Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Gerd Leufert
Erebos

1991

About the Item

Gerd Leufert Title: Erebos Signed, titled, dated ‘91 and inscribed P/A in pencil (lower center) Screenprint on paper 23⅝ by 22⅜ in. / 60 by 56.8 cm. Executed in 1991, this work is an artist’s proof from an edition of 35 plus 1 artist’s proof. Provenance: Private Collection, Venezuela - Acquired from the above by the present owner - Sotheby's Auction “The first duty of the creator: restlessness,” Gerd Leufert wrote in 1985, looking back on his 30-year career as an artist, designer, museum worker, and professor of art in Venezuela.1 Bridging the worlds of commerce and culture in Caracas, Leufert’s impact on art and design owed to his interdisciplinary approach: the influence of cutting-edge developments in abstract art appeared in his graphic design, while the efficiency and bold contrast of mid-century design characterized his paintings. An immigrant born in German-controlled Lithuania at the cusp of the first World War, Leufert studied arts and design in Hannover, Mainz, and, finally, in Munich with the German typographer Fritz H. Ehmcke. In 1951, Leufert emigrated to Venezuela, where he first applied his training to advertising. He was in good company: US-based ad agencies had become havens for artists, who found employment in satellite offices recently opened in Caracas to service corporate development buoyed by Venezuela’s oil boom. The energy business would prove a source of important patronage for Leufert, who managed the design identity of the cultural magazine El Farol, a publication of the Creole Petroleum Corporation, as its creative director in the late 1950s. Leufert cultivated his artistic career alongside that of his life partner, the Hamburg-born artist Gertrud Goldschmid, better known as Gego. Leufert and Gego met within a year of his arrival in Caracas, before retreating to the small town of Tarma, where they collaborated between 1953 and 1956. In the 1960s, he supported her public sculpture practice: “Whenever they asked me to do something outside,” Gego recalled, “the work was born as a joint effort…. It is very productive because Gerd was the designer and I was the architect so our ideas converged well.”2 Leufert also designed the promotional materials for many of Gego’s exhibitions. During his years in Tarma, Leufert began experimenting with abstract paintings, creating compositions like No. 234 (1954) and Untitled (1955) that recall the shattered perspective and overlapping planes of Cubism. In later paintings, Leufert abandoned any reference to recognizable forms, approaching a pure abstraction through a designer’s economical means. The monochrome painting AM-13 (1961) references Kazimir Malevich’s *Suprematist Composition: White on White from 1918, as well as the transcendent, light-washed abstract landscapes of the eccentric Venezuelan painter Armando Reverón. Rather than building up layers of paint, Leufert scraped away at the center of the wood panel, a process that echoes the whittled forms of his logos and brand identities. Nenias, an artist’s book from the late 1960s featuring 20 abstract forms that resemble rounded Rorschach tests, shows the direction of Leufert’s art and design.3 In 1984, he scaled up these brandless logos to a monumental size and applied them directly to the walls of the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas. Leufert’s impact on design in Venezuela was also due to his involvement with key institutions—such as the Museum of Fine Arts—that supported the advancement of the discipline. Between 1961 and 1973, Leufert designed exhibitions and publications at the museum, later working there as a curator of drawing and graphic design. Beginning in the late 1950s, he taught design in Caracas: first at the school of architecture and urbanism at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, and later at the country’s premier art school, the Escuela de Artes Plásticas Cristóbal Rojas. In 1964, he cofounded Venezuela’s first school dedicated to design, the Instituto de Diseño de la Fundación Neumann. “Professional consciousness of graphic design in Venezuela truly occurred with [Gerd] Leufert,” asserted Carlos Cruz-Diez, an originator of Venezuelan abstract and kinetic art. “What existed before was merely drawing.”4 Source: MoMa
  • Creator:
    Gerd Leufert (1914 - 1998, Lithuanian, Venezuelan)
  • Creation Year:
    1991
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 23.6 in (59.95 cm)Width: 22.38 in (56.85 cm)Depth: 1 in (2.54 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    This work is in good condition overall. The sheet is affixed verso to the backing board with a foam core mount. The media layer is stable, the ink is rich in tone and the color is vibrant.
  • Gallery Location:
    Miami, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU2519214362802

More From This Seller

View All
Serie Madrid B, 1990
By Jesús Rafael Soto
Located in Miami, FL
Jesus Soto (1923-2005) Serie Madrid B, 1990 Denise Rene Editeur, Paris (with Denise Rene's blind-stamp) Screen print in heavy paper 59 x 45.3 in (150 x 115 cm) Professionally framed...
Category

1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Untitled Composition
Located in Miami, FL
Beautiful lithograph by Mercedes Pardo, excellent condition. From the limited edition of 25 signed copies Mercedes Pardo was born July 29, 1921 in Cara...
Category

1980s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Eternity (ÉTERNITÉ)
By Auguste Herbin
Located in Miami, FL
Eternity (ÉTERNITÉ), 1951 Lithograph in colors on heavy paper 24 x 20 inches Numbered in pencil 111/150; unsigned as issued AUGUSTE HERBIN (1882 1960) French artist Auguste Herbin ...
Category

1960s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Nue
By Auguste Herbin
Located in Miami, FL
Nue - From the 12 plate Portfolio, 1959 Published by Denise Rene, Paris Lithograph in colors on heavy paper 20 x 26 inches Numbered in pencil, edition of 64/150 AUGUSTE HERBIN (188...
Category

1950s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Nue
$3,000
Free Shipping
Untitled from El Circulo de Piedra portfolio
By Agustín Cárdenas
Located in Miami, FL
Agustin Cardenas (1927-2003) Untitled from El Circulo de Piedra, 1971 One of fifteen original lithographs, signed and numbered by the artist, commissioned t...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Midi
By Auguste Herbin
Located in Miami, FL
Midi - Plate 3 from the 12 plate Portfolio, 1959 Published by Denise Rene, Paris Lithograph in colors on heavy paper 26 x 20 inches Signed, dated and numbered in ink, edition of 150 ...
Category

1950s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Midi
$2,925 Sale Price
55% Off

You May Also Like

Eleven Units on Ochre, Geometric Abstract Screenprint by Kyohei Inukai
By Kyohei Inukai
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Kyohei Inukai Title: Eleven Units on Ochre Year: circa 1980 Medium: Serigraph, Signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 200 Paper Size: 22 x 30 inches
Category

1980s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

EK If from "Homage to the Square: Edition Keller I" - Abstract, Green, Geometry
By Josef Albers
Located in Köln, DE
Screen print "EK If" by Josef Albers from 1970 from the portfolio "Homage to the Square: Edition Keller I" The paper used was specially produced for the portfolio, all works with th...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Imperial Red, Colorful Abstract Geometric Screenprint by Barbara Lynch Zinkel
By Barbara Lynch Zinkel
Located in Long Island City, NY
A colorful geometric screenprint by American artist Barbara Lynch Zinkel inspired by the Josef Albers "Homage to the Square". Date: 1994 Medium: Screenprint, estate stamped verso an...
Category

1990s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

"Series 4- Connect One" Modern Grey & Blue Geometric Abstract Serigraph Ed 19/30
By Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali
Located in Houston, TX
Modern grey and blue geometric abstract serigraph by Grecian artist Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali, better known as Chryssa. Influenced by the power of lettering and typography, the wor...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Variation on One Wood Block - P2, F2, I2, Geometric Screenprint by Josef Albers
By Josef Albers
Located in Long Island City, NY
From the portfolio “Formulation: Articulation” created by Josef Albers in 1972. This monumental series consists of 127 original silkscreens that are a definitive survey of the artist...
Category

1970s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Peter Halley, Nobody, geometric abstraction Neo Geo silkscreen signed/N Framed
By Peter Halley
Located in New York, NY
PETER HALLEY Nobody, 1997 Silkscreen with Embossing on Arches Cover Paper (Framed) Signed dated and numbered in pencil by Peter Halley from the edition of 60 on the front Published b...
Category

1990s Abstract Geometric Abstract Prints

Materials

Screen

Recently Viewed

View All