Claes Oldenburg

Study for Tongue Cloud, Claes Oldenburg surreal pop art landscape red and black

1976

A classic Rosenquist pop art composition with gold, turquoise, purple, pink, blue, green and yellow. Characteristically surreal and graphic, Rainbow incorporates bold geometric forms with painterly washes of color and airbrush texture. Rosenquist's signature gleaming metallic chrome texture can be seen on an inverted fork behind the glass of a golden window. Paper 25.25 x 30.25 in. / 64 x 77 cm Image 17 x 21.5 in. / 43 x 54.5 cm Lithograph with screenprint on cream-coloured Hodgkinson handmade Wookey Hole paper. Edition of 75 with 8 color trial proofs: this impression 8/8. Signed and dated 1972 lower right in pencil; titled, numbered 8/8 and labeled Color Trial Proof lower left in pencil. This graphic, colorful scene is based on Rosenquist’s 1962 oil painting of the same name, collected in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. The artist used real glass and wood to construct windows for the original painting – here, house siding is abstracted to bold, black horizontal lines, and the window glass is printed in dark gold ink. At the top of the composition, a window with shutters pushed open is colored in turquoise, with sharp black shadows. The left-hand window pane is shattered, and to the right, the outline of an oversized...

The Haunted Castle (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Plate 14 ...

Catherina Dorothea Viehman (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 1...

Sheet from “Rapunzel” story (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Text printed letterpress and “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your Hair” etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Etching 10.5 × 9.85 in. / 26.7 × 25 cm Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Unsigned: apart from the published edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios. This is one of eleven images recently found in our archive which we have decided to make available. There is one only of each image. Perhaps the most famous story from the Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel spins the tale of a beautiful young princess locked away by an evil sorceress. Captured in this scene is the moment a King's son came across the tower and fell in love with her sweet singing, beseeching her: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.' Though the sorcerer banishes Rapunzel and maims the prince, they are of course ultimately reunited to live happily together. Hockney illustrates this scene with incredible texture detail: layers of aquatint defining the soft forest floor, delicate hatching on the horse's haunch, the tower's tight crosshatching, and of course the lyrical gesture of Rapunzel's hair which cascades from the upper right corner. This print from our publisher's archives is one of thirty-nine etchings from David Hockney’s 1969 "Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm". Hockney worked on this series with Paul Cornwall-Jones at Petersburg Press over the course of a year. 400 books and 100 portfolios plus artist’s proofs were printed. The artist illustrated six stories: 'The Little Sea Hare', 'Fundevogel', 'Rapunzel', 'The Boy who left Home to learn Fear', 'Old Rinkrank' and 'Rumpelstilzchen'. According to Hockney, "They're fascinating, the little stories, told in a very, very simple, direct, straightforward language and style, it was this simplicity that attracted me. They cover quite a strange range of experience, from the magical to the moral." He was inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, but Hockney reimagined the stories for a modern audience. The frontispiece for the project pictures Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, the elderly German woman who recounted fairy tales to the Grimm brothers when they were in their late twenties. In Hockney's words: “The stories weren’t written by the Brothers Grimm…they came across this woman called Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, who told 20 stories to them in this simple language, and they were so moved by them that they wrote them down word for word as she spoke.” Hockney drew the German woman in the style of Dürer, formally posed yet naturalistic against an impeccably crosshatched swath of grey. Hockney wrote about the surreal plots contained in the Brothers Grimm tales: “…the stories really are quite mad, when you think of it, and quite strange. In modern times, it’s like the story of a couple moving into a house, and in the next door’s garden they see this lettuce growing: and the wife develops this craving for the lettuce that she just must have and climbs over to pinch it, and the old woman who lives in the house next door says well, you can have the lettuce if you give me your child, and they agree to it. And if you put it into terms like this and imagine them in their semi-detached house agreeing to it all, it seems incredible.” Hockney enhanced this unbelievable quality with his illustrations which traverse inky, dense areas of intense crosshatching and minimalist line work. Rather than serving as direct interpretations of the plot, the images capture moments and feelings. Some portray the magic yet mundane -- Rapunzel's tiny face gazing placidly at a well-tended garden, or project danger and unease as in The Haunted Castle, with its citadel perched atop craggy rocks, dramatically lit against a dark sky. Hockney's sense of humor comes through in Cold Water About to Hit the Prince, in which a man tucked into bed stares straight at a rush of water drawn with a splash (this technique is likely Spit Bite, and the resultant bold spattered brushstroke contrasts beautifully with the rest of the carefully crosshatched image). A Wooded Landscape, with its lush textures, conveys the bucolic setting of a fairy tale and the potential danger hidden within the woods -- the viewer is left to wonder who lives on the hilltop in that diminutive cabin. These etchings defy the conventions of beautiful fairy tale illustrations...

The Departure of the Argonaut (1918) is the travelogue and wartime diary of Alberto Savinio, one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century Italian arts and letters. Clemente's acco...

The Departure of the Argonaut (1918) is the travelogue and wartime diary of Alberto Savinio, one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century Italian arts and letters. Clemente's acco...

Donald Baechler, Potted Plant, 2005 A fun, whimsical, and highly decorative signed limited edition Baechler piece that works well in any setting. Medium: Aquatint and drypoint on ...

From 'Eight Landscapes' (Cristea 19). One of ten Artist's Proofs aside from the edition of 40. 2000, signed in pencil, inscribed 'AP4/10' in black ball-point pen verso. Lambda prin...

Title: Chanel Year: 1997 Medium: Offset lithograph on archival paper mounted on canvas Size: 30 x 21 inches Condition: Excellent Inscription: Signed in the plate Notes: This special ...

Artist: Red Grooms (1937) Title: Truck I (VEL 105; Knestrick 77) Year: 1979-1980 Medium: Lithograph, screenprint, rubber stamp impressions on Arches paper Edition: 36, plus 11 artist...

Artist: Peter Max (1937) Title: Composition Red & Green Year: 1980 Edition: H.C. 12; aside from the edition of 165 Medium: Lithograph on Arches paper Size: 22 x 26 inches Condition: ...

Artist: Peter Max (1937) Title: Umbrella Man at Sunrise Year: 2001 Edition: 105/500, plus proofs Medium: Lithograph on Lustro Saxony paper Size: 9 x 11 inches Condition: Excellent In...