Todd Smith

Square Variables XII

1972

Vintage French Travel Poster, Air france Roger Bezombes (1913-1994) French Bezombes was a painter, sculptor, medalist, and designer. He studied in Paris, at the École des Beaux-Arts, and was much influenced by his friendship with Maurice Denis. Heavily influenced by surrealism, He worked principally as a painter, adopting the saturated Fauvist colors of Henri Matisse in landscapes and figure studies often based on observation of “exotic” cultures, notably Mediterranean and North African. Constrained, because a very young orphan, to all kinds of professions which provide him with the material means to devote himself to painting - he participated in 1930 in the installation of the exhibition of the Bauhaus at the Grand Palais-, Roger Bezombes is student of the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. (Ecole des Beaux Artes) He was trained in the art of fresco by Paul Baudoüin, René Barotte nonetheless restores that the young man's preference goes to the practice of "truancy" which he uses to make copies at the Louvre Museum. It’s the time when Paul Gauguin’s paintings, Vincent Van Gogh and Henri Matisse are revealed to him by Maurice Denis with whom he will remain close until his accidental death, painting him on his funeral bed on November 14, 1943. He executed surrealist tapestry designs for Aubusson and Gobelin tapestries, posters (winning the Grand Prix de l'Affiche Francaise in 1984), costumes and sets for ballets at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, reliefs and murals. In 1965 he took up medal-making, expressing in his numerous metallic works for the Paris Mint that obsession with found objects which is also evident in his large-scale sculpture and in his posters. He designed posters for Air France and for the French national railways. Roger Bezombes went to Africa for the first time in 1936 thanks to a travel grant and received the same year the second grand prize of Rome . In 1937 he traveled around Morocco where he became friends with Albert Camus. The year 1938 offered him both his first solo exhibition at the Charpentier gallery in Paris with paintings and gouaches on the theme of Morocco and the attribution of the national grand prize for the arts, earning him a great journey which , from Dakar to Algiers , takes it through Chad , Tamanrasset and Hoggar. Roger Bezombes became a professor at the Julian Academy in 1950. For him, 1951 was the year of a trip to Greece and the year where he began his relationship with tapestry work. Roger Bezombes visited Israel in 1953, Tunisia and Egypt in 1954. He was appointed official painter of the Navy in 1955. Pierre Mazars analyzes that “after a period where we notice the influence of Van Gogh and GeorgesBraque, particularly in his landscapes of Provence, he came to a more schematic writing, the colored spots and the thicknesses of material taking more of importance as the subject. He even performed composite works, half-watercolors, half-pasted papers, in which he incorporated pieces of newspapers”. He was elected titular to the Academy of Overseas Sciences in 1978. "The range of Bezombes' talent forms is remarkable,” writes Lynne Thornton, “ranging from paintings, murals, travel posters, tapestry cartons, book illustrations, monumental ceramic decorations, ballet and theater sets, totem sculptures, sculpture objects, jewelry and medallions”. He was part of the mid century mod School of Paris that included Leon Zack, Bernard Lorjou, Paul Augustin Aizpiri, Gabriel Godard, Michel Henry, Hans Erni, Bengt Lindstrom, Alfred Manessier, Andre Hambourg, Raymond Legueult and Jean Rigaud. Select Solo Exhibitions: 1938: Galerie Charpentier, Paris 1950, '53, '55, '57: Galerie Andre Weil, Paris 1953:Wildenstein Gallery, London 1954: Institut Francais, Cologne 1956: Galerie Matarasso, Nice 1957: Horn Gallery, Luxembourg; Guilde de la Gravure, Paris 1958: Denys-Puech Museum, Rodez 1962: Musee de l'Athenee, Geneva; Chateau Grimaldi, Cagnes-sur-Mer 1966: Galerie des Ponchettes, Nice 1967: Galerie Martel, Montreal 1968: Romanet-Vercel Gallery, New York; Reattu Museum, Arles; Le Corbusier Center, Firminy 1969: Galerie Philippe...

1963 Mixed Media by Mateo Manaure (Venezuelan, 1926-2018) Frame: 12.25" X 15.25" Image: 11" X 13.75" Hand signed Thought provoking abstract, mixed media modern graphic art Not sure of the exact technique but it seems photo based. Mateo Manaure (11926 – 2018) was a Venezuelan modern artist. In Venezuela he is considered a master of modernist abstractionism, and is known for his works in the University City of Caracas and for creating the largest glass murals in the world. Mateo Manaure was born on 18 October 1926 in Uracoa, in Monagas state. Between 1941 and 1946 he studied at the Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Artes Aplicadas under the instruction of Antonio Edmundo Monsanto. Here, he studied graphic arts in the workshop of Pedro Ángel González, to whom he was an assistant. He also began participating in the artist salon of the Museo Bellas Artes in Caracas. In 1947 he won the inaugural National Prize for Plastic Arts and traveled to Paris. He made a trip back to Caracas the next year to work with the Taller Libre de Arte, before returning to Paris in 1950 and being involved with the artistic movement of Los disidentes. (The Dissidents), a coalition of Venezuelan artists (active from 1945-50) that also included -Jesús Rafael Soto, Narciso Debourg, Alejandro Otero, Pascual Navarro, Rubén Núñez, Nena Palacios, J.M. Guillermos Péres, Alirio Oramas, Luis Guevara Moreno, Aime Battistini, Armando Barrios, Omar Carreño (refer to lot 222), and Carlos Gonzáles Bogen. Through their journal of the same name and their accompanying radical manifesto No (1950), Los Disidentes championed a progressive vision, that eschewed the conservative academicism embodied by the Escuela de Artes Plásticas and the Escuela Paisajista in Caracas, and in its place advocated for experimentation and geometric abstraction. Upon his return to Caracas in 1952, Manaure set out in earnest to put these ideas into practice and found an immediate affinity with the modernist project unfolding so indicative of that era's unprecedented growth and development. The latter was most evident in the architectural and public art works designed by the legendary modernist architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, whose Cuidad Universitaria, the main campus of the Central University of Venezuela, is considered a landmark of city planning and architecture. Villanueva commissioned Manaure to execute several murals, painted wood reliefs, and stained glass windows for Ciudad Universitaria all reflective of the young artist's newly adapted aesthetic. By 1956, the year both of these works were painted, Manaure was a leading figure of the abstractionist movement, exhibiting abroad at the Venice Biennial and locally at the Museo de Bellas Artes. His geometric abstraction painting infuse his compositions with a kinetic power and lyrical sensibility. Manaure's desire to evoke a sense of the local or regional amid the universal. He returned to Caracas in 1952 to found the Galería Cuatro Muros with Carlos González Bogan, and gave the first exhibition of abstract art in Venezuela. He also began collaborating with architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva, first on the University City of Caracas, to which he contributed 26 works of art and was "promoted" to art supervisor of the campus, and then to other public spaces like the redesign of the neighborhood of 23 de Enero. For the next several years, Manaure continued to develop within abstract art, which made up the Venezuelan artistic avant-garde of that time. He later returned to more traditional graphic art forms, especially lithograph prints, though still did some work in abstract expression. He is a Venezuelan Latin American art Master along with Gego, Lia Bermudez, Alejandro Colina, Narciso Debourg, Alejandro Otero, Gerd Leufert, Armando Reverón, Braulio Salazar, Jesús Rafael Soto and Martín Tovar y Tovar. His work was included in the MoMA show Sur moderno, Journeys of Abstraction— Patricia Phelps de Cisneros. It included artists: Israeli, Yaacov Agam, Brazilian, Lina Bo Bardi, Hércules...