Peter Ilsted

Interior with Red Shawl (Young woman reads in this calm Vermeer-like interior)

1913

In Anne Dykmans' "Fructidore", a well endowed woman uses her plaid apron to carry a bunch of fruit. Parts of her body clothed in plaid seem to suggest the same fruit she is carrying...

Viewers are always curious about this image. I count 20 people seated -- all men. Why? Three of the men are looking over their shoulders toward the back. Are they impatient to see late arrivers? The seating seems to be pew like. Pasternak, like most artists, wants the viewer to bring their own interpretation to the image and is most circumspect to give an explanation. A church, a union hall, a political meeting -- which is it? The mood seems to be one of anxiety rather than celebration. The artist did answer why all men. He says that "he likes to create the tension of the image on the page. Putting women and men together...

This image shows a cleric seated in a church sacristy surrounded by religious statues, croziers, various saints, statues and chalices. It is an origina...

Associated American Artists published "Sleeping Car" by James Hendershot. This image shows a rail car filled with passengers and conductors. This exhibit...

Interiors I: Family Reunion 1984 Resist ground etching and engraving on BFK Rives wove paper, 20 x 36 inches (501 x 913 mm), full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 49/175 in pencil, lower margin. In excellent condition with minor mat tone. A luminous, rich, and well-inked impression of this haunting image, with astonishing detail and depth. Framed handsomely under museum grade glass with archival materials in a solid wood frame with silver finish. [Milton 107] Intended to be a stand alone image in its inception, Family Reunion ended up spawning seven additional images, and became a sort of Primo Pensiero in the sprawling, masterpiece suite now known as Interiors. The suite took eight years to complete, and consists of works of varying format, psychological intensity, and subject matter. The thematic darkness in the eight images waxes and wanes, and Milton intentionally included several interlude works to lighten the tension he felt while composing several of the darker images. The first two in the series, Family Reunion, and Hotel Paradise Café, were meant to be companion pieces. The equilibrium of each composition is anchored on a central brooding figure; a man (perhaps based on a Thomas Eakins portrait of the American anthropologist Frank Hamilton...

Interiors VII: The Train from Munich Robert E. Townsend, 1991. Resist ground etching and engraving with hand refinement in charcoal, pencil, stabilo, and eraser on BFK Rives white wove paper, 20 x 36 inches (507 x 914 mm), full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 51/175 by the artist in pencil, lower margin. A brilliant, inky impression with luminous light and gradient tones. In excellent condition with one extremely minor and superficial spot of light tan adhesive residue on the verso, unobtrusive and not visible on the recto, with no other visible defects. With the blind stamp of the printer, Robert E. Townsend in the lower left margin. An especially fine impression in superb condition. [Milton 113]. When asked about this work in particular, Milton expressed that his favorite images were his darkest images, in theme, mood, and in ink. Milton, who has said that his work is infused with a postmodern awareness of the past, has focused here in a deeply personal way on a segment of history that continues to haunt us all. The work, published in 1991, evokes one of the darkest periods of European history, the eroding and erasing of European culture under fascism, and the eventual total loss of humanity. The Train from Munich is an especially relevant and emotional work for Milton, who created the piece for his wife, Edith, who escaped Munich in 1939 as a child on the fabled Kinderstransport. The Kinderstransport was a desperate rescue effort on the part of the British government to save as many Jewish children as possible by railway before borders closed on the precipice of the Second World War. Children left their parents behind, and boarded the trains alone, leaving the impending doom of Nazi Germany, they arrived in Great Britain as refugees. More than 10,000 children escaped the holocaust via the Kinderstransport. In Train from Munich, the image itself holds an almost immeasurable amount of symbolism; each inch of the matrix is a successful effort to confront this history in a way that is poignant through a series of motifs. We see the Café disappearing into a ghostlike memory of the past, an allegory to the disintegration of culture, while through the windows we can see a rampant, snarling dog; a portrait of Hitler's shepherd, Blondi. Blondi isn't the only notable figure in the composition. Milton has pointed out that the fading figure of the doorman at the Hotel Metropole is modeled after the artist and intellectual Marcel Duchamp, and the face of the young girl peering...

Chiaroscuro woodcut with underlying engraving on cream laid paper, printed from two blocks in brown and olive. 10 1/4 x 12 3/4 inches (260 x 321 mm) (plate), full margins with the text printing clearly below in black ink. In very good condition with scattered surface soiling and several minor flecks of light discoloration in the margins, especially in the area of the lower right corner, well outside of image area. Unobtrusive notations in pencil in the margin and on the verso. All condition issues are consistent with age. After a drawing of the same title by Polidoro da Caravaggio...

A Scene in the New Farce —as performed at the Royalty Theater London: George Humphrey, 1821. Etching and engraving on cream wove paper with extensive hand coloring in watercolor. 9 5/8 x 13 3/4 inches (244 x 348 mm), trimmed at the platemark. A beautiful impression of this large, intricate print...