Alphonse Jacques (Said) Levy

Rabbi Elisha l'Aveugle French 19C Judaica Lithograph

1897

Title: Zion Subject: Various biblical images depicting Creation and prayer 1922 Medium: woodcut Frame: 14" x 18" Image: 12.5" x 16.75" Provenance: owned and signed verso by Peter Keil. Central panel shows the Jewish star over a crown, with inscription in Hebrew: "When God comforts Zion, He will comfort all its ruins and make its deserts look like Eden," and "You have sanctified the seventh day, the goal of creation of Heaven and Earth." This is flanked by a Palestinian farmer pioneer on the left and a Jew praying on the right. The lower tier shows six vignettes of the days of creation from Genesis. Hermann Fechenbach was born in 1897 in Württemberg, Germany. He grew up in Bad Mergentheim where his parents had an inn, which served as a meeting place for the local Jewish community. He left school early and through family connections with clothing retailers received training in window dressing. His skill with brush writing was quickly recognised by a big firm in Dortmund where he was responsible for the displays in 10 large windows. He received his conscription papers in 1916 and recalls “being as patriotic as any other fool”. In August 1917 he was involved in a grenade attack in which he was the sole survivor. With serious injuries to both legs he struggled to safety and was eventually transported to a front line “slaughterhouse” where the first of a series of amputations was performed which led to the loss of his left leg. As a result of his injuries his father dropped his opposition to him becoming an artist. His formal art education started in 1918 with training at a Stuttgart handcraft school for invalids. He attended the Academies in Stuttgart and Munich to learn painting and restoration for 3 years. He was influenced at this time by Max Liebermann. He has been compared to Kathe Kollwitz and was a contemporary of Jakob Steinhardt and hermann Struck. In 1923 he went to Florence for a year. While in Florence he started to produce a series of miniature wood engravings to illustrate the stories of Genesis. This was followed by periods in Pisa, Venice, Vienna and Amsterdam. In 1924 he returned to Stuttgart to paint in the contemporary style “Die Neue Sachlichkeit”. (The New Objectivity was a movement in German art that arose during the 1920s Weimar republic as a reaction against expressionism. The term was coined by Gustav Friedrich Hartlaub, the director of the Kunsthalle in Mannheim, who used it as the title of an art exhibition staged in 1925 to showcase artists who were working in a post-expressionist spirit. These artists—who included Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz, Christian Schad, Rudolf Schlichter and Jeanne Mammen) Every spring and autumn he exhibited at the “Kunstgebit” which served as the showcase for all serious artists of the period. His professional status “Kunstmaler und Grafiker” was recognised by Berlin in 1926. Practically all his work from this period was sold following exhibition. In 1926 he collaborated with an architect friend to build a bungalow in Hohenheim, a non-Jewish area and a suburb of Stuttgart. Hermann alternately lived in his country bungalow and his town studio, producing portraits for sale or barter and wood engravings for his own pleasure. In 1930 he married a non-Jewish professional photographer – Greta Batze. They had a studio in Stuttgart, which was used to teach art to a group of 12 students. In 1933 the Nazi influence removed his name from the official state register together with the right to exhibit. By spending most of his time in his bungalow out of the Jewish quarter the Fechenbachs escaped being registered by the Nazis for some years. They were ostracised and abused by their non-Jewish neighbours. Hermann made weekly visits to friends in town to teach them the practical skills they would need assuming they were to escape from Germany. His energies were directed towards protection and survival. Ultimately the Nazi persecution forced the Fechenbachs to flee their homeland. They moved to Palestine for 3 months in 1938, but found the political and physical environment unsustainable. Greta arrived in England penniless in January 1939 to work as a domestic servant and to find a guarantor for her husband. Hermann arrived in May 1939. They moved to Blackheath a few months later. Hermann resumed his painting and engraving as a means of earning a living. He raised enough money to get his parents out of Germany to join his brothers in Argentina but was unable to save his twin sister Rosa who died in a Nazi concentration camp. In 1940 Hermann was interned in Bury as a suspect alien. He protested about his treatment by starting a hunger strike. Because of his persistence he was moved to a prison in Liverpool. From Liverpool he was moved to the Hutchinson Camp in the Isle of Man with fellow artist Kurt Schwitters. Arrangements were made for Greta to be accommodated near by. While interned he commenced work on “Refugee Impressions”, a series of linocut prints (no wood was available). In 1941 when released from internment the Fechenbachs came under the sponsorship of Dr. Bela Horovitz, the Austrian art publisher who in turn made an introduction to Professor Tancred Borenius. They were offered lodgings with a family in Oxford. Hermann had his first public exhibition for many years in a small gallery in Oxford in 1942. A second exhibition of oils, pencil drawings, coloured linocut and woodblock prints held later in the year was opened by the mayor of Oxford and critically acclaimed. In 1944 the first London exhibition took place at the Anglo-Palestinian club in Piccadilly. There were two exhibitions at the Ben Uri Art gallery during this period. In 1948 a second exhibition at the Anglo Palestinian club was inaugurated by a member of the Rothschild family and several members of Parliament. This was a great success. In 1944 the Fechenbachs moved to a top floor studio flat in Colet Gardens. Open exhibitions were held each Spring at the Embankment from 1946 to 1951. Movietone News produced a short feature on the artist, which was shown in cinemas in England and Germany. In 1969 he published the Genesis story in a hard back volume containing 137 prints. He started to research the fate of the entire Jewish community of Bad Mergentheim during the period of the second world war, liaising with historian Dr. Paul Sauer and Professor Max Miller, historian and theologian. In 1972 Kohlhammer published his partly autobiographical book “The last Jews of Mergentheim”. He exhibited at the Anglo-Palestinian Club & the Ben Uri Gallery in the 1940s. His works only came to prominence during the last year of his life when he exhibited at Blond Fine Art. Peter Keil part of the Junge Wilde. In 1978, the Junge Wilde painting style arose in the German-speaking world in opposition to established avant garde, minimal art and conceptual art. It was linked to the similar Transavanguardia movement in Italy, USA (neo-expressionism) and France (Figuration Libre). They were also known as the Neue Wilde. Artists included; Austria: Siegfried Anzinger, Erwin Bohatsch, Herbert Brandl, Gunter Damisch, Hubert Scheibl, Hubert Schmalix...

Keith Sonnier, American (1941-2020) lithograph From Neon series circa 1980-1981 Bears the Waterstreet Press watermarks and Arches paper blind stamp to lower right corner. Pub. Edizioni Lucio Amelio Hand signed with initials in pencil Dimensions: 30 x 21 3/4 inches Post minimalist Abstract by Keith Sonnier Keith Sonnier (1941 – 2020) was a post minimalist sculptor, performance artist, video and light artist. Sonnier was one of the first artists to use light in sculpture in the 1960s. With his use of neon in combination with ephemeral materials he achieved international recognition. Sonnier was part of the Process Art movement. James Keith Sonnier was born July 31, 1941, in Mamou, Louisiana. His family was Cajun and Roman Catholic. His father was a hardware store owner, Joseph Sonnier, and his mother was a florist and singer, Mae Ledoux. He graduated in 1963 from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now known as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette). In 1966, he graduated with his MFA degree from Rutgers University, where he studied under Allan Kaprow, Robert Watts, and Robert Morris. After graduation from Rutgers, he moved to New York City with Jackie Winsor and some of his former classmates. Sonnier died in Southampton, NY on July 18, 2020. Sonnier began experimenting with neon in 1968. Neon lights became a signature material used in his sculptural works. The common materials Sonnier employed included neon and fluorescent lights; reflective materials; aluminum and copper; and glass and wires. Of the generation of James Turrell and Dan Flavin, He was also associated with the Light and Space movement, a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin. It is characterized by a focus on perceptual phenomena, such as light, volume and scale, and the use of materials such as glass, neon, fluorescent lights, resin and cast acrylic, often forming installations conditioned by the work's surroundings. Artists included Ron Cooper...

MARC CHAGALL 1887 - 1985 "Le joueur de flûte" 1958 Colour lithograph 25.5x44 cm, illustration; 38.3x57.3 cm, sheet size Signed lower right by the artist in ink "Marc Chagall" and dedicated "Pour Ursula et Gerd Hatje / "merci" / Marc Chagall / 1958". Inscribed lower left by the artist "Epreuve d'artiste". This is an artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 90. Catalogue Raisonné : Mourlot 197 Gerd Hatje (14 April 1915 – 24 July 2007) was a German publisher. The publishing house that he founded in 1945, named the Humanitas Verlag, renamed in 1947 as Verlag Gerd Hatje, is internationally known for contemporary art, photography and architecture. It merged in to Hatje Cantz in 1999. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hatje changed the focus to art, photography, and architecture.[1] He had contact with and was a friend of contemporary artists such as Hans Arp, Willi Baumeister, Joseph Beuys, Max Bill, Georges Braque, Marcel Breuer, Marc Chagall, Christo, Le Corbusier, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Walter Gropius, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and James Stirling...

This lithograph titled Le Prince de Joinville reçu à bord d'une frégate anglaise is part of the book Lettre à mon Peintre by Marcelle Oury. The lithograph is printed on high-quality ...