James Houston McConnell

'Blueprint' — Mid-century Modernist Abstraction

1955

Edward Landon, 'Flyable Objects Identified', color serigraph, 1969, edition 30, Ryan 83. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Edition 30' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, o...

Edward Landon, 'Time Silhouette', color serigraph, 1969, edition 30, Ryan 201. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Edition 30' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on cream wo...

James Houston McConnell, 'Sister Kate', color serigraph, 1947, edition 24. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '24' in pencil. Annotated '10.00 - 19 colors - 24 copies - #24' in pencil. A fine impression, with vibrant, fresh colors, on heavy tan wove paper, with full margins (11/16 to 1 1/2 inches). Tack holes in the four margin corners, well away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Scarce. Another of McConnell's mid-century modernist, jazz-inspired serigraphs, 'Combo', is featured in the British Museum's 2008 publication (and traveling exhibition) 'The American Scene: Prints from Hopper to Pollock'. ABOUT THE IMAGE "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate", often simply "Sister Kate", is an up-tempo jazz dance song, written by Armand J. Piron and published in 1922. The lyrics of the song are narrated in the first person by Kate's sister, who sings about Kate's impressive dancing skill and her wish to be able to emulate it. She laments that she's not quite "up to date", but believes that dancing like "Sister Kate" will rectify this, and she will be able to impress "all the boys in the neighborhood" like her sister. Over the years this song has been performed and recorded by many artists, including Frances Faye and Rusty Warren, a 1959 version by Shel Silverstein...

Edward Landon, 'Salient in February', color serigraph, 1945, edition 25, Ryan 166. Signed in pencil. Titled, dated, and annotated 'ED. 40' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on cream, wove paper; with full margins (1 3/4 to 2 5/8 inches, top sheet edge deckle); in excellent condition. Image size 9 x 11 inches; sheet size 12 3/4 x 16 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Edward Landon dropped out of high school to study art at the Hartford Art School. In 1930 and 1931, he was a student of Jean Charlot at the Art Students League in New York, after which he traveled to Mexico to study privately for a year with Carlos Merida. In 1933 he settled near Springfield, Massachusetts, painted murals in the local trade school, and exhibited with the Springfield Art League. His painting 'Memorial Day' won first prize at the fifteenth annual exhibition of the League at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts. Landon became an active member of the Artists Union of Western Massachusetts, serving as president from 1934-1938. Landon acquired Anthony Velonis’s instructional pamphlet on the technique of serigraphy in the late 1930s. With colleagues Phillip Hicken, Donald Reichert, and Pauline Stiriss, he began experimenting with screen printing techniques. The artists' groundbreaking work in screen printing as a fine art medium was the subject of the group’s landmark exhibition at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts in 1940. Landon became one of the founding members of the National Serigraph Society and served as editor of its publication, 'Serigraph Quarterly,' in the late 1940s and as its president in 1952 and 1953. The Norlyst Gallery in Manhattan held a one-person show of his prints in 1945. Awarded a Fulbright Fellowship in 1950, Landon traveled to Norway, where he researched the history of local artistic traditions and produced the book 'Scandinavian Design: Picture and Rune Stones...

Artist: Bill Sontag, American (b. 1932) Title: Urban Walls: Cincinnati Year: 1971 Edition: 85/150 Medium: Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil Image Size: 24 x 32 inches Size: ...

Concentric Space (White) Clarence Holbrook Carter American (1904–2000) Date: 1969 Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil Edition of 50 Image Size: 23.5 x 19.5 inches Size: 25 x...

Michael Mazur "The Artist" Hand signed and editioned from the edition of 50 1967 Michael Burton Mazur (1935-August 18, 2009) was an American artist who was described by William Grim...

Lithograph, screenprint, etching and aquatint printed in colours, with relief, 1998, signed in pencil, dated, numbered from the edition of 55 (there were also 14 artist's proofs), with the publisher's blindstamp, Tyler Graphics, Ltd., Mount Kisco, 54.6 x 55.2 cm. (21½ x 21¾ in.) Catalogue Raisonne: Axsom 252 Over a period of four years, Stella created a body of prints whose titles all came from ‘The Dictionary of Imaginary Places’ by Alberto Mangual and Gianni Guadalupi. Each work from this series is recognisable for its teaming compositions of twisting, colliding and knotted forms. The shapes appear to spill out of their sheet, seemingly trying to escape their frames. As he had done since the ‘Swan Engravings...