Lithograph Abstract Prints

Helen Frankenthaler (after) Frankenthaler: The Darker Palette (autographed and inscribed), 1998 Offset Lithograph print 42 × 35 in hand signed "Frankenthaler" lower left; inscribed a...

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...

This exquisite lithograph after Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), titled Fragment de corps de femme (Fragment of a Woman’s Body), originates from the rare 1970 folio Suite des reproductions...

Christopher lithograph 2017: A rare original hand-signed lithograph by Christopher Wool, letter-pressed on fine, textured matte paper. This work was included as part of a ‘Merde 3/4’...

This series of cyanotype triptychs showcases the beauty of nature scenes, including stunning beaches and oceans, as well as the intricate textures of water, forests, and skies. These...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with bifold, as issued. Notes: From volume, Derrière le miroir, N° 125-126, 1961. Publishe...

5 Colour lithograph on Somerset Satin Tub Sized White 410gsm. 60 x 76 cm (23.6 x 29.9 in) Signed, dated and numbered by the artist Edition of 125 ‘Peace Be Still’ (2022) showcases S...

Héliogravure on vélin paper, mounted on vélin paper backing sheet, as issued. Paper Size: 12 x 9.25 inches; image size: 9.05 x 7.08 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as i...

Robert Rauschenberg Lucio Amelio Napoli poster, 1987 Offset lithograph poster Plate signed 39 × 21 inches Unframed This poster was published for the exh...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Paper Size: 12.4 x 9.65 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the album, XXe siècle, Nouvelle série, XXXVIe Année, N°42 Juin...

This exquisite lithograph by Alexander Calder (1898–1976), titled Les folles de Sache (The Madwomen of Sache), originates from the historic 1975 folio Derriere le Miroir, No. 212. Pu...

Artist: Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Title: Sky Bird, Braniff International Airways Flying Colors Collection Year: 1975 Medium: Lithograph on vélin d’Arches paper Size: 20 x 26 inche...

Joan Miro, Spanish (1893 - 1983) - Ubu aux Baleares (M.786), Year: 1971, Medium: Lithograph, signed in pencil, Edition: 120, Size: 21 x 25 in. (53.34 x 63.5 cm), Frame Size: 2...

This is a truly historic limited edition hand signed museum print from the 1960s - of the first North American building the legendary artists Christo ever wrapped: Christo Wrap In Wr...

Medium: original lithograph. Printed by Mourlot in 1962 for the art revue XXe Siecle (issue No. 18). Size: 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches (313 x 242 mm). Not signed. Condition: there is cre...

“Plate I,” from “Oda à Joan Miró,” by Joan Brossa Lithograph in colors, 1973 Signed in pencil and inscribed “H.C.” (presumably one of 10; the total edition was 525) Published by La...

Galerie Maeght Murales et Peintures Color lithograph poster, 1961 Unsigned as issued Large edition Published by Maeght Editeur Imprimeur Reference #13 from J. Corredor-Matheos, "Miro's Posters', 1980 Condition: Framed Colors fresh Image/sheet size: 25 x 19 inches Frame size: 34 x 27...

John Waters Visit Marfa, the Jonestown of Minimalism (Donald Judd, Carl Andre, John Chamberlain), 2003 Offset lithograph Pencil signed and numbered 9/100 on the back; there is a die-cut window in the back of the frame to reveal the signature and edition. Frame included Published by John Waters; Printed by Globe Poster...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Paper Size: 12.4 x 9.65 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Catalogue raisonné references: Poliakoff, Alexis, and Gérard Schneider. Se...

Helen Frankenthaler (after) A Paintings Retrospective: vintage LACMA Museum poster, 1990 Offset lithograph museum poster (Unsigned & Unnumbered) 37 × 25 inches Unframed This was printed in the artists lifetime - making it more collectible - on the occasion of the exhibition, "Helen Frankenthaler: A Paintings Retrospective from February to April, 1990 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Print is published by Editions Limited Galleries, San Francisco for Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), LA, CA The work depicted is Helen Frankenthaler, The Bay, 1963, acrylic on canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan (Incidentally, this beautiful work is featured on the cover of the book Water and Art' by David Clarke.) “What concerns me when I work is not whether a picture is a landscape… or whether somebody will see a sunset in it. What concerns me is, did I make a beautiful picture?” - - Helen Frankenthaler This is Frankenthaler's first silkscreen, produced for the portfolio New York Ten, which includes works by other New York-based artists at the time such as Roy Lichtenstein, Jim Dine, Tom Wesselmann and Claes Oldenburg. (She created her first lithograph in 1961) Other examples of this edition are found in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, MOCA Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum, the Philadelphia Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and numerous regional museums and institutions in the United States and worldwide. Helen Frankenthaler, A Brief Biography Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011), whose career spanned six decades, has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the twentieth century. She was eminent among the second generation of postwar American abstract painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. Through her invention of the soak-stain technique, she expanded the possibilities of abstract painting, while at times referencing figuration and landscape in unique ways. She produced a body of work whose impact on contemporary art has been profound and continues to grow. Frankenthaler was born on December 12, 1928, and raised in New York City. She attended the Dalton School, where she received her earliest art instruction from Rufino Tamayo. In 1949 she graduated from Bennington College, Vermont, where she was a student of Paul Feeley. She later studied briefly with Hans Hofmann. Frankenthaler’s professional exhibition career began in 1950, when Adolph Gottlieb selected her painting Beach (1950) for inclusion in the exhibition titled Fifteen Unknowns: Selected by Artists of the Kootz Gallery. Her first solo exhibition was presented in 1951, at New York’s Tibor de Nagy Gallery, and that year she was also included in the landmark exhibition 9th St. Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture. In 1952 Frankenthaler created Mountains and Sea, a breakthrough painting of American abstraction for which she poured thinned paint directly onto raw, unprimed canvas laid on the studio floor, working from all sides to create floating fields of translucent color. Mountains and Sea was immediately influential for the artists who formed the Color Field school of painting, notable among them Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. As early as 1959, Frankenthaler began to be a regular presence in major international exhibitions. She won first prize at the Premiere Biennale de Paris that year, and in 1966 she represented the United States in the 33rd Venice Biennale, alongside Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jules Olitski. She had her first major museum exhibition in 1960, at New York’s Jewish Museum, and her second, in 1969, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, followed by an international tour. Frankenthaler experimented tirelessly throughout her long career. In addition to producing unique paintings on canvas and paper, she worked in a wide range of media, including ceramics, sculpture, tapestry, and especially printmaking. Hers was a significant voice in the mid-century “print renaissance” among American abstract painters, and she is particularly renowned for her woodcuts. She continued working productively through the opening years of this century. Frankenthaler’s distinguished, prolific career has been the subject of numerous monographic museum exhibitions. The Jewish Museum and Whitney Museum shows were succeeded by a major retrospective initiated by the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth that traveled to The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Detroit Institute of Arts, MI (1989); and those devoted to works on paper and prints organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (1993), among others. Select recent important exhibitions have included Painted on 21st Street: Helen Frankenthaler from 1950 to 1959 (Gagosian, NY, 2013); Making Painting: Helen Frankenthaler and JMW Turner (Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, 2014); Giving Up One’s Mark: Helen Frankenthaler in the 1960s and 1970s (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 2014–15); Pretty Raw: After and Around Helen Frankenthaler (Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 2015); As in Nature: Helen Frankenthaler, Paintings and No Rules: Helen Frankenthaler Woodcuts...

Colour lithograph, 1890. 285mm by 210mm (sheet). From W Peck's 'A Handbook and Atlas of Astronomy', 1890. Sir William Peck FRSE FRAS (1862 – 1925) was a Scottish astronomer and scien...

Colour lithograph, 1890. 210mm by 285mm (sheet). From W Peck's 'A Handbook and Atlas of Astronomy', 1890. Sir William Peck FRSE FRAS (1862 – 1925) was a Scottish astronomer and scien...

Signed and numbered in pencil Color lithograph on wove paper Condition: In Excellent condition

MULTI PERSONAGE is an original limited edition lithograph by the Dutch artist Karel Appel, printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. MULTI PERSONAGE is a lively abstract color collage portrait expressed in vibrant shades of red, blue, pink, green, purple, yellow with hints of multi color pastel tones and white creating an abstracted body and face. Bold black paint strokes define the face with its zany black eyes, head, body and limbs; collage effect torn paper bits fill in the body form. MULTI PERSONAGE is a very unique, fantastically playful and wild composition by Karel Appel, one of the founders of the avant-garde art movement CoBrA active during the late 1940's thru early 1950's. His paintings are known for incorporating applications of vibrant, violent colors often possessing a primal, childlike quality. Print size - 30 x 20 inches, unframed, excellent condition, pencil signed by Karel Appel Edition size - 175 Year published - 1980 Printer - JK Fine Art Editions Co., NY Karel Appel was one of the founders of the avant-garde art movement CoBrA, active during the late 1940's thru early 1950's. His paintings are known for incorporating applications of vibrant, violent colors often possessing a primal, childlike quality. Karel Appel, (born April 25, 1921, Amsterdam, Netherlands—died May 3, 2006, Zürich, Switzerland), Dutch painter of turbulent, colorful, and semi-abstract compositions, who was a co-founder (1948) of the CoBRA group of northern European Expressionists. He was also a noted sculptor and graphic artist. Appel attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Amsterdam (1940–43), and helped found the “Reflex” group, which became known as CoBRA (for Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam), in 1948. He moved to Paris in 1950 and by the 1960s had settled in New York City; he later lived in Italy and Switzerland. Partly in reaction against what they perceived as the sterile academicism of the de Stijl movement, the CoBRA artists...

A very good impression of this scarce offset lithograph on cream wove paper. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 100. Signed in ink, lower right, and inscribed "A/P" in pencil,...

DeLoss McGraw Leaving Home (97-301), 1997 Five color lithograph on tan Rives BFK paper with deckled edges Signed and numbered 3/75 in graphite pencil on the front 17 × 24 3/25 inches...

Abstract lithograph in an edition of 85

This is a rare, two-sided mass card from Andy Warhol's memorial mass, which was held on April 1, 1987 at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. The front of the card depicts Warhol's 1...

Artist: Peter Alexander (1939) Title: Hallelujah II Year: 1988 Edition: 50, plus proofs Medium: Lithograph on Guarro paper Size: 22 x 30 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Sign...

Lithograph on papier vélin teinté, fait a la main paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the folio, Les Illuminations, 1949. Published by...

This artwork titled "Head in the Evening" 1980, is an original colors lithograph on Wove paper by renown Russian artist Mihail Chemiakin, b.1943. It is hand signed and numbered 81/20...

Eduardo Paolozzi, British (1924 - 2005) - Notes on Organisation of Paradise, Portfolio: General Dynamic F.U.N. Portfolio, Year: 1970, Medium: Photolithograph, stamp signed verso, Edi...

Sean Scully Munich 1996 (Hand Signed), 2001 Offset Lithograph print Hand signed and dated by Sean Scully in 2018 Boldly signed in black marker on the recto. Hand signed by Sean Scull...

Artist: Alexander Calder (1898-1976) Title: Convection, Braniff International Airways Flying Colors Collection Year: 1975 Medium: Lithograph on vélin d’Arches paper Size: 20 x 26 inc...

Tracey Emin You Left Me Breathing (Hand signed and inscribed with a hand drawn heart flourish by Tracey Emin), 2008 Hardback monograph with no dust jacket as issued (Hand signed and ...

"Original Lithograph X" is an original color lithograph by Joan Miro, published in "Miro Lithographs II, Maeght Publisher" in 1975. It depicts Miro's signature biomorphic abstract st...

Color lithograph, Edition 25. Emmi Whitehorse is a painter and printmaker. Using a private language of symbols and memories, Whitehorse makes 'personal diaries' of her life as an ...

This is a hand signed in pencil, vintage, limited edition lithograph modern art print, printed in Switzerland on Rives French art paper in 1968. in shades of red, orange, green, yell...

Pierre Soulages - Original Lithograph Published in the deluxe art review "XXe siècle" 1970 Unsigned as published Dimensions: 32 x 24 cm Pierre Soulages or the "painter of black" as ...

Lithograph on vélin Mohawk Superfine Smooth paper. Paper Size: 11.937 x 8.96 inches. Inscription: Signed in the plate and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, In Memory of M...

Medium: original lithograph. Executed for XXe Siecle (issue No. 25), printed in Paris by Mourlot and published in 1965 by San Lazzaro. Sheet size 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches (310 x 240 mm)...

Alan Sonfist, American (1946 - ) - Tree Trunk Series - Orange, Year: 1980, Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil, Edition: 300, Image Size: 20.5 x 20.5 inches, Size: ...

Shusaku Arakawa Blankless Tone, 1979 Color lithograph and silkscreen with embossing on Arches paper with deckled edges and folded collage upper left Hand-signed by artist, Titled "Bl...

Artist: Beatriz Milhazes Title: Pink Sunshine Year: 2021 Medium: Lithograph on Fabriano Disegno 5 paper Sheet: 18 3/4 × 23 in (47.6 × 58.42 cm) Edition: 100; signed and numbered in pencil (verso) Condition: Mint. Certificate of Authenticity included Beatriz Milhazes is a Brazilian artist whose brilliant paintings and prints draw from local tradition. Brazilian Baroque...

Manfred Schwartz (American, b. Poland, 1909-1970), "Somber Planet", Lithograph on Paper, mid 20th century, numbered edition "13/90" lower left, signed in pencil lower right, with the...

Héliogravure on vélin paper. Paper Size: 13.78 x 10.83 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From the folio, Nicolas de Staël, Peintres d'aujourd'hui, 1960. Published by Fernand Hazan, Éditeur, Paris; rendered by Bussière et Nouël, Paris; printed by l'Imprimerie Lecot, Paris, May 1960. Excerpted from the folio (translated from French), CCCLXXV examples of this album, numbered from I to CCCLXXV, are accompanied by an unpublished board illustrating a glued paper of the artist and shot on the presses of Daniel Jacomet, in Paris. The illustrations of this album, completed in May 1960, were shot by Bussière and Nouël and printed by the l'Imprimerie Lecot. The text was drawn by l'Imprimerie Damien and the binding made by F.l.A.P. according to the models of Marcel Jacno. Fernand Hazan Éditeur, 35-37, rue de Seine, Paris. 1960. Droits de reproduction réservés A.D.A.G.P. - Paris. NICOLAS DE STAEL (1914-1955) was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. He also worked with collage, illustration and textiles. Known for his abstract landscapes and still lifes that uniquely blend colour, form and texture, Nicolas de Staël was fascinated by the world’s many spectacles and documented them through his art. De Staël was born in 1914 into an aristocratic family in Saint Petersburg, Russia. His father served as a cavalry general under Tsar Nicholas II and the family was forced to flee after the Russian Revolution. Both Nicolas’s parents died in the early 1920s, meaning he and his siblings were raised by a foster family in Brussels where he would begin his formal art education at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts. De Staël’s early work was influenced by the European avant-garde movements of the early 20th century, including Cubism and Fauvism. However, he soon developed his own distinctive style with thick impasto and a bold use of colour. His early paintings, often sombre in tone, gradually evolved into more vibrant and dynamic compositions, reflecting his growing interest in the emotional and expressive potential of colour and form. In 1938 de Staël had moved to France, where he became an integral part of the post-war Parisian art scene. Having worked initially in the atelier of Fernand Léger, de Staël’s circle of friends came to include Sonia Delaunay, Le Corbusier and Jean Arp, who encouraged his tendencies towards abstract work. His work during this period marked a significant departure from traditional representation, moving towards abstraction while maintaining a strong sense of structure and form. De Staël's paintings from this era showcase his ability to balance abstraction with figuration, using broad, gestural strokes and a vibrant palette to convey movement and energy. What truly set de Staël apart, though, was the step he took beyond abstraction. This came with his football paintings...

Lithograph in colours on wove paper Edition 24 of 100 56 x 65 cm (22 x 25.6 in) Signed, numbered and dated on the front Mint

Derriere Le Miroir-Page 9 Color lithograph, 1973 From: Derriere Le Miroir, No. 201, January 1973 Unsigned (as issued) Publisher: Maeght Editeur, Paris Printer: L’Imprimerie Arte, Adr...

Tracey Emin Svart katt / Black cat (2008), from the exhibition TRACEY EMIN/EDVARD MUNCH: THE LONELINESS OF THE SOUL (hand signed), 2021 Offset lithograph promotional print on card st...

Joan MIRO Composition with Stars Original lithograph (printed in Mourlot workshop) Printed signature in the plate On Arches vellum 25 x 19 cm (c. 10 x 8 inch) Edited by Mourlot in 1...

Robert Natkin (American, 1930-2010) Untitled, 1978 From the Intimate Lighting series Color lithograph on wove paper Signed, dated and numbered in pencil lower left Edition 47/75 Prin...

A frenzy of lines and color, this pair of Dieter Roth lithographs could have been produced in 2022. The contemporary popularity of semi-abstract imagery featuring color gradients, za...

This rear cover lithograph from Derrière le Miroir No. 204 showcases Eduardo Chillida’s iconic abstract style, emphasizing his mastery of form, balance, and spatial exploration. Publ...

Modern Twentieth Century Signed Miro Lithograph Le Lezard aux Plumes D'Or - Signed on the Plate and authenticated by the Mourlot family. This Lithograph by Miro was originally for G...

Fantasy, Japanese, limited edition lithograph, black, white, red, signed, titled Shinoda's works have been collected by public galleries and museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Brooklyn Museum and Metropolitan Museum (all in New York City), the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., the Singapore Art Museum, the National Museum of Singapore, the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, the Cincinnati Art Museum, and the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut. New York Times Obituary, March 3, 2021 by Margalit Fox, Alex Traub contributed reporting. Toko Shinoda, one of the foremost Japanese artists of the 20th century, whose work married the ancient serenity of calligraphy with the modernist urgency of Abstract Expressionism, died on Monday at a hospital in Tokyo. She was 107. Her death was announced by her gallerist in the United States. A painter and printmaker, Ms. Shinoda attained international renown at midcentury and remained sought after by major museums and galleries worldwide for more than five decades. Her work has been exhibited at, among other places, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; the British Museum; and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. Private collectors include the Japanese imperial family. Writing about a 1998 exhibition of Ms. Shinoda’s work at a London gallery, the British newspaper The Independent called it “elegant, minimal and very, very composed,” adding, “Her roots as a calligrapher are clear, as are her connections with American art of the 1950s, but she is quite obviously a major artist in her own right.” As a painter, Ms. Shinoda worked primarily in sumi ink, a solid form of ink, made from soot pressed into sticks, that has been used in Asia for centuries. Rubbed on a wet stone to release their pigment, the sticks yield a subtle ink that, because it is quickly imbibed by paper, is strikingly ephemeral. The sumi artist must make each brush stroke with all due deliberation, as the nature of the medium precludes the possibility of reworking even a single line. “The color of the ink which is produced by this method is a very delicate one,” Ms. Shinoda told The Business Times of Singapore in 2014. “It is thus necessary to finish one’s work very quickly. So the composition must be determined in my mind before I pick up the brush. Then, as they say, the painting just falls off the brush.” Ms. Shinoda painted almost entirely in gradations of black, with occasional sepias and filmy blues. The ink sticks she used had been made for the great sumi artists of the past, some as long as 500 years ago. Her line — fluid, elegant, impeccably placed — owed much to calligraphy. She had been rigorously trained in that discipline from the time she was a child, but she had begun to push against its confines when she was still very young. Deeply influenced by American Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell, whose work she encountered when she lived in New York in the late 1950s, Ms. Shinoda shunned representation. “If I have a definite idea, why paint it?,” she asked in an interview with United Press International in 1980. “It’s already understood and accepted. A stand of bamboo is more beautiful than a painting could be. Mount Fuji is more striking than any possible imitation.” Spare and quietly powerful, making abundant use of white space, Ms. Shinoda’s paintings are done on traditional Chinese and Japanese papers, or on backgrounds of gold, silver or platinum leaf. Often asymmetrical, they can overlay a stark geometric shape with the barest calligraphic strokes. The combined effect appears to catch and hold something evanescent — “as elusive as the memory of a pleasant scent or the movement of wind,” as she said in a 1996 interview. Ms. Shinoda’s work also included lithographs; three-dimensional pieces of wood and other materials; and murals in public spaces, including a series made for the Zojoji Temple in Tokyo. The fifth of seven children of a prosperous family, Ms. Shinoda was born on March 28, 1913, in Dalian, in Manchuria, where her father, Raijiro, managed a tobacco plant. Her mother, Joko, was a homemaker. The family returned to Japan when she was a baby, settling in Gifu, midway between Kyoto and Tokyo. One of her father’s uncles, a sculptor and calligrapher, had been an official seal carver to the Meiji emperor. He conveyed his love of art and poetry to Toko’s father, who in turn passed it to Toko. “My upbringing was a very traditional one, with relatives living with my parents,” she said in the U.P.I. interview. “In a scholarly atmosphere, I grew up knowing I wanted to make these things, to be an artist.” She began studying calligraphy at 6, learning, hour by hour, impeccable mastery over line. But by the time she was a teenager, she had begun to seek an artistic outlet that she felt calligraphy, with its centuries-old conventions, could not afford. “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style,” Ms. Shinoda told Time magazine in 1983. “My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” Moving to Tokyo as a young adult, Ms. Shinoda became celebrated throughout Japan as one of the country’s finest living calligraphers, at the time a signal honor for a woman. She had her first solo show in 1940, at a Tokyo gallery. During World War II, when she forsook the city for the countryside near Mount Fuji, she earned her living as a calligrapher, but by the mid-1940s she had started experimenting with abstraction. In 1954 she began to achieve renown outside Japan with her inclusion in an exhibition of Japanese calligraphy at MoMA. In 1956, she traveled to New York. At the time, unmarried Japanese women could obtain only three-month visas for travel abroad, but through zealous renewals, Ms. Shinoda managed to remain for two years. She met many of the titans of Abstract Expressionism there, and she became captivated by their work. “When I was in New York in the ’50s, I was often included in activities with those artists, people like Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Motherwell and so forth,” she said in a 1998 interview with The Business Times. “They were very generous people, and I was often invited to visit their studios, where we would share ideas and opinions on our work. It was a great experience being together with people who shared common feelings.” During this period, Ms. Shinoda’s work was sold in the United States by Betty Parsons, the New York dealer who represented Pollock, Rothko and many of their contemporaries. Returning to Japan, Ms. Shinoda began to fuse calligraphy and the Expressionist aesthetic in earnest. The result was, in the words of The Plain Dealer of Cleveland in 1997, “an art of elegant simplicity and high drama.” Among Ms. Shinoda’s many honors, she was depicted, in 2016, on a Japanese postage stamp. She is the only Japanese artist to be so honored during her lifetime. No immediate family members survive. When she was quite young and determined to pursue a life making art, Ms. Shinoda made the decision to forgo the path that seemed foreordained for women of her generation. “I never married and have no children,” she told The Japan Times in 2017. “And I suppose that it sounds strange to think that my paintings are in place of them — of course they are not the same thing at all. But I do say, when paintings that I have made years ago are brought back into my consciousness, it seems like an old friend, or even a part of me, has come back to see me.” Works of a Woman's Hand Toko Shinoda bases new abstractions on ancient calligraphy Down a winding side street in the Aoyama district, western Tokyo. into a chunky white apartment building, then up in an elevator small enough to make a handful of Western passengers friends or enemies for life. At the end of a hall on the fourth floor, to the right, stands a plain brown door. To be admitted is to go through the looking glass. Sayonara today. Hello (Konichiwa) yesterday and tomorrow. Toko Shinoda, 70, lives and works here. She can be, when she chooses, on e of Japans foremost calligraphers, master of an intricate manner of writing that traces its lines back some 3,000 years to ancient China. She is also an avant-garde artist of international renown, whose abstract paintings and lithographs rest in museums around the world. These diverse talents do not seem to belong in the same epoch. Yet they have somehow converged in this diminutive woman who appears in her tiny foyer, offering slippers and ritual bows of greeting. She looks like someone too proper to chip a teacup, never mind revolutionize an old and hallowed art form She wears a blue and white kimono of her own design. Its patterns, she explains, are from Edo, meaning the period of the Tokugawa shoguns, before her city was renamed Tokyo in 1868. Her black hair is pulled back from her face, which is virtually free of lines and wrinkles. except for the gold-rimmed spectacles perched low on her nose (this visionary is apparently nearsighted). Shinoda could have stepped directly from a 19th century Meji print. Her surroundings convey a similar sense of old aesthetics, a retreat in the midst of a modern, frenetic city. The noise of the heavy traffic on a nearby elevated highway sounds at this height like distant surf. delicate bamboo shades filter the daylight. The color arrangement is restful: low ceilings of exposed wood, off-white walls, pastel rugs of blue, green and gray. It all feels so quintessentially Japanese that Shinoda’s opening remarks come as a surprise. She points out (through a translator) that she was not born in Japan at all but in Darien, Manchuria. Her father had been posted there to manage a tobacco company under the aegis of the occupying Japanese forces, which seized the region from Russia in 1905. She says,”People born in foreign places are very free in their thinking, not restricted” But since her family went back to Japan in 1915, when she was two, she could hardly remember much about a liberated childhood? She answers,”I think that if my mother had remained in Japan, she would have been an ordinary Japanese housewife. Going to Manchuria, she was able to assert her own personality, and that left its mark on me.” Evidently so. She wears her obi low on the hips, masculine style. The Porcelain aloofness she displays in photographs shatters in person. Her speech is forceful, her expression animated and her laugh both throaty and infectious. The hand she brings to her mouth to cover her amusement (a traditional female gesture of modesty) does not stand a chance. Her father also made a strong impression on the fifth of his seven children:”He came from a very old family, and he was quite strict in some ways and quite liberal in others.” He owned one of the first three bicycles ever imported to Japan and tinkered with it constantly He also decided that his little daughter would undergo rigorous training in a procrustean antiquity. “I was forced to study from age six on to learn calligraphy,” Shinoda says, The young girl dutifully memorized and copied the accepted models. In one sense, her father had pushed her in a promising direction, one of the few professional fields in Japan open to females. Included among the ancient terms that had evolved around calligraphy was onnade, or woman's writing. Heresy lay ahead. By the time she was 15, she had already been through nine years of intensive discipline, “I got tired of it and decided to try my own style. My father always scolded me for being naughty and departing from the traditional way, but I had to do it.” She produces a brush and a piece of paper to demonstrate the nature of her rebellion. “This is kawa, the accepted calligraphic character for river,” she says, deftly sketching three short vertical strokes. “But I wanted to use more than three lines to show the force of the river.” Her brush flows across the white page, leaving a recognizable river behind, also flowing.” The simple kawa in the traditional language was not enough for me. I wanted to find a new symbol to express the word river.” Her conviction grew that ink could convey the ineffable, the feeling, "as she says, of wind blowing softly.” Another demonstration. She goes to the sliding wooden door of an anteroom and disappears in back of it; the only trace of her is a triangular swatch of the right sleeve of her kimono, which she has arranged for that purpose. A realization dawns. The task of this artist is to paint that three sided pattern so that the invisible woman attached to it will be manifest to all viewers. Gen, painted especially for TIME, shows Shinoda’s theory in practice. She calls the work “my conception of Japan in visual terms.” A dark swath at the left, punctuated by red, stands for history. In the center sits a Chinese character gen, which means in the present or actuality. A blank pattern at the right suggests an unknown future. Once out of school, Shinoda struck off on a path significantly at odds with her culture. She recognized marriage for what it could mean to her career (“a restriction”) and decided against it. There was a living to be earned by doing traditional calligraphy:she used her free time to paint her variations. In 1940 a Tokyo gallery exhibited her work. (Fourteen years would pass before she got a second show.)War came, and bad times for nearly everyone, including the aspiring artist , who retreated to a rural area near Mount Fuji and traded her kimonos for eggs. In 1954 Shinoda’s work was included in a group exhibit at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Two years later, she overcame bureaucratic obstacles to visit the U.S.. Unmarried Japanese women are allowed visas for only three months, patiently applying for two-month extensions, one at a time, Shinoda managed to travel the country for two years. She pulls out a scrapbook from this period. Leafing through it, she suddenly raises a hand and touches her cheek:”How young I looked!” An inspection is called for. The woman in the grainy, yellowing newspaper photograph could easily be the on e sitting in this room. Told this, she nods and smiles. No translation necessary. Her sojourn in the U.S. proved to be crucial in the recognition and development of Shinoda’s art. Celebrities such as actor Charles Laughton and John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet bought her paintings and spread the good word. She also saw the works of the abstract expressionists, then the rage of the New York City art world, and realized that these Western artists, coming out of an utterly different tradition, were struggling toward the same goal that had obsessed her. Once she was back home, her work slowly made her famous. Although Shinoda has used many materials (fabric, stainless steel, ceramics, cement), brush and ink remain her principal means of expression. She had said, “As long as I am devoted to the creation of new forms, I can draw even with muddy water.” Fortunately, she does not have to. She points with evident pride to her ink stone, a velvety black slab of rock, with an indented basin, that is roughly a foot across and two feet long. It is more than 300 years old. Every working morning, Shinoda pours about a third of a pint of water into it, then selects an ink stick from her extensive collection, some dating back to China’s Ming dynasty. Pressing stick against stone, she begins rubbing. Slowly, the dried ink dissolves in the water and becomes ready for the brush. So two batches of sumi (India ink) are exactly alike; something old, something new. She uses color sparingly. Her clear preference is black and all its gradations. “In some paintings, sumi expresses blue better than blue.” It is time to go downstairs to the living quarters. A niece, divorced and her daughter,10,stay here with Shinoda; the artist who felt forced to renounce family and domesticity at the outset of her career seems welcome to it now. Sake is offered, poured into small cedar boxes and happily accepted. Hold carefully. Drink from a corner. Ambrosial. And just right for the surroundings and the hostess. A conservative renegade; a liberal traditionalist; a woman steeped in the male-dominated conventions that she consistently opposed. Her trail blazing accomplishments are analogous to Picasso’s. When she says goodbye, she bows. --by Paul Gray...

A very good impression of this lithograph with embossing on Arches. One of 4 numbered printer's proofs, aside from the edition of 30. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right, and ins...

Jim Dine, 1985 Color Lithograph on wove paper with deckled edges 38 1/2 × 27 1/2 inches Edition of 300 Unframed Signed in plate, unnumbered; bears museum copyright on the lower front...

Lithograph, 1957 Handsigned by the artist in pencil and numbered 87/100 Publisher : Editions le Musée de Poche, Paris Printer : Jean Pons Catalog : [Polieri 1747] 66.00 cm. x 50.00 c...

Piège is an original contemporary artwork realized by Guillaume Corneille in 1956. Original Lithograph on vélin paper Hand signed and dated in pencil on the lower margin. Guillau...

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