Ben Shahn

Ben Shahn Original Hand Signed Litho WPA Artist Rilke Poem Lithograph Portfolio

1968

Michael Mazur "The Artist" Hand signed and editioned from the edition of 50 1967 Michael Burton Mazur (1935-August 18, 2009) was an American artist who was described by William Grimes of The New York Times as "a restlessly inventive printmaker, painter, and sculptor." Born and raised in New York City, Mazur attended the Horace Mann School. He received a bachelor's degree from Amherst College in 1958, then studied art at Yale. Mazur first gained notice for his series of lithographs and etchings of inmates in a mental asylum, which resulted in two publications, "Closed Ward" and "Locked Ward." Over the years, he worked in printmaking and painting. His series of large-scale prints for Dante's Inferno won critical acclaim, and were the subject of a traveling exhibition organized by the University of Iowa in 1994. Later he concentrated on creating large, lyrical paintings which make use of his free, gestural brushwork and a varied palette. Some of these paintings were seen in an exhibition of 2002 at Boston University, "Looking East: Brice Marden, Michael Mazur, and Pat Steir." (See also Susan Danly, "Branching: The Art of Michael Mazur," 1997). The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has acquired a definMichael Mazur received a B.A. from Amherst College in 1957, studying in his senior year at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence, Italy. He went on to earn both a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Art and Architecture in 1961. Mazur's first teaching job was at the Rhode Island School of Design from 1961 to 1964. He was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship for 1964–65. From 1965 to 1976, he taught at Brandeis University, and from 1976 to 1978 at Harvard University. As an artist, teacher, and writer, Mazur has been active in reviving the monotype process. He contributed an essay to the pioneering exhibition catalogue The Painterly Print, published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1980. Mazur recently chaired the New Provincetown Print...

Simka Simkhovitch (Russian/American 1893 - 1949) signed lithograph. Pencil signed and dated "S. Simkhovitch 1933" lower center. Title "Island Beach," in pencil lower left of sheet. Numbered "44/50" in pencil lower right. (it is either Island Beach Wisconsin or New Jersey) Simka Simkhovitch (Симха Файбусович Симхович) (aka Simka Faibusovich Simkhovich) (Novozybkov, Russia May 21, 1885 O.S./June 2, 1885 N.S.—Greenwich, Connecticut February 25, 1949) was a Ukrainian-Russian Jewish artist and immigrant to the United States. He painted theater scenery in his early career and then had several showings in galleries in New York City. Winning Works Progress Administration (WPA) commissions in the 1930s, he completed murals for the post offices in Jackson, Mississippi and Beaufort, North Carolina. His works are in the permanent collections of the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Born outside Kyiv (Petrograd Ukraine) into a Jewish family who owned a small department store. During a severe case of measles when he was seven, Simcha Simchovitch sketched the views outside his window and decided to become an artist, over his father's objections. Beginning in 1905, he studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School and upon completion of his studies in 1911 received a recommendation to be admitted to the Imperial Academy of Arts. Though he enrolled to begin classes in architecture, painting, and sculpture at the Imperial Academy, he was dropped from the school roster in December because of the quota on the number of Jewish students and drafted into the army. Simchovitch served as a private in the 175th Infantry Regiment Baturyn [ru] until his demobilization in 1912. Re-enrolling in the Imperial Academy, he audited classes. Simka Simkhovitch exhibited paintings and sculptures in 1918 as part of an exhibition of Jewish artists and in 1919 placed 1st in the competition "The Great Russian Revolution" with a painting called "Russian Revolution" which was hung in the State Museum of Revolution. In 1922, Simkha Simkhovitch exhibited at the International Book Fair in Florence (Italian: Fiera Internazionale del Libro di Firenze). In 1924, Simkhovitch came to the United States to make illustrations for Soviet textbooks and decided to immigrate instead. Initially he supported himself by doing commercial art and a few portrait commissions. In 1927, he was hired to paint a screen for a scene in the play "The Command to Love" by Fritz Gottwald and Rudolph Lothar which was playing at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Art dealers began clamoring for the screen and Simkhovitch began a career as a screen painter for the theater. Catching the attention of the screenwriter, Ernest Pascal, he worked as an illustrator for Pascal, who then introduced him to gallery owner, Marie Sterner. Simkhovitch's works appeared at the Marie Sterner Gallery beginning with a 1927 exhibit and were repeated the following year. Simkhovitch had an exhibit in 1929 at Sterner's on circus paintings. In 1931, he held a showing of works at the Helen Hackett Gallery, in New York City and later that same year he was one of the featured artists of a special exhibit in San Francisco at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park. The exhibit was coordinated by Marie Sterner and included four watercolors, including one titled "Nudes". He is of the generation of Russian Soviet artists such as Isaac Pailes, Serge Charchoune, Marc Chagall, Chana Orloff, Isaac Ilyich Levitan, and Ossip Zadkine. In 1936, Simkhovitch was selected to complete the mural for the WPA Post office project in Jackson, Mississippi. The mural was hung in the post office and courthouse in 1938 depicted a plantation theme. Painted on the wall behind the judge’s bench, “Pursuits of Life in Mississippi”, a depiction of black workers engaged in manual labor amid scenes of white professionals and socialites, was eventually covered over in later years during renovations due to its stereotypical African American imagery. The following year, his painting "Holiday" won praise at an exhibition in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1940, Simkhovitch's second WPA post office project was completed when four murals, "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat", "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright", "Sand Ponies" and "Canada Geese" were installed in Beaufort, North Carolina. The works were commissioned in 1938 and did not generate the controversy that the Jackson mural had. The main mural is "The Wreck of the Crissie Wright" and depicts a shipwreck which had occurred in Beaufort in 1866. "The Cape Lookout Lighthouse and the Orville W. Mail Boat" depicted the lighthouse built in 1859 and the mail boat that was running mail during the time which Simkhovitch was there. The boat ran mail for the area until 1957. "Sand Ponies" shows the wild horses common to the North Carolina barrier islands and "Canada Geese" showed the importance of hunting and fishing in the area. All four murals were restored in the 1990s by Elisabeth Speight, daughter of two other WPA muralists, Francis Speight...

SCARCE EARLY WORK. BEN SHAHN Levana and our Lady's Sorrows. lithograph printed in sepia on Papier Ancien, 1931. 13 1/8x9 7/8 inches (sheets), full margins, loose as issued. One of o...

SCARCE EARLY WORK. BEN SHAHN Levana and our Lady's Sorrows. lithograph printed in sepia on Papier Ancien, 1931. 13 1/8x9 7/8 inches (sheets), full margins, loose as issued. One of o...

SCARCE EARLY WORK. BEN SHAHN Levana and our Lady's Sorrows. lithograph printed in sepia on Papier Ancien, 1931. 13 1/8x9 7/8 inches (sheets), full margins, loose as issued. One of o...

(after) Alexander Calder "Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's) these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph. James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor” Clive Gray...

A fine impression with full margins published by Associated American Artists with their information label present - pictured in Art and Popular Religion in Evangelical America, 1815-...

A fine impression with large full margins published by Associated American Artists.

Original lithograph, linen backed. Vetements Forchic. Pour Lui; Elle a Choise. Archival linen-backed vintage French fashion poster in fine...

Original WW1 poster: A Wonderful Opportunity for You. Ashore, on leave. United States Navy. A pre-war recruiting lithographic poster features an ebullient sailor going home o...

Original. ERP European Reunification Program, Inter-europaische Zusammenarbeit fur bessere Lebenbedingungen. Mounted on acid free archival linen. Lithography Kühn & Zoon, Rotterda...

Original vintage poster Algeciras Feria 1948 vintage Spanish travel poster. Archival linen backed in very fine condition, ready to frame. N...