Zeke Berman

1991 "Gate" Large Scale Signed Vintage Silver gelatin Print Photograph

1991

José Yalenti, (1895-1967) Brazilian Photographer "Beiras" (Sides) Photo, numbered 5/15, circa 1950, (printed later) on premium luster photo paper with ultrachrome ink. Art: 15" H x 11" W; Frame: 20 1/4" H x 14 1/4" W. Provenance: Dickinson Roundell Gallery José Yalenti’s Architecture photos seem at first disorienting, abstract black & white and grey surfaces, cut through by startlingly straight lines and a variety of surface textures. Much of his work is of mid-century Latin American architecture, by the likes of Oscar Niemeyer and Roberto Burle Marx. José Yalenti was born in São Paulo, Brazil in 1895. On April 28, 1939, a group of photography aficionados, including Yalenti, formed the Foto Clube Bandeirante, later changed to Foto Cine Clube Bandeirante, or FCCB. Starting in the late 1940s, a contingent of FCCB photographers began creating photographs of abstracted architectural motifs (as in Architecture or Twilight), and eventually became known as the Escola Paulista, or “Paulista School.” Yalenti was among the members of the unofficial Paulista School. Between 1945 and 1960, the Paulista School photographers explored the rapidly changing formal qualities of São Paulo. By photographing skyscrapers and stairways at steep angles, creating closely cropped compositions from found geometric motifs, and capturing the flattening effects of shadows, Paulista School photographers investigated the new physical perspectives emerging in the urban environment. They created a distinctively Modern aesthetic that used strong contrasts of light and dark, geometric forms, linear compositions, and collapsed space to assert photography’s status as an artistic medium. As part of their pursuit of photographic Modernism, Yalenti and his fellow Brazilians adapted the stylistic innovations of U.S. and European photographers such as f.64, New Objectivity, Dada, Surrealism, and the Bauhaus, to the Brazilian context. Along with his FCCB compatriots—Thomaz Farkas, Geraldo de Barros, and German Lorca, among others—Yalenti explored the formal properties of black-and-white image-making. Yalenti and the Paulista’s School’s abstract photographs responded to the new trends in Brazilian Modernist architecture being developed by young architects in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In 1939, Lúcio Costa, Oscar Niemeyer, and Affonso Reidy broke ground on the Ministry of Education and Health Building (MES), the building that would define Brazilian architectural modernism. The Rio-based team combined elements of Le Corbusier’s undecorated structural purity with Brazilian regional design to produce a more organic and “tropical” Modernism that responded to the local culture and climate. The sinuous and sensuous curves of Yalenti’s photograph are directly influenced by stylistic developments in architecture at the MES, including the building’s covered entry and its organically abstract contours. By 1957, when Yalenti created Architecture or Twilight, Brazil was globally recognized as an architectural leader. MoMA in New York City organized a popular exhibition of Brazilian architecture in 1943 (“Brazil Builds”), and highlighted the country again in its survey show "Latin American Architecture since 1945," that ran from 1955–56. Brazilian photography...

M. Peter Piening was born on March 14, 1908 in Grabow, Germany. He began his education at a private school in Italy, studied at the Jesuit school of Kloster Ettal in Bavaria, and attended the German Stettin Gymnasium, where he graduated in 1926. Between 1926 and 1928 Piening studied design at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. There he was taught by multiple famous twentieth-century artists, including Joseph Albers, Paul Klee and Mies van der Rohe. After receiving his master’s degree from the Bauhaus in 1929, Piening enrolled at the University of Berlin and obtained his PhD in philosophy in 1931. Piening spent his early career free-lancing as an illustrator and artist for various publishing companies, eventually settling in Paris to work for Condé-Nast’s French publication of Vogue. In 1934 he moved to the United States to work in Condé-Nast’s New York City office. For the next two decades, Piening worked for many important advertising agencies and magazine publishers, including the N. W. Ayer and J. Walker Thompson agencies and Life and Fortune magazines. As art director for Life in the 1930s and for Fortune in the 1940s, Piening completely redesigned the layout of each magazine. He also redesigned the layouts for thirty-four other major American magazines, including Town & Country and Cosmopolitan. Through his design work, Piening had a great impact on the American public, although the millions who encountered his work most likely never knew his name. Between 1934 and 1964, Piening designed over sixty logos and trademarks for internationally-known products and companies. His most widely-recognized logo may have been the three interlocking rings of Ballantine beer. Piening’s other trademark designs include the Lincoln Zephyr...

Jean Marie Haessle, French-American (1939-) Serigraph silkscreen Hand signed in pencil and numbered Elana's Dream (red background) 1980 Jean Marie Haessle was born in 1939 in Alsa...

M. Peter Piening was born on March 14, 1908 in Grabow, Germany. He began his education at a private school in Italy, studied at the Jesuit school of Kloster Ettal in Bavaria, and attended the German Stettin Gymnasium, where he graduated in 1926. Between 1926 and 1928 Piening studied design at the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. There he was taught by multiple famous twentieth-century artists, including Joseph Albers, Paul Klee and Mies van der Rohe. After receiving his master’s degree from the Bauhaus in 1929, Piening enrolled at the University of Berlin and obtained his PhD in philosophy in 1931. Piening spent his early career free-lancing as an illustrator and artist for various publishing companies, eventually settling in Paris to work for Condé-Nast’s French publication of Vogue. In 1934 he moved to the United States to work in Condé-Nast’s New York City office. For the next two decades, Piening worked for many important advertising agencies and magazine publishers, including the N. W. Ayer and J. Walker Thompson agencies and Life and Fortune magazines. As art director for Life in the 1930s and for Fortune in the 1940s, Piening completely redesigned the layout of each magazine. He also redesigned the layouts for thirty-four other major American magazines, including Town & Country and Cosmopolitan. Through his design work, Piening had a great impact on the American public, although the millions who encountered his work most likely never knew his name. Between 1934 and 1964, Piening designed over sixty logos and trademarks for internationally-known products and companies. His most widely-recognized logo may have been the three interlocking rings of Ballantine beer. Piening’s other trademark designs include the Lincoln Zephyr...

Black and white unique gelatin silver print, (chemical print on fiber-based paper), in black frame with no glass, which allows one to see the texture of the paper and enjoy the image unobstructed. Betsy Kenyon...

Pierre Clerk Black and White - 1973 Print - Silkscreen on Somerset paper 32'' x 36'' Edition: Signed in pencil and marked 27/100 image size: 28" x 32" i...

Black and white unique gelatin silver print, (chemical print on fiber-based paper), in white frame. There is no glass or acrylic covering the work to highlight the texture of the paper. Betsy Kenyon...

"Form Worm" is a black and white unique silver gelatin print, (chemical print on fiber-based paper), in white frame. Betsy Kenyon’s work is a merging of ...