Russel Twiggs

Serenade

c. 1945

Robert Vale Faro, untitled (African Idol), serigraph, c. 1940, edition 6. Signed in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on buff wove paper; the full sheet with margins(5/8 to 1 3/8 inches), in excellent condition. Very rare. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 8 3/4 x 6 inches (222 x 152 mm); sheet size 11 x 7 1/2 inches (279 x 192 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...

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

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

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

"Indianapolis Museum of Art Inaugural Exhibitions", 25 October 1970, is an eye popping large bold colorful geometric abstract silk screen. It is signed on the lower right. Robert Indiana, one of the preeminent figures in American art since the 1960s, played a central role in the development of assemblage art, hard-edge painting, Pop art, Neo-Dada, American Modernism and Modern Art. A self-proclaimed “American painter of signs,” Indiana created a highly original body of work that explores American identity, personal history, and the power of abstraction and language, establishing an important legacy that resonates in the work of many contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Roy Lectenstein, David Hockney, Romero Britto, Richard Hamilton and Robert Rauschenberg who make the written word a central element of their oeuvre. Robert Indiana was born Robert Clark in New Castle, Indiana on September 13, 1928. Adopted as an infant, he spent his childhood moving frequently throughout his namesake state. At 14 he moved to Indianapolis in order to attend Arsenal Technical High School, known for its strong arts curriculum. After graduating he spent three years in the U.S. Air Force and then studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting in Maine, and the Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. In 1956, two years after moving to New York, Indiana met Ellsworth Kelly, and upon his recommendation took up residence in Coenties Slip, where a community of artists that would come to include Kelly, Agnes Martin, James Rosenquist, and Jack Youngerman had studios. Indiana, like some of his fellow artists, scavenged the area’s abandoned warehouses for materials, creating sculptural assemblages from old wooden beams, rusted metal wheels, and other remnants of the shipping trade that had thrived in Coenties Slip. The discovery of 19th century brass stencils led to the incorporation of brightly colored numbers and short emotionally charged words onto these sculptures as well as canvases, and became the basis of his new painterly vocabulary. Although acknowledged as a leader of Pop, Indiana distinguished himself from his Pop peers by addressing important social and political issues and incorporating profound historical and literary references into his works. In 1964 Indiana accepted Philip Johnson’s invitation to design a new work for the New York State Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair, creating a 20-foot EAT sign...

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...

Anthony Velonis (1911-1997) was an extremely innovative artist. He learned the technique of screen printing, also known as silkscreen, (for which he also coined the term serigraphy) while working with a wall paper manufacturer. Unusual for fine prints, the image is made by the artist in the same direction as it will print, as the colored inks are forced through fabric (silk) directly onto a paper surface. (He also invented a machine that could print onto column-shaped items such as cocktail glasses or make-up bottles and a rack system for drying sheets of paper with wet ink in which the sheets are just inches apart.) The technique allows extreme versatility on the part of the artist and the ink tends to sit on top of the paper rather than soak into the fibers. In 1934 Velonis used this new technique on Mayor LaGuardia's NYC Poster...

"Equal Justice Under Law" Screenprint #99/125 on Wove Paper Iconic composition by Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008). A red envelope and a hand holding sprouted grass the pli...