Auguste Louis Lepère

"Car La Race, Became the Race..., " Woodcut on Blue Paper by Louis Lepere

1890

"H. L'Illusion (L'Estampe Moderne I)" is an original color lithograph by Henri Bellery-Desfontaines. This piece depicts a nude child before a dream-like woman in a blue translucent robe. This piece was published in the French Art Nouveau publication L'Estampe Moderne. Signed in plate. 15 3/4" x 12" art Henri Bellery-Desfontaines , born with Paris in 1867 and dead the October 6th 1909, is a French Noveau artist Jack-of-All- Trades, who produced tables, illustrations, posters, lithographies, drawings of carpet, pieces of furniture and banknotes, and even dabbled with decoration & architecture. In the 1900s, Paris was the perfect place for a group of young artists influenced by artistic currents like neogothic style or symbolism. Most of them started as painters and they switched later to decorative arts, attracted by the idea of an ever-present art, a lifeless art, a total art. Henri Bellery-Desfontaines was a member of this group and he started as as painter in Pierre-Victor Galland’s atelier. He entrusted him the decorative motifs which would frame Panthéon de Paris' drawings: Maillot, Bonnat, Humbert and specially Jean-Paul Laurens, who proposed him to join his atelier in l’École des Beaux-Arts de Paris. With him, he decorated l'Hôtel de Ville de Paris or Le Salon Lobau, Henri Bellery-Desfontaines is thought to have Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) as a teacher. During his years as a student, he started to illustrate magazines and books of tales and in 1895, Bellery-Desfontaines opted rapidly for illustration, probably due to financial problems, and he participated in magazines such as L’Image, L’Estampe Moderne or L’Almanach des Bibliophiles. This year, the Salon des Artistes Français hosted one of his design of tapestry. From 1900 on, he gradually evolved toward an ambitious decorative artist, making tapestries and furniture for rich leaders and patrons. Bellery-Desfontaines was an important artist of his epoch, and he took part in numerous events like Bal de...

The present woodcut print comes from 'Klänge (Sounds),' a book of original graphics and poetry by Wassily Kandinsky. This first edition was released in an edition of 300, each book signed and numbered by the artist. The title of the album and this particular print, 'Improvisation,' demonstrated Kandinsky's interest in music and how abstract musical forms could be translated into images on a two-dimensional surface. This particular composition is difficult to read, but through the abstraction, one can make out various figures and a landscape beyond. 7.5 x 5 inches, image 22 x 19.5 inches, frame Woodcut in black ink on laid paper (watermark Van Gelder Zonen) Signed with encircled 'K' in the block, lower right Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent acid free archival materials including silk-lined matting with 1/4 inch bevel, museum glass, and a gold-gilded moulding Ref. Roethel 124 The Museum of Modern Art described 'Klänge (Sounds)' as follows: Vasily Kandinsky's self-described "musical album," Klänge (Sounds), consists of thirty-eight prose-poems he wrote between 1909 and 1911 and fifty-six woodcuts he began in 1907. In the woodcuts Kandinsky veiled his subject matter, creating increasingly indecipherable images (though the horse and rider, his symbol for overcoming objective representation, runs through as a leitmotif). This process proved crucial for the development of abstraction in his art. Kandinsky said his choice of media sprang from an "inner necessity" for expression: the woodcuts were not merely illustrative, nor were the poems purely verbal descriptions. Kandinsky sought a synthesis of the arts, in which meaning was created through the interaction of, and space between, text and image, sound and meaning, mark and blank space. The experimental typography shows his interest in the physical aspects of the book. Klänge is one of three major publications by Kandinsky that appeared shortly before World War I, alongside Über die Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) and the Blaue Reiter almanac...

In 'The Rabbit,' Wisconsin artist Clarice George Logan presents the viewer with a multi-figural scene: under a wood-frame structure, four children crouch on the ground, gathered around a young woman who presents a rabbit. Under normal circumstances, such an image of children with a bunny would recall childhood storybooks. In this case, however, the image is more ambiguous and suggests the unfortunate economic circumstances many children suffered during the interwar years. Nonetheless, the group could also be interpreted as a nativity play, with the rabbit taking the place of the Christ child, shining light on the children like in a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Correggio. The careful line-work of the woodblock engraving adds a sense of expressionism to the scene, leaving the figures looking distraught and dirty, though the image nonetheless falls into the Social Realist category that dominated American artists during the Great Depression. This print was published in 1936 as part of the Wisconsin Artists' Calendar for the year 1937, which included 52 original, hand-made prints - one for each week of the year. Clarice George Logan was born in Mayville, New York in 1909 but moved to Wisconsin in 1921. She attended the Milwaukee State Teachers College from 1927 to 1931 where she studied with Robert von...

'Improvisation 7' second ed. woodcut from 'Klänge' is a woodcut print created by Wassily Kandinsky. The present woodcut print comes from the second edition of 'Klänge (Sounds),' a book of original graphics and poetry by Wassily Kandinsky. The title of the album and of this print, 'Improvisation,' demonstrated Kandinsky's interest in music and how abstract musical forms could be translated into images on a two-dimensional surface. This particular composition is difficult to read, but through the abstraction, one can make out various figures and a landscape beyond. Originally carved and printed in 1911, this second edition print was done ca. 1938. It is a woodcut in black ink on woven paper. Signed with encircled 'K' in the block, lower right (from the book, signed in ink, ed. 117/300) Image Size: 7 1/2" x 5 inches Frame Size: 22 1/4" x 18 3/4" Ref. Roethel 124 Artist Bio: The Museum of Modern Art described 'Klänge (Sounds)' as follows: Vasily Kandinsky's self-described "musical album," Klänge (Sounds), consists of thirty-eight prose-poems he wrote between 1909 and 1911 and fifty-six woodcuts he began in 1907. In the woodcuts Kandinsky veiled his subject matter, creating increasingly indecipherable images (though the horse and rider, his symbol for overcoming objective representation, runs through as a leitmotif). This process proved crucial for the development of abstraction in his art. Kandinsky said his choice of media sprang from an "inner necessity" for expression: the woodcuts were not merely illustrative, nor were the poems purely verbal descriptions. Kandinsky sought a synthesis of the arts, in which meaning was created through the interaction of, and space between, text and image, sound and meaning, mark and blank space. The experimental typography shows his interest in the physical aspects of the book. Klänge is one of three major publications by Kandinsky that appeared shortly before World War I, alongside Über die Geistige in der Kunst (Concerning the Spiritual in Art) and the Blaue Reiter almanac...

Medium: original woodcut. This impression on thin wove paper was printed in 1902 and published by Gazette des Beaux Arts. Image size: 8 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches (207 x 140 mm). Signed in t...

Woodcut print realized by Paul Emile Colin in 1930s.  Monogrammed in the plate. Very good condition.

Woodcut print realized by Paul Emile Colin in 1930s.  Monogrammed in the plate. Very good condition.

The Migration is an original artwork realized by Georges Bruyer (1883-1962. Original woodcut print on paper, realized on early-20th century, hand signed in pencil by the artist on t...