Will Peterson

Delicate Abstract Lithograph in Pale Blues and Greys

1962

Delicate Abstract Lithograph with Blue and Orange by American Beat artist Will Peterson (1928-1994.) This lithograph blends the linework and movement of abstract impressionism with a color field-esque composition. The vibrant orange rectangle in the center of the piece is bracketed by a contrasting cobalt border. The edges of these shapes are softened by delicate linework and areas of hazy lighter blues and whites. Overall, this creates an atmospheric and striking piece. Lithograph is printed on wove paper which is fixed to a larger piece of handmade paper containing the artists signature and a small embossing found on his other pieces from this time period. This paper is displayed on top of a linen covered board with sturdy wood edges and a plexiglass over over the entire piece. Will Peterson was born in Chicago in 1928 to German immigrant parents. He contracted Polio when he was in High School and thus spent much of his early years ill. During this time he started working as a cartoonist for his high school’s paper. He started his official art studies at Wilber Wright College in Chicago and later earned a BA and a MA at Michigan State University. Here he studied print making and lithography under John S. deMartelly. He began enjoying artistic success while still in graduate school, exhibiting at the Detroit Art Institute, the Terry Art Institute, the National Print Exhibition, and the Boston Printmakers. Peterson was drafted into the army in 1952 and thus spent time in Korea and Japan. His time as an educational specialist in Hokkaido was a formative experience for him and his interest in Japanese calligraphy and other arts influenced his later work. Upon returning to the United States, he moved to Oakland, California. He became involved with the beat movement and after founding the Bay Printmakers Society with fellow artist Mel Strawn...

"Insignia #2" Abstract Mixed Media on Handmade Paper Tactile Abstract on handmade paper by David Dodsworth (English, b. 1952) - David’s work is typifi...

Shore Sentry, is an original color, limited edition lithograph on handmade German black etching paper; printed by Topaz Editions in 1977. Artist proofs 10. Edition size 100. Provenance:: A Sarasota, Florida collector Signed: Artist signed lower left with edition size Image size: 22 by 30 inches Sheet size: 30 by 38 inches Edition 38/100 Condition: Excellent Overall framed size: 30.25 by 38.25 inches Framed under plexiglass in chrome colored metal gallery frame SYD SOLOMON BIOGRAPHY Written by Dr. Lisa Peters/Berry Campbell Gallery “Here, in simple English, is what Syd Solomon does: He meditates. He connects his hand and paintbrush to the deeper, quieter, more mysterious parts of his mind- and he paints pictures of what he sees and feels down there.” --Kurt Vonnegut Jr. from Palm Sunday, 1981 Syd Solomon was born near Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1917. He began painting in high school in Wilkes-Barre, where he was also a star football player. After high school, he worked in advertising and took classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. Before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he joined the war effort and was assigned to the First Camouflage Battalion, the 924th Engineer Aviation Regiment of the US Army. He used his artistic skills to create camouflage instruction manuals utilized throughout the Army. He married Ann Francine Cohen in late 1941. Soon thereafter, in early 1942, the couple moved to Fort Ord in California where he was sent to camouflage the coast to protect it from possible aerial bombings. Sent overseas in 1943, Solomon did aerial reconnaissance over Holland. Solomon was sent to Normandy early in the invasion where his camouflage designs provided protective concealment for the transport of supplies for men who had broken through the enemy line. Solomon was considered one of the best camoufleurs in the Army, receiving among other commendations, five bronze stars. Solomon often remarked that his camouflage experience during World War II influenced his ideas about abstract art. At the end of the War, he attended the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Because Solomon suffered frostbite during the Battle of the Bulge, he could not live in cold climates, so he and Annie chose to settle in Sarasota, Florida, after the War. Sarasota was home to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, and soon Solomon became friends with Arthur Everett “Chick” Austin, Jr., the museum’s first Director. In the late 1940s, Solomon experimented with new synthetic media, the precursors to acrylic paints provided to him by chemist Guy Pascal, who was developing them. Victor D’Amico, the first Director of Education for the Museum of Modern Art, recognized Solomon as the first artist to use acrylic paint. His early experimentation with this medium as well as other media put him at the forefront of technical innovations in his generation. He was also one of the first artists to use aerosol sprays and combined them with resists, an innovation influenced by his camouflage experience. Solomon’s work began to be acknowledged nationally in 1952. He was included in American Watercolors, Drawings and Prints at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. From 1952–1962, Solomon’s work was discovered by the cognoscenti of the art world, including the Museum of Modern Art Curators, Dorothy C. Miller and Peter Selz, and the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Director, John I. H. Baur. He had his first solo show in New York at the Associated American Artists Gallery in 1955 with “Chick” Austin, Jr. writing the essay for the exhibition. In the summer of 1955, the Solomons visited East Hampton, New York, for the first time at the invitation of fellow artist David Budd. There, Solomon met and befriended many of the artists of the New York School, including Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, James Brooks, Alfonso Ossorio, and Conrad Marca-Relli. By 1959, and for the next thirty-five years, the Solomons split the year between Sarasota (in the winter and spring) and the Hamptons (in the summer and fall). In 1959, Solomon began showing regularly in New York City at the Saidenberg Gallery with collector Joseph Hirshhorn buying three paintings from Solomon’s first show. At the same time, his works entered the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut, among others. Solomon also began showing at Signa Gallery in East Hampton and at the James David Gallery in Miami run by the renowned art dealer, Dorothy Blau. In 1961, the Guggenheim Museum’s H. H. Arnason bestowed to him the Silvermine Award at the 13th New England Annual. Additionally, Thomas Hess of ARTnews magazine chose Solomon as one of the ten outstanding painters of the year. At the suggestion of Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the Museum of Modern Art’s Director, the John and Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota began its contemporary collection by purchasing Solomon’s painting, Silent World, 1961. Solomon became influential in the Hamptons and in Florida during the 1960s. In late 1964, he created the Institute of Fine Art at the New College in Sarasota. He is credited with bringing many nationally known artists to Florida to teach, including Larry Rivers, Philip Guston, James Brooks, and Conrad Marca-Relli. Later Jimmy Ernst, John Chamberlain, James Rosenquist, and Robert Rauschenberg settled near Solomon in Florida. In East Hampton, the Solomon home was the epicenter of artists and writers who spent time in the Hamptons, including Alfred Leslie, Jim Dine, Ibram Lassaw, Saul Bellow...

Artist: Robert Motherwell, American (1915 - 1991) Title: No. 2 from Three Poems, collaboration with Octavio Paz Year: 1987 Medium: Lithograph on Japon with Chine Colle Edition: 750 ...