Robert Vale Faro

'Cheerleader' — Mid-century American Surrealism

1945

Robert Vale Faro, 'Bullfight', wood engraving, 1945, edition 15. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '105' (the artist's inventory number) and '13/15' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked...

Lawrence Kupferman, 'European Landscape', drypoint, edition 50, 1942. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '7/50' in pencil. A superb, finely nuanced impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 to 1 3/4 inches); in excellent condition. Image size 10 7/8 x 13 3/8 inches; sheet size 13 1/8 x 16 1/2 inches. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. An impression of this work is included in the permanent collection of the Syracuse University Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lawrence Kupferman (1909 - 1982) was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and grew up in a working-class family. He attended the Boston Latin School and participated in the high school art program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In the late 1920s, he studied drawing under Philip Leslie Hale at the Museum School—an experience he called 'stultifying and repressive'. In 1932 he transferred to the Massachusetts College of Art, where he first met his wife, the artist Ruth Cobb. He returned briefly to the Museum School in 1946 to study with the influential expressionist German-American painter Karl Zerbe. Kupferman held various jobs while pursuing his artistic career, including two years as a security guard at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During the 1930s he worked as a drypoint etcher for the Federal Art Project, creating architectural drawings in a formally realistic style—these works are held in the collections of the Fogg Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the 1940s he began incorporating more expressionistic forms into his paintings as he became progressively more concerned with abstraction. In 1946 he began spending summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he met and was influenced by Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and other abstract painters. At about the same time he began exhibiting his work at the Boris Mirski Gallery in Boston. In 1948, Kupferman was at the center of a controversy involving hundreds of Boston-area artists. In February of that year, the Boston Institute of Modern Art issued a manifesto titled 'Modern Art and the American Public' decrying 'the excesses of modern art,' and announced that it was changing its name to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). The poorly conceived statement, intended to distinguish Boston's art scene from that of New York, was widely perceived as an attack on modernism. In protest, Boston artists such as Karl Zerbe, Jack Levine, and David Aronson formed the 'Modern Artists Group' and organized a mass meeting. On March 21, 300 artists, students, and other supporters met at the Old South Meeting House and demanded that the ICA retract its statement. Kupferman chaired the meeting and read this statement to the press: “The recent manifesto of the Institute is a fatuous declaration which misinforms and misleads the public concerning the integrity and intention of the modern artist. By arrogating to itself the privilege of telling the artists what art should be, the Institute runs counter to the original purposes of this organization whose function was to encourage and to assimilate contemporary innovation.” The other speakers were Karl Knaths...

Edward Landon, 'Evening', color serigraph, 1958, edition 25, Ryan 71. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Ed. 25' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on cream wove paper; the...

Robert Vale Faro, 'Bird Dog', color lithograph with relief collagraph, 1946, edition 14. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '123' (the artist's inventory number) and '12/14' in pen. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, cream, wove paper; the full sheet with margins(1 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 10 1/8 x 6 7/8 inches (257 x 174 mm); sheet size 17 x 11 7/16 inches (432 x 291 mm). A collagraph is a relief print made from a collage of various materials adhered to a metal, plastic, hardboard, or other type of ground plate. In this work, the artist appears to have combined a lithograph with a collagraph to achieve the intricately textured image. ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Vale Faro (1902-1988) was a well-known modernist architect and artist associated with the Chicago Bauhaus. He received his degree in architecture and design from the Armour Institute in Chicago and worked at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from 1924-27, where he was influenced by Harry Kurt Bieg and Le Corbusier. Upon his return to Chicago, Faro worked with the important modernist Chicago architects George and William Keck under Louis Sullivan. Faro founded the avant-garde printmaking group Vanguard in 1945. The group counted Atelier 17 artists Stanley William Hayter, Sue Fuller, and Anne Ryan as New York members and Francine Felsenthal of Chicago. The Brooklyn Museum mounted a show of Vanguard artists' work in 1946, which subsequently toured several other institutions in the United States. Faro's visionary graphics from the 1940s are a sophisticated blend of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Indian Space...

Edward Landon 'Salient in February', color serigraph, 1945, edition 40, Ryan 166. Signed in pencil. Titled, dated, and annotated 'ED. 40' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh col...

Robert Vale Faro, 'Kindergarten', color lithograph, 1945, edition 12. Signed, dated, titled, and numbered '99' and '5/12' in pen. A fine, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, coated off-white wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1/2 to 1 1/2 inch), in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 13 1/2 x 7 9/16 inches (343 x 192 mm); sheet size 17 x 12 1/4 inches (432 x 311 mm). ABOUT THE ARTIST Robert Vale Faro (1902-1988) was a well-known modernist architect and artist associated with the Chicago Bauhaus. He received his degree in architecture and design from the Armour Institute in Chicago and worked at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, from 1924-27, where he was influenced by Harry Kurt Bieg and Le Corbusier. Upon his return to Chicago, Faro worked with the important modernist Chicago architects George and William Keck under Louis Sullivan. Faro founded the avant-garde printmaking group Vanguard in 1945. The group counted Atelier 17 artists Stanley William Hayter, Sue Fuller, and Anne Ryan as New York members and Francine Felsenthal of Chicago. The Brooklyn Museum mounted a show of Vanguard artists' work in 1946, which subsequently toured several other institutions in the United States. Faro's visionary graphics from the 1940s are a sophisticated blend of Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism, and Indian Space...

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