Gold Leaf Animal Prints

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

Emidio di Nola, original Italian pasta poster. Size 19" x 25.5". Professional acid-free archival linen-backed; in excellent condition; ready to frame....

Hand signed, titled, dated, and numbered in pencil by the artist. Edition of 100. Frame size: 40 x 32.75 inches. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of authenticity inc...

Covey of Grouse I is a celebration of game birds in flight. A moment after taking off the birds have scattered in an explosion of aerial speed and agility. The etching reveal the d...

Salvador Dali - Cherries - Original Hand-Signed Lithograph Dimensions: P. 57 x 37 cm Sheet: 75 x 56 cm Handsigned Edition: EC.d (collaborator edition "d") Excellent Condition Refer...

This print is a series of 60, and it has a silver leaf on the moons. This edition is special in its color since the artist doesn't usually work with a green palette but this piece wa...

Alice In Wonderland:Hookah Smoking Caterpillar is an original hand made etching by the American abstract painter Knox Martin. Printed in black ink on archival printmaking paper, 100% acid free. Erotic fantastical interpretation of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, where Alice first meets the Catepillar while he is sitting on a mushroom smoking a hookah. He helps her by advising her to eat from the mushroom if she wants to change her size. Print size- 18" x 15", Image size - 8.25" x 6.75" Edition size - 50 About the artist- Knox Martin (1923-2022) was an esteemed New York School painter. Knox Martin was born in 1923 in Barranquilla, Colombia. He was the son of the aviator, painter, and poet William Knox Martin, the first man to fly over the Andes mountains. After serving in World War II, Knox Martin attended the Art Students League of New York on the G.I. Bill from 1946-1950, where he studied with Harry Sternberg, Vaclav Vytlacil, Will Barnet, and Morris Kantor. In 1954, Knox Martin's friend Franz Kline placed a painting of his in the Stable Gallery Annual. Charles Egan of the renowned Charles Egan Gallery saw Knox Martin's painting at the Stable Gallery and asked Martin to show his work in a one-man show for the tenth anniversary of the Egan Gallery. Since then, Knox Martin was a celebrated painter, sculptor and muralist. Knox Martin had an extensive exhibition record and his work is in museum, corporate and private collections worldwide. His two best-known murals in NYC are Venus and Woman with Bicycle...

Vintage 1984 Kenny Scharf Exhibition Poster: Original Kenny Scharf illustrated exhibition poster published by Tony Shafrazi Gallery in conjunction with the Fun Gallery, New York, NY 1984. Fun, cool, vibrant original 1980s pop art without breaking the bank. Medium: Offset Lithograph, 1984. Dimensions: 23 x 24.75 inches (folded open). Condition: Fold-lines as issued; good overall vintage condition. Muralist, painter, sculptor, and installation artist Kenny Scharf (American, b. 1958) is best known for his fantastical, large-scale paintings of anthropomorphic animals...

Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi 1982: set of 6 printed works: A set of six, individual, double-sided lithographic inserts from the seminal, spiral bound 1982 Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi ca...

"The Scar by China Miéville is a novel which has been a part of my life for many years, and has travelled as my companion through since adolescence. I've attempted to depict the Avan...

Monkey is an original artwork realized by Alberto Mastroianni in 1970 ca. Lithograph. Hand Signed. Edition of 150 pieces.

Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi 1982: set of 6 printed works: A set of six, individual, double-sided lithographic inserts from the seminal, spiral bound 1982 Keith Haring Tony Shafrazi ca...