Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 3

George Josimovich
'Commuters' — Early 20th-Century Modernism

1922-23

$1,800
£1,382.32
€1,584.12
CA$2,533.96
A$2,838.59
CHF 1,479.16
MX$34,624.94
NOK 18,796.78
SEK 17,724.03
DKK 11,823.47

About the Item

George Josimovich, 'Commuters', linocut, 1922-23, edition 20. Signed, dated '22, titled, and annotated '9/20' in pencil. Initialed in the block 'G.J. ‘23', lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (2 1/2 to 7 1/4 inches), in good condition. Image size 8 7/8 x 6 7/8 inches; sheet size 19 1/4 x 12 inches. Matted to museum standards, unframed. “Life is in a constant state of flux-never-ceasing motion. Everything breathes, moves, vibrates. And it is my ardent belief that the same should be true in a work of art. It should be alive, dynamically alive. Every part of it should live and every part of it should contribute life to the creation as a whole. ...anyone who is sensitive and creative enough to deserve to be called an artist will consciously or unconsciously react to...those phases of life with which his particular nature and personality have a special kinship. And all this cannot help but leave an impress upon his work which is and must be, if it is sincere, an objective manifestation of his inner self.” —George Josimovich, Illinois Historical Art Project ABOUT THE ARTIST Born in Mitrovica, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), George Josimovich (1894 - 1986) immigrated to the United States with his parents and three younger brothers in 1908. The family settled in Fort Laramie and Cheyenne, Wyoming, along the Union Pacific Railroad, where his father worked as a tailor. In 1914, motivated by a newspaper advertisement for the Lockwood Art School in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Josimovich set out for the Midwest to pursue a career in art. From 1914–19 he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) under Karl Buehr and Randall Davey, and alongside fellow students William Schwartz, Emil Armin, and Archibald J. Motley Jr. During his final year at SAIC, Josimovich enrolled in a life class with visiting professor George Bellows, whose teachings about avant-garde art, geometric composition, color theory, and individualism in art exerted a profound influence. An exhibition of applied arts by German artist Hermann Sachs at the Art Institute of Chicago during the winter of 1920–21 also made a strong impression on the young artist. Josimovich studied under Sachs at Chicago’s Hull House and, along with other former SAIC students, followed Sachs to the Dayton Art Museum in Ohio to establish an expressionist craft program. Josimovich returned to Chicago in 1922, where he joined the Jackson Park art colony and spent the next four years honing his craft and developing theories on composition and form. His works from this period evince a lively experimentation with modernist principles and techniques in oil and watercolor paintings, prints, and drawings. Familiar genres of figure study, still life, and landscape are distilled into abstract arrangements of fragmented forms in radically flattened pictorial space, often within tightly ordered geometric compositions. Throughout the 1920s Josimovich established himself as a leading contemporary artist in the city, exhibiting with the Chicago No-Jury Society of Artists, The Ten, and the Chicago Society of Artists, where he later served as president. Critics lauded him as quintessentially modern, praising his “rigid intellectualism” and his focus on color, form, and movement. Josimovich’s year in Paris in 1926–27, where he encountered other practitioners of abstraction and the theory of purism, further stimulated his modernist approach to art. His French sojourn culminated in a 1927 solo exhibition at the Galerie d’art contemporain in Paris, which garnered much coverage in the press. In the 1930s, Josimovich dramatically transformed his art and became an expressionist in the vein of French painter Chaim Soutine. Soutine, who had emigrated to Paris in 1913 from Belarus, rose to international prominence through a major show at the gallery of Paul Guillaume in 1923 and subsequent purchases of his work by American collector Albert Barnes. Josimovich’s portraits, still lifes, and landscapes from this period bear some of the hallmarks of Soutine’s work in their exaggerated figures, quivering masses of color, and dynamic brushstrokes, and as a result, sparked strongly divided commentary among Chicago critics. In the early 1930s, Josimovich was one of the organizers of the Fifty-seventh Street Art Colony, a group of artists with modernist sympathies, and worked briefly for the artists’ relief program of the Works Progress Administration. He continued to show his work through the 1950s in numerous group exhibitions at the Art Institute of Chicago, with the No-Jury Society of Artists and the Chicago Society of Artists, and in a solo exhibition at Knoedler’s Chicago gallery in 1932. —edited from an essay by Patricia Smith Scanlan for ‘Modernism in the New City, Chicago Artists, 1920-1950’
  • Creator:
    George Josimovich (1894 - 1986)
  • Creation Year:
    1922-23
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 8.88 in (22.56 cm)Width: 6.88 in (17.48 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Myrtle Beach, SC
  • Reference Number:
    Seller: 1037991stDibs: LU53236687862

More From This Seller

View All
'Modern Music' — WPA Modernism, New York City El
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Albert Potter, 'Modern Music' also Twilight Melodies', linocut, c. 1935, from the posthumous edition of 20, printed in 1977, authorized by the artist’s widow. Estate authenticated in...
Category

1930s American Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Linocut

'Unemployed Marchers' — American Modernism, WPA
By Leon Bibel
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Leon Bibel, 'Unemployed Marchers', 2-color lithograph, c. 1938, edition 25. Signed, titled, and numbered '2/25' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression on off-white, wove paper, w...
Category

1930s American Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Lithograph

Harbor with Sailboats — Early 20th-Century Modernism
By George Josimovich
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
George Josimovich, Untitled (Harbor with Sailboats) ', linocut, 1923, edition 35. Signed, dated, and annotated '4/35' in pencil. Initialed 'G J' in ...
Category

1920s American Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Linocut

'Dancers' — 1930s American Modernism
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
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...
Category

Mid-20th Century Art Deco Figurative Prints

Materials

Woodcut

Rendez-Vous — Early 20th-Century Modernism
By Boris Lovet-Lorski
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Boris Lovet-Lorski, Untitled (Rendez-Vous), lithograph, edition 250, 1929. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. From a suite of 10 lithographs published by the artist ...
Category

1920s American Modern Nude Prints

Materials

Lithograph

'Theater' — 1920s German Expressionism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
A German Expressionist woodcut, with original hand-coloring in watercolor, depicting a parent and child watching a theatrical production; ...
Category

1920s Expressionist Figurative Prints

Materials

Woodcut

You May Also Like

Figures - Drawing by Hermann Paul - Early 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Figures is an Original China Ink Drawing realized by Hermann Paul (1864-1940). Good condition on a white paper. Hand-signed and titled on the lower margin. Hermann René Georges. ...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Drawings and Watercolors

Materials

Paper, Ink

The Migration - Woodcut Print by Georges Bruyer - Early 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
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...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Woodcut

Figures - Original Woodcut by Paul Hermann - 1929
By Paul Hermann Wagner
Located in Roma, IT
Figures is an original modern artwork realized in 1929 in France by Paul Hermann (1879 - 1969). Original woodcut print on paper. Dated and Hand-signed by the artist in pencil on t...
Category

1920s Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Woodcut

1938 Gladys M. Wilkins 'Cigarettes?'
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Paper Size: 9.25 x 9 inches ( 23.495 x 22.86 cm ) Image Size: 4 x 5.5 inches ( 10.16 x 13.97 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: Part of AMERICAN BLOCK PRINT...
Category

1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples

Materials

Woodcut

Lift - Woodcut by Hermann Paul - Early 20th Century
Located in Roma, IT
Lift is a Woodcut print realized by Hermann Paul. Signed on plate on the lower right corner. Passpartout included cm 48.5x32.5 Good condition. René Georges Hermann-Paul (27 Decemb...
Category

Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Prints

Materials

Woodcut

"Gespenstersonate" original woodcut
By Alfred Lomnitz
Located in Henderson, NV
Medium: original woodcut. Executed in 1920 for Das Kunstblatt, published in Berlin by Verlag Gustav Kiepenheuer. The total sheet measures 10 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches (275 x 210mm); the ima...
Category

1920s Expressionist Prints and Multiples

Materials

Woodcut