Marie Laurencin

after Marie Laurencin - Les deux amies

after Marc CHAGALL (1887 - 1985) Poster for "Les peintres témoins de leur temps Musée Galiera" 1963 Created by Charles Sorlier after Chagall's 1937 painting...

Pablo Picasso - Original Lithograph Title: Painter and his Model From the illustrated book "Regards sur Paris" (Paris: André Sauret, 1962) Edition of 180 Individual prints were not s...

Jean Dubuffet - Original Lithograph from XXe Siecle magazine 1958 Dimensions: 32 x 25 cm Edition: G. di San Lazzaro. Unsigned and unumbered as issued

Pablo Picasso - Original Lithograph Title: The Ballet Dancer Dimensions: 32 x 24 cm 1954 Reference: Bloch 767 Frontispiece for the book "Le Ballet" (Paris: Editions Hachet, 1954) by...

Original Lithograph by Jean Cocteau Title: Antigone From "Théâtre" Portfolio, 1957 Edition: 207 / 8800 Dimensions: 22.5 x 15.5 cm Jean Cocteau Writer, artist and film director Jean Cocteau was one of the most influential creative figures in the Parisian avant-garde between the two World Wars. “The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.” —Jean Cocteau Synopsis Jean Cocteau was born on July 5, 1889, in Maisons-Laffitte, France. He spent most of his life in Paris, where he became part of the artistic avant-garde and was known for his variety of accomplishments. Over a 50-year career, he wrote poetry, novels and plays; created illustrations, paintings and other art objects; and directed influential films, including The Beauty and the Beast and Orpheus. He died on October 11, 1963. Early Life and Literary Debut Jean Cocteau was born on July 5, 1889, in Maisons-Laffitte, France, a village 12 miles outside Paris, to Georges and Eugénie (née) Lecomte Cocteau. He and his two older siblings were brought up in comfortable household in Paris, where they were introduced to the arts by their parents. Their father, a lawyer and amateur artist, committed suicide in 1898. After his father's death, Cocteau was raised by his mother and his maternal grandfather. He attended school at the Lycée de Condorcet in Paris and he showed an early talent for writing. When he was just 18, his poetry was read aloud in performance arranged by the well-known actor Edouard de Max, and he became the toast of literary Paris. His first book of poems, La Lampe d'Aladin (Aladdin's Lamp), was published a year later, in 1909. Cocteau and the Parisian Avant-Garde In the 1910s, Cocteau formed friendships with many prominent members of the Parisian avant-garde, including writer Guillaume Apollinaire and artists Amedeo Modigliani and Pablo Picasso. He was so impressed by seeing the dancer Vaslav Nijinsky perform with the Ballets Russes that he met the company's founder, Sergei Diaghilev, and asked to work with him. Cocteau designed posters for the Ballets Russe, and in 1917 he was one of the collaborators on the ballet Parade: Cocteau wrote the story, Erik Satie composed the music, Léonide Massine choreographed the dance and Picasso designed the set and costumes. Cocteau's activities of the 1920s were remarkably varied. He composed opera libretti for several composers. He published collections of poetry and illustrations as well as a novel inspired by his experiences during World War I. He staged a ballet called Le Boeuf Sur le Toit (The Ox on the Roof) and directed modern adaptations of several classic dramas. He promoted the work of young writer Raymond Radiguet...

Leonor Fini - Surrealist Portraits Original Lithograph Handsigned Dimensions: 38 x 28 cm Leonor Fini is considered one of the most important women artists of the mid-twentieth century, along with Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, and Dorothea Tanning – most of whom Fini knew well. Her career, which spanned some six decades, included painting, graphic design, book illustration, product design (the renowned torso-shaped perfume bottle for Schiaparelli’s Shocking), and set and costume design for theatre, ballet, opera, and film. In this compellingly readable, exhaustively researched account, author Peter Webb brings Fini’s provocative art and unconventional personal life, as well as the vibrant avant-garde world in which she revolved, vividly in life. Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 (August 30 – January 18, 1996, Paris) to Italian and Argentine parents, Leonor grew up in Trieste, Italy, raised by her strong-willed, independent mother, Malvina. She was a virtually self-taught artist, learing anatomy directly from studying cadavers in the local morgue and absorbing composition and technique from the Old Masters through books and visits to museums. Fini’s fledging attempts at painting in Trieste let her to Milan, where she participated in her first group exhibition in 1929, and then to Paris in 1931. Her vivacious personality and flamboyant attire instantly garnered her a spotlight in the Parisian art world and she soon developed close relationships with the leading surrealist writers and painters, including Paul Eluard, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Max Ernst, who became her lover for a time. The only surrealist she could not abide because of his misogyny was André Breton. Although she repeatedly exhibited with them, she never considered herself a surrealist. The American dealer Julien Levy, very much impressed by Fini’s painting and smitten by her eccentric charms, invited her to New York in 1936, where she took part in a joint gallery exhibition with Max Ernst and met many American surrealists, including Joseph Cornell and Pavel Tchelitchew. Her work was included in MoMA’s pivotal Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition, along with De Chirico, Dali, Ernst, and Yves Tanguy. In 1939 in Paris she curated an exhibition of surrealist furniture...

Elegant pair of etchings by Marie Laurencin (French 1883-1956) from the "Poemes de Sapho" published in 1950 ref. 273. Each beautifully mounted in fram...

Original Vintage Poster, issued 1987 by the ETH in Zurich on the occasion of its exhibition on Le Corbusier's difficult relation with his native country, using a photograph taken 193...

A poster by Erik Nitsche advertising General Dynamics' exhibition "Dynamic America" held 1961 at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York where the company promoted its achievements. Pictured is William Woodnut Griscom, an American inventor who founded the Electro Dynamic Company in 1880, based in Philadelphia. Griscom patented the world's first double induction motor, and his electric drive powered the the first trolley system in Washington D. C. In 1899 Electro Dynamic became Electric Boat...

Printed in 1975, this poster features the encounter between an alluring woman dressed in red, and a man with his back to the viewer. The light of a streetlamp is beautifully imitated...

This surreal etching portrait of Dorian Gray by Jim Dine in blue ink features the literary protagonist dressed in a white suit. His face is obscured by a mass of hair, tangles of which seem to grow from the sleeves, pant legs, and from beneath the jacket. Dine's notes are written on the image: at his feet reading "WHITE BOOTS" and "White Vinyl Suit" alongside the jacket. On the left edge of the image handwritten text reads "DORIAN GRAY AT OPIUM DEN". In Oscar Wilde's novel Dorian Gray keeps opium in an ornate box in his home, and frequents sites of consumption on the East side of London: “There were opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were new”. An opium den is where Sybil's brother James discovers Dorian. The brother attempts to capture the man he believes is responsible for the death of his sister. Dorian flees to his home, ultimately slashing the portrait that has kept him young for so long. Etching by Jim Dine from one of his most important artist’s books – completely designed and illustrated by Dine. Study for the Rings on Dorian Gray’s Hand from “The Picture of Dorian Gray...

Richard Hamilton began studying James Joyce's novel Ulysses (1922) during his national service in 1947. Hamilton was inspired by the idea of illustrating Joyce’s complex, experimental novel in and began making sketches the following year, only to put the project to one side in 1950, with no publisher willing to front the exorbitant cost of resetting the novel for illustrations. It was not until 1981 that he made the decision to create one illustration for each of the novel’s eighteen chapters, and a nineteenth image – a portrait of one of the novel’s main protagonists, Leopold Bloom – destined as a frontispiece. He conceived these images as large intaglio...