Jean Theodore Hanau

Art Deco male athlete harlequin with guitar by deaf artist cubist painting

1933

Mother and child/maternité: a gorgeous, almost Picasso-like early oil on canvas by Petion Savain, dating from 1953. The painting is monogrammed and dated...

A fabulous example of 1960s geometric/op art, displaying all the fun, playfulness and vibrancy of the style. Op art, short for optical art, is a style of visual art that uses optical illusions. Typically, they give the viewer the impression of movement, hidden images and vibrating patterns. Its roots can be traced back to Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism and Dada. The maker of this stunning piece is Tony Gonnet (1909-2004) an artist close to those who shaped modern art and its history. Working in Casablanca in 1940 he met André Breton and Saint-Exupéry, who were both on their way to America. Unable to obtain a visa for himself, Gonnet returned to Paris in January of 1942. Living on Rue de Seine, he became one of the figures of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and numbered amongst his many friends Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Genet – who prefaced his first Parisian exhibition in 1952 – as well as Albert Camus, Simone Signoret, Boris Vian, Jacques and Pierre Prévert and many others. In 1941, in the ennui of Casablanca, Tony Gonnet had started to draw, and then paint, in a Surrealist style. In 1946 he abandoned figurative surrealism in favour of abstraction, making sole use from then on of geometric forms and shaded tones, in his own unique style. His works aim to achieve harmony of shapes and colours, and thus to bring joy. Tony Gonnet loved life, and said that each of his works was an offering made to it. With solo shows in major Paris galleries...

I am absolutely delighted to present a work by the Russian avant garde woman artist Alexandra Pregel (b.1907). If I say avant garde, I do not say it lightly! Alexandra was the daught...

If you are interested in African American Art and in Women in the Arts, I will certainly not need to introduce Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1988). Often associated with the Harlem Renaissance, her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection. I am proud to present an original watercolour painting by the artist which dates from the late 1940s or early 1950s. Jones was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a father who became the first African-American to earn a law degree from Suffolk Law School. Jones's parents encouraged her to draw and paint using watercolors during her childhood. She held her first solo exhibition at the age of seventeen in Martha's Vineyard. He career began in the 1930s and she continued to produce art work until her death in 1998 at the age of 92. Her style shifted and evolved multiple times in response to influences in her life, especially her extensive travels. She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists". Her work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry. In 1937, Jones received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Académie Julian, bringing her to France for the first time. The French were appreciative of her paintings and talent and Loïs Mailou Jones was thrilled at the country’s racial tolerance, so different from her reality in the United States. She summered in France annually from 1945 to 1953, sharing studio with her lifelong friend Celine Marie Tabary in Cabris, France. It was during one of these sojourns that the lovely work presented here was created. Our painting depicts the village of Tourettes sur Loup, just north of Nice, in the Provence Cote d'Azur region, about 14 miles from Cabris. Please note its similarities with her painting "Arreau, Hautes-Pyrénées" in the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her portrayal of the picturesque village nestled in a valley evokes landscape paintings by Paul Cézanne, a stylistic influence she acknowledged. Over the course of the following 10 years, Jones exhibited at the Phillips Collection, Seattle Art Museum, National Academy of Design, the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Pennsylvania's Lincoln University, Howard University, galleries in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1952, the book Loïs Mailou Jones: Peintures 1937–1951 was published, reproducing more than one hundred of her art pieces completed in France.At the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Jones exhibited with a group of prominent black artists, such as Jacob Lawrence and Alma Thomas. These artists and others were known as the "Little Paris...

A period work by a Russian artist working in a Cubist approach. The canvas is 24 1/4 x 22 1/4 inches and the above dimension is the framed size. The frame is an older frame, with a flat gold/brown finish. In Woman with Guitar, Simkhovitch plays on his his early fascination with Cubism and Constructivism (and his background in illustration) expressing and compressing with planes and color the spatiality of a domestic scene. Considered a master draftsman and an adherent of certain classicism, Simkhovitch’s compositions are often built up in a complicated but well-managed counterpoint, at heart, he is a romanticist preferring the dreamy colors of a Russian fairy tale.

This collage style painting displays great contrasts in color and composition and the French newspaper clippings only add to it's interest.

Pablo Picasso, After, Spanish (1881 - 1973) - Arlequin a la Guitare, Portfolio: Marina Picasso Estate Lithograph Collection, Year: of...

Signed lower right, 'Paula Melcher' (American, 20th century) and dated 1956.