Amaranth Ehrenhalt

Color Embossed Lithograph Print New York Abstract Expressionist Woman Artist

John Altoon (American, 1925-1969) From the 'About Women' Series. Color lithograph 1965/66, Hand signed and editioned in pencil with the chop mark of Gemini G.E.L. publishers John Altoon (1925 - 1969), an American artist, was born in Los Angeles to immigrant Armenian parents. From 1947–1949 he attended the Otis Art Institute, from 1947 to 1950 he also attended the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, and in 1950 the Chouinard Art Institute. Altoon was a prominent figure in the LA art scene in the 1950s and 1960s. Exhibitions of his work have been held at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Corcoran Gallery, Washington D.C, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, The Baxter Museum, Pasadena, and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Altoon's work was influenced by the Abstract Expressionism Movement although he is best known for his figurative drawings of the 1960s, with as Leah Ollman describes "a vocabulary of vaguely figurative, botanical and biological forms that he pursued until his death." He was part of the "Ferus group" of artists so called for their association to the Ferus Gallery that operated in Los Angeles in 1957–1966. Some of the other artists included in this group are Edward Kienholz, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin, Billy Al Bengston. He was featured in the Cool School documentary, a film about Altoon and other Ferus Gallery artists such as Walter Hopps and Ed Kienholz...

Cleve Gray, American (1918-2004) Composition, (1976) serigraph or lithograph Hand signed lower right, and editioned 36/60 Dimensions: 19.25 X 23.75 inches sheet. unframed Cleve Gray (1918 – 2004) was an American Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. Gray was born Cleve Ginsberg, the family changed their name to Gray in 1936. Gray attended the Ethical Culture School in New York City (1924–1932). From the age of 11 until the age of 14 he had his first formal art training with Antonia Nell, who had been a student of George Bellows. From 15 to 18 he attended the Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts; where he studied painting with Bartlett Hayes and won the Samuel F. B. Morse Prize for most promising art student. In 1940 he graduated from Princeton University summa cum laude, with a degree in Art and Archeology. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. At Princeton he studied painting with James C. Davis and Far Eastern Art with George Rowley, under whose supervision he wrote his thesis on Yuan dynasty landscape painting. Best known for his calligraphic abstractions which melded elements of Abstract Expressionism, Color Field painting, and traditional Chinese scroll painting. After graduation in 1941 Gray moved to Tucson, Arizona. In Arizona he exhibited his modernist landscape paintings and still lifes at the Alfred Messer Studio Gallery in Tucson. In 1942 he returned to New York and joined the United States Army. During World War II, he served in the signal intelligence service in Britain, France and Germany, where he rose to the rank of sergeant. After the liberation of Paris he was the first American GI to greet Pablo Picasso and Gertrude Stein. He began informal art training with the French artists André Lhote and Jacques Villon, continuing his art studies in Paris after the war. Gray returned to the United States in 1946. In 1949 he moved to the house his parents had owned on a 94-acre property in Warren, Connecticut, and lived there for the rest of his life. In the 1960s he formed a close friendship with Barnett Newman. It was during this time that he experienced an artistic metamorphosis, dissolving his earlier cubist compositions in a sea of distilled color. This dramatic body of work marked the beginning of an artistic meditation that would last for over 40 years. The rigors of French modernism, the ethos of Abstract Expressionism and the meditative restraint of Chinese and Japanese scroll painting commingle with astounding affect. The atmospheric, subdued tones of his 1960s paintings gradually gave way to bright, monochromatic fields of color, hazily washed onto the canvas in stain like swathes. Much of his work from the last three decades of his career feature striking graphic brushwork that conjures the influence of Asian, Japanese and Chinese calligraphy. He married the noted author Francine du Plessix on April 23, 1957. They worked in separate studios in two outbuildings with a driveway in between. Gray was a veteran of scores of exhibitions throughout his career, as listed below, from the early days Tucson, through to postwar Paris and New York, and most recently in 2002 at the Berry-Hill Gallery in New York City. His paintings are held in the collections of numerous prominent museums and institutions. In 2009 the art critic Karen Wilkin curated a posthumous retrospective of his work at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, Florida, and other posthumous exhibitions have been held. Museum collections Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton, Florida The Brooklyn Museum, New York City Columbia University Art Gallery, New York City Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Grey Art Gallery and Study Center, New York University, New York City Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York City Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii The Jewish Museum, New York City The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Modern Art, New York City The Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut The Newark Museum, New Jersey Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida Oklahoma City Art Center, Oklahoma The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.[14] The Art Museum, Princeton University, New Jersey[6] Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut He was included in the show 1977, Group Exhibition, Betty Parsons Gallery. Mino Argento...

Porter's first color lithograph. A very good impression on Arches with strong colors. Signed and numbered 25/100 in pencil. Printed by Mourlot, New York. Published by Brooke Alexande...

Impressive portfolio with 17 lithographs on Japanese Kitakata appliqué with de Kooning's authorized facsimile signature and numbered "23" in pencil on the justification page. Publish...