those first art classes given by Hal Reed, it should be noted that Hal had previously been a student of the Russian/American Master Nicolai Fechin in the early to mid-1950's. In fact, Hal was a student in the last art class that Fechin taught before he unexpectedly died in 1955. Hal was so strongly influenced by Fechin that he later produced two 30-minute art instruction videos as part his Art Video Productions wherein he specifically described Fechin techniques that he learned in Fechin's class. The Fechin style and techniques were in play when Max later met Hal. Over the years, many of Max's art students, art collectors, gallery owners, as well as the Director of the Monterey Museum of Art have commented on the Fechin-esque qualities of Max's wonderful charcoal drawings and paintings. So, while Max may consider himself primarily a sculptor, his drawings and paintings are also impressive and very much sought after. When Nicolai Fechin died in 1955, three of the nine students in his last art class became life-long friends. Max subsequently became friends with not only Hal Reed, but also with prior Fechin students Joseph Nordmann and Albert Londraville...

BUCKLEY MACGURRIN "ALEXANDRIA" OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED, TITLED AMERICAN, DATED 1949 EXHIBITED: DALZELL-HATFIELD GALLERY 14 X 20 INCHES Buckley MacGurrin 1896 –1971 Buckley MacG...

RICHARD GEIGER "RELAXING" OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED HUNGARIAN, C.1930 28 X 39 INCHES FRAMED 36.5 X 46 INCHES Richard Geiger 1870-1945 Richard Geiger was born in Vienna and first studied at the Vienna Art Institute with the academic painter Christian Ludwig Von Griepenkerl and, subsequently, in Paris with Francois Flameng...

Size with frame: 34 x 28 Inches Reza begun studying art seriously at age 15 and was studying at the institute of art in Iran where he graduated with highest honors. He also studied...

ALEXANDER KREISEL "MAN WITH YELLOW TIE" OIL ON CANVAS BOARD, SIGNED RUSSIAN-AMERICAN, C.1935 26 X 19.5 INCHES FRAMED 29.5 X 23.5 INCHES Alexander Krei...

A striking, large-scale multi-color modernist portrait of Noir fiction writer Cornell Woolrich by Chris Pelletiere (American, B. 1942). Cornell Woolrich wrote the novel "The Rear Window." He studied at the Arts Students League and NY School of Painting and Drawing. Signed on verso with artist's information, and title "Portrait: Cornell Woolrich". Wood slat, basic frame. Image size; 50"H x 50"W. A painter, illustrator, and cartoonist Pelletiere cites his early influences as the pre-code crime and horror comics. " Life in the metropolitan area plays a significant role in my artwork. For many years he made sketches of people in the transit system. Chris Pelletiere is a painter, collage artist, illustrator, and cartoonist. His work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, The New York Public Library and private collections of Stephen King...

Female Portrait is an original modern artwork realized in 1922 by Emilia Bertolé. Original oil painting on canvas. Hand-signed and dated by the artist...

A strong modernist oil painting depicted in the 1940's by Spanish painter Julio Moises. Mostly known for his abstract figures on canvas, this piece is a w...

Peru, colonial style, Early 20th century Oil on canvas, 47,5 x 38 cm (wooden frame) Provenance: Italian private collection.

Female Portrait is an original artwork realized in 1931 by Antonio Feltrinelli (Milan, 1887 - Gargnano, 1942). Original Painting on canvas. Hand-signed on the lower right corner. ...

Untitled (Portrait of Bessy Lyon, Artist Wife) is an oil on canvas painting by Hayes Lyon (1901-1987) from 1945. Presented in a wood frame, outer dimensions measure 35 ¼ x 29 ¼ x 1 ¾ inches. Image size is 30 x 24 inches. About the Artist: A native of Athol, Kansas, Lyon is primarily associated with Colorado. After several summer vacations at the Boulder Chautauqua and at Manitou near Colorado Springs, his family relocated in 1920 to Boulder where his father had a lumber business. Nine years later they settled in Denver where his father owned the Acme Lumber Company. To comply with his desire for his son’s financial self-reliance, Lyon graduated from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1931 with a B.A. degree in economics. But shortly thereafter he returned to his first love – art – that ultimately became his career. His interest in the arts was nurtured by his mother, herself a talented amateur artist, and by two of his aunts who served as role models. Beginning in 1932, he pursued a five-year course of study at the Chappell School of Art in Denver which by then had become part of the University of Denver. During his time at the school he studied with John E. Thompson and Santa Fe artist, Józef Bakoś. He also met two other Santa Fe-based artists, Willard Nash and B.J.O. Nordfeldt, when they exhibited at Chappell House, then the home of the Denver Art Museum. Lyon likewise attended the Cooke-Daniels Lecture Series there on the arts in the 1930s. Following graduation with a B.F.A. degree from the University of Denver in 1937, he studied privately for about a year with Andrew Dasburg in Taos, New Mexico, that redirected his attention to the rugged Rocky Mountain landscape, which he saw with directness and painted with an economy of means. His canvas, Winter Vista, done following his study with Dasburg, received the Edward J. Yetter Memorial Prize at the 45th Annual Exhibition of the Denver Art Museum in 1939. The painting was reproduced in the September 1939 issue of the Magazine of Art (Washington, DC). That same year his painting, Mount Evans, was included as one of Colorado’s entries in the American Art Today Pavilion at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. The money he received from the Yetter Prize financed his trip to Mexico City and Guadalajara in 1939 to see firsthand the frescoes of José Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera and the easel paintings of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Their work was admired by many Americans who participated in the WPA-era mural projects in the United States in the 1930s and early 1940s. The economic fallout from the Great Depression affecting many American artists at the time likewise resulted in Lyon’s participation in the Colorado Art Project, part of the WPA’s national program. Under its auspices he produced three murals in 1940 about the pioneer era of Fort Lupton, Colorado, which were installed in the auditorium of the local high school. Covering 367 square feet of wall space, one of the murals – Behold the West (the largest one) – incorporates the old fort for which the town is named. Before Lyon painted the murals, the students at Fort Lupton High School researched the history of their community and contributed to their cost, facilitating the murals’ allocation to their school under the Colorado Art Project. In the early 1940s Lyon shifted his focus to two new subjects – bathers, and canyons with conifers – reflecting his ongoing search for personal artistic growth. However, his reliance on structure to create form in his paintings and works on paper alienated some of his longtime followers. Nonetheless, his painting Conifers and Canyons won recognition at the 47th Annual Exhibition at the Denver Art Museum. The watercolor version of the piece was among three hundred works in that medium selected by John Marin, Charles Burchfield and Eliot O’Hara from a national competition held by the Section of Fine Arts (Federal Works Agency) and shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, in 1941. Later that year Lyon spent time in California where he saw Orozco’s Prometheus, influencing him to increase his range of originality and expression. In 1942 Lyon enlisted in the U.S. Army, spending almost three years in the Mediterranean Theater – Africa and Italy – preparing camouflage operations and scale models of proposed landing sites. He used his free time in Italy to expand his artistic vocabulary by seeing cultural masterpieces in Rome, Florence, Siena and Milan, and through his extensive contact with Giorgio de Chirico, founder of the scuola metafisica art movement, and Gino Severini, a leading member of the Futurist movement. Because of Lyon’s low army rank and pay, de Chirico did a small watercolor for him signing it, "For Mr. Lyon; G de Chirico, 1944." Lyon often visited de Chirico and his wife, Isa, at their apartment near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Following his Army discharge in 1945 fellow Kansas native, Ward Lockwood, invited him to join the Art Department at the University of Texas at Austin where he taught painting from 1946 to 1951. During this period some of Lyon’s work employed the palette of the School of Paris which he had seen while stationed in Europe, while other paintings had a certain flatness found in some of Lockwood’s work from the 1930s. From 1951 to 1953 he was affiliated with the Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin as an illustrator and editor of the employee magazine. In 1953, following time spent in Mexico, he returned to Denver, working as an illustrator at Lowry Air Force Base until retirement in 1961. During that time he did little of his own art because he also was designing and building a home in Arvada, Colorado, and re-establishing himself in the Denver art community after a decade-long absence. His painting, Autumn Aspens (1953-present location unknown) illustrates his experimentation with abstraction. In the early 1960s he began painting from memory that continued until the steadily degenerative effects of Alzheimer’s disease took their toll a decade later. He depicted scenes from his wartime European sojourn and from his early adulthood. The latter include Souvenir of Boulder (1962), a nostalgic return to his boyhood home in Boulder; and Holly Mayer and Friends, a painting of Glenn Miller and his musicians, inspired by Lyon’s first encounter with jazz in Boulder in the 1920s. His lifelong passion for vintage cars and automobile racing...