Douglas Semivan

Douglas Semivan Abstract Modern "Receiver I" Signed and Numbered

1980 - 1990s

"Abstract in Gold and Black" is a well-balanced calm piece. The placement of the gold and white can be read as a distant landscape giving much imagined space to the heavier black area which contains a linear element and the color blue. Semivan is a Master Printmaker and sculptor. He often breaks his surfaces and extends beyond the perimeters in his sculptures. The particular placement of the black area in this piece suggests such a breakage beyond the edge where one imagines a continuation of the strokes or linear elements. This is an altogether extraordinary print. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Douglas Semivan...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Title: Figures Portfolio: 1978 Surrealist Medium: Lithograph on Arches 88 paper Edition: 38 Sheet Size: 31 7/16" x 23 1/2" Image Size: 23 1/2" x 15 1/4" Signature: Hand signed in pencil Reference: Corlett 156 Printed by Gemini G.E.L. printers out of Los Angeles. Roy Fox Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. During the 1960s through the 90’s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody. Most of Lichtenstein's best-known works are relatively close, but not exact, copies of comic book panels, a subject he largely abandoned in 1965. Lichtenstein's Still Life paintings, sculptures and drawings, which span from 1972 through the early 1980s, cover a variety of motifs and themes, including the most traditional such as fruit, flowers, and vases. Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in cheek manner. His work was influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style. His artwork was considered to be "disruptive". He described pop art as "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City. Wham!, and Drowning Girl Look Mickey proved to be his most influential works. His most expensive piece is Masterpiece which was sold for $165 million in January 2017. Lichtenstein received both his Bachelors and Masters at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio where he taught for ten years. In 1967, he moved back to upstate New York and began teaching again. It was at this time that he adopted the Abstract Expressionist style, being a late convert to this style of painting. Lichtenstein began teaching in upstate New York at the State University of New York at Oswego in 1958. About this time, he began to incorporate hidden images of cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny into is abstract works. In 1960, he started teaching at Rutgers University where he was heavily influenced by Allan Kaprow, who was also a teacher at the university. This environment helped reignite his interest in Proto-pop imagery. In 1961, Lichtenstein began his first pop paintings using cartoon images and techniques derived from the appearance of commercial printing. This phase would continue to 1965, and included the use of advertising imagery suggesting consumerism and homemaking. His first work to feature the large-scale use of hard-edged figures and Ben-Day dots was Look Mickey (1961), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.) This piece came from a challenge from one of his sons, who pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said; "I bet you can't paint as good as that, eh, Dad?" In the same year he produced six other works with recognizable characters from gum wrappers and cartoons. It was at this time that Lichtenstein began to find fame not just in America but worldwide. He moved back to New York to be at the center of the art scene in 1964 to concentrate on his painting. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna (early acrylic) paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics’ Secret Hearts No. 83, drawn by Tony Abruzzo. (Drowning Girl now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.) Drowning Girl also features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, as if created by photographic reproduction. Of his own work Lichtenstein would say that the Abstract Expressionists "put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock’s or Kline’s. Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, Lichtenstein's work tackled the way in which the mass media portrays them. He would never take himself too seriously, however, saying: "I think my work is different from comic strips – but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art.” When Lichtenstein's work was first exhibited, many art critics of the time challenged its originality. His work was harshly criticized as vulgar and empty. The title of a Life magazine article in 1964 asked, "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?" Lichtenstein responded to such claims by offering responses such as the following: "The closer my work is to the original, the more threatening and critical the content. However, my work is entirely transformed in that my purpose and perception are entirely different. I think my paintings are critically transformed, but it would be difficult to prove it by any rational line of argument.” In 1969, Lichtenstein was commissioned by Gunter Sachs to create Composition and Leda and the Swan, for the collector's Pop Art bedroom suite at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, Lichtenstein received major commissions for works in public places: the sculptures Lamp (1978) in St. Mary's, Georgia; Mermaid (1979) in Miami Beach; the 26 feet tall Brushstrokes in Flight (1984, moved in 1998) at John Glenn Columbus International Airport; the five-storey high Mural with Blue Brushstroke (1984–85) at the Equitable Center, New York and El Cap de Barcelona (1992) in Barcelona. In 1994, Lichtenstein created the 53-foot-long, enamel-on-metal Times Square Mural in Times Square subway station. In 1977, he was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 5 Racing Version of the BMW 320i for the third installment in the BMW Art Car Project. The DreamWorks Records logo was his last completed project. "I'm not in the business of doing anything like that (a corporate logo) and don't intend to do it again," allows Lichtenstein. "But I know Mo Ostin and David Geffen and it seemed interesting. In 1996 the The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. became the largest single repository of the artist's work when Lichtenstein donated 154 prints and 2 books. The Art Institute of Chicago has several important works by Lichtenstein in its permanent collection, including Brushstroke with Spatter (1966) and Mirror No. 3 (Six Panels) (1971). The personal holdings of Lichtenstein's widow, Dorothy Lichtenstein, and of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation number in the hundreds. In Europe, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne has one of the most comprehensive Lichtenstein holdings with Takka Takka (1962), Nurse (1964), Compositions I (1964), besides the Frankfurt Museum fur Modern Kunst with We Rose Up slowly (1964), and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes...

“Woman on Arm of Sofa” is an extraordinary lithograph by Arnold Singer. You could say it is representative of his interests in several art styles that ar...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "I. Traces grotesques" is an Artist’s Proof Lithograph. “Proofs” are either pulled or printed, and the artist has the option to work out the color and quality issues as they come out of the process. The only real difference between the two is the restricted quantity of prints bearing the AP designation and not the quality of the print. This lithograph is signed and titled by the artist, Jean Dubuffet, which indicates his complete satisfaction with the print. It is from 1958 and a perfect example of his style, “Art Brut.” His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced what is called “low art”, art by non-academically trained artists. It is sometimes referred to as “outsider art.” He did study briefly at the Academie Julian, Paris, but eventually followed his own aesthetics which eschewed traditional standard of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making. This lithograph expresses the beauty he found in the meandering spontaneous black line. Jean Dubuffet began painting at the age of seventeen and studied briefly at the Academie Julian, Paris. He painted off and on for the next 20 years. It was not until 1942 in the midst of WWII in France that he began the work which has distinguished him as an outstanding innovator in postwar Europe. It is said of his work that “he looked to the margins of the everyday – the art of prisoners, psychics, the uneducated, and the institutionalized – to liberate his own creativity and coining the term ‘Art Brut’.” Art Brut is a French term that translates as ‘raw art’, to describe art such as graffiti or naïve art which is made outside the academic tradition of fine art. His paintings from the early forties in brightly colored oils were soon followed by works in which he employed such unorthodox materials as cement, plaster, tar and asphalt-scraped, craved and cut and drawn upon with a rudimentary, spontaneous line. Dubuffet worked in France and exhibited from the early forties on. He was included in the 1946 Pierre Matisse...

"Unicorn Moebius II" - Trial Proof Lithograph in Ink on Laid Paper High contrast, multi-layer etching by Bruce Weinberg (American, 1942-1994). A moebius strip is shown against a dar...

"Colors in Space II" (SF-95) Signed Printer's Proof Lithograph on Archival Paper Bright and playful abstract composition by Sam Francis (American, 1923-1994). Splashes of yellow, or...

"Henry S. Miller" Lithograph in Ink on Paper, #3 of 8 Surrealist lithograph by Stephen Tracy White (American, 1947-2005). A figure in the lower right corner is partially enclosed by a red rectangle. Biomorphic shapes are flowing out of the rectangle, stretching across the composition. The shapes are rendered with intricate linework and soft green shading. Numbered, titled, signed, and dated along the bottom: 3/8 Henry S. Miller S. Tracy White 1969/April Tag on verso from Lee Nordness Galleries, New York Presented in a silver aluminum frame. Shipped without glass. Frame size: 26.5"H x 36.25"W Image size: 23.5"H x 34.25"W Stephen Tracy White (American, 1947-2005) was born in Bronwood, Georgia. They studied at the University of New Mexico, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art in 1969. They worked at the Tamarind Lithography Workshop, printing pieces by William Crutchfield...

Gerry Mulligan, Baritone Sax - Rare Signed Figurative Lithograph in Ink on Paper Bold lithograph by Eugene Hawkins (American, b. 1933). Gerry Mulligan sits on a stool holding his ba...