Maurice Kish

Around East River, NYC Bridge, City Scene Oil Painting WPA Era 1940s

Framed 24.5 x 28.5 image 19.5 x 23 inches. Franz Anton Coufal (Austrian, 1927 - 1999) Painter and sculptor known for figure painting, bronze sculpture, genre paintings and as a graphic artist. After completing an apprenticeship as a locksmith, Franz Anton Coufal attended the Graphic Education and Research Institute in Vienna from 1947 to 1949 as a student of André Roder and from 1949 to 1953 took lessons from Ignaz Schönbrunner. From 1953 to 1959 he finally studied with Fritz Wotruba at the Academy of Fine Arts (diploma and master school award 1959). Coufal then went on study trips to Germany and Italy and then settled in Vienna as a sculptor and graphic artist. His work bears the influence of Austrian Magic Realism and the artists Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Arik Erich Brauer and Ernst Fuchs. THis work also has Expressionist elements to it. He organized exhibitions in Vienna (from 1955), Paris (1962, 1970) and Brussels (1964) as well as in other Austrian cities. His most important works include the honorary grave for Leopold Figl in the central cemetery (1966). In 1979 he provided the design for the face of the silver 100 schilling coin "Festival and Congress House Bregenz", in 1980 he created the Lehár monument for the city park, and in 1987 he received the special prize in the "Danube Region Vienna" competition. A select list of his sculptures in public spaces "Standing youth" (19, Hameaustraße - Celtesgasse, urban residential complex; 1960) "Reclining youth" (22, Kagran [Meißnergasse - Maißauer Gasse - Anton-Sattler-Gasse]; artificial stone, 1962) "Flammender Turm" (16, Thaliastraße 159; marble) Cubist marble sculpture (11, Molitorgasse at 15) Drinking fountain (20, Adalbert-Stifter-Straße primary school; 1968) Figldenkmal (1, Minoritenplatz, 1973) Coufal created some of his later works for the "Harmonie" rest home for the blind in Unterdambach near Neulengbach (memorial for the 144 blind people who perished in concentration camps, unveiled in 2000; stone sculpture "Monument to Humanity" on the terrace; rose-thorn cross and tabernacle for the in-house Odilien- Chapel; bronze portrait sculpture by Robert Vogel in the entrance hall, unveiled July 3, 1994). Bibliography Rudolf Schmidt: Austrian artist lexicon. From the beginning to the present. Vienna: Tusch 1974-1980 Who's Who in the world. Volume 2: 1974-1975. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who 1974 Who's who in the world. Volume 3: 1976-1977. New Providence, NJ: Marquis Who's Who 1976 Who is Who in Austria with South Tyrol part (Hübner's "Blue Who is Who"). Zug: Who is who, Verlag für Personalenzyklopädien 12 1995 Otto Breicha: Franz Anton Coufal In: Franz Anton Coufal. Österreichische Staatsdruckerei, December 9-22, 1964. Vienna: Staatsdruckerei 1964 The press, July 30, 1963 Of the generation of Viennese artists Alois Mosbacher, Josef Mikl, Oswald Oberhuber, Christian Ludwig Attersee, Peter Sengl, Max Weiler, Franz Ringel, Gunter Brus, Hubert Schmalix, Wilhelm Kaufmann, Paul Flora, Oscar Larsen, Hans Staudacher, Siegfried Anzinger, Ernst Huber...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) This came with a small grouping from the artist's family, some were hand signed some were not. These were studies for larger paintings. Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. Simka painted what he thought was typical of Jackson. His impression of pre-civil rights Mississippi was evidently Greek Revival column houses, weeping willow trees, working class families, and the oppression of African Americans. He painted African American men picking cotton, while a white man took account of the harvest and a white judge advised a white family, calling it Pursuits of Life in Mississippi. Though clearly endorsed by the government and initially generally well-received, the mural soon raised concerns with locals as the climate toward racial segregation began to change. The main concern was whether depictions that show African Americans in subjugated societal roles should be featured in a courtroom. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...

Oil on canvas realized by Fantuzzi in 1952. Hand signed lower left and on rear.

TERRACOTTA ROOFS Oil on canvas Size: 43 x 65 cm (including frame) A very well executed mid century modernist composition in oil, painted onto canvas. This painting beautifully capt...