Walter Spitzer

Polish French Expressionist Oil Painting Costume Party Paris Masquerade Ball

1956

Signed on recto and signed verso, titled, and inscribed Montmartre by the artist. This is a large colorful expressionist painting of a girl doll with long blonde or ginger redhead pigtails. It is titled Poupee 1925 and depicts an Art Deco era flapper girl in a beret. Roger Crusat (French Expressionist artist, poet and lithographer) is known for ballet troupe set design and theatre backdrop painting and architectural motifs. Roger Crusat was born in 1917 in Roussillon, Provence, France. Crusat's early works depict the colorful countryside of Provence in the South of France, As a young man Crusat performed many jobs in the troupe, designing costumes, and even dancing. But, most important, he painted the scenery for the troupe's performances. It was while working in this capacity that he learned the essentials of scenery painting that remain evident in his mature work. Crusat was a student of Andre Fons-Godail at Beaux-Arts in Perpignan when he was called to serve in World War II. After being wounded in 1940, he returned to study under Rene Jaudon at Beaux-Arts in Paris. Crusat was known by his contemporaries as "the Catalan painter of Montmartre" where he lived with his wife until his death in 1994. Cracked and peeling walls framed by rusting water pipes are a common sight in Montmartre. What others considered unnecessary, Crusat included. Water pipes were his cherished motif. Supposed by some to be a symbol of decay and monotony, Crusat's Impressionist water pipes like arteries in the body, convey life. Crusat won the prestigious Prix Populiste for his "Descente d'Eau" (Water Pipes) in 1956. Crusat's mature work retains the essentials of good scenery painting. Intricate detail will not be found, but broad, solid abstract shapes abound. His subtle colors, dense in texture, are meant to compliment his subjects, not distract from them. The critics considered him a lyric expressionist and a "painter of Man" in his portrayal of the anguish of daily life and the regrets of the past. Crusat exhibited at many of the same Salons as the post-impressionists and expressionists. Salon des Independants was co-founded by Georges Seurat. Degas had only one exhibition during his lifetime, and it was at the Galerie Durand Ruel in Paris. Gauguin had also exhibited his Tahitian paintings. Crusat's works were exhibited there in 1955. SELECT AWARDS 1954 Le Prix de la Jeune Peintre 1955 Prix des Amateurs d'Art & des Collectionneurs, Galerie Gazette des Beaux Arts, 140 rue Faubourg St. Honore, Paris Les Jardins des Abbesses purchased by the Republic of France, Prix de la Ville de Marseilles, Prix Othon Friesz 1956 Prix Populiste, Prix de Amedeo Modigliani 1957 Grand Prix International de Vichy, Prix de la Fondation Greenshields 1959 IVeme Grand Prix de Peinture du Festival de Vichy 1967 Le Prix des Amis de Brantôme, Perigord, France 1970 Prix de la Critique Academy de Vernet a Vichy,"La Nuit, Premiere Etude" Roger Crusat, Half-closed shutters , poems enriched with four original lithographs (175 numbered copies) drawn on Henri Deprest's presses on February 13, 1975 , Éditions Matignon 34, 1975. Personal exhibitions Durand-Ruel Gallery, Paris, 1955 [ 1 ] . Galerie Rivière, Paris, november 1958 [ 4 ] . Le Roux and Mathias, auctioneers in Paris, Sale of the Roger Crusat workshop , Hôtel Drouot , Paris, Thursday October 27, 1994 [ 5 ] . Jack's American Bistro, Glens Falls , September- october 2004 [ 6 ] . Collective exhibitions Galerie Roger, Lyon , October 1946 [ 7 ] . Salon des Indépendants , Paris, from 1952 [ 8 ] . Exhibition Discover , Galerie Charpentier , Paris, 1955. Populist Salon, Paris, 1956. Salon des Amis de Brantôme, 1957. Hundred painters and oil - Exhibition on the occasion of the centenary of the first oil drilling , Musée Galliera , october 1958 [ 9 ] . “An artist from Roussillon whose invoice calls for a flattering comparison with that of a Soutine or a Rebeyrolle . Indeed, following their example, he focuses on familiar scenes: Girls on the balcony or in the basket , Laundresses weighing heavily on the iron, draft horses or plucked turkeys, who stand next to a magnificent portrait of a man in a red dressing gown . Hasn't the Prix Populiste already crowned its merits? " - Jean Jacquinot SELECT EXHIBITIONS Galerie La Gentilhommiere, Paris La Salle Arago, Perpignan, Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne Biennale de Menton, Menton Galerie des Jacobins, Lyon Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris Salon de la Nationale Galerie Bassano, Paris Salon Populiste Salon de Romans Galerie Motte, Geneva, Switzerland Exposition à Quiberville sur Mer - Normandie Galerie Charpentier Salon Confrontation: Bernard Buffet, Roger Crusat, Jean Jansem, Franck Innocent...

Aaron Fink (American, b. 1955) Hand signed and dated 1986, verso. The large canvas size measures approx: 72" x 66". This painting is part of the artist's "Images of Gambling" series, amongst his best figural work. Aaron Fink was born in Boston in 1955. He received his MFA from Yale University and his BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. His work has been exhibited widely throughout the U.S., Europe and Japan and Australia, and is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NY, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among many others. He lives and works in the Boston area. He has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan, the Rockford Art Museum, Illinois, and Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Figurative abstract expressionist art. In 2002 a monograph on Fink’s work, Out of the Ordinary, was published, with text by Eleanor Heartney. In 1983 Fink met the collector John Powers, who remained a strong supporter of his work until his death in 1999. Fink’s work is represented in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hara Museum, Tokyo, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, among many others. Fink currently divides his time between Boston and Rockport, Massachusetts. He was included in the show The Expressive Voice: Selections from the Permanent Collection at the Danforth Museum of Art. An exhibition of Boston Expressionism, a school that embraced a distinctive blend of visionary painting, dark humor, religious mysticism, and social commentary. Historical roots of this movement can be traced to European Symbolism and German Expressionism, but artists living and working in the Boston area from the 1930’s through the 1950’s, were particularly inspired by Chaim Soutine and Max Beckmann. Artists included; Aaron Fink, Bernard Chaet, David Aronson, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, Jackson Pollock, Jason Berger, Karl Zerbe, Lawrence Kupferman, Michael Mazur, Sigmund Abeles and Willem de Kooning. He was included in the show 40 Years of Printmaking: From the Center Street Studio Archives, along other great figural artists Gabor Peterdi, John Walker, Lester Johnson and Nell Blaine. S E L E C T E D C O L L E C T I O N S Art Institute of Chicago Bank of America Boston Public Library Bouwfonds Nederlandse Gemeenten, The Netherlands Brooklyn Museum of Art Castelli Collection, New York Chase Manhattan Bank Chemical Bank Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT Citizens Bank, Boston Coopers & Lybrand Danforth Museum, Framingham, MA Danish House of Parliament Davis Museum, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park Lincoln, MA Farnsworth Museum, Maine Fidelity Investments, Boston Fogg Museum of Art, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA Fuller Museum of Art, Brockton, MA G.E. Corporation Goldman Sachs & Company IBM, New York Indianapolis Museum of Art Library of Congress Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Modern Art, New York National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC New York Public Library Philadelphia Museum of Art Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine United States Department of State University of Massachusetts, Amherst Awards Residency, Anderson Ranch, Snowmass, CO, 1998, 1996 National Endowment for the Arts, 1987, 1982 Artist Fellowship, Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, 1984 American Academy in Rome, Prix de Rome – Alternate in Painting, 1979 Yale University, Ford Foundation Special Project Grant, Fall 1979 Skowhegan Scholarship Award, conferred by the Maryland Institute College of Art, Spring 1976 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS Contemporary Responses to Modernism: A New England Perspective, University of Southern Maine Color and Line: Expressive Tradition in Boston, Endicott College, Beverly, MA, Beautiful Decay, Danforth Art Museum, Framingham, MA MICA Then and Now, Ethan Cohen Gallery, Beacon, NY Bon Appetit, Concord Art Association Celebrating Ten Years, Galerie D’Avignon, Montreal, Canada New England Impressions: Exploring the Woodcut, Concord Art, Concord, MA Go Figure: The Figure in Contemporary Art – A Response to Art History, Painting in Boston: 1950-2000, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park, Lincoln, MA Working Sources: The Painter and the Photographic Image, Alpha Gallery, Boston, MA The Unique Print: Six Innovative Approaches to the Monotype, Starr Gallery, Newton, MA Selections from Atelier Mourlot, Hankyu Department Store, Tokyo, Japan Yale Collects Yale, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT, 1993 70’s and 80’s: Printmaking Now, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, 1986-1987 Skowhegan Alumni, Leo Castelli Gallery, New York, and Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, Public and Private: American Prints Today, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Contemporary Miami Collectors, Metropolitan Museum, Coral Gables, FL, 1984 The American Artist as Printmaker, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 1983-84 Jon Abbott, Aaron Fink, Tom Lieber, Chris Wool...

In creating this piece, I embraced the delicate dance between realism and expressionism, aiming to convey deep emotion. The soft interplay of light and shadow across the figure's for...

In this oil painting, I've immersed myself in capturing the simple joy of an abundant harvest. The vibrant, impressionistic brushstrokes convey the lushness of nature and the warmth ...