1950s Art

Southhampton 8:45 PM Signed Gray lower right Titled on verso in black paint Oil on canvas, 28 x 40 inches Exhibited: Jacques Seligman Galleries (label) twice, original price $450. (See photo) Condition: {Small slit in canvas, delivered to Monica for cleaning and repair} Expertly repaired by Monica Radecki Gray had his first one man show at Seligmann in 1947. NY Times Obit: Large Abstract Works, Dies By Ken Johnson Dec. 10, 2004 Cleve Gray, a painter admired for his large-scale, vividly colorful and lyrically gestural abstract compositions, died on Wednesday in Hartford. He was 86. The cause was a massive subdural hematoma suffered after he fell on ice and hit his head on Tuesday outside his home in Warren, Conn., said his wife, the writer Francine du Plessix Gray. Mr. Gray achieved his greatest critical recognition in the late 1960's and 70's after working for many years in a comparatively conservative late-Cubist style. Inspired in the 60's by artists like Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still, Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler, Mr. Gray began to produce large paintings using a variety of application methods -- pouring, staining, sponging and other nontraditional techniques -- to create compositions combining expanses of pure color and spontaneous calligraphic gestures. In 1972 and 73 he produced "Threnody," a suite of 14 paintings, each measuring 20 feet by 20 feet, dedicated to the dead on both sides in the Vietnam War. The series was commissioned by the Neuberger Museum of Art at Purchase College, part of the State University of New York, and is considered one of the largest groups of abstract paintings created for a specific public space. PUBLIC COLLECTIONS: Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY Cathedral of Saint John the Divine Art Gallery, New York, NY Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME Columbia University Art Gallery, New York, NY Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, New York, NY Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY Heckscher Museum, Huntington, New York, NY Honolulu Academy of the Arts, Honolulu, HI The Jewish Museum, New York, NY Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul, MI Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. The Neuberger Museum, State University of New York, Purchase, NY New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT The Newark Museum, Newark, NJ Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, FL Oklahoma City Art Center, Oklahoma City, OK The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. The Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Shearson Lehman Hutton Collection...

Antique American modernist oil painting by Victor De Pauw (1902 - 1971). Oil on board, circa 1950. Framing available. Image size, 24L x 27H. Signed.

Lithograph, 1957 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and annoted HC Publisher : Le musée de Poche (Paris) Printer : Jean Pons (Paris) Catalog : Polieri, 1746 50.50 cm. x 66.00 cm. 19...

Lithograph, 1954 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 19/95 Publisher : Klipstein, Berne et l'Œuvre gravée, Zürich Printer : Desjobert, Paris Catalog : Prudhomme 20 65.20 ...

Etching and aquatint, 1958 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 6/20 32.00 cm. x 25.00 cm. 12.6 in. x 9.84 in. (paper) 13.00 cm. x 9.50 cm. 5.12 in. x 3.74 in. (image) Frontispiece for Louis Aragon...

Provenance: Marlborough Gallery David McKee, Inc. Manny Silverman Gallery Private collection, Los Angeles

Window 1 is an original Contemporary artwork realized in 1995 by the italian Contemporary artist Leo Guida (1992 - 2017). Original Screen print and embossing. Numbered Titled ...

Lithograph, 1953 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 27/100 Printer : Jean Pons (Paris) LCD5351

From the estate of Jerry Opper & Ruth Friedman Opper Curled 1950's Gouache on Paper 15" x 18", Unframed From the estate of Ruth Friedmann Opper & Jerry Opper. Ruth was the daughter of Bauhaus artist, Gustav Friedmann...

ZAO WOU-KI 1921- 2013 Beijing 1921 - 2013 Switzerland (Chinese) Title: Venice Venise, 1951 Technique: Original Hand Signed, Dated and Numbered Etching on BFK Rives Wove Paper Pap...

Artist: Henri Matisse (after) Title: Femmes et Singes Portfolio: 1958 The Last Works of Henri Matisse Medium: Lithograph Date: 1958 Edition: 2000 Frame Size: 20" x 27" Sheet Size: 14...

Joan Miro Joan Miro (Plate 7) Artist: Joan Miro Medium: Original lithograph Title: Joan Miro (Plate 7) Portfolio: Joan Miro Year: 1956 Framed Size: 21 1/2" x 15 1/4" Image Size: 9" ...

Abstract Landscape is an original contemporary artwork realized by Maria Asnago. Signed in the bottom right. Hand signed on the back. Mario Asnago. A renewed architect and painte...

Stanley William Hayter, 'Feu sous L'eau (Fire Under Water)', color engraving, soft-ground etching and scorper with yellow silkscreen, 1955, edition 50 plus 10 artist proofs, Black & Moorhead 221. Signed, titled 'Fire Under Water', dated and annotated 'Essai' in pencil. Dedicated in the artist’s hand 'for Adja & Dove WH Bill 17–5–55' in the top margin. A superb, richly inked impression with fresh colors, on heavy, cream wove paper; wide margins (2 1/2 to 3 7/8 inches), in excellent condition. One of 10 artist’s proofs. Image size 10 3/16 x 7 inches; sheet size 18 1/8 x 12 1/4 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THIS WORK In 1950 Hayter returned to Paris and reopened Atelier 17. Works such as 'Fire Under Water' reveal newfound influences, such as that of the Ardèche area of southern France, where he acquired a house in 1951 and frequently visited. Hayter took great interest in the flowing Escoutay River, an experience that parallels the artist and co-director of Atelier 17 Krishna Reddy’s interest in depicting water. While some forms in this print evoke the natural world, the palette of contrasting tones of purple, yellow, black, and white reflects Hayter’s belief in using color intuitively to express emotions and evoke feelings. The sharp white relief lines from the paper and the textural effects realized through soft-ground etching operate in tandem with the sweeping curves and bold colors to give the composition a sense of vitality and dynamism. —edited from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Published by 'La Jeune Gravure Contemporaine', Paris. Impressions of this work are in the following collections: British Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST Stanley William Hayter (1901-1988) was a British painter and printmaker associated in the 1930s with Surrealism and from 1940 onward with Abstract Expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers of the 20th century, Hayter founded the legendary Atelier 17 studio in Paris, now known as Atelier Contrepoint. Among the artists he is credited with influencing are Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, and Marc Chagall. The hallmark of the workshop was its egalitarian structure, breaking sharply with the traditional French engraving studios by insisting on a cooperative approach to labor and technical discoveries. In 1929 Hayter was introduced to Surrealism by Yves Tanguy and André Masson, who, with other Surrealists, worked with Hayter at Atelier 17. The often violent imagery of Hayter’s Surrealist period was stimulated in part by his passionate response to the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Fascism. He organized portfolios of graphic works to raise funds for the Spanish cause, including Solidarité (Paris, 1938), a portfolio of seven prints, one of them by Picasso. Hayter frequently exhibited with the Surrealists during the 1930s but left the movement when Paul Eluard was expelled. Eluard’s poem Facile Proie (1939) was written in response to a set of Hayter’s engravings. Other writers with whom Hayter collaborated included Samuel Beckett and Georges Hugnet. Hayter joined the exile of the Parisian avant-garde in 1939, moving with his second wife, the American sculptor Helen Phillips...

Vintage American modernist abstract Maine landscape painting. Watercolor and gouache on paper, circa 1960. Signed on verso. Image size, 30...

Provenance: Martha Jackson Gallery, NY; Anderson Gallery, Buffalo, NY. In a career that spanned nearly six decades and combined aspects of Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, Mr. Opper became known for vibrantly colored paintings in which soft, cloudlike forms, or elongated plinths jostled gently against each other. By American standards an early convert...

Etching and aquatint, 1958 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 232/300 Printer : Crommelynck (Paris) Catalog : Maeght 1713 56.00 cm. x 65.00 cm. 22.05 in. x 25.59 in. (paper) 39.00 cm. x 48.00 cm. 15.35 in. x 18.9 in. (image) After Miro...

Tempura and ink on heavy paper Signed bottom right, Numbered on verso "No. 18" 8.75 x 19.75 inches; 18.5 x 29.5 inches framed Provenance: Private collection, Denver, Colorado

Untitled (Fruit, Leaves, Spotted Cloth) oil on canvas painting signed by Bernard Arnest (1917-1986) from 1959. Abstracted still life featuring fruit and leaves on a purple/grey background. Presented in a custom frame measuring 43 x 36 ¾ inches, image size measures 40 x 34 inches. Expedited and International shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: A Denver native, Arnest studied with Helen Perry at East High School who is accredited to having identified many of Colorado’s talented artists. At Perry’s recommendation Arnest benefited from supplemental instruction at the newly founded Kirkland School of Art and at the School of Fine Art and Design operated by Colorado artist Frank Mechau. Following graduation from East, Arnest enrolled at the Broadmoor Art Academy in Colorado Springs, where he studied with Boardman Robinson and Henry Varnum Poor. In 1940 Arnest was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in painting which he spent in San Francisco. That same year San Francisco Museum of Art had a one-man show for Arnest, the first of many in his professional career. Other exhibitions included the Whitney Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Academy of Design, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. After the war he worked for two years in New York City and began a thirty-nine-year affiliation with Kraushaar Galleries who also showed the likes of George Luks, John Sloan, Maurice...

Lithograph, 1950 Handsigned by the artist in pencil Edition : 250 Publisher : Mourlot (Paris) Printer : Mourlot (Paris) Catalog : Vallier 49 32.00 cm. x 39.00 cm. 12.6 in. x 15.35 ...

Mid Century Modern East Bay Abstracted Landscape by Erle Loran Dynamic abstracted geometric landscape drawing of the East Bay California landscape by Erle Lor...

This sophisticated modernist portrait was realized by the esteemed artist Manuel Angele Ortiz in Spain, circa 1950. The work realized in a style influenced by the work of Pablo Picas...

Night,Blue,Green,Picasso,France Atelier stamp lower right Dora Maar, original name Henrietta Theodora Markovitch (Marković), (born November 22, 1907, Paris, France—died July 16, 199...

Beautiful still life drawing by American artist, Lloyd Raymond Ney (1893-1964). Ink on paper, 14.5 x 21 inches; 25.5 x 31.5 inches framed. Excellent condition with no damage or restoration. Signed lower right. Birth place: Friedenburg, PA. Addresses: New Hope, PA, 1925-64 Profession: Painter, lecturer, teacher Studied: PAFA with H. McCarter, 1914 -18 (Cresson Scholarship; traveled in Europe 1918-21; Paris in 1924) Exhibited: AIC, 1937; Guggenheim Museum, 1941-56; PAFA Ann., 1941, 1951; numerous group shows in Europe. Work: Guggenheim Museum, NYC. WPA commission, 1941, mural for New London, Ohio Post Office (Citizens of New London petitioned WPA administrator Edward Bruce to allow Ney to paint the mural) Comments: Abstract painter. He spent many years in Paris, where he was friendly with Pascin, Foujita, Frieske, H.O. Tanner, W. Pach and Roger Fry...

Signed lower right "Sander" 19.5 x 23.5 inches; 23.5 x 25.125 inches framed Provenance: Private collection, Denver

Portrait of Man San Francisco Bay Area Figurative Movement Figurative portrait of a man by San Francisco artist Peter Witwer (American, 1928-1968). Unsigned from a collection of his work. Provenance estate of Peter Witwer, Lost Art Solon. Image 32"H x 26"W Frame, 32.5"H x 26.5"W x 1.75"D Posthumous show of the artists work exhibit card on verso. Born George Peter...

Eleanor Nell Sinton Roots and Stems 1950, Oil on canvas, Signed lower right N. Sinton, Provenance: Braunstein Quay Gallery (bears label verso) Framed: 24.5 X 20.5 sight 21 X 17 inches. Nell (Eleanor) Sinton (1910-1997) was a painter, art collector and educator in San Francisco, California Nell Sinton began painting in the 1920s. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (then called the California School of Fine Arts). Nell Sinton, one of the early California woman abstract expressionist painters. A member of a family that moved to San Francisco in 1851, Nell Sinton began painting in the 1920s. She studied at the San Francisco Art Institute (then called the California School of Fine Arts) a decade before abstract expressionism emerged there, and, later, with Lucien Labaudt and Maurice Sterne, (1937-1938). She also worked as an apprentice to Sterne on the Federal Art Project (WPA) murals in San Francisco (1938-40) and was a member of the San Francisco Art Commission (1959-63). In 1959, Sinton was acknowledged as one of the Ten Most Distinguished Bay Area Women. A notable Bay Area Expressionist...

Abstract Composition is a small yet significant artwork realized by the artist Paul Henri Bony, a famous French artist, active in the mid-20th century. The artwork is in excellent co...

Created in 1953, ceramic Picador A.R. 200 is a round plate of white earthenware clay with oxidized paraffin decoration (brown, green, white) in a stanniferous enamel bath...

ZAO WOU-KI 1921- 2013 Beijing 1921 - 2013 Switzerland (Chinese) Title: Fishing La pêche, 1951 Technique: Original Hand Signed and Numbered Drypoint on Wove Paper Paper size: 25 x...

Red to Black, 1954 Abstract Oil Mid-20th Century Modern Non-Objective. Published. Signed and dated upper left. 40 1/4 x 18 1/2 inches oil on canvas. Provenance: Estate of O. Louis Guglielmi. Robert Schoelopf Gallery. Andrew Crispo Gallery. Published in the artist's monograph as seen in the attached photos. BIO Painter O. Louis Guglielmi moved stylistically from a symbolic Social Realism, Precisionism, and Surrealism, ultimately to abstraction, but his subject matter, when it existed, dealt with society's underdogs. He had experienced slum living as a youth, moving from place to place because of his violinist father's need to find employment. Though Guglielmi was born in 1906 in Cairo, Egypt, his Italian parents moved the family to Italy. In 1914, they were living in New York City in Harlem's Italian slum. Guglielmi was involved in the political and artistic protests of the trial, conviction as anarchist bombers, and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti...

Abstract Composition Oil on canvas, signed lower left. Judith Sobel was born in Lwow Poland in 1924. After World War II, she attended the Academy of Fine ...

Untitled (Abstraction) Ink on textured paper, c. 1958 Signed lower right "Scarlett" (see photo) Condition: Excellent Archival framing with OP3 Acrylic Sheet size: 21 3/4 x 30 inches Frame size: 28 1/2 x 36 1/2 inches Note: A rare mid to late 1950s example of the artist's abstract expressionist style. Provenance: estate of the artist Private Collection, Hudson River Valley, New York Rolph Scarlett B. 1889, GUELPH, ONTARIO; D. 1984, WOODSTOCK, NEW YORK Born on June 13, 1889 in Guelph, Canada, and into an artistic family, Rolph Scarlett spent his teenage years as an apprentice in his uncle’s jewelry firm and briefly studied at the Art Students League, New York. While working in the jewelry industry, Scarlett found time to paint and design theatrical sets in his free time, including one for the 1928 world premiere of Eugene O’Neill’s drama Lazarus Laughed (1926). In 1923, while on a business trip to Switzerland, Scarlett had met the artist Paul Klee and soon after abandoned his figurative painting style in favor of an abstract language that suggested more universal, cosmic truths. In 1937, after permanently settling in New York, Scarlett became acquainted with the artist and curator Hilla Rebay, the first director of the Museum of Non-Objective Painting (renamed the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1952). Rebay provided Scarlett with a Guggenheim Foundation scholarship to paint full-time and obtained several of his paintings for the museum’s collection. From 1940 to 1946, Scarlett served as the museum’s chief lecturer, giving Sunday afternoon talks on art. Through Rebay, Scarlett became acquainted with the nonobjective works of Rudolf Bauer and Vasily Kandinsky and further refined his abstract style. Works from this era such as Yellow Bar (1942) are defined by overlapping geometric planes of bright, primary colors set against mute backgrounds. Scarlett avoided any reference to the outside world and believed that nonobjective painting was an act, in his words, of “pure creation.” During his lifetime, solo shows of his work were held at the Jacques Seligmann Gallery, New York (1949); Sioux City Art Center, Iowa (1951); and Washburn Gallery...

"Paso Robles" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 40.75 in x 47.75 in. The upper left corner has sustained a small l...

Artist: Henri Matisse (after) Title: Le Jarre I Portfolio: The Last Works of Henri Matisse Medium: Lithograph Date: 1958 Edition: 2000 Frame Size: 20 1/2" x 15 1/4" Sheet Size: 14" x...

Casein on masonite Like many of his compatriots of the time, Shulman transitioned from representation to abstraction in the post-WWII period as he studied with Hans Hoffman. Yet, his work, whether or abstraction or representation, was inspired by a keen sense of place--in this case, Monhegan Island, Maine, where he returned year-after-year to paint. Many of his works were inspired by the tidal pool and eddies he studied on the island's shore. His work can be found in the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum, the Carnegie Museum, The Brooklyn Museum, the Jewish Museum, Bates College in Lewiston, Me, Vassar College...

Abstract expressionist watercolor painting of blue, black, orange, and green signed by Charles Ragland Bunnell (1897-1968). Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials an...

Abstract Cityscape Mid 20th Century Modern Cubist Work on Paper Drawing Ariel 11 x 4 1/2 inches. Framed by Heydenryk. Provenance: Gary Snyder Fine Art B...

Print color etching on heavy paper Signed, titled, dated on mat 18 x 11 inches; 20.5 x 17 inches framed Provenance: Private collection, Denver, Colorado

"Image" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 20 in x 21. It is in excellent condition. Donald C. Totten (1903-1964) was a member of a group of artists who quietly began to introduce modernist thought, emanating from Europe and the East Coast, to the Los Angeles art community during the 1920s. Other members of this group were influential artists as Nick Brigante, Lorser Feitelson, Helen Lundeberg...

Joan Miro - Night Sky - Original Lithograph Artist: Joan Miro Editor: Maeght Year: 1956 Dimensions: 23 x 20 cm Reference: Mourlot 235 Unsigned and unumbered as issued.

"Untitled" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on canvas circa 1950 and measures 48.5 in x 23.5 in. The right side of the painting is bowed and needs conservation, otherwise in...

Lithograph, 1953 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 27/100 Printer : Jean Pons (Paris) LCD5360

"Composition" by Don Totten is an abstract oil painting on masonite circa 1950 and measures 28 in x 32 in. The painting is in good condition. Donald C. To...

Resonances is a B/W lithograph on watermarked paper "Arc". Abstract composition by the French artist Jean Dubuffet . From the album of " Spectacles" (1953-1959). In excellent conditions. Referements: Cat. Silkeborg n° 478 / Cat. S. Webel n°701. Edition of 24 copies. Jean Dubuffet (Le Havre 1901 - Paris 1985) Best known as the founder of the contemporary art movement called Art...

Wassily Kandinsky Small Worlds, 1952 Stone Lithograph (3 color stones) Printed signature in the plate On vellum 31 x 24 cm (c. 12,2 x 9,5 in) Edited by S...

Professor George De Goya. PhD. MA. FRSA. Born In Budapest, 1915-1992, related to the Spanish artist Goya on his mother’s side. Educated in Budapest and France where he received a de...

Silksreen, 1959 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 18/95 Publisher : Pierre Loeb (Paris) Printer : Lurdes Castro et René Bertholo (Paris) Ca...

Pierre SOULAGES Lithograph n°9 Original stone lithograph (3 colors- atelier Mourlot) Unsigned On vellum 12 x 10" (31 x 24 cm) REFERENCES : Catalogue raisonné BNF #53 Created in 19...

(after) Sonia Delaunay - Composition - Pochoir 1956 Dimensions: 32 x 25 cm Revue XXe Siècle Cahiers d'art published under the direction of G. di San Lazzaro. Unsigned and unumbered ...

Serge POLIAKOFF Abstract Composition, 1956 Lithograph and stencil (Jacomet Workshop) Printed signature in the plate On wove paper 31.5 x 24 cm (c. 12.2 x 9.4 in) Edition San Lazarr...

Francisco Narváez Forma (BFM-002), 1956 Bronze (1970) Edition of 25 30 x 8 x 10 cm 11.8 x 3.1 x 3.9 in. LITTERATURE Registro General de la obra de...

Gorgeous oil on panel by Harold Cohn. Beautiful reds - the photo does not do the painting justice. The texture of the flowers is stunning. The piece is fra...

Abstract Composition is a small yet significant artwork made by Paul Bony, a famous French artist active in the mid-20th century. The artwork is in excellent state of preservation. ...

Jardin de terre is an original B/W lithograph realized by the French founder of Art Brut, Jean Dubuffet Very good condition. Image Dimensions: 53 x 39.5 cm. The artwork represent...

Well painted 1950's mid-century modern English portrait of a black nude woman seated on a chair. The artist was a portrait and figure painter active during the 1950s-1960s Oils on ...

Watercolor and ink on paper of an abstract composition of brown, orange and blue shapes between black parallel lines throughout the the piece by Herbert Bayer (1900-1985). Presented in a custom black frame with all archival materials. Framed dimensions measure 17 ⅞ x 22 ⅝ x 1 inches. Image size is 10 ¼ x 15 ½ inches. Painting is clean and in very good condition - please contact us for a detailed condition report. Expedited and international shipping is available - please contact us for a quote. About the Artist: Herbert Bayer enjoyed a versatile sixty-year career spanning Europe and America that included abstract and surrealist painting, sculpture, environmental art, industrial design, architecture, murals, graphic design, lithography, photography and tapestry. He was one of the few “total artists” of the twentieth century, producing works that “expressed the needs of an industrial age as well as mirroring the advanced tendencies of the avant-garde.” One of four children of a tax revenue officer growing up in a village in the Austrian Salzkammergut Lake region, Bayer developed a love of nature and a life-long attachment to the mountains. A devotee of the Vienna Secession and the Vienna Workshops (Wiener Werkstätte) whose style influenced Bauhaus craftsmen in the 1920s, his dream of studying at the Academy of Art in Vienna was dashed at age seventeen by his father’s premature death. In 1919 Bayer began an apprenticeship with architect and designer, Georg Schmidthamer, where he produced his first typographic works. Later that same year he moved to Darmstadt, Germany, to work at the Mathildenhöhe Artists’ Colony with architect Emanuel Josef Margold of the Viennese School. As his working apprentice, Bayer first learned about the design of packages – something entirely new at the time – as well as the design of interiors and graphics of a decorative expressionist style, all of which later figured in his professional career. While at Darmstadt, he came across Wassily Kandinsky’s book, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and learned of the new art school, the Weimar Bauhaus, in which he enrolled in 1921. He initially attended Johannes Itten’s preliminary course, followed by Wassily Kandinsky’s workshop on mural painting. Bayer later recalled, “The early years at the Bauhaus in Weimar became the formative experience of my subsequent work.” Following graduation in 1925, he was appointed head of the newly-created workshop for print and advertising at the Dessau Bauhaus that also produced the school’s own print works. During this time he designed the “Universal” typeface emphasizing legibility by removing the ornaments from letterforms (serifs). Three years later he left the Bauhaus to focus more on his own artwork, moving to Berlin where he worked as a graphic designer in advertising and as an artistic director of the Dorland Studio advertising agency. (Forty years later he designed a vast traveling exhibition, catalog and poster -- 50 Jahre Bauhaus -- shown in Germany, South America, Japan, Canada and the United States.) In pre-World War II Berlin he also pursued the design of exhibitions, painting, photography and photomontage, and was art director of Vogue magazine in Paris. On account of his previous association with the Bauhaus, the German Nazis removed his paintings from German museums and included him among the artists in a large exhibition entitled Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) that toured German and Austrian museums in 1937. His inclusion in that exhibition and the worsening political conditions in Nazi Germany prompted him to travel to New York that year with Marcel Breuer, meeting with former Bauhaus colleagues, Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy to explore the possibilities of employment after immigration to the United States. In 1938 Bayer permanently relocated to the United States, settling in New York where he had a long and distinguished career in practically every aspect of the graphic arts, working for drug companies, magazines, department stores, and industrial corporations. In 1938 he arranged the exhibition, “Bauhaus 1919-1928” at the Museum of Modern Art, followed later by “Road to Victory” (1942, directed by Edward Steichen), “Airways to Peace” (1943) and “Art in Progress” (1944). Bayer’s designs for “Modern Art in Advertising” (1945), an exhibition of the Container Corporation of America (CAA) at the Art Institute of Chicago, earned him the support and friendship of Walter Paepcke, the corporation’s president and chairman of the board. Paepcke, whose embrace of modern currents and design changed the look of American advertising and industry, hired him to move to Aspen, Colorado, in 1946 as a design consultant transforming the moribund mountain town into a ski resort and a cultural center. Over the next twenty-eight years he became an influential catalyst in the community as a painter, graphic designer, architect and landscape designer, also serving as a design consultant for the Aspen Cultural Center. In the summer of 1949 Bayer promoted through poster design and other design work Paepcke’s Goethe Bicentennial Convocation attended by 2,000 visitors to Aspen and highlighted by the participation of Albert Schweitzer, Arthur Rubenstein, Jose Ortega y Gasset and Thornton Wilder. The celebration, held in a tent designed by Finnish architect Eero Saarinen, led to the establishment that same year of the world-famous Aspen Music Festival and School regarded as one of the top classical music venues in the United States, and the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in (now the Aspen Institute), promoting in Paepcke’s words “the cross fertilization of men’s minds.” In 1946 Bayer completed his first architecture design project in Aspen, the Sundeck Ski Restaurant, at an elevation of 11,300 feet on Ajax Mountain. Three years later he built his first studio on Red Mountain, followed by a home which he sold in 1953 to Robert O. Anderson, founder of the Atlantic Richfield Company who became very active in the Aspen Institute. Bayer later designed Anderson’s terrace home in Aspen (1962) and a private chapel for the Anderson family in Valley Hondo, New Mexico (1963). Transplanting German Bauhaus design to the Colorado Rockies, Bayer created along with associate architect, Fredric Benedict, a series of buildings for the modern Aspen Institute complex: Koch Seminar Building (1952), Aspen Meadows guest chalets and Center Building (both 1954), Health Center and Aspen Meadows Restaurant (Copper Kettle, both 1955). For the grounds of the Aspen Institute in 1955 Bayer executed the Marble Garden and conceived the Grass Mound, the first recorded “earthwork” environment In 1973-74 he completed Anderson Park for the Institute, a continuation of his fascination with environmental earth art. In 1961 he designed the Walter Paepcke Auditorium and Memorial Building, completing three years later his most ambitious and original design project – the Musical Festival Tent for the Music Associates of Aspen. (In 2000 the tent was replaced with a design by Harry Teague.) One of Bayer’s ambitious plans from the 1950s, unrealized due to Paepcke’s death in 1960, was an architectural village on the outskirts of the Aspen Institute, featuring seventeen of the world’s most notable architects – Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, I.M. Pei, Minoru Yamasaki, Edward Durrell Stone and Phillip Johnson – who accepted his offer to design and build houses. Concurrent with Bayer’s design and consultant work while based in Aspen for almost thirty years, he continued painting, printmaking, and mural work. Shortly after relocating to Colorado, he further developed his “Mountains and Convolutions” series begun in Vermont in 1944, exploring nature’s fury and repose. Seeing mountains as “simplified forms reduced to sculptural surface in motion,” he executed in 1948 a series of seven two-color lithographs (edition of 90) for the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. Colorado’s multi-planal typography similarly inspired Verdure, a large mural commissioned by Walter Gropius for the Harkness Commons Building at Harvard University (1950), and a large exterior sgraffito mural for the Koch Seminar Building at the Aspen Institute (1953). Having exhausted by that time the subject matter of “Mountains and Convulsions,” Bayer returned to geometric abstractions which he pursued over the next three decades. In 1954 he started the “Linear Structure” series containing a richly-colored balance format with bands of sticks of continuously modulated colors. That same year he did a small group of paintings, “Forces of Time,” expressionist abstractions exploring the temporal dimension of nature’s seasonal molting. He also debuted a “Moon and Structure” series in which constructed, architectural form served as the underpinning for the elaboration of color variations and transformations. Geometric abstraction likewise appeared his free-standing metal sculpture, Kaleidoscreen (1957), a large experimental project for ALCOA (Aluminum Corporation of America) installed as an outdoor space divider on the Aspen Meadows in the Aspen Institute complex. Composed of seven prefabricated, multi-colored and textured panels, they could be turned ninety degrees to intersect and form a continuous plane in which the panels recomposed like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He similarly used prefabricated elements for Articulated Wall, a very tall free-standing sculpture commissioned for the Olympic Games in Mexico...

Mid Century Modern East Bay I Abstracted Landscape by Erle Loran Dynamic mid century abstracted geometric landscape drawing of the East Bay California landscape by Erle Loran (Ameri...