Charles Turzak

Merchandise Mart — American Modernism

1931

Charles Turzak, 'Dancers', 1939, wood engraving, edition 100. Signed, titled, and numbered 72/100 in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white Japan paper, with full marg...

Lyonel Feininger, 'Church with Star (Kirche mit Stern)', woodcut, 1936, one of a small but unknown number of letterhead proofs; Prasse W265. Annotated 'W 265' (Feininger catalogue number) and inventory no. '2808' in pencil, in the bottom right sheet corner. A fine impression, on cream, laid letterhead stock; hinge remains on the left and right top sheet edges, verso, in excellent condition. Very scarce. Image size 2 3/8 x 2 3/8 inches; sheet size 10 1/16 x 7 1/16 inches. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City into a musical family—his father was a violinist and composer, his mother was a singer and pianist. He studied violin with his father, and by the age of 12, he was performing in public, but he also drew incessantly, most notably the steamboats and sailing ships on the Hudson and East Rivers, and the landscape around Sharon, Conn., where he spent time on a farm owned by a family friend. At the age of 16 he left New York to study music and art in Germany, from where his parents emigrated. Drawn more to the visual arts, he attended schools in Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris from 1887 to 1892. After completing his studies, Feininger began his artistic career as a cartoonist and illustrator, his originality leading him to great success. In 1906, after working for a dozen years in Germany, he was offered a job as a cartoonist at the Chicago Tribune, the largest circulation newspaper in the Midwest. He worked there for a year, inventing what became the standard design for the comic strip: in the words of John Carlin, “an overall pattern. . . that allowed the page to be read both as a series of elements one after the other, like language and as a group of juxtaposed images, like visual art.” His originality did not end there: he went on to become one of the great abstract painters. Like Kandinsky, music was his model, but Kandinsky only knew music from the outside—as a listener (inspired initially by Wagner, then by Schoenberg)—while Feininger knew it from the inside. He lived in Paris from 1906 to 1908, during which time he met and was influenced by the work of progressive painters Robert Delaunay and Jules Pascin, as well as that of Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. He began painting full-time, developing his distinctive Iyrical style based on Cubist and Expressionist idioms and a concern for the emotive qualities of light and color. He exhibited with the Der Blaue Reiter group in 1913, and in 1917, he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. One year after his solo exhibition, in 1918, Feininger began making woodcuts. He became enamored with the medium, producing an impressive 117 in his first year of exploring the printmaking medium. In 1919 at the invitation of the architect Walter Gropius, he was appointed the first master at the newly formed Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. His woodcut of a cathedral crowned...

Lyonel Feininger, 'Church with House and Tree (Kirche mit Haus und Baum)', woodcut, 1936, one of a small but unknown number of letterhead proofs; Prasse W290 IV. Annotated 'PW 290 state IV / IV 3669', in pencil, in the bottom right sheet corner. With the artist's typed address and date adjacent to the letterhead image: 'Falls Village, Connecticut September 26th, 1940'. A fine impression, on buff, wove letterhead stock; several small losses, and tears, in the sheet edges (not affecting the image area); a crease in the bottom right sheet edge, otherwise in good condition. Very scarce. Image size: 2 3/8 x 2 3/4 inches; sheet size 11 x 8 5/8 inches. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Feininger moved from Germany to New York City in 1938 and began spending his summers in Falls Village in 1940. Exhibited: 'Lyonel Feininer, Woodcuts Used As Letterheads'; Associated American Artists; Feb 4 - March 2, 1974; New York, NY. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City into a musical family—his father was a violinist and composer, his mother was a singer and pianist. He studied violin with his father, and by the age of 12, he was performing in public, but he also drew incessantly, most notably the steamboats and sailing ships on the Hudson and East Rivers, and the landscape around Sharon, Conn., where he spent time on a farm owned by a family friend. At the age of 16 he left New York to study music and art in Germany, from where his parents emigrated. Drawn more to the visual arts, he attended schools in Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris from 1887 to 1892. After completing his studies, Feininger began his artistic career as a cartoonist and illustrator, his originality leading him to great success. In 1906, after working for a dozen years in Germany, he was offered a job as a cartoonist at the Chicago Tribune, the largest circulation newspaper in the Midwest. He worked there for a year, inventing what became the standard design for the comic strip: in the words of John Carlin, “an overall pattern. . . that allowed the page to be read both as a series of elements one after the other, like language and as a group of juxtaposed images, like visual art.” His originality did not end there: he went on to become one of the great abstract painters. Like Kandinsky, music was his model, but Kandinsky only knew music from the outside—as a listener (inspired initially by Wagner, then by Schoenberg)—while Feininger knew it from the inside. He lived in Paris from 1906 to 1908, during which time he met and was influenced by the work of progressive painters Robert Delaunay and Jules Pascin, as well as that of Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. He began painting full-time, developing his distinctive Iyrical style based on Cubist and Expressionist idioms and a concern for the emotive qualities of light and color. He exhibited with the Der Blaue Reiter group in 1913, and in 1917, he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. One year after his solo exhibition, in 1918, Feininger began making woodcuts. He became enamored with the medium, producing an impressive 117 in his first year of exploring the printmaking medium. In 1919 at the invitation of the architect Walter Gropius, he was appointed the first master at the newly formed Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. His woodcut of a cathedral crowned...

Lyonel Feininger, 'Little Locomotive (Kleine Lokomotive)', woodcut, 1936, one of a small but unknown number of letterhead proofs; Prasse W158. Annotated 'W 158' (Feininger catalogue number) and '1936' in pencil, in the bottom right sheet corner. A fine impression, on cream, laid letterhead stock; hinge remains on the left and right top sheet edges, verso, in excellent condition. Very scarce. Image size 2 1/4 x 3 5/16 inches; sheet size 10 x 7 inches. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Exhibited: 'Lyonel Feininer, Woodcuts Used As Letterheads'; Associated American Artists; Feb 4 - March 2, 1974; New York, NY. Collections: Cleveland Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (East Berlin KK). ABOUT THE ARTIST Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City into a musical family—his father was a violinist and composer, his mother was a singer and pianist. He studied violin with his father, and by the age of 12, he was performing in public, but he also drew incessantly, most notably the steamboats and sailing ships on the Hudson and East Rivers, and the landscape around Sharon, Conn., where he spent time on a farm owned by a family friend. At the age of 16 he left New York to study music and art in Germany, from where his parents emigrated. Drawn more to the visual arts, he attended schools in Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris from 1887 to 1892. After completing his studies, Feininger began his artistic career as a cartoonist and illustrator, his originality leading him to great success. In 1906, after working for a dozen years in Germany, he was offered a job as a cartoonist at the Chicago Tribune, the largest circulation newspaper in the Midwest. He worked there for a year, inventing what became the standard design for the comic strip: in the words of John Carlin, “an overall pattern. . . that allowed the page to be read both as a series of elements one after the other, like language and as a group of juxtaposed images, like visual art.” His originality did not end there: he went on to become one of the great abstract painters. Like Kandinsky, music was his model, but Kandinsky only knew music from the outside—as a listener (inspired initially by Wagner, then by Schoenberg)—while Feininger knew it from the inside. He lived in Paris from 1906 to 1908, during which time he met and was influenced by the work of progressive painters Robert Delaunay and Jules Pascin, as well as that of Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. He began painting full-time, developing his distinctive Iyrical style based on Cubist and Expressionist idioms and a concern for the emotive qualities of light and color. He exhibited with the Der Blaue Reiter group in 1913, and in 1917, he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. One year after his solo exhibition, in 1918, Feininger began making woodcuts. He became enamored with the medium, producing an impressive 117 in his first year of exploring the printmaking medium. In 1919 at the invitation of the architect Walter Gropius, he was appointed the first master at the newly formed Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. His woodcut of a cathedral crowned...

Gaston Suisse (1896-1988) Panthère noire dans les bambous, 1927 Gravure sur bois, sur papier Velin de Van Gelder. Rehaussé aux lavis d’encre de Chine par l’artiste Signé en bas à gauche et daté 1927 en bas à droite Black panther in a forest of bamboos, 1927 A handcolored woodcut on Velin de Van Gelder paper Signed and dated 1927 Bibliographie /Literature Gaston Suisse, splendeur du laque art déco. Emmanuel Bréon. Somogy Éditions d'art, Paris 2013, reproduite page 105 (un autre exemplaire reproduit) The artist made a wood engraving of which he made about twenty prints himself. These proofs were not marketed as is, Gaston Suisse reworked each of the proofs using Indian ink washes in order to obtain different effects for each proof, which are thus unique original works. Born in 1896 in a family of artists, his father Georges was a close friend of Siegfried Bing and a great lover of Japanese art and a bibliophile. He passed his taste for art to his son whom he often took to draw at the Botanic Garden . Around 1910, Gaston Suisse, who hasn't entered yet the artistic school, met Paul Jouve, then 18 years his elder, who was already famous. In 1911, at the age of 17, he entered the National School of Decorative Art where he followed the teachings of Paul Renouard. Thanks to his knowledge and taste for the Japanese art, he chose lacquer painting as his specialty. His practice of this noble and demanding subject were so much appreciated that he was awarded with two gold medals in 1913 and 1914. Mobilized during the war , he joined the army and go in Salonika where he found his friend Jouve. In 1918, he finished his studies at the School of Applied Arts in order to perfect his training. He learned in particular the techniques of gilding and oxidation of metals. The first productions of Gaston Suisse, furniture and objects in lacquer with geometrical patterns, were an instant success and Suisse was appointed as member of Salon d'Automne in 1924, the very year of his first exhibition. Considered as an artist-decorator, his sincere and deep friendship with Jouve linked him in parallel with the groups of the animaliers of the Jardin des Plantes and became a close friend of Edouard-Marcel Sandoz. When travelling to Maghreb and Middle-East between 1923 and 1925, he produced numerous drawings representing antelopes, apes and fennec foxes...

Honoré Broutelle Mythology : Harvest with Bacchus, Fauna and Nymph, 1921 Original woodcut Handsigned in pencil Numbered /160 On vellum 32.5 x 25.5 cm...

Edward PELLENS The Sailboat, 1922 Original woodcut Handsigned in pencil Numbered /154 On vellum 32.5 x 25.5 cm (c. 13 x 10 in) Bears the blind stamp of t...

Genre: Brazilian Art Deco, African Diaspora Bahian Carnival Subject: harlequin clown Medium: Print Surface: Paper Country: Brazil Dimensions of overall paper are listed. This is from a series of work he did in the 1940's, we sold one called Ritmo Negro, they are about Afro-Brazilian jazz, dance and music. Odetto Guersoni was born in the city of Jaboticabal, State of São Paulo, in 1924. From 1936 to 1941 he attended the Liceu de Artes de Ofícios in São Paulo, beginning his artistic career in 1945, when he exhibited paintings in the Hall of the Plastic Artists Union . Two years later he was part of the collective group of 19, alongside Aldemir, Charoux, Otavio Araújo, Grassmann, Maria Leontina and several other artists that time would make famous. He then practiced a figurative painting of accentuated Expressionist lauds, characterized by deformation and coloring, raw and Satirical- as, moreover, so many of his fellow exhibitors at the time. As a French government scholar, Odette Guerzoni went to Paris in 1947 and the following year took part in the Peintres et Graveurs Etrangers and Art Libre exhibitions. Student of engraving by Renê Cottet, gradually transformed this expressive medium into his favorite, to the detriment of painting, which he practically abandoned soon after. In 1947, he participated in the 19 Painters exhibition at the Prestes Maia Gallery together with Lothar Charoux, Maria Leontina,Grassmann, Aldemir Martins, Luiz Sacilotto and hiró. Guersoni was awarded a scholarship by the French government, and traveled to Paris, where he began work in engraving. Back in Brazil, in 1951, he founded the Art Workshop, in São Paulo. In 1954, he returned to Europe for a year, financed by the International Labor Organization (ILO). In Geneva, he studied engraving with René Cottet (1902 - 1992) and worked in Stanley william Hayter's studio, Atelier 17, in Paris (1901 - 1988). From 1956 to 1957, he became director of the Union of Plastic Artists of São Paulo. From 1960, he attended, as a trainee, some art schools in the United States and Japan such as The New York School of Printing and Osaka University. In 1971, also in Japan, he attended the workshop of I. Jokuriti. Two years later, he was voted Best Recorder of the Year by the Paulista Association of Art Critics - APCA. He took part in a special room at the Ibero-American Biennial in Montevideo in 1983. The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo - Pesp presents a retrospective of his work in 1994. Odetto Guersoni explores the wide spectrum of possibilities of the engraving. In addition to using techniques such as metal etching, lithograph, serigraph, linocut and, especially, woodcut he developed, in the 1950s, the philigraphy, in which the forms he developed gained points of embroidery made by Bonadei (1906 - 1974) . And, in the 1960s, the plastigraphy, in which he makes engravings on pasty surfaces, obtained from gypsum or other soft material. In the 1970s, technical investigations were associated with pictographic, ideographic, archaic symbol searches, Brazilian cave paintings and plant forms. The drawings are reduced to stylized, geometric shapes and transformed into abstract graphic elements. The artist works with few matrices, which, organized in rectangles, squares or circles, become modules to be combined. Guersoni juxtaposes them, adds, changes colors, and thereby composes colorful mandalas and structural geometries. Based on concise compositions, it produces color vibrations through optical illusions. In many of his woodcut works of the 1980s he uses smooth wood, knives, saws, gouges, punches, avoiding the natural textures of wood. In printing, it leaves the vibrant color and employs dosed inks with colorless masses, obtaining transparencies by superpositions. New journeys of study and specialization in engraving techniques took him in 1954 to Switzerland, 1960 to the United States, and in 1966 to Germany and Austria. Today, after having performed more than 40 individuals including 16 abroad and having participated in more than 50 collectives in several countries, Guersoni is considered one of the most notable Brazilian engravers. Conquered awards in several shows. CHRONOLOGY Individual exhibitions 1946 - Sao Paulo SP - 10th Salon of the Artists' Union, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1947 - São Paulo SP - 19 Painters, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1948 - Paris France - Peintres et Graveurs Etrangers at the École des Beaux-Arts 1949 - São Paulo SP - 13th Salon of the Artists' Union, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Paulista Salon of Modern Art, at Prestes Maia Gallery - silver medal 1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd International Biennial of São Paulo, at MAM / SP 1954 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Paulista Salon of Modern Art, in the Prestes Maia Gallery 1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Salon of Modern Art 1955 - Salvador BA - 5th Baiano Salon of Fine Arts, in Belvedere da Sé - honorable mention 1962 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art at the Folha Art Gallery - 1st printing award 1963 - Curitiba PR - 20th Salão Paranaense de Belas Artes, at the Public Library of Paraná 1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, no MAM / RJ 1968 - Bradford England - First International Print Biennale 1970 - São Paulo SP - Antonio Henrique Amaral, Odetto Guersoni, Tomie Ohtake, Pedro Tort and Gerda Brentani, in the Alberto Bonfiglioli Gallery 1971 - São Paulo SP - 11th International Biennial of São Paulo, at the Biennial Foundation - acquisition award 1973 - Punta del Este Uruguay - 1st Engraving Meeting of the Prata Basin Countries - International Prize 1977 - São Paulo SP - The Groups: the 40's, at the Lasar Segall Museum 1982 - São Paulo SP - Ismenia Coaracy, Odetto Guersoni and Alice Brill...