American Modern Figurative Prints

This is a classic New-Deal image: claustrophobic sweatshop with a row of hunched tailors. The windows and lamps offer light at least. But there is a major difference between this and...

Fly TWA The Orient, an original linen-backed travel poster by David Klein. Size: 25” x 40". Archival linen backed and ready to frame. Excellent condition, Grade A. Standing i...

A beautiful turn-of-the-century lake view of Chicago by an American artist known for his Texas landscapes. Etching with drypoint on watermarked Umbria laid paper with deckle edges, 7 1/4 x 10 7/8 inches (182 x 275 mm), full margins. Signed and numbered 4/25 in pencil, lower margin. In good condition with adhesive residue at the sheet edges on the verso, does not show through to the recto. A lovely Lake Michigan landscape...

Original poster: SKI USA FLY UNITED AIRLINES. Original vintage United Airlines travel poster for their skiing destinations. Professional acid-free archival linen backed, ready ...

Original poster: QUAND LE RIRE ETAIT ROI. ( When Laughter Was King.) Artist: Boris Grinsson. French smaller format vintage movie comedy printed in 1960. Archival linen backed ...

Andy WARHOL and Keith HARING Jazz, Dancing on Music Sheet, 1986 Screenprint Printed signature in the plate On heavy paper 100 x 70 cm (c. 40 x 28 in) Created by Haring for the Montr...

Night Shadows. 1921. Etching. Levin 82. 7 x 8 3/8 (sheet 10 x 13 7 1/16).s Series: Six American Etchings: The New Republic Portfolio, 1924. Edition approximately 500-600. Illustrate...

Original CAZALIS & PRATS since 1875. Artist: Emm. Gaillard. Size: 13" x 19.5". Professionally acid-free archival linen backed and ready to frame. Note that a small ink printing line ...

Original 1982 Pink Floyd, The Wall vintage movie poster. Archival linen backed International edition in the size of 27” x 41” ready to frame. Excellent condition. No restoration...

Etching on antique laid Japon paper, 14 1/2 x 7 5/8 inches ( 368 x 195 mm), full margins. Signed, dated and inscribed "Ed. 100 II" in pencil in the lower margin. One of 100 impressio...

Keith Haring Swing Guy (Yellow), 1983 Screenprint Printed signature in the plate On heavy paper 100 x 70 cm (c. 40 x 28 in) Created by Haring for the Montreux Jazz Festival Excelle...

This artwork titled "Elephant Family" 1983 is an original large color serigraph on paper by noted American artist Leroy Neiman, 1921-2012. It is hand signed and numbered 63/300 in pe...

David Feintstein is a master draughtsman working in the genre of everyday life in New York City. His style is highly original, especially in this work. Here he's used Visitors' Day (...

Original, LET’S GO! U.S. MARINES, on Land at Sea and in the Air, 1941 vintage poster. Archival linen backed and ready to frame. Original US Government-issued fold marks were pr...

Clare Leighton, 'Snow Shovellers, New York', 1929, wood engraving, edition 45, Boston Public Library 146. Signed, titled, and numbered '29/45' in pencil. A...

Michael Mazur "The Artist" Hand signed and editioned from the edition of 50 1967 Michael Burton Mazur (1935-August 18, 2009) was an American artist who was described by William Grim...

Original Continental Airlines travel poster. Linen backed in fine condition. Signed and numbered 35/50. This original Continental Airlines poster is an artistic representation of regional destinations prominently served by Continental Airlines in the past. The design is modern and bold, showcasing a unique black-and-white theme with strong, futuristic typography and graphical illustrations. Each city is creatively depicted using stylized imagery that resonates with its character—Oklahoma City features a cowboy motif, New Orleans embraces a jazzy, cultural essence, Dallas reflects the energy of movement, and Midland/Odessa highlights industrial and oil-centric themes. This limited-edition poster is printed in black and white. It features the destinations of Hawaii, San Francisco, Albuquerque and Portland Above each name is a design that represents each destination city. Hawaii has rows of palm trees and hula dancers. San Francisco has rolling hills and cable cars. Albuquerque has tribal Indians dancing. Portland has the cruise shipping. This image features the Saul Bass l967 Continental logo in the design. Continental Airlines was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. The airline was acquired by UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines, on October 1, 2010. This is an original vintage Continental Airlines poster...

Elizabeth Catlett, 'Survivor', linocut, 1983, edition 1000. Signed, titled, dated, and numbered '914/1000' in pencil. A fine impression, on...

Original poster: Lido "Pour Vous"; artist: Rene Gruau (Renato De Zavagli, 1910-2004); size: 15.25 x 23 1/8". Archival linen backed the original Lido Cabaret poster in excellent c...

Charles Turzak, 'North Bank of the Chicago River', color woodcut, c. 1935, edition 50. Signed and titled in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, with...

A view of lower Manhattan's Cherry Street as it appeared at the turn of the 20th century. One of only 5 proof impressions. New York: 1904. Drypoint with aquatint on watermarked, cr...

Waiting from the Kent Bicentennial Portfolio Will Barnet, American (1911–2012) Date: 1975 Offset Lithograph (unsigned as issued) Image Size: 11.25 x 11 inches Size: 17 x 14 in. (43.1...

Original 1919 Give The World The Once Over in the United States Navy vintage poster. Archival linen backed. This poster presents itself very fine condition. The lower text por...

Society of Iconophiles, 1898. Lithograph on brown wove paper, 10 x 7 1/2 inches (253 x 190 mm), full margins. In good condition with some age tone and the lower left corner dog-eare...

Fly Fishing, Saranac Lake. 1889. Etching, aquatint and burnishing. Goodrich 104. 14 1/4 x 20 5/8; sheet 18 1/2 x 24 1/2. Edition unknown but quite possibl...

Howard Cook, 'Financial District', lithograph, 1931, edition 75, Duffy 155. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, the full sheet with wide margins (2 3/4 to 5 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 13 5/16 x 10 3/8 inches (338 x 264 mm); sheet size 23 x 16 inches (584 x 406 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. Literature: 'American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection', the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987. Collections: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Howard Norton Cook (1901-1980) was one of the best-known of the second generation of artists who moved to Taos. A native of Massachusetts, he studied at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Woodstock Art Colony. Beginning his association with Taos in 1926, he became a resident of the community in the 1930s. During his career, he received two Guggenheim Fellowships and was elected an Academician in the National Academy of Design. He earned a national reputation as a painter, muralist, and printmaker. Cook’s work in the print mediums received acclaim early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He received numerous honors and awards over the years, including selection in best-of-the-year exhibitions sponsored by the American Institute of Graphics Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Society of American Etchers, and the Philadelphia Print Club. His first Guggenheim Fellowship took him to Taxco, Mexico in 1932 and 1933; his second in the following year enabled him to travel through the American South and Southwest. Cook painted murals for the Public Works of Art Project in 1933 and the Treasury Departments Art Program in 1935. The latter project, completed in Pittsburgh, received a Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. One of his most acclaimed commissions was a mural in the San Antonio Post Office in 1937. He and Barbara Latham settled in Talpa, south of Taos, in 1938 and remained there for over three decades. Cook volunteered in World War II as an Artist War Correspondent for the US Navy, where he was deployed in the Pacific. In 1943 he was appointed Leader of a War Art Unit...

Bicentennial Indian by Fritz Scholder, Native American (1937–2005) Portfolio: Kent Bicentennial Date: 1975 Offset Lithograph (unsigned as issued) Image Size: 9.5 x 13 inches Frame Si...

ANTON REFREGIER (1905 – 1979) DISCOVERY OF GOLD, 1949. Color serigraph. Signed and numbered in pencil, edition of 90. Image 23 ¼ x 21 ¾" Large sheet, 29 3/4 x 25 ¼”. Printed title...

An enchanting Southern landscape by the mother of the Charleston Renaissance. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, and educated under the tutelage of Thomas Anshutz at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, O'Neill Verner was a teacher, a mother, an artist, an ardent preservationist, and a skilled autodidact. Having previously focused on painting, in the early 1920s she found herself deeply moved by printmaking as a media, and especially so by the simple, peaceful themes and tableaus she discovered in Japanese art. She embarked on a effort to teach herself Japanese printmaking techniques, and in the process, produced the charming images of every day life in Charleston and its environs that earned her recognition as a cultural icon in her day, and in more modern times, as the mother of the Charleston Renaissance, which flourished well into the 1930s. In 1923 she opened a studio in Charleston where she focused on documenting the local color and the architecture and landscape that distinguishes Charleston as one of the South's most beautiful cities, all the while applying the gentle and poetic thematic sensibilities of Japanese printmaking. O'Neill Verner soon found herself in high demand when municipalities and institutions throughout the country sought commissions from her to document the beauty of their grounds and historic buildings. She worked as far north as the campuses of Harvard and Princeton, and extensively across the South, including in Savannah, Georgia, where through sweeping commissions she was able to marry her love of southern preservation and art. O'Neill Verner was a lifelong learner, and continued a path of edification that led her to study etching at the Central School of Art in London, to travel extensively through Europe, and to visit Japan in 1937, where she studied sumi (brush and ink) painting. She was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club, and the Southern States Art League. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of leading museums across the American south, and in major national institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. O'Neil Verner...

A lovely view of Venice from the water. Etching with drypoint on antique cream laid paper with a large figural watermark, signed in pencil, lower right. 14 1/4 x 11 inches (362 x 280...

Benton Spruance, 'Havoc in Heaven', lithograph, 1948, edition 30-35, Fine and Looney 270. Signed, titled, and numbered 'Ed 35' in pencil. Initialed in the stone, lower right. Printed...

"Equal Justice Under Law" Screenprint #99/125 on Wove Paper Iconic composition by Robert Rauschenberg (American, 1925-2008). A red envelope and a hand holding sprouted grass the pli...

Fritz Eichenberg, 'The Steps', wood engraving, 1933, edition 200. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Ed. 200' in pencil. Initialed in the block, lower right. A superb, richly-inked impr...

Zinc lithograph on cream wove paper, 12 3/4 x 10 inches (272 x 253 mm), full margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. One work from the series titled "Salute to New York,"...

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...

'Lot Cleaning, Los Angeles', wood engraving, edition 60, Zeitlin & Ver Brugge 69. Signed, titled and numbered '51/60' in pencil. A brilliant, black impression, on Kitakata Japan pape...

A 1933 lithograph on cream wove paper 14 x 18 inches (354 x 452mm), full margins. Signed, titled, and numbered 17/33 in pencil, lower margin. Minor mat tone around the perimeter of t...

Original Continental Airlines travel poster. Linen backed in fine condition. Signed and numbered 35/50. This original Continental Airlines poster artistically represents regional destinations prominently served by Continental Airlines in the past. The design is modern and bold, showcasing a unique black-and-white theme with strong, futuristic typography and graphical illustrations. Each city is creatively depicted using stylized imagery that resonates with its character—Oklahoma City features a cowboy motif, New Orleans embraces a jazzy, cultural essence, Dallas reflects the energy of movement, and Midland/Odessa highlights industrial and oil-centric themes. This limited-edition poster is printed in black and white. It features Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Dallas, and Midland / Odessa destinations. Above each name is a design that represents each destination city. Oklahoma City has rodeo horseback riding. New Orleans has steamships, Dallas has football players, and Midland has large oil tanker trucks. This image features the Saul Bass l967 Continental logo in the design. Continental Airlines was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. The airline was acquired by UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines, on October 1, 2010. This is an original vintage Continental Airlines poster...

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...

Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978) Bottom of The Sixth Original painting produced 1948, authorized postumous estate print produced 2005 Seriolithograph Sight: 20 1/4 x 19 in. Fram...

A handsome 1930s Rockwell Kent lithograph on paper, titled "Canterbury Tales". Nicely matted and framed in a gold-toned frame. Image size: ...

An original fine art print by Jacob Lawrence from the Kent Spirit of Independence Poster Portfolio, published in 1975 by Lorillard. The offset prints from this portfolio are unsigned...

Etching and drypoint on antique cream laid paper, 12 3/8 x 6 9/16 inches (315 x 167 mm), full margins. Signed, dated, and inscribed "Edition 100" in pencil, lower margin. In very goo...

Luigi Kasimir, 'Brooklyn Bridge', color etching with aquatint, 1927, edition 100. Signed in pencil. A superb impression, with fresh colors, on heavy, cream wove paper; with margins...

Etching on cream wove paper. 6 5/16 x 3 3/4 inches (159 x 94 mm), full margin. Signed in pencil lower center margin, from the edition of 111. A well inked impression with a minor cre...

A man raises his hand to his chin, his neck tilted and face turned to look at a dilapidated farmhouse, barely held together by planks of wood and exposed to the elements. Behind him ...

Fritz Eichenberg, 'Simplicius’ Farewell To The World' from the suite 'The Adventurous Simplicissimus', wood engraving, 1977, artist's proof apart from the edition of 50. Signed in pencil. Signed in the block, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 1/2 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 14 x 12 inches (356 x 305 mm); sheet size 17 1/2 x 15 inches (445 x 381 mm). Archivally sleeved, unmatted. ABOUT THIS WORK 'Simplicius Simplicissimus' (German: Der abenteuerliche Simplicissimus Teutsch) is a picaresque novel of the lower Baroque style, written in five books by Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen published in 1668, with the sequel Continuatio appearing in 1669. The novel is told from the perspective of its protagonist Simplicius, a rogue or picaro typical of the picaresque novel, as he traverses the tumultuous world of the Holy Roman Empire during the Thirty Years' War. Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons. He is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he is so simple that he does not know his own name. After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service and, from there, embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and an alternate world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage, denouncing the world as corrupt. ABOUT THE ARTIST Fritz Eichenberg (1901–1990) was a German-American illustrator and arts educator who worked primarily in wood engraving. His best-known works were concerned with religion, social justice, and nonviolence. Eichenberg was born to a Jewish family in Cologne, Germany, where the destruction of World War I helped to shape his anti-war sentiments. He worked as a printer's apprentice and studied at the Municipal School of Applied Arts in Cologne and the Academy of Graphic Arts in Leipzig, where he studied under Hugo Steiner-Prag. In 1923 he moved to Berlin to begin his career as an artist, producing illustrations for books and newspapers. In his newspaper and magazine work, Eichenberg was politically outspoken and sometimes wrote and illustrated his reporting. In 1933, the rise of Adolf Hitler drove Eichenberg, who was a public critic of the Nazis, to emigrate with his wife and children to the United States. He settled in New York City, where he lived most of his life. He worked in the WPA Federal Arts Project and was a member of the Society of American Graphic Artists. In his prolific career as a book illustrator, Eichenberg portrayed many forms of literature but specialized in works with elements of extreme spiritual and emotional conflict, fantasy, or social satire. Over his long career, Eichenberg was commissioned to illustrate more than 100 classics by publishers in the United States and abroad, including works by renowned authors Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Poe, Swift, and Grimmelshausen. He also wrote and illustrated books of folklore and children's stories. Eichenberg was a long-time contributor to the progressive magazine The Nation, his illustrations appearing between 1930 and 1980. Eichenberg’s work has been featured by such esteemed publishers as The Heritage Club, Random House, Book of the Month Club, The Limited Editions Club, Kingsport Press, Aquarius Press, and Doubleday. Raised in a non-religious family, Eichenberg had been attracted to Taoism as a child. Following his wife's unexpected death in 1937, he turned briefly to Zen Buddhist meditation, then joined the Religious Society of Friends in 1940. Though he remained a Quaker until his death, Eichenberg was also associated with Catholic charity work through his friendship with Dorothy Day...

Lynd Ward, 'Madman's Drum, Plate 41', wood engraving, 1930, edition small. Signed in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white tissue-thin Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (1 5/8 to 2 1/2 inches); a small paper blemish in the upper right margin, away from the image, otherwise in excellent condition. A scarce, artist-printed, hand-signed proof impression before the published edition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 5 1/2 x 3 3/4 inches (140 x 95 mm); sheet size 9 5/8 x 7 1/8 inches (244 x 181 mm). From Lynd Ward’s book of illustrations without words, 'Madman’s Drum', Jonathan Cape and Harrison Smith, New York, 1930. Reproduced in 'Storyteller Without Words, the Wood Engravings of Lynd Ward', Harry N. Abrams, New York, 1974. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lynd Ward is acknowledged as one of America’s foremost wood engravers and book illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. His innovative use of narrative printmaking as a stand-alone storytelling vehicle was uniquely successful in reaching a broad audience. The powerful psychological intensity of his work, celebrated for its dynamic design, technical precision, and compelling dramatic content, finds resonance in the literature of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Like these classic American writers, Ward was concerned with the themes of man’s inner struggles and the role of the subconscious in determining his destiny. An artist of social conscience during the Great Depression and World War II, he infused his graphic images with his unique brand of social realism, deftly portraying the problems that challenged the ideals of American society. The son of a Methodist preacher, Lynd Ward, moved from Chicago to Massachusetts at an early age. He graduated from the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, in 1926, where he studied illustration and graphic arts. He married May Yonge McNeer in 1936 and left for Europe for their honeymoon in Eastern Europe. After four months, they settled in Leipzig, where Ward studied at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking. Inspired by Belgian expressionist artist Frans Masereel's graphic novel ‘The Sun,’ and another graphic novel by the German artist Otto Nückel, ‘Destiny,’ he determined to create his own "wordless" novel. Upon his return to America, Ward completed his first book, ‘God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts,’ published in 1929. ‘Gods’ Man’ was a great success for its author and publisher and was reprinted four times in 1930, including a British edition. This book and several which followed it, ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930, ‘Wild Pilgrimage...

Alexander CALDER Flying Colors : Plane under Red Sun, 1976 Original lithograph Printed signature in the plate On light vellum 58 x 83 cm (c. 23 x 33 in) INFORMATION : Calder create...

Grand Tier at the Met Etching, 1939 From: Reginald Marsh, Thirty Etchings and Engravings Published by the Whitney Museum of American Art, 1969 Unsigned (as usual for the Whitney edit...

Leon Bibel, 'Unemployed Marchers', 2-color lithograph, c. 1938, edition 25. Signed, titled, and numbered '2/25' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression on off-white, wove paper, w...

Bibi Valentin. 1859. Etching and drypoint. Kennedy catalog 50 state ii; Glasgow catalog 34 state ii. 6 x 8 7/8 (sheet 8 11/16 x 10 11/16). Glasgow records 44 known impressions. A rich impression with burr, printed on watermarked laid paper with full margins. Signed and dated in the plate. Housed in a 20 x 16-inch archival mat A young girl, sits facing the viewer, leaning on her left elbow, legs extended to left. She wears a high-necked smock and buttoned boots...

Original Contratto Canelli Vermouth vintage Italian liquor poster. Archival linen backed and ready to frame. Very good condition. This is the later c.1950 lithograph printing of the poster. Beautiful advertising vintage affiche printed in offset lithography (second edition). There is no second printing date besides the original date inside the poster by Cappiello's signature. (Note that the earlier printing sells for about $9500.) Most standard size original Italian posters are 39" x 55" in size; or 27.5" x 39 half sheets. This is currently the lowest and best price for this Cappiello Contratto poster on 1st Dibs. The woman in this Cappiello poster rests on a large green maple leaf while holding a bottle of Vermouth Victor and a bottle of Vermouth Bianco...

(after) Alexander Calder "Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's) these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph. James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor” Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro. These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great. Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War. Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work. In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending. Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles. Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968). In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale. One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas." Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...

Fritz Eichenberg, 'The Aquarium', wood engraving, 1933, edition 200. Signed and titled in pencil. Initialed in the block, lower right. A superb, richly-inked impression, on pale yel...

Three surfers carving up the Hawaiian waves, having a blast in the tropical surf. 3 Turns - Surfing Art - Figurative Print - Woodcut Print By Marc Zimmerman Limited Edition 01/05 ...

Stoops in Snow. 1930. Drypoint and sandpaper ground. McCarron catalog 89.state ii. 9 x 14 7/8 (sheet 13 1/4 x 18 7/16 ). Edition 115 recorded impressio...

A serene landscape of the Venetian skyline at twilight. Etching on watermarked W King cream wove paper, 3 7/8x 8 7/8 inches (97 x 212 mm), full margins. An excellent and well inked ...