Jim Melchert

"Untitled" from Suite 10 West Coast Artists

1967

Artist: Joseph Zirker (American, born 1924) Title: Untitled Year: 1988 Medium: Color monotype Paper: Arche 88 Size: 42 x 30 inches Signature: Signed and dated in pencil by the artist Printer: The artist Condition: Very good Frame: Unframed About the artist. Joseph Zirker is a noted American modern artist, educator, lecturer that was born on August 13, 1924 in Los Angeles, California, United States. As a young man he Served with United States Navy, from 1944 to 1946. He attended the University of California in Los Angeles 1946—1947. He got a bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Denver in 1949 and a master of Fine Arts, University Southern California, 1951. He was a printer and research fellow at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, 1961—1963. Lecturer University Southern California, 1963. Instructor Los Angeles County Art Institute, 1964, San Jose City College, California, 1966—1980. Lecturer Stanford University, 1981—1983, 1986—1990. All along his carer, he had numerous acclaimed shows in the U.S and abroad. He is known worldwide as an innovator in monotype and printmaking. His works are represented in private and public collections, both in the USA and worldwide, including: Grunwald Collection, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, California, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York Free Library of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania June Wayne, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, California Tamarind Archives, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, California, Charles White, Los Angeles, California Stanley Freeman Collection, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, California Ben Smith...

Artist: Joseph Zirker (American, born 1924) Title: Untitled Year: 1988 Medium: Color monotype Paper: Arche 88 Size: 42 x 30 inches Signature: Signed and dated in pencil by the artist Printer: The artist Condition: Very good Frame: Unframed About the artist. Joseph Zirker is a noted American modern artist, educator, lecturer that was born on August 13, 1924 in Los Angeles, California, United States. As a young man he Served with United States Navy, from 1944 to 1946. He attended the University of California in Los Angeles 1946—1947. He got a bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Denver in 1949 and a master of Fine Arts, University Southern California, 1951. He was a printer and research fellow at Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles, 1961—1963. Lecturer University Southern California, 1963. Instructor Los Angeles County Art Institute, 1964, San Jose City College, California, 1966—1980. Lecturer Stanford University, 1981—1983, 1986—1990. All along his carer, he had numerous acclaimed shows in the U.S and abroad. He is known worldwide as an innovator in monotype and printmaking. His works are represented in private and public collections, both in the USA and worldwide, including: Grunwald Collection, U.C.L.A., Los Angeles, California, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York Free Library of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania June Wayne, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, California Tamarind Archives, Tamarind Lithography Workshop, Los Angeles, California, Charles White, Los Angeles, California Stanley Freeman Collection, Los Angeles County Museum, Los Angeles, California Ben Smith...

Gestural screenprint, number 29 from an edition of 30

Reisinger was born in Kanjiža, Serbia, into a family of painters and decorators active in Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. Most family members died in the Holocaust, including his father. As a teenager, he became active in the Partisan Pioneer Brigade and, with his mother and stepfather, immigrated to Israel in 1949. Reisinger initially lived in a transit camp and then worked as a house painter in order to earn money from almost any source. In 1950 at age 16, he was accepted as a student—its youngest up to the time—at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem, there to 1954. During mandatory service in the Israeli Air Force from 1954, he was the art director of its books and other publications. While there, he attended a class on postage-stamp design taught by Abram Games, who became his mentor and friend. Subsequently, he traveled, studied, and worked in Europe: from 1957 in Brussels and then onto London where, 1964–66, studied stage and three-dimensional design at the Central School of Art and Design, designed posters for Britain's Royal Mail, and worked for other clients while making intermittent visits to Israel. Then in 1966, he returned permanently to Israel and established a studio in Tel Aviv and today in Giv'atayim. His work has been included in numerous international group and one-person exhibitions. A large number of social-, political-, and cultural-theme posters and other graphic design, such as calendars, packaging, and more than 150 logos are superior to much of his fine art. He designed a new logo for El Al airlines (1972), and the 50-meter-long aluminum-cast relief (1978) of a biblical quotation in Hebrew on the exterior of the Yad Vashem, Israel's official museum/memorial to Holocaust victims, in Jerusalem. He has also designed logos for the Tel Aviv Museum of Arts, Tefen Museum of Arts, and Habima Theater (הבימה - התיאטרון הלאומי) and the symbol and posters of the 9th-15th Maccabiah Games (מַכַּבִּיָּה). His widely published self-produced “Again?” poster (1993) features a Nazi swastika (which Reisinger incorrectly made to face left) breaks apart to 5 pointed red Star of soviet union in reference to the possible dreaded repeat of the Holocaust. The influences on his work—itself more widely focused than solely on social and political issues—have come from colorists, Minimalists, Constructivists, and humorists. He claims one of his more significant contributions has been to stretch the visual and communicative possibilities of Hebrew letters through his symbols and logos. Reisinger is one of Israel's most-accomplished graphic designers; the others include Franz Kraus...