Modern Animal Prints

Artist: Pablo Picasso (after) Medium: lithograph, Arches paper Portfolio: Le Goût de Bonheur Year: 1970 Edition: Total of 1998 copies (666 each in G...

This is a unique original collage, decoupage style of Jiri Kolar, This is an exceptional artwork which was part of a collaboration between Hyman Bloom and fellow artist and his very ...

This lithograph in colors with raised chop mark was printed by Imprimerie Chaix in Les Maîtres de l'Affiche, 1899, on fine woven, heavy stock paper. Measures 15 ¾ x 11 3/8 (40 x 29 c...

The Pigeon is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.75x 8 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

Leonor Fini - Cats - Original Engraving Mme.Helvetius' Cats Original etching created in 1985, Printed Signature (LF). Conditions: excellent Edition: 100 Support: Arches paper. Dimensions: Paper dimensions: 44 x 28 cm Editions: Moret, Paris. Leonor Fini is considered one of the most important women artists of the mid-twentieth century, along with Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, and Dorothea Tanning – most of whom Fini knew well. Her career, which spanned some six decades, included painting, graphic design, book illustration, product design (the renowned torso-shaped perfume bottle for Schiaparelli’s Shocking), and set and costume design for theatre, ballet, opera, and film. In this compellingly readable, exhaustively researched account, author Peter Webb brings Fini’s provocative art and unconventional personal life, as well as the vibrant avant-garde world in which she revolved, vividly in life. Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 (August 30 – January 18, 1996, Paris) to Italian and Argentine parents, Leonor grew up in Trieste, Italy, raised by her strong-willed, independent mother, Malvina. She was a virtually self-taught artist, learing anatomy directly from studying cadavers in the local morgue and absorbing composition and technique from the Old Masters through books and visits to museums. Fini’s fledging attempts at painting in Trieste let her to Milan, where she participated in her first group exhibition in 1929, and then to Paris in 1931. Her vivacious personality and flamboyant attire instantly garnered her a spotlight in the Parisian art world and she soon developed close relationships with the leading surrealist writers and painters, including Paul Eluard, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Max Ernst, who became her lover for a time. The only surrealist she could not abide because of his misogyny was André Breton. Although she repeatedly exhibited with them, she never considered herself a surrealist. The American dealer Julien Levy, very much impressed by Fini’s painting and smitten by her eccentric charms, invited her to New York in 1936, where she took part in a joint gallery exhibition with Max Ernst and met many American surrealists, including Joseph Cornell and Pavel Tchelitchew. Her work was included in MoMA’s pivotal Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition, along with De Chirico, Dali, Ernst, and Yves Tanguy. In 1939 in Paris she curated an exhibition of surrealist furniture for her childhood friend Leo Castelli for the opening of his first gallery. Introductions to her exhibition catalogues were written by De Chirico, Ernst, and Jean Cocteau. A predominant theme of Fini’s art is the complex relationship between the sexes, primarily the interplay between the dominant female and the passive, androgynous male. In many of her most powerful works, the female takes the form of a sphinx, often with the face of the artist. Fini was also an accomplished portraitist; among her subjects were Stanislao Lepri...

Paul Jouve (after) - Antelope - Engraving 19 x 14 cm Editions Rombaldi, Paris, 1950. Copy on velin creme de Rives Copper engraving heightened with pochoir.

After Marc Chagall - Lithograph From the deluxe art review, Derrière le Mirroir, printed by Charles Sorlier 1964 Printed signature Dimensions: 38 x...

Leonor Fini - Cats - Original Engraving Mme.Helvetius' Cats Original etching created in 1985, Printed Signature (LF). Conditions: excellent Edition: 100 Support: Arches paper. Dimensions: Paper dimensions: 44 x 28 cm Editions: Moret, Paris. Leonor Fini is considered one of the most important women artists of the mid-twentieth century, along with Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, and Dorothea Tanning – most of whom Fini knew well. Her career, which spanned some six decades, included painting, graphic design, book illustration, product design (the renowned torso-shaped perfume bottle for Schiaparelli’s Shocking), and set and costume design for theatre, ballet, opera, and film. In this compellingly readable, exhaustively researched account, author Peter Webb brings Fini’s provocative art and unconventional personal life, as well as the vibrant avant-garde world in which she revolved, vividly in life. Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 (August 30 – January 18, 1996, Paris) to Italian and Argentine parents, Leonor grew up in Trieste, Italy, raised by her strong-willed, independent mother, Malvina. She was a virtually self-taught artist, learing anatomy directly from studying cadavers in the local morgue and absorbing composition and technique from the Old Masters through books and visits to museums. Fini’s fledging attempts at painting in Trieste let her to Milan, where she participated in her first group exhibition in 1929, and then to Paris in 1931. Her vivacious personality and flamboyant attire instantly garnered her a spotlight in the Parisian art world and she soon developed close relationships with the leading surrealist writers and painters, including Paul Eluard, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Max Ernst, who became her lover for a time. The only surrealist she could not abide because of his misogyny was André Breton. Although she repeatedly exhibited with them, she never considered herself a surrealist. The American dealer Julien Levy, very much impressed by Fini’s painting and smitten by her eccentric charms, invited her to New York in 1936, where she took part in a joint gallery exhibition with Max Ernst and met many American surrealists, including Joseph Cornell and Pavel Tchelitchew. Her work was included in MoMA’s pivotal Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition, along with De Chirico, Dali, Ernst, and Yves Tanguy. In 1939 in Paris she curated an exhibition of surrealist furniture...

The Spider is an aquatint and drypoint print on chine from one of the deluxe copies of Picasso's 1942 Histoire Naturelle - Textes de Buffon series. The image size is 10.5 x 8 inches, unsigned as issued, and framed in a contemporary silver and gray moulding. One of about 36 prints that exist with Picasso's remarqued title in French, from the edition of 262 (there were 226 portfolios, some with additional sets on varying papers). Catalogue - Cramer #37 The exceptional etchings from Picasso’s Histoire Naturelle – Textes de Buffon are a masterful combination of sugar-lift aquatint and drypoint, showcasing a full range of gray tonalities. The etchings of animals, birds and insects are considered some of the most beautiful and most unusual examples of Picasso’s graphic work. Roger Lacourière, Picasso’s master printer, pulled the prints for each etching between 1939-1942. It was Lacourière who taught Picasso the sugar-lift aquatint technique which allowed him to mimic the effect of brushstrokes in these etched images. Picasso first explored the technique in his plates for the Vollard Suite, but it was in the creation of the Buffon images that he fully realized its stunning, painterly potential. For the edition, 226 portfolios were produced with the first thirty-six counting as deluxe compilations. These rare deluxe sets were on diverse papers (chine, japon or vergé ancien) and each included a complete additional suite showing Picasso’s title remarques along the bottom. As such, the remarqued versions of the prints are quite rare with just thirty-six of each produced for the edition (with the exception of The Wolf which is never remarqued – the image always fills the entire etching plate). These prints are based on the writings of French naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon, who extensively documented the natural world in his monumental work Histoire Naturelle. Picasso’s association with the project to illustrate parts of the Buffon came during a tumultuous time in European history – the prelude to, and early years of, World War II. As the continent was ravaged, Picasso lived through the disaster in Paris, which the Germans occupied in 1940. These prints could be seen as a political statement – Picasso channeling his artistic expression into a form of resistance art...

Charles Lapicque Original Handsigned Lithograph Dimensions: 56 x 38 cm Edition: Epreuve d'Artiste Hand Signed Charles Lapicque was one of the great painters of the “Ecole de Paris...

Artist: Pablo Picasso (after) Medium: lithograph, Arches paper Portfolio: Le Goût de Bonheur Year: 1970 Edition: Total of 1998 copies (666 each in German, French and English) Sheet S...

Alfred Manessier - Lithograph 1962 From the art periodical XXe Siecle (no. 20) Dimensions: 32 x 24 Edition: G. di San Lazzaro. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Edition : 199 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Refe...

Artist: Pablo Picasso (after) Medium: lithograph, Arches paper Portfolio: Le Goût de Bonheur Year: 1970 Edition: Total of 1998 copies (666 each in German, French and English) Sheet S...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Edition : 199 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Refe...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Surrealist composition with a dog, figure, cockerel floating above the still life In a cream mount, visible sheet length 19.50cm, height 22.50cm Within a black and silvered moulded ...

Georges Braque - Original Lithograph 1963 Dimensions: 32 x 24 cm Andre Sauret, Monte Carlo The father of Cubism Three Cubist that distinguishes art historian periods were initiated and developed by Georges Braque: The Cubist Cézanne (1907-1909), Executive (1909-1912) and synthetic (1912-1922). Post-Impressionist and fawn, Braque no longer adheres to the contingency of a decorative way or the other. Cézanne’s paintings exhibited at the Grand Palais during the retrospective of 1907 are a revelation: Cézanne sought and invented a pictorial language. In his footsteps, Braque went to the South with the reasons of the Master. He returned with Estaque landscapes and surprising Ciotat it keeps Cezanne geometric model and retains the “passages” continuity from one surface to another to create the sensation of “turning around” of the object represented. But he wants to go after the consequences of the vision of Cezanne. In his paintings Houses in L’Estaque (1908) it simplifies the volumes of houses, neglects detail by removing doors and windows: the plastic rhythm that builds the table. Large Nude , a masterpiece of the period, can be considered the first work of Cézanne cubism . Systematizing and deepening Braque discoveries open the door analytical cubism. In 1909, his painting became more cerebral than sensual. The pattern is recreated in the two-dimensionality of the canvas, leaving aside any illusionistic perspective. In Still Life with Violin, objects are analyzed facets according to their characteristic elements, each facet referring to a particular view of the object. There are so many facets of points selected view: Table reflects the knowledge of the object and the ubiquity of the eye. Moreover, Braque is looking for the essence of the objects in the world rather than their contingency, which explains the absence of light source and use of muted colors (gray, ocher), contingent aspects of the object . But formal logic has stepped facets, erased any anecdote to the object and ultimately led to his painting a hermetic more marked on the edge of abstraction (see the series of Castle Roche-Guyon ). Braque, anxious to keep the concrete and refusing at all costs that the logic of Cubism takes the paintings to abstract, reintroduced signs of reality in his paintings in 1912 marks the beginning of Synthetic Cubism. Historians speak of “signs of real” rather than reality because what interests Braque, this is not to put reality into a table, but to create a painting which, by its language, refers to the real. To do this, he invented two major techniques XX th century inclusions and contributions. The inclusions consist of painting objects that have no real depth, materials (wallpaper in Nature morte aux playing cards faux wood is a pictorial inclusion) or letters (calligraphic inclusion in Portuguese ), made first brush and a few months later stencil. Contributions are defined in contrast with the collage on canvas of foreign materials: glued or sand paper, sawdust, etc.. Regarding the collages, Braque used for the first time in September 1912 a piece of adhesive paper imitating faux wood Compote and Glass , then the packet envelope of tobacco Bock in 1912-1913, or an advertisement in Damier , 1913). Inputs and inclusions refer to an external object in the table, without “emulate” this object. Away from their appearances, objects are represented in closest essence of the objects in the real world sense. This is also the time of Synthetic Cubism that Braque invented paper sculpture. There are, unfortunately, and no one is living proof of a photograph makes it possible to realize: Paper and paperboard. Métamorphoses period(1961-1963). In 1961, Georges Braque worked on a Greek head for the Louvre, which obsesses him, and he wishes to free his mind. He tried several times to bring out the paint and the result was unsatisfactory. He thinks the ultimate metamorphosis its Greek head projected in three dimensions. He calls in his studio of Baron Heger Loewenfeld, master lapidary, and he communicates his enthusiasm during the “fateful encounter.” Nine months later, in honor of the eighty years of Georges Braque, Heger Loewenfeld offers the Master of the ring Circe: the famous Greek head finally exorcised, carved in an onyx. Braque Loewenfeld then asked to identify other issues that haunt him. From dated and signed by Georges Braque, Heger gouaches Loewenfeld shapes works in the fields of jewelery, lapidary art...

Giuseppe Capogrossi - Original Lithograph Colorful Abstraction 1969 From the art revue XXe Siecle Dimensions: 19 x 12.25 inches Edition: G. di San ...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Striking first proof of Péri’s “Death of Faithful”, from his Pilgrim’s Progress etchings. Inscribed “first proof”. Artist: Peter László Péri Date: 1...

Includes a Certificate of Authenticity

Braque Oiseau dans son nid (Bird in its Nest) from Août (August), 1958 is an exquisite work that revisits Braque’s beloved bird motif. Beautifully inspir...

Marino Marini (1901-1980) La Sorpresa II, from Personaggi (Guastalla A169), 1973 Etching and aquatint in colors, on wove paper, signed in pencil and numbered IV/XXV (there was also...

Alfred Manessier - Original Lithograph Colorful Abstraction 1962 From XXe Siecle Dimensions: 32 x 24 Edition: G. di San Lazzaro. Unsigned and unumbered as issued

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Max Ernst (1891-1976) Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, La Ballade du Soldat, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972 Colour lithographs on Arches paper 1972 Dimensions: 40 x 30 cm Reference: Spies &...

Etching and aquatint in colour "Char noir (Char V)" (Black Chariot, Chariot V) by Georges Braque from 1958. The edition on BFK RIVES comprises approx. 75 copies. The present copy...

"Poissons volants bleus" (Blue flying fish) by Georges Braque from Guillaume Apollinaire's “Si je mourais là-bas” (If I die there). The portfolio was published on the occasion of Geo...

"Oiseau de nuit noir" (Bird of the black night) by Georges Braque from Guillaume Apollinaire's “Si je mourais là-bas” (If I die there). The portfolio was published on the occasion of...

Fascinated by an experience in the Camargue bird sanctuary in 1955, the bird became a symbol of freedom and harmony for Georges Braque. ‘I now only draw birds, after my still lifes h...

Fascinated by an experience in the Camargue bird sanctuary in 1955, the bird became a symbol of freedom and harmony for Georges Braque. ‘I now only draw birds, after my still lifes h...

This artwork titled "Jaguar Family" 1980 is an original color serigraph on paper by noted American artist Leroy Neiman, 1921-2012. It is hand signed and numbered 157/300 in pencil by...

Pablo Picasso’s Woman, Clown, and Monkey, a lithograph published by Verve in 1954, exemplifies the artist’s ability to distill complex emotions and narratives into strikingly simple ...

The Salvador Dali Les Chevaux Bleus (Blue Horses) etching with hand coloring was published in 1967 by Pierre Argillet, Paris. The total tirage is 335 on various papers. This etchin...

"Mop Head 8120", Black and White Horse Photograph, Horseshoes, Iceland ABOUT THIS PIECE: "Mop Head 8120" was part of a Black and White Photog...

A superb impression of this color giclée print on wove paper. Signed and numbered 20/50 in pencil by Hirst. Published by Other Criteria, London.

Bareback Act, Old Hippodrome By Gifford Beal (1879-1956) Signed Lower Right Unframed: 6.5" x 9.5" Framed: 17.5" x 20" Gifford Beal, painter, etcher, muralist, and teacher, was born in New York City in 1879. The son of landscape painter William Reynolds Beal, Gifford Beal began studying at William Merritt Chase's Shinnecock School of Art (the first established school of plein air painting in America) at the age of thirteen, when he accompanied his older brother, Reynolds, to summer classes. He remained a pupil of Chase's for ten years also studying with him in New York City at the artist's private studio in the Tenth Street Studio Building. Later at his father's behest, he attended Princeton University from 1896 to 1900 while still continuing his lessons with Chase. Upon graduation from Princeton he took classes at the Art Students' League, studying with impressionist landscape painter Henry Ward Ranger and Boston academic painter Frank Vincent DuMond. He ended up as President of the Art Students League for fourteen years, "a distinction unsurpassed by any other artist." His student days were spent entirely in this country. "Given the opportunity to visit Paris en route to England in 1908, he chose to avoid it" he stated, "I didn't trust myself with the delightful life in ParisIt all sounded so fascinating and easy and loose." His subjects were predominately American, and it has been said stylistically "his art is completely American." Gifford achieved early recognition in the New York Art World. He became an associate member of the National Academy of Design in 1908 and was elected to full status of academician in 1914. He was known for garden parties, circuses, landscapes, streets, coasts, flowers and marines. This diversity in subject matter created "no typical or characteristic style to his work." Beal's style was highly influenced by Chase and Childe Hassam, a long time friend of the Beal family who used to travel "about the countryside with Beal in a car sketching...

Horse Prints, Black and White Horse Photography, Iceland Horses-Mop Head 8120 ABOUT THIS PIECE: "Mop Head 8120" was part of a Black and White Photogr...

One of the main motifs in Georges Braques late printmaking oeuvre is the bird. By depicting the bird as itself or the flight of birds, Braque found what he called the "still life of ...

One of the main motifs in Georges Braques late printmaking oeuvre is the bird. By depicting the bird as itself or the flight of birds, Braque found what he called the "still life of ...

Marc Chagall "Le Christ a l'Horloge, Paris" (Christ in the Clock) 1957 (M. 196) Color Lithograph on Arches Wove Paper Signed in Pencil "Marc Chagall" Lower Right Initialed "H.C." (Hors Commerce) Lower Left, aside from numbered edition of 90 *Floated in Gold Frame with Linen Matting, UV Plexiglass Sheet Size: 18 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches (47.5 cm x 38 cm) Image Size: 9 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches Framed Size: 28.5 x 24.25 inches Marc Chagall was a man of keen intelligence, a shrewd observer of the contemporary scene, with a great sympathy for human suffering. He was born on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Russia; his original name was Moishe Shagal (Segal), but when he became a foremost member of the Ecole de Paris, he adopted French citizenship and the French spelling of his name. Vitebsk was a good-sized Russian town of over 60,000, not a shtetl. His father supported a wife and eight children as a worker in a herring-pickling plant. Sheltered by the Jewish commandment against graven images, the young Chagall never saw so much as a drawing until, one day, he watched a schoolmate copying a magazine illustration. He was ridiculed for his astonishment, but he began copying and improvising from magazines. Both Chagall's parents reluctantly agreed to let him study with Yehuda Pen, a Jewish artist in Vitebsk. Later, in 1906, they allowed their son to study in St. Petersburg, where he was exposed to Russian Iconography and folk art. At that time, Jews could leave the Pale only for business and employment and were required to carry a permit. Chagall, who was in St. Petersburg without a permit, was imprisoned briefly. His first wife, Bella Rosenfeld, was a product of a rich cultivated and intellectual group of Jews in Vitebsk. Chagall was made commissar for the arts for the area, charged with directing its cultural life and establishing an art school. Russian folklore, peasant life and landscapes persisted in his work all his life. In 1910 a rich patron, a lawyer named Vinaver, staked him to a crucial trip to Paris, where young artists were revolutionizing art. He also sent him a handsome allowance of 125 francs (in those days about $24) each month. Chagall rejected cubism, fauvism and futurism, but remained in Paris. He found a studio near Montparnasse in a famous twelve-sided wooden structure divided into wedge-shaped rooms. Chaim Soutine, a fellow Russian Jew, and Modigliani lived on the same floor. To Chagall's astonishment, he found himself heralded as one of the fathers of surrealism. In 1923, a delegation of Max Ernst, Paul Eluard and Gala (later Salvador Dali's wife) actually knelt before Chagall, begging him to join their ranks. He refused. To understand Chagall's work, it is necessary to know that he was born a Hasidic Jew, heir to mysticism and a world of the spirit, steeped in Jewish lore and reared in the Yiddish language. The Hasidim had a special feeling for animals, which they tried not to overburden. In the mysterious world of Kabbala and fantastic ancient legends of Chagall's youth, the imaginary was as important as the real. His extraordinary use of color also grew out of his dream world; he did not use color realistically, but for emotional effect and to serve the needs of his design. Most of his favorite themes, though superficially light and trivial, mask dark and somber thoughts. The circus he views as a mirror of life; the crucifixion as a tragic theme, used as a parallel to the historic Jewish condition, but he is perhaps best known for the rapturous lovers he painted all his life. His love of music is a theme that runs through his paintings. After a brief period in Berlin, Chagall, Bella and their young daughter, Ida, moved to Paris and in 1937 they assumed French citizenship. When France fell, Chagall accepted an invitation from the Museum of Modern Art to immigrate to the United States. He was arrested and imprisoned in Marseilles for a short time, but was still able to immigrate with his family. The Nazi onslaught caught Chagall in Vichy, France, preoccupied with his work. He was loath to leave; his friend Varian Fry rescued him from a police roundup of Jews in Marseille, and packed him, his family and 3500 lbs. of his art works on board a transatlantic ship. The day before he arrived in New York City, June 23, 1941, the Nazis attacked Russia. The United States provided a wartime haven and a climate of liberty for Chagall. In America he spent the war years designing large backdrops for the Ballet. Bella died suddenly in the United States of a viral infection in September 1944 while summering in upstate New York. He rushed her to a hospital in the Adirondacks, where, hampered by his fragmentary English, they were turned away with the excuse that the hour was too late. The next day she died. He waited for three years after the war before returning to France. With him went a slender married English girl, Virginia Haggard MacNeil; Chagall fell in love with her and they had a son, David. After seven years she ran off with an indigent photographer. It was an immense blow to Chagall's ego, but soon after, he met Valentine Brodsky, a Russian divorcee designing millinery in London (he called her Fava). She cared for him during the days of his immense fame and glory. They returned to France, to a home and studio in rustic Vence. Chagall loved the country and every day walked through the orchards, terraces, etc. before he went to work. Chagall died on March 28, 1985 in the south of France. His heirs negotiated an arrangement with the French state allowing them to pay most of their inheritance taxes in works of art. The heirs owed about $30 million to the French government; roughly $23 million of that amount was deemed payable in artworks. Chagall's daughter, Ida and his widow approved the arrangement. Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California. Sources: Hannah Grad Goodman in Homage to Chagall in Hadassah Magazine, June 1985 Jack Kroll in Newsweek, April 8, 1985 Andrea Jolles in National Jewish Monthly Magazine, May 1985 Michael Gibson...

Jamie Wyeth "Herring Gulls" 1978 Color Lithograph Signed Lower Right Numbered Lower Left 149/300 Born in 1946, James Browning Wyeth came of age when the meaning of patriotism was clouded by the traumas of the Vietnam War and the scandals of Watergate. Working in an era of turmoil and questioning of governmental authority, he did art that encompassed both marching off to war and marching in protest. One of James's early masterworks, Draft Age (1965) depicts a childhood friend as a defiant Vietnam-era teenager resplendent in dark sunglasses and black leather jacket in a suitably insouciant pose. Two years later Wyeth painstakingly composed a haunting, posthumous Portrait of President John F. Kennedy (1967) that seems to catch the martyred Chief Executive in a moment of agonized indecision. As Wyeth Center curator Lauren Raye Smith points out, Wyeth "did not deify the slain president, [but] on the contrary made him seem almost too human." Based on hours of study and sketching of JFK's brothers Robert and Edward - documented by insightful studies in the exhibition - the final, pensive portrait seemed too realistic to family members and friends. "His brother Robert," writes Smith in the exhibition catalogue, "reportedly felt uneasy about this depiction, and said it reminded him of the President during the Bay of Pigs invasion." In spite of these misgivings, James's JFK likeness has been reproduced frequently and is one of the highlights of this show. The poignancy, appeal and perceptiveness of this portrait, painted when the youngest Wyeth was 21 years old, makes one wish he would do more portraits of important public figures. James himself feels he is at his best painting people he knows well, as exemplified by his vibrant Portrait of Jean Kennedy Smith (1972), which captures the vitality of the slain President's handsome sister. He did paint a portrait of Jimmy Carter for the January 1977 man-of-the-year cover of Time magazine, showing the casually dressed President-elect as a straightforward character posed under a flag-draped water tower next to the family peanut plant in Plains, Ga. James recalls that Carter had one Secret Service agent guarding him as he posed outdoors, a far cry from the protection our Chief Executives require today. As a participating artist in the "Eyewitness to Space" program organized by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in the late 1960s, Wyeth deftly recorded in a series of watercolors his eyewitness observations of dramatic spacecraft launchings and more mundane scenes associated with the space program. Commissioned by Harper's Magazine to cover the 1974 congressional hearings and trials of Watergate figures, James Wyeth executed a series of perceptive and now evocative sketches that recall those dark chapters in our history. Memorable images include a scowling John Ehrlichman, a hollow-eyed Bob Haldeman, an owlish Charles Colson, a focused Congressman Peter Rodino, a grim visaged Father/ Congressman Robert Drinan, and vignettes of the press and various courtroom activities. An 11-by-14-inch pencil sketch of the unflappable Judge John Sirica is especially well done. These "images are powerful as historical records," observes Smith, "and as lyrically journalistic impressions of events that changed the nation forever." Wyeth's sketch of early-morning crowds lined up outside the Supreme Court building hoping to hear the Watergate case, with the ubiquitous TV cameramen looking on, is reminiscent of recent scenes as the high court grappled with the Bush-Gore contest. The Wyeth family penchant for whimsy and enigmatic images is evident in Islanders (1990), showing two of James's friends, wearing goofy hats, sitting on the porch of a small Monhegan Island (Me.) cottage draped with a large American flag. Mixing the serious symbolism of Old Glory with the irreverent appearance of the two men, James has created a puzzling but interesting composition. Painting White House...