Arthur Paunzen

Of Youth —after Gustav Mahler's 'The Song of the Earth'

1920

Lawrence Kupferman, 'Fantasia Americana – 1880', drypoint etching with sandground, 1943. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Series A, 1971 2/6' in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on heavy, cream wove paper, with full margins (2 1/2 to 3 1/2 inches); the paper slightly lightened within the original mat opening, otherwise in excellent condition. One of only 6 impressions printed in 1971, with the added sandground grey background tint. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 11 13/16 x 14 3/4 inches; sheet size 18 x 20 1/4 inches. Collections: National Gallery of Art, Zimmerli Art Museum (Rutgers University). ABOUT THE ARTIST Lawrence Kupferman (1909 - 1982) was born in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston and grew up in a working-class family. He attended the Boston Latin School and participated in the high school art program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In the late 1920s, he studied drawing under Philip Leslie Hale at the Museum School—an experience he called 'stultifying and repressive'. In 1932 he transferred to the Massachusetts College of Art, where he first met his wife, the artist Ruth Cobb. He returned briefly to the Museum School in 1946 to study with the influential expressionist German-American painter Karl Zerbe. Kupferman held various jobs while pursuing his artistic career, including two years as a security guard at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. During the 1930s he worked as a drypoint etcher for the Federal Art Project, creating architectural drawings in a formally realistic style—these works are held in the collections of the Fogg Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In the 1940s he began incorporating more expressionistic forms into his paintings as he became progressively more concerned with abstraction. In 1946 he began spending summers in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he met and was influenced by Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and other abstract painters. At about the same time he began exhibiting his work at the Boris Mirski Gallery in Boston. In 1948, Kupferman was at the center of a controversy involving hundreds of Boston-area artists. In February of that year, the Boston Institute of Modern Art issued a manifesto titled 'Modern Art and the American Public' decrying 'the excesses of modern art,' and announced that it was changing its name to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA). The poorly conceived statement, intended to distinguish Boston's art scene from that of New York, was widely perceived as an attack on modernism. In protest, Boston artists such as Karl Zerbe, Jack Levine, and David Aronson formed the 'Modern Artists Group' and organized a mass meeting. On March 21, 300 artists, students, and other supporters met at the Old South Meeting House and demanded that the ICA retract its statement. Kupferman chaired the meeting and read this statement to the press: “The recent manifesto of the Institute is a fatuous declaration which misinforms and misleads the public concerning the integrity and intention of the modern artist. By arrogating to itself the privilege of telling the artists what art should be, the Institute runs counter to the original purposes of this organization whose function was to encourage and to assimilate contemporary innovation.” The other speakers were Karl Knaths...

Otto Kuhler, 'Grand Central Station', etching and drypoint, 1927, edition c. 50, Kennedy 27. Signed and titled in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, in brown/black ink, with ...

Karl Michel, 'Ex Libris Verein' (New Year's Ex Libris Club Announcement), etching, 1924. Signed, dated, and numbered 'op. 167' in pencil. Signed and dated in...

Karl Michel, 'Viel Gluck 1923 Wunscht Karl Michel', etching, 1923, edition not stated but small. Signed, dated, and numbered 'op. 136' in pencil. Signed in the image, lower right. A...

An original mixed media, Photo Etching, Aquatint, Drypoint on paper by the collaboration of two artists, Robert Flemming and Mizin Shin. This piece entitled Judgment Hour measure ...

Bernard Kretzschmar (1889-1972), Auction, etching, drypoint, and burnished aquatint, 1921, signed and dated (’20) in pencil lower right [also initialed in the plate lower left] Refe...

Siccard-Redl, Josef. Fruhling, Ca 1910. Color wood engraving, Signed and titled in pencil by the artist. Little is known of this artist other than he worked in Vienna during the ...

Selbstmörder is an original drypoint, realized by Magnus Zeller in 1919, signed and inscribed, Included a frame. In very good conditions. The artwork is representing a desperate m...