Alan Shields

Treasure Rute I, Relief, stamping, linocut, collage on handmade paper, Signed/N

1979

Alan Shields Alice in Grayland, 1979 Mixed media collage: Etching, aquatint, screen print with stitching and collage on hand made paper Hand signed, dated, titled and numbered 1/13 by Alan Shields on the front Unique variant This very unique and imaginative mixed media paper collage with stitching and fabric is floated and framed in a museum quality white wood frame with UV plexiglass. It is hand signed, dated, titled and numbered from the limited edition of 13 - but each is a unique variant. Frame included: Measurements: Frame: 27.75 x 22.5 x 2 inches Artwork: 23.5 x 18 inches Catalogue Raisonne: K. Tyler Tyler Graphics: Catalogue Raisonné, 1974-1985, New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. p. 289. Alan Shields came of age artistically in the late 1960s in New York. Expanding the boundaries of Minimalism, he became known as a master of aesthetic invention through his wide-ranging exploration of materials and techniques. His mixed media works often contain combinations of traditional silkscreen processes combined with found materials. New York Times critic Roberta Smith wrote in her 2005 obituary for the artist: "Mr. Shields's work combined expanses of gorgeous stained color, reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler's canvases, with the humbler crafts and a Gypsy sense of portability." Critic Robert Hughes has described Shields as a brilliant bricoleur who could, and often did, make art out of just about anything. He became an innovative printmaker, experimenting with handmade paper and turning out editions in which each print was unique. After his passing, Shields was awarded a Judith Rothschild Foundation grant given to recently deceased abstract artists whose work is of the highest quality but merits further recognition. About Alan Shields: Alan Shields (b. 1944, Herington, KS; d. 2005, Shelter Island, NY) created unique, imaginative, and theatrical structures using unconventional materials and vibrant color. His three-dimensional paintings convey a playful, deconstructive impulse through the incorporation of un-stretched hand-dyed canvas, rope, yarn, beads, and wood. Shields moved to New York City in 1968, where he showed with Paula Cooper...

ALAN SHIELDS Peace of the Rock, 1974 Mixed Media Aquatint & Silkscreen Signed and numbered 14/20 in graphite pencil recto Frame included: held in original vintage frame Measurements...

Chakras Gone Wild #6, 2016. Hand pulled embossed serigraph monoprint on Arches Platine 310 gram paper. Purple, green, red, black and white. Non Objective, abstract, unique. Print siz...

Nancy Genn, American (b. 1929) Marshfield 25 (1977) Handmade paper collage Hand signed verso Dimensions: 20 1/8 x 22 inches Utilizing what is now known as the 'Genn Method,' Nancy Genn created three-dimensional abstract works of handmade paper, gaining international recognition in the 1970s Nancy Genn is an American artist living and working in Berkeley, California known for works in a variety of media, including paintings, bronze sculpture, printmaking, and handmade paper rooted in the Japanese washi paper making tradition. Her work explores geometric abstraction, non-objective form, and calligraphic mark making, and features light, landscape, water, and architecture motifs. She is influenced by her extensive travels, and Asian craft, aesthetics and spiritual traditions. Nancy Genn was born in 1929 in San Francisco, California. She recognized early that she would pursue a career as an artist. Her mother, Ruth Wetmore Thompson Whitehouse, was a painter and UC Berkeley alumna who played a leadership role in the San Francisco Women Artists organization. Genn studied at San Francisco Art Institute (then California School of Fine Arts) with painter Hassel Smith, and at the Art Department at the University of California, Berkeley (1948–49) with Professors Margaret Peterson and John Haley, and fellow students Sam Francis and Sonya Rapoport. In 1949 she married Vernon “Tom” Genn, an engineer raised in Japan, with whom she had three children. Career Genn's first noted solo exhibition was in 1955 at Gump's Gallery in San Francisco. She received international recognition through her inclusion in French art critic Michel Tapié’s seminal text Morphologie Autre (1960), which cited her as one of the most important exponents of post-war informal art. In 1961, Genn began creating bronze sculptures using the lost-wax casting method. Influenced by noted sculptor and family friend Claire Falkenstein, who used open-formed structures in her work, Genn cast forms woven from long grape vine cuttings, and produced vessels, fountains, fire screens, a menorah, a lectern, and, notably, the Cowell Fountain (1966) at UC Santa Cruz. In 1963 her sculptural work was exhibited with Berkeley artists Peter Voulkos and Harold Paris in the influential exhibition Creative Casting curated by Paul J. Smith at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York. Genn was one of the first American artists to express herself through handmade paper, first receiving wide recognition via exhibitions at Susan Caldwell Gallery, New York, beginning in 1977, and in traveling exhibitions with Robert Rauschenberg and Sam Francis. In 1978-1979, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and Japan Creative Arts Fellowship, she studied papermaking in Japan, visiting local paper craftspeople, working in Shikenjo studio in Saitama Prefecture, and exhibiting her work in Tokyo. She also learned techniques from Donald Farnsworth...