Graphite Figurative Prints

R. B. Kitaj Femme de Peuple II (hand signed and inscribed to poet Robert Duncan), 1978 Offset Lithograph (hand signed and inscribed to poet Robert Duncan) Hand signed and inscribed o...

This drawing is a study for the portfolio box from the Jim Dine Oo La La portfolio of 15 lithographs printed offset from zinc plates. The portfolio was produced in collaboration with Ron Padgett and published by Petersburg Press, London. An image of the portfolio cover can be found in the listing photos. The late 1960s and early 70s saw Dine’s interest in literary pursuits grow: he illustrated and published a book of his own poetry entitled Welcome Home Lovebirds (Trigram Press, 1969), and he provided drawings and photographs for the publications of Padgett and other New York School poets: Ron Padgett’s translation of Apollinaire’s "Le Poète Assassiné” (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968), Ron Padgett and Tom Clark’s Bun (Angel Hair, 1968), and Fragment, by Ted Berrigan (Cape Goliard Press, London 1969). Cape Golliard also published a stylish monograph in 1970 reproducing photographs and drawings titled "The Adventures of Mr and Mrs Jim and Ron". In 1966, police raided a Jim Dine exhibition in London at the Robert Fraser Gallery. Fraser was charged under the Obscene Publications act and Dine was found to be indecent. After a meteoric rise to artistic prominence in New York, Dine had tired of the city’s intense art scene, and this incident was the final straw. He moved with his family to London in 1967 and began producing work at Petersburg Press, where he would become a longtime collaborator. As a student, Dine had cited the great American poets, Ron Padgett, Robert Creeley and Ted Berrigan, of the New York School as early inspirations, and in London, he eagerly took the opportunity to work with Padgett at Petersburg Press. Jim Dine, Study of Pigs for the Oo La La portfolio box 1970 Unique unsigned drawing...

Öyvind Fahlström Eddie (Sylvie's Brother) in the Desert (from New York International Portfolio), 1966 Silkscreen on wove paper Pencil signed and numbered from the limited edition of ...

Kenny Scharf Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me (The First Commandment), 1987 5-Color lithograph on Dieu Donne handmade paper with deckled edges 24 × 18 inches Hand signed, dated and numbered 6/84 Unframed Printed by James Miller and Maurice Sanchez at Derriere L'Etoile Studios, Published by Art Issue Editions, Inc. This five color lithograph on Dieu Donne hand made paper with deckled edges is a pencil signed, dated and numbered Artists Proof from the limited edition of 15. This classic 1980s Kenny Scharf print was created as part of the 1987 portfolio "The Ten Commandments", in which ten top Jewish American artists were each invited to choose an Old Testament commandment to interpret in contemporary lithographic form. The "Chosen" artists were, in order of Commandment: Kenny Scharf, Joseph Nechvatal, Gretchen Bender...

"Morton" is a small work on stretched paper featuring hues of red, blue, orange and yellow. Britt Spencer is inspired by the work of Neo Rauch, Andy Warhol and Kara Walker. Based in...

"Eddie" is a small work on stretched paper featuring hues of red, blue, orange and yellow. Britt Spencer is inspired by the work of Neo Rauch, Andy Warhol and Kara Walker. Based in ...

This pencil drawing is a finished portrait of "Old Chris" who arrived in 1941 at the Kansas City Art Institute as a model. He appeared in numerous images by Thomas Hart Benton, John DeMartelly and Jackson Lee Nesbitt . Nesbitt was always drawing and sketching. He filled books with sketches of characters and objects he'd seen on the off chance that he might use them one day. Jackson Lee Nesbitt, a noted printmaker and painter of the American Scene, dedicated his artistic career to the portrayal of ordinary people going about the business of their lives. A native of Oklahoma, Nesbitt created scenes from the Midwest during the 1930s and 1940s, but in the 1950s, when interest in his work diminished, he moved to Atlanta and established a second career in advertising. Thirty years later, Nesbitt sold his business and resumed his artistic career from Atlanta. Jackson Lee Nesbitt, pictured circa 1955, was a native of the Midwest and a well-regarded printmaker and painter for much of the twentieth century. In 1957 he moved to Atlanta and gave up his art to work in advertising, but in 1987 he resumed printmaking at Rolling Stone Press in Atlanta. Jackson Lee Nesbitt was born in McAlester, Oklahoma, on June 16, 1913, the only child of LuCena Grant and Howard Nesbitt. The family resided in Muskogee, Oklahoma, where his father owned a commercial printing business. Jack, as Nesbitt was known, helped out in the family business until 1931, when he enrolled at the University of Oklahoma in Norman. Two years later Nesbitt enrolled at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. As a first-year student, he learned etching from John deMartelly, attended Ross Braught's painting class, and met his future wife, Elaine Thompson, who was a costume design student. Thomas Hart Benton, who joined the faculty in the fall of 1935, quickly became a close friend and mentor to the younger artist. In 1937 the management of the Sheffield Steel Corporation contacted deMartelly concerning an etching commission. Because Nesbitt was an outstanding student, his teacher suggested him for the job. When Nesbitt arrived at the plant one afternoon, he was taken to the open-hearth furnace area, where he diligently sketched anonymous workers in that dramatic setting until five o'clock the following morning. On the strength of his sketches, he was commissioned to create a series of etchings illustrating different phases of the steel industry. The commission launched Nesbitt's career as a professional artist. The commission with Sheffield Steel Corporation provided the financial security that enabled Jack and Elaine Nesbitt to marry on June 1, 1938. He graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute about the same time. Working as a freelance artist, Nesbitt augmented his commissioned work with genre scenes of the Midwest, and he routinely went with Benton on sketching trips to rural Arkansas. The landscape and people of the Ozarks often appear in the Jackson Lee Nesbitt's 1990 lithograph The Matthew W. Johnston Family (12 1/4" x 15") is composed of a mother and daughter whom Nesbitt knew during his childhood in Oklahoma. The man in the image was a model from the Kansas City Art Institute, where Nesbitt studied from 1933 to 1938. Beginning in 1939 Nesbitt's work gained widespread recognition. Open Hearth Door, a Sheffield Steel Corporation painting, was chosen to represent Missouri in the American Art Today exhibition at the New York World's Fair. Associated American Artists selected one of his etchings, Watering Place, for an edition of 250 prints that were sold through subscription. Having a print published by the association ensured national distribution, and four more of Nesbitt's works, all of rural southern genre scenes, were later selected by the print publisher. Over the next decade Nesbitt's work was exhibited in California, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, New York, and Oklahoma. He was awarded the Eames Prize by the Society of American Etchers in 1946, and his work was included in the book American Prize Prints of the Twentieth Century, by Albert Reese. Major corporations with operations in the Midwest, including Brown and Bigelow, Butler Manufacturing Company, Humble Oil and Refining Company, Omaha Steel Works, Pratt and Whitney...

This pencil sketch of the artist was created in last decade of Jack Nesbitt's life. Nesbitt was always drawing and sketching. He filled books with sketches of characters and objects he'd seen on the off chance that he might use them one day. We used this drawing in the book we published on his graphic work, "Jackson Lee Nesbitt...

Surrealist image with an industrial and mechanical theme. Work is done in graphite. Artist signed and dated the work. Image is framed in a black metal frame with a white matte. Dime...

Still life with (thomas) Sully and (Andy) Warhol, (French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923)) Hand signed in pencil, dated 1994 bears gallery label from OK Harris Gallery in New York City Josef Alan Levi (1938) is an American artist whose works range over a number of different styles, but which are unified by certain themes consistently present among them. Josef Levi began his artistic career in the 1960s and early '70s, producing highly abstract and very modernist pieces: these employing exotic materials such as light fixtures and metallic parts. By 1975, Levy had transitioned to painting and drawing still lifes. At first these were, traditionally, of mundane subjects. Later, he would depict images from art history, including figures originally created by the Old Masters. Around 1980, he made another important shift, this time toward creating highly precise, though subtly altered reproductions of pairs of female faces which were originally produced by other artists. It is perhaps this work for which he is most well known. Since around 2000, Josef Levi has changed the style of his work yet again: now he works entirely with computers, using digital techniques to abstract greatly from art history, and also from other sources. Levi's works of art in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the National Gallery of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum, among many others. Levi's art has been featured on the cover of Harper's Magazine twice, once in June 1987, and once in May 1997. Josef Levi received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1959 from the University of Connecticut, where he majored in fine arts and minored in literature. From 1959 to 1960, he served to a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and from 1960 through 1967 he was in the U.S. Army Reserves. In 1966, he received the Purchase Award from the University of Illinois in 1966, and he was featured in New Talent U.S.A. by Art in America. He was an artist in residence at Appalachian State University in 1969, taught at Farleigh Dickenson University in 1971 and was a visiting professor of art at Pennsylvania State University in 1977. From 1975 to 2007, Levi resided in New York City. He now lives in an apartment in Rome, where he is able to paint with natural light as he was unable in New York. From 1959 to 1960, Josef took some courses of Howard McParlin Davis and Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University which initiated him into the techniques of reproducing the works of the Old Masters. His first works, created in the 1960s, were wood and stone sculptures of women. His first mature works were abstract pieces, constructed of electric lights and steel. In 1970, Levi's materials included fluorescent light bulbs, Rust-Oleum and perforated metal in addition to paint and canvas. By 1980, Josef Levi's art had transformed into a very specific form: a combination of reproductions of female faces which were originally depicted by other artists. The faces which he reproduces may be derived from either portraits or from small portions of much larger works; they are taken from paintings of the Old Masters, Japanese ukiyo-e, and 20th-century art. Artists from whom he has borrowed include: Vermeer, Rembrandt, Piero della Francesca, Fernando Botero, Henri Matisse, Utamaro, Andy Warhol, Correggio, Da Vinci, Picasso, Chuck Close, Max Beckmann, Pisanello, Roy Lichtenstein. The creation of these works is informed by Levi's knowledge and study of art history. Josef Levi's paintings from this period are drawn, then painted on fine linen canvas on wooden stretchers. The canvas is coated with twenty-five layers of gesso in order to produce a smooth surface on which to work. The drawing phase takes at least one month. Levi seals the drawing with acrylic varnish, and then he may apply layers of transparent acrylic in order to approximate the look of old paintings. After the last paint is applied, another layer of acrylic varnish is sprayed on to protect the work. Most of the figures in his contemporary pieces are not paired with any others. SELECTED COLLECTIONS MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK, NY ALBRIGHT- KNOX GALLERY, BUFFALO, NY ALDRICH MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, RIDGEFIELD, CT NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC BROOKLYN MUSEUM OF ART, BROOKLYN, NY SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, WASHINGTON, DC CORCORAN GALLERY, WASHINGTON, DC UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME ART...

The camel from the cigarette pack is the best-known example of Larry Rivers' imagery, other than the Dutch Master. Larry Rivers was one of the earliest, i...