German Perez

Los Amantes Series

2010

William Steen Untitled, from the Art Against AIDS Portfolio, 1988 Lithograph on paper with deckled edges Hand signed, numbered 38/50 and dated on lower front with printer's and publisher's blindstamp. 20 1/5 × 15 inches Unframed Hand signed, numbered and dated on lower front with printer's and publisher's blindstamp. This powerful limited edition lithograph by William Steen was published in 1988 as part of the Art Against Aids portfolio, numbered 38/50. Superb provenance as it is was acquired from the original Art Against AIDS Portfolio published in Houston, Texas. This will be the first time the work will be removed from the portfolio. The late 1980s was the height of the AIDS epidemic, and this was one of many efforts by the creative community to raise funds to assist in fighting this deadly scourge that disproportionately affected the artistic community. William Steen 1949-2008 William Steen, artist, collector, curator, and mystic, died of pancreatic cancer on December 20 in New York, where he has lived since 2001. Long time framer at the Menil Collection, the soft-spoken Steen is remembered in Houston where he had his first exhibition of paintings in 1978 at the Roberto Molina Gallery. In 1984 Steen made his first of several trips to India, photographing thousands of Tibetan Buddhist ritual paintings. A champion of outsider art, in 2000 he tangled with the Houston Police over the grafitti mural he comissioned for the walls of the reclaimed Sterling Cleaners...

This print depicts a baseball game mid-play. An umpire crouches with his hand up, and the batter stands poised. In the lower right, spectators peer onto the field. The awning of the stadium, silhouetted in black, cuts lines across the top of the composition, rising over a hillside crowded with homes. This finely-drawn lithograph features Zalopany's characteristic mastery of light and shadow, from the delicate texture of the field, to the spectators backlit in shadow. The composition of Baseball Game was taken from a page in an old picture book, depicting a downtown section of Caracas, Venezuela that is home to a number of Art Deco buildings, all built in the 1950's. Found images are a regular inspiration for Zalopany's large-scale realism. This print calls additionally on Zalopany's regular depiction of nature contrasted with the man-made: here, a behemoth stadium rises beside rolling hills, themselves punctuated with more buildings than trees. This contrast is enhanced by the use of textured, delicate handmade paper, which lends warmth to this dramatic black-and-white drawing. Image 37.5 x 28 in. / 95.25 x 71.2 cm. Paper 51 x 36 in. / 131 x 93 cm. Lithograph on Korean kozo paper. Edition 70. Signed by the artist lower right in pencil, numbered lower center in pencil. Born in 1955 in Detroit Michigan, Michele Zalopany is a contemporary American artist best known for her large-scale watercolor and pastel paintings based on photographs found in digital picture collections, old books, and flea markets, etc. Found photographs and film screen shots that had originally served other purposes -- family snapshots, police photos...