1980s Abstract Prints

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U.S. as the state of Oklahoma, Smith’s parents, who were of Cherokee ancestry, raised him with both a strong sense of his heritage and an abiding respect for the land. Art would eventually draw Smith to New York where he would quickly embrace elements of geometric abstraction in his work. Many of Smith’s hard-edge compositions could be viewed as distillations of imagery drawn from the Oklahoma landscape...

"Under the Mountain" - Modern Abstract Lithograph Bold abstract lithograph by Fran Ciscus (American, 20th Century). Signed "Fran Ciscus". The colors in this piece have a slight irid...

Roger Muhl (1929-2008) Provence #7, 1986. Signed and numbered in pencil by the artist, lower margins. Artwork is in excellent condition with no damage or conservation. Frame shows ...

Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali (Greek: Χρύσα Βαρδέα-Μαυρομιχάλη; December 31, 1933 – December 23, 2013) was a Greek American artist who worked in a wide variety of media. An American art pioneer in light art and luminist sculpture widely known for her neon, steel, aluminum and acrylic glass installations, she has always used the mononym Chryssa professionally. She worked from the mid-1950s in New York City studios and worked since 1992 in the studio she established in Neos Kosmos, Athens, Greece. Chryssa was born in Athens into the famous Mavromichalis family from the Mani Peninsula. one of her sisters, who studied medicine, was a friend of the poet and novelist Nikos Kazantzakis. Chryssa began painting during her teenage years and also studied to be a social worker.In 1953, on the advice of a Greek art critic, her family sent her to Paris to study at the Académie de la Grande Chaumiere where Andre Breton, Edgard Varese, and Max Ernst were among her associates and Alberto Giacometti was a visiting professor. In 1954, at age twenty-one, Chryssa sailed for the United States, arrived in New York and went to San Francisco, California to study at the California School of Fine Arts. Returning to New York in 1955, she became a United States citizen and established a studio in the city. Chryssa's first major work was The Cycladic Books preceded American minimalism by seventeen years. 1961, Chryssa's first solo exhibition was mounted at The Guggenheim. 1963, Chryssa's work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in curator Dorothy Canning Miller's Americans 1963 exhibition. The artists represented in the show also included Richard Anuszkiewicz, Lee Bontecou, Robert Indiana, Richard Lindner, Marisol, Claes Oldenburg, Ad Reinhardt, James Rosenquist and others. 1966, The Gates to Times Square, regarded as "one of the most important American sculptures of all time" and "a thrilling homage to the living American culture of advertising and mass communications." The work is a 10 ft cube installation of two huge letter 'A's through which visitors may walk into "a gleaming block of stainless steel and Plexiglas that seems to quiver in the play of pale blue neon light" which is controlled by programmed timers. First shown in Manhattan's Pace Gallery, it was given to the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York in 1972. 1972, The Whitney Museum of American Art mounted a solo exhibition of works by Chryssa. That's All (early 1970s), the central panel of a triptych related to The Gates of Times Square, was acquired by the Museum of Modern Art between 1975 and 1979. 1973, Chryssa's solo exhibition at the Gallerie Denise René was reviewed for TIME magazine by art critic Robert Hughes before it went on to the Galleries Denise René in Düsseldorf and Paris. Other works by Chryssa in composite honeycomb aluminum and neon in the 1980s and 1990s include Chinatown, Siren, Urban Traffic, and Flapping Birds. Chryssa 60/90 retrospective exhibition in Athens in the Mihalarias Art Center. After her long absence from Greece, a major exhibition including large aluminum sculptures - cityscapes, "neon boxes" from the Gates to the Times Square, paintings, drawings etc. was held in Athens. In 1992, after closing her SoHo studio, which art dealer Leo Castelli had described as "one of the loveliest in the world," Chryssa returned to Greece. She found a derelict cinema which had become a storeroom stacked with abandoned school desks and chairs, behind the old Fix Brewery near the city center in Neos Kosmos, Athens. Using the desks to construct enormous benches, she converted the space into a studio for working on designs and aluminum composite honeycomb sculptures. The Athens National Museum of Contemporary Art, which was founded in 2000 and owns Chryssa's Cycladic Books, is in the process of converting the Fix Brewery into its permanent premises. Greek Exhibits, European Cultural Center of Delphi (Council of Europe). "Apollo's Heritage"(July 4, 2003 – July 30, 2003). Works by sixteen artists: Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Nikos Engonopoulos, Yannis Tsarouchis, Giorgos Sikeliotis, Takis, Arman, Fernando Botero, Chryssa, Dimitris Mytaras...

Untitled is an offset and lithograph print realized on Fabriano Paper after a drawing by Willem De Kooning 1950. The print suite was realized in 1985 in a limited edition of 2500, a...

Françoise Gilot Window on Another Dimension, 1981 Lithograph on Arches mould made Johannot paper Signed and numbered in graphite pencil; also bears artist's monogram with date, edition of 60 Frame included: floated in the original vintage frame Measurements: Framed 30 inches vertical by 22 inches horizontal by .75 inches depth Artwork: 27.25 inches by 19.75 inches Francoise Gilot was not just Picasso's muse; she was an accomplished artist in her own right, and at age 100, the New York Times dubbed her the art world's latest "It Girl".! Signed and numbered in graphite pencil; also bears artist's personal monograph with date. Held in original vintage frame under plexiglass. Charmingly, there is a sticker label on the back of the frame, from the "Picasso Gallery Custom Framing" in D.C. This silkscreen is based upon Gilot's eponymous painting, also done in 1981 Excerpt from Alan Riding's 2023 New York Times obituary on Gilot: " Françoise Gilot, an accomplished painter whose art was eclipsed by her long and stormy romantic relationship with a much older Pablo Picasso, and who alone among his many mistresses walked out on him, died on Tuesday at a hospital in Manhattan. She was 101...But unlike his two wives and other mistresses, Ms. Gilot rebuilt her life after she ended the relationship, in 1953, almost a decade after it had begun despite an age difference of 40 years. She continued painting and exhibiting her work and wrote books. In 1970, she married Jonas Salk, the American medical researcher who developed the first safe polio vaccine, and lived part of the time in California. Still, it was for her romance with Picasso that the public knew her best, particularly after her memoir, “Life with Picasso,” written with Carlton Lake, was published in 1964. It became an international best seller, and so infuriated Picasso that he broke off all contact with Ms. Gilot and their two children, Claude and Paloma Picasso. Ms. Gilot’s frank and often-sympathetic account of their relationship — she dedicated the book “to Pablo” — provided much of the material for the 1996 Merchant-Ivory movie, “Surviving Picasso,” in which she was played by Natascha McElhone, with Anthony Hopkins as Picasso. If Ms. Gilot’s book sold well, so has her art. With her work in more than a dozen museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, her paintings fetched increasingly higher prices well into her later years. As recently as June 2021, her painting “Paloma à la Guitare” (1965), a blue-toned portrait of her daughter, sold for $1.3 million in an online auction by Sotheby’s. That surpassed her previous record price, $695,000, paid for “Étude bleue,” a 1953 portrait of a seated woman, at a Sotheby’s auction in 2014.. And in November 2021, her abstract 1977 canvas “Living Forest” sold for $1.3 million as part of a retrospective of her work at Christie’s in Hong Kong. Lisa Stevenson, the head of curated sales for Sotheby’s in London, told ARTnews after the 2021 auction, “It isn’t commonly known that Gilot’s commitment to art was present long before her relationship with Pablo Picasso, and she was sadly often left in his shadow.”.. Marie Françoise Gilot was born into a prosperous family on Nov. 26, 1921, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a suburb of Paris, the only child of Emile Gilot, an agronomist and chemical manufacturer, and Madeleine Renoult-Gilot. Her 19th-century ancestors had owned a couturier house of fashion whose clientele included Eugenia, the wife of Emperor Napoleon III. Marie Françoise was drawn to art from an early age, tutored by her mother, who had studied art history, ceramics and watercolor painting. Her father, however — recalled by Ms. Gilot as an authoritarian who had forced her to write with her right hand, though she was left-handed — had other ideas. Envisioning a career in science or the law for his daughter, he persuaded her to enroll at the University of Paris, where she received her bachelor’s degree in 1938 at age 17. She went on to study at the Sorbonne and the British Institute in Paris and receive a degree in English literature from Cambridge University. As war crept closer to France in 1939, her father sent her to the city of Rennes, northwest of Paris, to enroll in law school. All the while she continued working on her paintings. Then came the German occupation of Paris, in June 1940, and she joined other students in an anti-German protest march at the Arc de Triomphe. In a clash with the French and German authorities, Ms. Gilot was arrested, briefly detained and put under watch. “From day one, we were not the kind of people who would become collaborators,” she said of her family. She continued her law studies at the University of Paris, but after taking her second-year examinations, in June 1941, she lost interest and abandoned the field, deciding to devote herself to art. She began private lessons with a fugitive Hungarian Jewish painter, Endre Rozsda, and attended classes at the Académie Julian, which numbered Matisse...

Artist: Rafael Bogarin – Venezuelan (1946- ) Title: Jupiter 4 Year: 1980 Medium: Screen Print Sight size: 19.5 x 25.5 inches. Sheet size: 22.5 x 28.5 inches. Signature: Signed lower right Edition: 295 This one: 116/295 Condition: Excellent Unframed This exceptional geometric abstract serigraph is by the noted Venezuelan artist Rafael Bogarin (1946- ). This is Jupiter 4. I have others from the series, also for sale. The print has never been framed and is in excellent condition. It measures 22.5" x 28.5". Rafael Bogarin is an established contemporary Venezuelan artist known for his abstract serigraphs. Bogarin was born in 1946, in El Tigre, where he grew up making his own toys and learning to draw. He studied in Caracas at the Cristobal Rojas School of Fine Arts, specializing in lithography and etching. From 1970 to 1992, Bogarin, like so many artists, lived in New York. As he explored various techniques, he became an expert in serigraphs, earning himself acclaim in Latin America as a pioneer. In South America he traveled the continent giving classes and learning about native cultures. When he returned to the land of his youth, he was inspired to create the concept of the entire world in the Museo Vial in El Tigre in 1982. Later he made others along the route between Colombia and Venezuela. Recently he has been creating and realizing ideas like the Museo de Murales a Cielo Abierto (Museum of Murals to the Open Sky). Detailed biographical information (source: artist's website): Rafael Bogarín was born in El Tigre, Anzoátegui state, Venezuela, on January 20, 1946. He studied at the Cristóbal Rojas School, which he finished in 1966; Among his teachers are Luis Guevara Moreno, Pedro León Zapata, Luisa Palacios and Luis Chacón. Upon returning from school he founded the Zapato Roto group with other artists, with the aim of taking art to the streets. In 1966 he directed the outdoor exhibitions of the Venezuelan American Center, and two years later he participated in the XXVIII Official Salon, where he received the Rome Prize. During that time he ordered elements such as nuts and serrated blades in relation to discs engraved with burin and other techniques, and made the final impression in planes of one color. In 1970 he received a scholarship and traveled to New York; He studies at the Pratt Graphic Center and the Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. In 1973 he founded, together with Manuel Kohn, the Bogarín Printmaking Workshop, a workplace for Venezuelan artists living in the United States; This workshop, of which he has been master printer, allowed continuity to his artistic work. Bogarín investigates the possibilities of super eight cinema and makes films with quality similar to commercial formats; From these experiences emerge The Lonely World (1975) and New World Symphony (1976). In 1977 he deepened his study of color with The New Color, a portfolio where he produced superimposed colors through transparencies and glazes. His teaching experience includes courses at the Rafael Monasterios School of Plastic Arts in Maracay (1969-1970), Ceagraf (1979), as well as workshops in various cities around the world. In 1980 he made an exhibition of silkscreen prints in cities in Italy, El Salvador, Colombia, Mexico and the United States. That year he resumed his interest in outdoor exhibitions with a museum project with murals by 30 artists for El Tigre (Venezuela); The Rafael Bogarín Road Museum was inaugurated in 1982 and brought together 30 murals on 2 x 4 meter fences, by artists such as Mario Toral, Édgar Sánchez and Paul Davis. He carried out the project to recover the architectural spaces of El Tigre (Venezuela), through murals, sculptures, plazas and humanized spaces. In 2006 he painted the largest painted flag in the world in El Tigre, Venezuela. Bogarín has exhibited his work on all 5 continents and currently lives and works in Panama City in his private workshop and in the Articruz workshop. Individual exhibitions Ø 1966. Gallery of the Medical College. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1966. Venezuelan American Center. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1970. Protobello Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1977. First National Bank of Louisville. Luosville, Kentucky, USA. Ø 1978. Venezuela Gallery. New York City, USA. Ø 1979. Julián Marchena Room, Museum of Costa Rica. San Jose Costa Rica. Ø 1979. La Otra Banda Gallery. Merida, Venezuela. Ø 1980. Galeter Center. Adro, Italy. Ø 1980. Gallery of Modern Art. Santo Domingo Dominican Republic. Ø 1980. Jewish Community Center. Monmouth, New Jersey, USA. Ø 1980. Frank Fedele Fine Arts. New York City, USA. Ø 1980. El Túnel Gallery. Guatemala, Guatemala. Ø 1981. Garcés – Velásquez Gallery. Bogota Colombia. Ø 1982. Siete Siete Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1984. Acquavella Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1985. Cultural Center. Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Ø 1992. Sotage Gallery, Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. Ø 2017. Arteconsult Gallery. Panama City, Panama. Awards Ø 1969. Rome Prize. XXIX Official Salon of Venezuelan Art, Museum of Fine Arts. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1971. Honorable mention. First Young Artists' Salon. Maracay, Venezuela. Ø 1984. First prize, Salón Aragua. Maracay, Venezuela. Murals Ø 1974. Venezuelan Consulate. New York City, USA. Ø 1982. Creator of the First Road Museum in the World. El Tigre, Venezuela. Ø 1983. Road Museum. Roldanillo, Colombia. Ø 1984. Bicentennial Road Museum. Cucuta, Colombia. Ø 2000. Ceramic mural. Dairy, Venezuela. Group exhibitions Ø 1963 to 1966. Spiral Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1966. El Pez Dorado Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1966. “Zapato Roto” Festival. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1967. D´Empaire Hall. Maracaibo Venezuela. Ø 1970. Drawings and engravings room. Central University of Venezuela. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1966 and 1971. Arturo Michelena Hall. Valencia, Venezuela. Ø 1966 to 1968. Annual Venezuelan Art Salon. Museum of Fine Arts. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1968. Luis Ángel Arango Library. Bogota Colombia. Ø 1969. Tertulia Room. Cali, Colombia. Ø 1969. Lunn Gallery. Washington, DC, USA. Ø 1969. Gallery of Visual Arts. Maracay, Venezuela. Ø 1970. Venezuelan Cultural Week. Miami and Jamaica. Ø 1972. Two Rivers Gallery. Binghampton, New York City, USA. Ø 1972. Moos Gallery. Montreal, Canada. Ø 1973. Spoleto Festival. Italy. Ø 1974. Young Artists, Union Carbide Building. New York City, USA. Ø 1975. Government of Caracas. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1975. Graphic VII, Mendoza Gallery. Caracas Venezuela. Ø 1976. Brooke Alexander Gallery. New York City, USA. Ø 1977. Denise Rene Gallery. New York City, USA. Ø 1978. Sam Flax...

Sharon Sutton I Am Here In The World - 1981 Print - Silkscreen print on Somerset Paper paper size 29.5'' x 29.5'' inches Edition: Signed, titled and numbered in pencil 190/200 Sha...

Woodcut on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, miró graveur II. 1961-1973, 1989. Published by Daniel Lelong, éditeur...

Antoni Tapies (Spain, 1923-2012) 'Improvisations en blanc i negre III', 1987 lithograph on paper Velin Arches 250 g. 41.4 x 29.6 in. (105 x 75 cm.) Edition of 60 Unframed ID: TAP1162...

SPACE VOYAGE is an original hand drawn lithograph by the Latin American Woman artist Raquel Forner, paper size - 13 1/4 x 15 1/4 in., image size - 8 1/2 x 11 3/4 in. printed in warm...

Wonderful geometric abstract screen print abstract in black, blue and yellow by Margo Hoff (American, 1912-2008), circa 1980. Titled "Construction Over Yellow Sky" lower left and signed lower right. Unframed. Presented on mat. Image size: 22"H x 30"W. Margo Hoff was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1912—the second oldest of eight children. Stricken with typhoid fever in 1923, she was bedridden for a summer and amused herself by drawing and making paper cutouts. Her formal studies began in high school and continued during two years at the University of Oklahoma, Tulsa. In 1933 she moved to Chicago where she took classes at Hull House, the National Academy of Art and, later, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She remained in Chicago until 1960 and the city’s vibrant mid-century art scene profoundly shaped the first half of her artistic career. Hoff’s Chicago paintings were almost entirely figurative and evidence a classic mid-century modern urbanism informed by Matisse, the Mexican muralists, and other artists of the local milieu. Hoff traveled extensively throughout her life, in the United States, Central and South America, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. When asked about the influences on her work Hoff stated “Almost anything except the work of other artists.” She cited the sources of her inspiration in “rocks, weeds, views from airplanes, rivers, subways, forests, machines, kinds of lights, red...

Lithograph on Japon à la main, attached with chine appliqué to vélin d’Arches paper. Paper Size: 21.5 x 17.875 inches. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Notes: From th...

Alistair Grant was a printmaker, painter and illustrator. He was born in Kensington, London. His mother was from Etaples in Northern France: Grant retained the family home here and t...

Artist: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Title: Guitare et Partition Year: 1982 Medium: Lithograph on Arches paper Size: 30 x 19 inches Edition: 1000, plus proofs Condition: Good Inscriptio...

Dynamic French abstract etching in black and grey by artist Julia Lan, circa 1980. Signed lower right. Original artwork on paper displayed on a white mat with a gold border. Mat f...

Gregory Amenoff (Contemporary American abstract painter, b. 1948), Title: Haven, STATE II Lithograph, 1986 Edition 4/4 Printer Proof Image Size 21.5 x 30.75" Gregory Amenoff is a painter who lives in New York City and Ulster County, New York. He is the recipient of numerous awards from organizations including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts and the Tiffany Foundation. He has had over fifty one-person exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. His work is in the permanent collections of more than thirty museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. His work has the influence of both Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art in it, biomorphic forms in rich hues and thick textures with heightened colors and abstracted, organic forms, late American Modernism. He moved to New York in 1979, the artist rose to critical acclaim in the 1980s alongside Terry Winters, Bill Jensen, and Katherine Porter. The artist lives and works between New York, NY and his Hudson Valley residence. Amenoff served as President of the National Academy of Design from 2001-2005. He is a founding board member of the CUE Art Foundation in New York City and serves as the CUE Art Foundation's Curator Governor. Amenoff has taught at Columbia for the last eighteen years, where he holds the Eve and Herman Gelman Chair of Visual Arts and is currently the Chair of the Visual Arts Division in the School of the Arts. He is currently the Vice-President of the National Academy. In 2011 he received the John Solomon Guggenheim Fellowship. Museum Collections Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Buffalo, NY Art Institute of Chicago; IL Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum of Art; Brooklyn, NY Butler Institute of American Art; Youngstown, OH Cleveland Museum of Art; Cleveland, OH Currier Gallery of Art; Manchester, NH Frances and Sidney Lewis Foundation; Richmond, VA Hood Museum of Art; Hanover, NH Honolulu Academy of Art; Honolulu, HW Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art; Kansas City, MO Maier Museum of Art; Lynchburg, VA Metropolitan Museum of Art; New York, NY Milwaukee Museum of Art; Milwaukee, WI Minneapolis Institute of Art; MN Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William and Mary; Williamsburg, VA Museum of Fine Arts; Boston, MA Museum of Modern Art; New York, NY National Museum of American Art; Washington, DC Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase; NY New York Public Library, Spencer Collection...

Lithograph on vélin d’Arches paper. Signed in the plate, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the folio, La mélodie acide, 14 lithographies originales de Joan Miró, 1980. Published...

Keith Haring New York City 1989: RARE original 1989 Keith Haring designed Sound Factory Halloween invite featuring a dazzling array of Keith Haring Skeletons: “Keith Haring & Sound Factory Invite You to A Special Halloween Costume...

Jim Dine Hearts (Hand Signed), 1983 Offset lithograph 28 × 22 inches Boldly signed in black marker on the front Unframed This vintage hand signed 1983 poster...

Sam FRANCIS Color Explosion (c. 1983) Original lithograph Unsigned as issued On heavy paper 89.5 x 54 cm (c. 36 x 21 inch) Original lithographic exhibition poster for the artist Ret...

This screen print was created to celebrate the Mostly Mozart Festival in 1982. A pattern of shapes in pale pinks, greens and silver tones creates an image resembling a tapestry. The total edition size is 144 plus 18 artist proofs. It is hand signed and numbered in pencil by the artist with the blindstamp of the printer, Fine Creations, Inc., New York. This print comes directly from Lincoln Center, the publisher of the edition. Joyce Kozloff was a founder of the 1970s Pattern...

XIV Winter Olympics games is a vintage poster realized by the artist Yozo Hamaguchi, in occasion of the XIV Winter Olympics games in Sarajevo, in 1984. Very good condition. Yozo Ha...

"Untitled" abstract screenprint (Encrevé/Miessner Kat. N° 113) by artist Pierre Soulages from the "Kinderstern" portfolio published by Edition Domberger to raise money to house famil...

Arnulf RAINER (1929) Eiffel Tower and Informal Composition, 1990 Original vintage lithographic poster (Edited by Maeght-Long) Printed signature in the plate On paper 77 x 56 cm (c. ...

Francesco Clemente (Italian b. 1952), 'This side up / Telemone #2, 1981 Medium: Intaglio hard ground etching, color aquatint, drypoint, and soft-ground etching with chine collé (ha...

Jean Marie Haessle, French-American (1939-) Serigraph silkscreen Hand signed in pencil and numbered Bermuda Triangle (Blue background) 1980 Jean Marie Haessle was born in 1939 in ...

James Rosenquist Castelli Gallery poster (hand signed and inscribed by the artist to the art dealer Richard Feigen), 1980 Offset lithograph poster Signed, dated and inscribed by Jame...

Artist: Victor Vasarely (1908-1997) Title: BI-RHOMBS Year: 1977 Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper Edition: 91/250, plus proofs Size: 43.5 x 26 inches Condition: Good Inscription: Si...

Fritz Scholder (United States, 1937-2005) 'Untitled 1', engraving on paper 30 x 22.1 in. (76 x 56 cm.) ID: SCH1341-007-000 Unframed

Richard Anuszkiewicz Soft Satellite Red, 1981 Silkscreen on wove paper Signed, dated and numbered 53 from the edition of 100 in pencil by the artist on the front. Bears label from Me...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with centerfold, as issued. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, Hommage à Aimé et Marguerite M...

John Chamberlain Hand Signed Letter re: Leo Castelli Exhibition, 1982 Typewriter on paper (hand signed) 6 1/2 × 8 1/2 inches Hand-signed by artist, Signed in purple felt tip marker Hand signed telegraph/letter refers to Chamberlain's exhibition at the legendary Leo Castell Gallery. A piece of history! John Chamberlain Biography John Chamberlain (1927 – 2011) was a quintessentially American artist, channeling the innovative power of the postwar years into a relentlessly inventive practice spanning six decades. He first achieved renown for sculptures made in the late 1950s through 1960s from automobile parts—these were path-breaking works that effectively transformed the gestural energy of Abstract Expressionist painting into three dimensions. Ranging in scale from miniature to monumental, Chamberlain’s compositions of twisted, crushed, and forged metal also bridged the divide between Process Art and Minimalism, drawing tenets of both into a new kinship. These singular works established him as one of the first American artists to determine color as a natural component of abstract sculpture. From the late 1960s until the end of his life, Chamberlain harnessed the expressive potential of an astonishing array of materials, which varied from Plexiglas, resin, and paint, to foam, aluminum foil, and paper bags. After spending three years in the United States Navy during World War II, Chamberlain enrolled in the Art Institute of Chicago and Black Mountain College, where he developed the critical underpinnings of his work. Chamberlain lived and worked in many parts of the United States, moving between New York City, Long Island, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Connecticut, and Sarasota, before finally settling on Shelter Island. In many ways, each location provoked a distinct material sensibility, often defined by the availability of that material or the limitations of physical space. In New York City, Chamberlain pulled scrap metal and twelve-inch acoustic tiles from the ceiling of his studio apartment. He chose urethane in Los Angeles in 1965 (a material he had been considering for many years), and film in Mexico in 1968. He eventually returned to metal in 1972, and, in Sarasota, he expanded the scale of his works to make his iconic Gondolas (1981 – 1982). The movement of the artist and the subsequent evolution of the work is indicative not only of a kind of American restlessness but also of Chamberlain’s own personal evolution: he sometimes described his use of automobile materials as sculptural self-portraits, infused with balance and rhythm characteristic of the artist himself. Chamberlain refused to separate color from his practice, saying, ‘I never thought of sculpture without color. Do you see anything around that has no color? Do you live in a world with no color?’. He both honored and assigned value to color in his practice—in his early sculptures color was not added, but composed from the preexisting palette of his chosen automobile parts. Chamberlain later began adding color to metal in 1974, dripping and spraying—and sometimes sandblasting—paint and lacquer onto his metal components prior to their integration. With his polyurethane foam works, color was a variable of light: ultraviolet rays or sunlight turned the material from white to amber. It was this profound visual effect that brought the artist’s personal Abstract Expressionist hand into industrial three-dimensional sculpture. Chamberlain moved seamlessly through scale and volume, creating material explorations in monumental, heavy-gauge painted aluminum foil in the 1970s, and later in the 1980s and 1990s, miniatures in colorful aluminum foil and chromium painted steel. Central to Chamberlain’s works is the notion that sculpture denotes a great deal of weight and physicality, disrupting whatever space it occupies. In the Barges series (1971 – 1983) he made immense foam couches, inviting spectators to lounge upon the cushioned landscape. At the end of his career, Chamberlain shifted his practice outdoors, and through a series of determined experiments, finally created brilliant, candy-colored sculptures in twisted aluminum foil. In 2012, four of these sculptures were shown outside the Seagram Building in New York, accompanied by playful titles such as ‘PINEAPPLESURPRISE’ (2010) and ‘MERMAIDSMISCHIEF’ (2009). These final works exemplify Chamberlain’s lifelong dedication to change—of his materials, of his practice, and, consequently, of American Art. Chamberlain has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including two major Retrospectives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York NY in 2012 and 1971; ‘John Chamberlain, Squeezed and Tied. Foam and Paper Sculptures 1969-70,’ Dan Flavin Art Institute, Dia Center for the Arts, Bridgehampton NY (2007); ‘John Chamberlain. Foam Sculptures 1966–1981, Photographs 1989–2004,’ Chinati Foundation, Marfa TX (2005); ‘John Chamberlain. Current Work and Fond Memories, Sculptures and Photographs 1967–1995,’ Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (Traveling Exhibition) (1996); and ‘John Chamberlain. Sculpture, 1954–1985,’ Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA (1986). Chamberlain’s sculptures are part of permanent exhibitions at the Chinati Foundation in Marfa TX and at Dia:Beacon in upstate New York. In 1964, Chamberlain represented the United States in the American Pavilion at the 32nd International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale. He received many awards during his life, including a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, from the College for Creative Studies, Detroit (2010); the Distinction in Sculpture Honor from the Sculpture Center, New York (1999); the Gold Medal from The National Arts Club Award, New York (1997); the Lifetime Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture by the International Sculpture Center, Washington D.C. (1993); and the Skowhegan Medal for Sculpture, New York NY (1993). -Courtesy Hauser & Wirth Leo Castelli Leo Castelli was born in 1907 in Trieste, a city on the Adriatic sea, which, at the time, was the main port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Leo’s father, Ernest Kraus, was the regional director for Austria-Hungary’s largest bank, the Kreditandstalt; his mother, Bianca Castelli, was the daughter of a Triesten coffee merchant. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the Kraus family relocated to Vienna where Leo continued his education. A particularly memorable moment for Leo during this period of his life was the funeral of Emperor Francis Joseph which he witnessed in November of 1916. Leo and his family returned to Trieste when the war ended in 1918. With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Trieste embraced its new Italian identity. Motivated by this shift Ernest decided to adopt his wife's more Italian-sounding maiden name, Castelli, which his children also assumed. In many ways the Castelli’s return Trieste after the war marked an optimistic new beginning for the family. Ernest was made director of the Banca Commerciale Italiana, which had replaced the Kreditandstalt as the top bank in Trieste. This elevated position allowed Ernest and Bianca to cultivate a cosmopolitan life-style. Together they hosted frequent parties which brought them in contact with a spectrum of political, financial, and cultural luminaries. Growing up in such an environment fostered in Leo and his two siblings, Silvia and Giorgio, a strong appreciation of high culture. During this time Leo developed a passion for Modern literature and perfected his fluency in German, French, Italian, and English. After earning his law degree at the University of Milan in 1932, Leo began his adult life as an insurance agent in Bucharest. Although Leo found the job unfulfilling and tedious, the people he met in Bucharest made up for this deficiency. Among the most significant of Leo’s acquaintances during this time was the eminent businessman, Mihail Shapira. Leo eventually became friendly with the rest of the Shapira family and in 1933 he married Mihail's youngest daughter, Ileana. In 1934 Leo and Ileana moved to Paris where, thanks to his step-father’s influence, Leo was able to get a job in the Paris branch of the Banca d'Italia. In the same year, Leo met the interior designer René Drouin, who became his close friend. In the spring of 1938, while walking through the Place Vendôme, Leo and René came across a storefront for rent between the Ritz hotel and a Schiaparelli boutique. The space immediately impressed them as an ideal location for an art gallery, a plan which became reality the following spring in 1939. The Drouin Gallery opened with an exhibition featuring painting and furniture by Surrealist artists including Léonor Fini, Augene Berman, Meret Oppenheim, Max Ernst, and Salvador Dali. Despite the success of this initial exhibition, the gallery proved short-lived. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939 marking the start of World War II and consequently the temporary end of the Drouin gallery. René was called to serve in the French army, while Leo, Ileana, and their three-year-old daughter Nina moved to the relative safety of Cannes, where Ileana’s family owned a summer house. As the war escalated, it became evident that Europe was no longer safe for the Castelli family—Leo and Ileana were both Jewish. In March of 1941, Leo, Ileana and Nina fled to New York bringing with them Nina’s nurse Frances and their dog, Noodle. After a year of moving around the city, the family took up permanent residence at 4 East 77 Street in a townhouse Mihail had bought. Nine months after his arrival in New York, in December of 1943, Leo volunteered for the US army, expediting his naturalization as a US citizen. Owing to his facility with languages, Leo was assigned to serve in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corp, a position which he held for two years, until February 1946. While on military leave in 1945 Leo visited Paris and stopped by Place Vendôme gallery where René had once more set up business selling work by European avant-garde artists such as Jean Dubuffet and Jean Fautrier. The meeting not only rekindled René and Leo’s friendship but also the latter’s interest in art dealing, a pursuit which Leo began to view as more than a mere hobby but as a potential career. After reconnecting, the two friends decided to go back into partnership with Leo acting as the New York representative for the Drouin Gallery. Working in this capacity, Leo began to form relationships with some of the New York art world’s most influential figures, including Peggy Guggenhiem, Sydney Janis, Willem De Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. By the late 40s Leo’s ties with René Drouin had begun to slacken, while his alliance with the dealer Sydney Janis became closer. Janis opened his New York gallery in 1948 and in 1950 invited Leo to curate an exhibition of contemporary French and American artists. The show drew a significant connection between the venerable tradition of European Modernism and the emerging artists of the New York School. Not long after this, in 1951, Leo was asked by these same New York School artists to organize the groundbreaking Ninth Street Show. This exhibition was instrumental in establishing Abstract Expressionism as the preeminent art movement of the post-war era. Leo founded his own gallery in 1957, transforming the living room on the fourth floor of the 77th Street townhouse into an exhibition space. Perhaps the most critical moment of Leo’s career occurred later that year, when he first visited the studios of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. In 1958 Leo gave Johns and Rauschenberg solo shows, in January and March respectively. For Johns, this was the first solo show of his career. These exhibitions received wide critical acclaim, solidifying Leo’s reputation not only as a dealer but as the arbiter of a new and important art movement. Over the course of the 1960s Leo played a formative role in launching the careers of many of the most significant artists of the twentieth century including Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenberg, Cy Twombly, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Richard Serra, Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner. Through his support of these artists Leo likewise helped cultivate and define the movements of Pop, Minimalism, Conceptual Art, and Post-Minimalism. As business expanded over the course of the 60s and artistic trends shifted in favor of larger artworks, Leo realized that his townhouse gallery was not sufficient to meet these new demands. Indicative of the trend toward maximal art...

Victor VASARELY 1906 - 1997 EREBUS - 1982 Verre et bois Signature gravée sur le verre et numérotation sous la base "/2000" Edition Rosenthal studio-linie, Allemagne Dans sa boîte...

Antoni Tapies (Spain, 1923-2012) 'Oval i blanc', 1982 etching, aquatint, carborundum on paper Guarro Biblos 250g. 22.1 x 30 in. (56 x 76 cm.) Edition of 99 Unframed ID: TAP1162-018 H...

Artist: Gene Davis (1920-1985) Title: Royal Curtain Year: 1980 Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper Edition: 41/250, plus proofs Size: 30 x 21.5 inches Condition: Good Inscription: Sig...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, XXe Siècle, Hommage à Yaacov Agam, 1980. Published and printed under the direct...

Keith Haring (1958-1990, American) Silence Equals Death (Littmann 152) 1989 Screenprint 39 x 39 in. Edition of 200 Pencil signed and numbered Keith Haring's Silence Equals Death, cr...

Amsterdam VIII is an intriguing early career aquatint dry-needle etch print by renowned French-Dutch artist Olivier Julia. It depicts a detail of an old Amsterdam house facade is bot...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with centerfold, as issued. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, Hommage à Aimé et Marguerite M...

Sam Francis, American (1923 - 1994) - Heland Thorden Wetterling Galleries, Year: circa 1985, Medium: Poster, Size: 39.5 x 27.75 in. (100.33 x 70.49 cm)

Artist: Stephen T. Vassiliades Title: Chroma Cantata No. 8 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 300 Paper Size: 27 in. x 40 in. (68.58 cm x 101.6 cm)

Artist: Victor Vasarely (1908-1997) Title: TR-UR Year: 1980 Medium: Silkscreen on Arches paper Edition: 116/250, plus proofs Size: 39.25 x 30.75 inches Condition: Good Inscription: S...

Sean Scully Hand Signed print Geometric Abstraction Minimalist, 1989 Offset lithograph poster Boldly signed in black marker on the front by Sean Scully 29 3/4 x 20 inches Unframed Th...

extract from the catalogue raisonné: CR 309 Signature:Signed “Motherwell” in pencil lower right Inscriptions:Numbered in pencil lower right; workshop chop mark lower right; workshop...

"Insignia" #1 Hand Made Paper Aquatint Abstract Tactile Abstract on handmade paper by David Dodsworth (English, b-1952) David’s work is typified by his...

Artist: Larry Rivers (1923-2002) Title: Camel Year: 1980 Medium: Color lithograph on wove paper Edition: 75, plus proofs Size: 11.13 x 8.64 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Signed & inscribed A.P. in pencil, lower margin Notes: Larry Rivers is considered by many to be the father of the Pop Art movement. In Rivers's 1980 work "Camel," we see a slightly out of focus Camel Cigarette pack, an item from consumer culture Rivers has appropriated to create a critique of commoditization and consumer culture. Rivers would have certainly been aware of the work of Stuart Davis and his 1921 painting...

Lithograph on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition, with centerfold, as issued. Notes: From Derrière le miroir, Hommage à Aimé et Marguerite M...

Artist: Gary L. Shaffer (American, 1936-2001) Title: In Between The Houses III Year: 1983 Medium: Collagraph on heavy paper Image size: 26 inches diameter Sheet size: 34 x 27.5 inch...

"Legato 2" - Chartreuse Abstract Geometric Screen Print Geometric abstract screen print with chartreuse color field by Michael Hale (B...

An abstract, black and white lithograph contained in an interesting shape enclosed by clean negative space. Signed L. Siekman, titled Jupiter Four and numbered 9/10. It is part of a ...

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U....

A large scale abstract interior scene with bold black, white, red, pink, green, white and orange patterns and brushstrokes, based on an abstract oil painting. Pink and purple dots, y...

Martha Diamond (1944-2023) was a Contemporary American painter best known for cityscape abstractions in sweeping, gestural brush strokes. Skyscrapers is...

A colorful OP Art silkscreen by Poland-born American OP Artist, Julian Stanczak. Artist: Julian Stanczak, American (1928 - 2017) Title: Yellow Filtration Year: 1981 Medium: Screen...

Wifredo Lam Wifredo Lam Pastels: vintage Galerie Lelong poster, 1988 Offset lithograph Plate signed on the front 26 1/2 × 19 1/2 inches Unframed, unnumbered Offset lithograph poster...

The title of this poetic, abstract work is written across the top of the sheet. The hand-written cursive below reads: "David Shapiro / Told me he was going to / Carve his poems in stone / "That's one way to make them lost" / I don't have to / Rene Ricard". A poet, art historian and art critic, David Shapiro was friends with Ricard, and a part of the 1980's art scene in New York. Shapiro became famous briefly during the 1968 anti-Vietnam student uprising at Columbia University, when a photograph of him smoking a cigar behind the desk of the Columbia University president was published in Life magazine, and he became the face of the student protest...

Artist: Louisa Chase, American (1951 - 2016) Title: Hands (Black and White) Year: 1984 Medium: Etching, Signed and Numbered in Pencil Edition: 25 Paper Size: 12 x 12 Inches (30.48 x ...