Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Marc Chagall
"Nuit d'été (Summer's Night)" Lithograph, Colors, Linear Figures on Black Ground

1973

About the Item

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Marc Chagall is clearly a Modernist. Though titled "Summer Night" it could just as easily be identified as a scene from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" especially as the subject dressed as a male also has a donkey's head and known in the play as Bottom. Perhaps the white dove plays the role of the elusive Puck who so changed Bottom into the fool. It is numbered 48/50 and signed below the print. It is a Lithograph printed in colors, 1973, on Arches wove paper, printed by Mourlot, Paris. According to Cogniat, in all Chagall's work during all stages of his life, it was his colors which attracted and captured the viewer's attention. During his earlier years his range was limited by his emphasis on form and his pictures never gave the impression of painted drawings. He adds, "The colors are a living, integral part of the picture and are never passively flat, or banal like an afterthought. They sculpt and animate the volume of the shapes... they indulge in flights of fancy and invention which add new perspectives and graduated, blended tones... His colors do not even attempt to imitate nature but rather to suggest movements, planes and rhythms.” Chagall was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in a wide range of artistic formats, including painting, drawings, book illustrations, stage sets, ceramics, tapestries and fine art prints. Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century" (though Chagall saw his work as "not the dream of one people but of all humanity"). According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN and the Art Institute of Chicago and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opera. Before World War I, he travelled between Saint Petersburg, Paris and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern Europe and Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country's most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avant-garde, found the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1923. He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism's "golden age" in Paris, where "he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism and Fauvism and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism.” Yet throughout these phases of his style "he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk.” After returning to France in the 1940s he traveled throughout Europe and chose to live in the Cote D’Azur which by that time had become somewhat of an "artistic centre". Matisse lived near Saint-Paul-de-Vence, about seven miles west of Nice, while Picasso lived in Vallauris. Although they lived nearby and sometimes worked together, there was artistic rivalry between them as their work was so distinctly different, and they never became long-term friends though Picasso still had a great deal of respect for Chagall. “When Matisse dies, Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what color is... His canvases are really painted, not just tossed together. Some of the last things he's done in Vence convince me that there's never been anybody since Renir who has the feeling for light that Chagall has.”
More From This SellerView All
  • Larry Rivers Lithograph "For Adults Only I" Corseted Nude Female
    By Larry Rivers
    Located in Detroit, MI
    SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "For Adults Only I" is an exquisite offset lithograph print with colors of an alluring corseted and stockinged nude female in a confrontational pose filling the f...
    Category

    1970s Pop Art Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph, Offset

  • Arnold Singer "Woman on Arm of Sofa" Lithograph Linear Black & White
    Located in Detroit, MI
    “Woman on Arm of Sofa” is an extraordinary lithograph by Arnold Singer. You could say it is representative of his interests in several art styles that ar...
    Category

    1960s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Roy Lichtenstein Tryptich "as I opened fire" 1966 Stedelijk Museum Amsterd
    By Roy Lichtenstein
    Located in Detroit, MI
    SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "As I opened fire" is a lithograph triptych by Roy Lichtenstein whose provenance is printed on verso: Coll. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Editions were copyrighted by the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and corrected with the original and printed in the Netherlands. Each piece measures: 25 1/8" h x 20 5/8" w. Roy Fox Lichtenstein was an American pop artist. During the 1960s through the 90’s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. His work defined the premise of pop art through parody. Most of Lichtenstein's best-known works are relatively close, but not exact, copies of comic book panels, a subject he largely abandoned in 1965. Lichtenstein's Still Life paintings, sculptures and drawings, which span from 1972 through the early 1980s, cover a variety of motifs and themes, including the most traditional such as fruit, flowers, and vases. Inspired by the comic strip, Lichtenstein produced precise compositions that documented while they parodied, often in a tongue-in cheek manner. His work was influenced by popular advertising and the comic book style. His artwork was considered to be "disruptive". He described pop art as "not 'American' painting but actually industrial painting". His paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City. Wham!, and Drowning Girl Look Mickey proved to be his most influential works. His most expensive piece is Masterpiece which was sold for $165 million in January 2017. Lichtenstein received both his Bachelors and Masters at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio where he taught for ten years. In 1967, he moved back to upstate New York and began teaching again. It was at this time that he adopted the Abstract Expressionist style, being a late convert to this style of painting. Lichtenstein began teaching in upstate New York at the State University of New York at Oswego in 1958. About this time, he began to incorporate hidden images of cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny into is abstract works. In 1960, he started teaching atRutgers University where he was heavily influenced by Allan Kaprow, who was also a teacher at the university. This environment helped reignite his interest in Proto-pop imagery. In 1961, Lichtenstein began his first pop paintings using cartoon images and techniques derived from the appearance of commercial printing. This phase would continue to 1965, and included the use of advertising imagery suggesting consumerism and homemaking. His first work to feature the large-scale use of hard-edged figures and Ben-Day dots was Look Mickey (1961), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D. C.) This piece came from a challenge from one of his sons, who pointed to a Mickey Mouse comic book and said; "I bet you can't paint as good as that, eh, Dad?" In the same year he produced six other works with recognizable characters from gum wrappers and cartoons. It was at this time that Lichtenstein began to find fame not just in America but worldwide. He moved back to New York to be at the center of the art scene in 1964 to concentrate on his painting. Lichtenstein used oil and Magna (early acrylic) paint in his best known works, such as Drowning Girl (1963), which was appropriated from the lead story in DC Comics’ Secret Hearts No. 83, drawn by Tony Abruzzo. (Drowning Girl now hangs in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.) Drowning Girl also features thick outlines, bold colors and Ben-Day dots, as if created by photographic reproduction. Of his own work Lichtenstein would say that the Abstract Expressionists "put things down on the canvas and responded to what they had done, to the color positions and sizes. My style looks completely different, but the nature of putting down lines pretty much is the same; mine just don't come out looking calligraphic, like Pollock’s or Kline’s. Rather than attempt to reproduce his subjects, Lichtenstein's work tackled the way in which the mass media portrays them. He would never take himself too seriously, however, saying: "I think my work is different from comic strips – but I wouldn't call it transformation; I don't think that whatever is meant by it is important to art.” When Lichtenstein's work was first exhibited, many art critics of the time challenged its originality. His work was harshly criticized as vulgar and empty. The title of a Life magazine article in 1964 asked, "Is He the Worst Artist in the U.S.?" Lichtenstein responded to such claims by offering responses such as the following: "The closer my work is to the original, the more threatening and critical the content. However, my work is entirely transformed in that my purpose and perception are entirely different. I think my paintings are critically transformed, but it would be difficult to prove it by any rational line of argument.” In 1969, Lichtenstein was commissioned by Gunter Sachs to create Composition and Leda and the Swan, for the collector's Pop Art bedroom suite at the Palace Hotel in St. Moritz. In the late 1970s and during the 1980s, Lichtenstein received major commissions for works in public places: the sculptures Lamp (1978) in St. Mary's, Georgia; Mermaid (1979) in Miami Beach; the 26 feet tall Brushstrokes in Flight (1984, moved in 1998) at John Glenn Columbus International Airport; the five-storey high Mural with Blue Brushstroke (1984–85) at the Equitable Center, New York and El Cap de Barcelona (1992) in Barcelona. In 1994, Lichtenstein created the 53-foot-long, enamel-on-metal Times Square Mural in Times Square subway station. In 1977, he was commissioned by BMW to paint a Group 5 Racing Version of the BMW 320i for the third installment in the BMW Art Car Project. The DreamWorks Records logo was his last completed project. "I'm not in the business of doing anything like that (a corporate logo) and don't intend to do it again," allows Lichtenstein. "But I know Mo Ostin and David Geffen and it seemed interesting. In 1996 the The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. became the largest single repository of the artist's work when Lichtenstein donated 154 prints and 2 books. The Art Institute of Chicago has several important works by Lichtenstein in its permanent collection, including Brushstroke with Spatter (1966) and Mirror No. 3 (Six Panels) (1971). The personal holdings of Lichtenstein's widow, Dorothy Lichtenstein, and of the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation number in the hundreds. In Europe, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne has one of the most comprehensive Lichtenstein holdings with Takka Takka (1962), Nurse (1964), Compositions I (1964), besides the Frankfurt Museum fur Modern Kunst with We Rose Up slowly (1964), and Yellow and Green Brushstrokes...
    Category

    1960s Pop Art Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • "History of Detroit" Linoleum Cut, Black Ink, African American, Mural Style
    By Hubert Massey
    Located in Detroit, MI
    "History of Detroit" is in the style of a mural by the master muralist from the city of Detroit, Hubert Massey. It renders in dramatic composition the ov...
    Category

    Early 2000s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Linocut

  • Axel Crieger Audrey Hepburn Fotocollage Print "Fragility Adored" Ltd Ed
    By Axel Crieger
    Located in Detroit, MI
    SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "Fragility Adored" a Fotocollage print on photographic paper by Axel Crieger (1955 - ) of an Audrey Hepburn publicity photo for "Sabrina" now placed in a cafe. I...
    Category

    1950s Conceptual Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Photographic Paper

  • Antonio Lopez Saenz Aquatint "Hombres y Sillos" (Men and Chairs)
    By Antonio Lopez Saenz 1
    Located in Detroit, MI
    SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Antonio Lopez Saenz is a brilliant iconic creative artist from Mazatlan, Mexico. The aquatint “Hombres y Sillos” (Men and Chai...
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Aquatint

You May Also Like
  • 'Chamonix' Mid-Century Hand Signed Original Lithograph.
    By Joan Gardy Artigas
    Located in Cotignac, FR
    Mid-Century original lithograph entitled " Chamonix " hand signed by Joan Gardy Artigas and numbered 12/75 on arches vellum rag paper from the 1966-70 edition. Presented in period 19...
    Category

    Mid-20th Century Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Printer's Ink, Rag Paper, Lithograph

  • One Hundred and Eight Inflated Dollars, from Sonnabend and Castelli Collection
    By Oyvind Fahlstrom
    Located in New York, NY
    Öyvind Fahlström One Hundred and Eight Inflated Dollars, from the Collection of Ileana Sonnabend and the Estate of Nina Castelli, 1973 Lithograph on rag paper. Signed. Numbered. in o...
    Category

    1970s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Rag Paper, Lithograph

  • Three Heads
    Located in Santa Fe, NM
    MILTON HEBALD (1917 - 2015) In 1994, at 77 years, Milton Hebald, one of the pre-eminent American figurative sculptors of the 20th centur...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Rag Paper, Digital, Digital Pigment

  • FUGA
    Located in Santa Fe, NM
    MILTON HEBALD (1917 - 2015) In 1994, at 77 years, Milton Hebald, one of the pre-eminent American figurative sculptors of the 20th centur...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Digital Pigment, Rag Paper, Digital

  • Budding Grove
    Located in Santa Fe, NM
    MILTON HEBALD (1917 - 2015) In 1994, at 77 years, Milton Hebald, one of the pre-eminent American figurative sculptors of the 20th centur...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Rag Paper, Digital, Digital Pigment

  • Two Dancers
    Located in Santa Fe, NM
    MILTON HEBALD (1917 - 2015) In 1994, at 77 years, Milton Hebald, one of the pre-eminent American figurative sculptors of the 20th centur...
    Category

    1990s American Modern Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Rag Paper, Digital, Digital Pigment

Recently Viewed

View All