Printer's Ink Figurative Prints

screenprint printed in color ink on wove paper. New York City subway station interior. Anthony Velonis (1911 – 1997) was an American painter and designer born in New York City who helped introduce the public to silkscreen printing in the early 20th century. While employed under the federal Works Progress Administration, WPA during the Great Depression, Velonis brought the use of silkscreen printing as a fine art form, referred to as the "serigraph," into the mainstream. By his own request, he was not publicly credited for coining the term. He experimented and mastered techniques to print on a wide variety of materials, such as glass, plastics, and metal, thereby expanding the field. In the mid to late 20th century, the silkscreen technique became popular among other artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Velonis was born into a relatively poor background of a Greek immigrant family and grew up in the tenements of New York City. Early on, he took creative inspiration from figures in his life such as his grandfather, an immigrant from the mountains in Greece, who was "an ecclesiastical painter, on Byzantine style." Velonis attended James Monroe High School in The Bronx, where he took on minor artistic roles such as the illustration of his high school yearbook. He eventually received a scholarship to the NYU College of Fine Arts, into which he was both surprised and ecstatic to have been admitted. Around this time he took to painting, watercolor, and sculpture, as well as various other art forms, hoping to find a niche that fit. He attended NYU until 1929, when the Great Depression started in the United States after the stock market crash. Around the year 1932, Velonis became interested in silk screen, together with fellow artist Fritz Brosius, and decided to investigate the practice. Working in his brother's sign shop, Velonis was able to master the silkscreen process. He reminisced in an interview three decades later that doing so was "plenty of fun," and that a lot of technology can be discovered through hard work, more so if it is worked on "little by little." Velonis was hired by Mayor LaGuardia in 1934 to promote the work of New York's city government via posters publicizing city projects. One such project required him to go on a commercial fishing trip to locations including New Bedford and Nantucket for a fortnight, where he primarily took photographs and notes, and made sketches. Afterward, for a period of roughly six months, he was occupied with creating paintings from these records. During this trip, Velonis developed true respect and affinity for the fishermen with whom he traveled, "the relatively uneducated person," in his words. Following this, Velonis began work with the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), an offshoot of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), where he was assigned to serve the different city departments of New York. After the formation of the federal Works Progress Administration, which hired artists and sponsored projects in the arts, he also worked in theater. Velonis began working for the federal WPA in 1935. He kept this position until 1936 or 1938, at which point he began working in the graphic art division of the Federal Art Project, which he ultimately led. Under various elements of the WPA program, many young artists, writers and actors gained employment that helped them survive during the Depression, as well as contributing works that created an artistic legacy for the country. When interviewed in December 1994 by the Library of Congress about his time in the WPA, Velonis reflected that he had greatly enjoyed that period, saying that he liked the "excitement" and "meeting all the other artists with different points of view." He also said in a later interview that "the contact and the dialogue with all those artists and the work that took place was just invaluable." Among the young artists he hired was Edmond Casarella, who later developed an innovative technique using layered cardboard for woodcuts. Velonis introduced silkscreen printing to the Poster Division of the WPA. As he recalled in a 1965 interview: "I suggested that the Poster division would be a lot more productive and useful if they had an auxiliary screen printing project that worked along with them. And apparently this was very favorably received..." As a member of the Federal Art Project, a subdivision of the WPA, Velonis later approached the Public Use of Arts Committee (PUAC) for help in "propagandizing for art in the parks, in the subways, et cetera." Since the Federal Art Project could not be "self-promoting," an outside organization was required to advertise their art more extensively. During his employment with the Federal Art Project, Velonis created nine silkscreen posters for the federal government. Around 1937-1939 Velonis wrote a pamphlet titled "Technical Problems of the Artist: Technique of the Silkscreen Process," which was distributed to art centers run by the WPA around the country. It was considered very influential in encouraging artists to try this relatively inexpensive technique and stimulated printmaking across the country. In 1939, Velonis founded the Creative Printmakers Group, along with three others, including Hyman Warsager. They printed both their own works and those of other artists in their facility. This was considered the most important silkscreen shop of the period. The next year, Velonis founded the National Serigraph Society. It started out with relatively small commercial projects, such as "rather fancy" Christmas cards that were sold to many of the upscale Fifth Avenue shops...

Navona Square - Rome is an original serigraph realized by Carlo Mazzoni (1922). Hand-signed by the artist in pencil on the lower right corner. Numbered on the lower-left corner. Edi...

Etching and drypoint on cream wove paper, full margins. Signed and numbered 59/75 in pencil, lower margin. Notations in pencil along the lower sheet edge, recto, well outside of ima...

Rocca Luis César Campo II (blue line) [polyptych], 2023 Serigraph Each of the four pieces is 15.75 x 11.80 in Edition of 20 This serigraph (silkscreen or screen print) is part of a ...

The repetition of patterns and rhythm is present in almost every piece of Pedro´s work. The hybrid topographies that Pedro Friedeberg´s unclassifiable practice recreates we must rec...

An incredibly rare image of the very early days of surfing in Hawaii dating to around 1921. The striking contrasts and intricate technique immediately bring to mind Japanese woodblock art, in particular Katsushika Hokusai' s The Great Wave - such images had a profound influence on the artist's work. In very good condition with strong colour, ready to hang on the wall. Charles William Bartlett...

Frank Arnold is thought by many to be one of the foremost abstract figurative painters and sculptors of our time. He is a living master whose work is considered to be both personal a...

Robert Smith (United States, 1944) 'Open wide', 1972 lithograph in color on paper 21.7 x 29.6 in. (55 x 75 cm.) Edition of 75 Unframed ID: SMI1158-001-075 Hand-signed by author

This artwork, "La Fete a Honfleur" c.1980 is a original colors serigraph on Wove paper by French artist (Fanch) Francois Ledan, born 1949. it is hand signed an...

Harry Shokler used serigraphy to great advantage in this landscape. It's colorful and detailed. It is signed in the image at the lower left. When printmakers began making serigraphs...

Andy Warhol Portraits of the 1970s (Deluxe Limited Edition Monograph with Slipcase, Hand Signed and Numbered by Warhol), 1979 Hand Signed and Numbered Hardback Monograph with 120 Bound offset lithographs and text, held in original slipcase (boxed set). Boldly signed by Andy Warhol and numbered 7, from the edition of 200 on the colophon page. 9 1/2 × 8 1/2 × 2 inches Provenance The original (uptown) Whitney Museum An amazing and historic gift! As dazzling as the Warhol show was in 2019 at the new Whitney Museum -- only his show in the late 1970s at the old Whitney Museum, could offer this Deluxe limited edition collectors item - hand signed and numbered by Andy Warhol - because the latter was published during his lifetime. This rare 1979 First (and only) Edition hardback monograph is held in the original slipcase, and is hand signed by Andy Warhol and numbered 108 out of only 200 on the first front end page (see image). This collectors item features text, accompanied by 120 full page color offset lithograph bound, double sided plates on regular pages. (Total pages are: 145) It was published by the Whitney Museum in collaboration with Random House, in conjunction with the exhibition held at the Whitney Museum of American Art, November 20, 1979 to January 27, 1980. Text foreword is by Tom Armstrong, the Whitney's director. Total pages are: 145. The Warhol portraits included are: Giovanni Agnelli, Marella Agnelli, Corice Arman, Marian Block, Irving Blum, Truman Capote, Cristina Caramati, Leo Castelli, Carol Coleman, Norman Fisher, Kay Fortson, Tina Freeman, Diane Von Furstenberg, Henry Geldzahler, Halston, Brooke Hayward, Barbara Heizer, Michael Heizer, Carolina Herrera, David Hockney, Baby Jane Holzer, Dennis Hopper, Victor Hugo, Alexander Iolas, Caroline Ireland, Charles Ireland, Mick Jagger, Paul Jenkins, Katie Jones, Ivan Karp, Marilyn Karp, Evelyn Kuhn, Jane Lang, Francis Lewis, Sydney Lewis, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Roy Lichtenstein, Daryl Lillie, Joe MacDonald...

Drypoint etching with engraving printed in black ink on Japanese mulberry paper, 4 1/2 x 3 3/8 inches (113 x 84 mm), full margins. In superb condition. A beautiful New York City river...