Russ Havard

Fork

2012

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NY & LA --The process of endless building and reconfiguring transcends the mere physical and encompasses the spiritual and symbolic. The scars a...

Derek Buckner is represented by George Billis Gallery NYC and LA. Born in 1970, Derek Buckner lives in Brooklyn, NY, with his wife, novelist Joanna Hershon, their twin sons and daug...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NYC & LA -- My latest series opening at the George Billis Gallery, “Birth of the Cool,” celebrates the midcentu...

Represented by George Billis Gallery, NY & LA -- My latest series opening at the George Billis Gallery, titled “Modern Society,” continues my exploration into midcentury architecture and design found in New York City, but focuses on the cultural centers and glamorous institutions that signaled its strength – and enchantment – in the 1950s and 60s. Covering such bewitching landmarks as Lincoln Center, the Guggenheim, and 5th Avenue stalwart Bergdorf Goodman, this series delves into how high design from this groundbreaking Modern period shaped metropolitan society and reinforced New York as a cultural capital. When viewed individually, each painting showcases an aspect of booming avant garde design, be it the Metropolitan Opera’s Sputnik Chandeliers, the high fashion displayed...

Serene 'River Pastel ' created with pastel on gessoed watercolor paper with gouache, and framed under Museum Plexiglass in warm silver, is created by American Artist Gail Chase Bien,...

Lionel S. Reiss (1894 - 1988) Lobstermen in Gloucester, Massachusetts, circa 1943 Watercolor on paper Sight 17 1/2 x 23 inches Signed lower left Provenance: Private Collection, Las Vegas, Nevada In describing his own style, Lionel Reiss wrote, “By nature, inclination, and training, I have long since recognized the fact that...I belong to the category of those who can only gladly affirm the reality of the world I live in.” Reiss’s subject matter was wide-ranging, including gritty New York scenes, landscapes of bucolic Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and seascapes around Gloucester, Massachusetts. However, it was as a painter of Jewish life—both in Israel and in Europe before World War II—that Reiss excelled. I.B. Singer, the Nobel Prize winner for Literature, noted that Reiss was “essentially an artist of the nineteenth century, and because of this he had the power and the courage to tell visually the story of a people.” Although Reiss was born in Jaroslaw, Poland, his family immigrated to the United States in 1898 when he was four years old. Reiss's family settled on New York City’s Lower East Side and he lived in the city for most of his life. Reiss attended the Art Students League and then worked as a commercial artist for newspapers and publishers. As art director for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, he supposedly created the studio’s famous lion logo. After World War I, Reiss became fascinated with Jewish life in the ‘Old World.’ In 1921 he left his advertising work and spent the next ten years traveling in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Like noted Jewish photographers Alter Kacyzne and Roman Vishniac, Reiss depicted Jewish life in Poland prior to World War II. He later wrote, “My trip encompassed three main objectives: to make ethnic studies of Jewish types wherever I traveled; to paint and draw Jewish life, as I saw it and felt it, in all aspects; and to round out my work in Israel.” In Europe, Reiss recorded quotidian scenes in a variety of media and different settings such as Paris, Amsterdam, the Venice ghetto, the Jewish cemetery in Prague, and an array of shops, synagogues, streets, and marketplaces in the Jewish quarters of Warsaw, Lodz, Krakow, Lublin, Vilna, Ternopil, and Kovno. He paid great attention to details of dress, hair, and facial features, and his work became noted for its descriptive quality. A selection of Reiss’s portraits appeared in 1938 in his book My Models Were Jews. In this book, published on the eve of the Holocaust, Reiss argued that there was “no such thing as a ‘Jewish race’.” Instead, he claimed that the Jewish people were a cultural group with a great deal of diversity within and between Jewish communities around the world. Franz Boas...

Melanie Vote’s small watercolor painting captures a whimsical and surreal moment, depicting a mysterious figure draped in a sheer nightgown, sleeping on a tree branch. Her head disap...

Wendy’s Garden with Trellis Ink, Watercolor and Oil on Yupo Paper 26″ x 40″ 2021 Texas artist Julie England Look for free shipping at checkout Annually the perennial cr...