de Chirico, Composition, XXe Siècle (after)

1938

Linocut on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, XXe Siècle, vol. n°4, 1938. Published and printed under the direction of Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, éditeur, Paris, by Société Internationale d'Art XXe siècle, Paris. Excerpted from the academic article, “Promoting Original Prints, The Role of Gualtieri di San Lazzaro and XXe Siècle” by Valerie Holman, published in PRINT QUARTERLY, XXXIII, 2016, 2, Until recently very little has been written on the Italian author and art publisher Gualtieri di San Lazzaro (1904-75), yet for 50 years he chronicled the life and work of contemporary artists, produced monographs of exceptional quality, and disseminated original prints by modern painters and sculptors through his best-known periodical, XXe Siècle. Although still a relatively unfamiliar figure in the United Kingdom, San Lazzaro is one of the half-dozen great art publishers of the mid-twentieth century who, together with his exemplar, Ambroise Vollard (1866-1939), and those of his own generation, Christian Zervos (1889-1970), Tériade (1889-1983) and Albert Skira (1904-73), chose to base himself in Paris, seeing it throughout his life as the centre of the art world….XXe Siècle, an illustrated periodical, was launched in 1938 and printed in editions of approximately 2,000, each issue containing both photographs and four-colour separation reproductions across a wide spectrum of visual imagery ranging from masterpieces of Western painting to popular prints from the Far East. Its large format, lively design, and close integration of text and image, were immediately striking, but its most innovative feature, introduced at the suggestion of Hans Arp (1886-1966), was the inclusion of original prints by contemporary artists in every issue. With obvious appeal for collectors, XXe Siècle was also designed to introduce a wider, international public to contemporary painting and sculpture through good quality colour reproductions and the immediacy of original prints. Comparable in price to Cahiers d'Art, early issues of XXe Siècle sold out rapidly. While San Lazzaro's own aesthetic preferences tended towards lyric abstraction, he made clear that XXe Siècle was non-partisan [publication ceased during World War II]….in 1951, San Lazzaro relaunched XXe Siècle with thematic issues that were materials based, or centred on a topic of current interest in the visual arts, particularly in Europe: concepts of space, matter, monochrome, mark-making and the sign.' A defining feature of the new series was Italy's artistic dialogue with France for, while San Laz-zaro had originally concentrated on Paris-based painters and sculptors, his aim was to create an international network, to make known the work of French artists in Italy and Italian artists in France, and subsequently extend this bilateral axis to the English-speak-ing world. The artists represented in No. I by an original print were all best known as sculptors: Arp, Laurens, Henry Moore (1898-186) and Marino Marini, San Lazzaro not only sought to show readers the full range of an artist's work, but to encourage the production of prints, a stimulus much appreciated, for example, by Magnelli…. Suffering from failing health, in 1968 San Lazzaro lost overall control of XXe Siècle to Léon Amiel, a printer-publisher who had provided financial backing and helped with distribution in America." Thematic issues now ceased and were replaced by a 'panorama' of the year, but San Lazzaro was still active as a publisher of books and albums of prints….Shortly after his death, San Lazzaro himself was the subject of two exhibitions: 'Omaggio a XXe Siècle' in Milan in December 1974 centred on graphic work by those artists closest to him late in life, while 'San Laz-zaro et ses Amis' at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1975 featured work by all those whose work he had promoted for more than 50 years: Arp, Calder (1898-1976), Capogrossi, Chagall, Sonia Delau-nay, Dubuffet, Estève, Lucio Fontana (1899-1968), Gili-oli (1911-77), Magnelli, Marini, Miró, Moore and Poliakoff. This exhibition was seen by one of his closest colleagues as an indirect portrait of San Lazzaro, a complex man whose modesty and reserve masked his unremitting drive to extend international appreciation of contemporary art, and to bring the reading public closer to its making through the medium of print. MAX BILL (1908-1994) was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer. Bill is widely considered the single most decisive influence on Swiss graphic design beginning in the 1950s with his theoretical writing and progressive work. His connection to the days of the Modern Movement gave him special authority. As an industrial designer, his work is characterized by a clarity of design and precise proportions. Examples are the elegant clocks and watches designed for Junghans, a long-term client. Among Bill's most notable product designs is the "Ulmer Hocker...

Linocut on vélin paper. Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered, as issued. Good condition. Notes: From the volume, XXe Siècle, n°4, Christmas 1938. Published and printed under the dire...

"Femme assise en pyjama de plage" is a linocut by Pablo Picasso. It is edition 47/100. The work is signed in the lower right, "Picasso". The framed size is 23 1/4 x 18 5/8 x 1 1/2 in...

Marcel Duchamp Rrose Sélavy (Marcel Duchamp) in Wilson-Lincoln System (Schwarz, 344), 1967 Lenticular print on thin white board. Hand signed by Marcel Duchamp. Date, title and number on label verso. 12 7/10 × 10 1/10 inches Edition 8/60 Hand-signed by artist, Hand signed by Marcel Duchamp in blue ink recto. Sticker label verso bears printed title, edition number, year and description. Printed by Shuzo Takiguchi, published in Tokyo. Catalogue Raisonne Reference: "The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp" by Arturo Schwarz, Plate 344 Provenance: This was part of the Deluxe Artist portfolio, "To and From Rrose Sélavy"; this will be the first time the work has been separated from the portfolio Please refer to the attached video to see this 3-D piece in person Eager to share Marcel Duchamp with Japanese audiences, Shuzo Takiguchi - a Japanese-born poet, critic, and artist with ties to Surrealist circles, assembled an international portfolio of graphic works by various artists with strong ties to Duchamp, to accompany the deluxe version of his monograph, "To and From Rrose Sélavy (aka Marcel Duchamp)." The present work - Takiguchi's own piece, a lenticular double portrait - combines Rrose Sélavy's signature with Man Ray's 1930 profile of Duchamp. Its subject, Marcel Duchamp, then signed this work in pencil. Its title, "Rrose Sélavy in the Wilson-Lincoln System", refers to Duchamp's Green Box note describing a two-way, changeable portrait of presidents Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson. Rrose Selavy is, famously, Marcel Duchamp's pseudonym and alter ego. Duchamp died before Takiguchi's book was completed, so this print is one of the very last graphic works that has been hand signed by Marcel Duchamp. It was published in Japan, and is a very elusive work stateside. Another edition of this work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. The National Portrait Gallery and other major institutional collections. This work is fully referenced in the catalogue raisonne "The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp" by Arturo Schwarz, Plate 344, describing the work as follows: "Rrose Selavy in the Wilson Lincoln System (a double image plastic plate with, on the background, Man Ray's portrait of Duchamp, and superimposed,, Rrose Selavy's autograph signature repeated four times, signed lower right in blue ink: Marcel Duchamp, an original embossed print...." More about Marcel Duchamp: Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was born July 28, 1887, near Blainville, France. In 1904, he joined his artist brothers, Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon, in Paris, where he studied painting at the Académie Julian until 1905. Duchamp’s early works were Post-Impressionist in style. He exhibited for the first time in 1909 at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d’Automne in Paris. His paintings of 1911 were directly related to Cubism but emphasized successive images of a single body in motion. In 1912, he painted the definitive version of Nude Descending a Staircase; this was shown at the Salon de la Section d’Or of that same year and subsequently created great controversy at the Armory Show in New York in 1913. Duchamp’s radical and iconoclastic ideas predated the founding of the Dada movement in Zurich in 1916. By 1913, he had abandoned...