Winslow Homer

The Bathers

1873

Indian Friendship Dance Drypoint, 1953 Signed in pencil lower right, (see photo) Edition 200 Published by The Society of American Graphic Artists, New York An impression is in the collection of SAAM, Washington and RISD Museum, Condition: Excellent Very rich impression with burr and selective whiping of the ink for atmospheric nocturnal effect. Image/Plate size: 8 3/16 x 11 15/16 inches Sheet size: 11 1/8 x 17 inches Reference: Kloss 450 "'Indian Friendship Dance' is an eloquent statement of something which Gene Kloss has both observed and participated in. It is an Indian dance that is thought of as entertainment, rather than ceremony, but it is essentially an idea expressed in action, and an idea that has universal meaning. The young men who dance wear costumes of exquisite workmanship, intricately wrought with beads and feathers and subtle combinations of colors. The dancers are trained from childhood but develop their own steps and exhibit distinctive strength and grace. Singers and a tom-tom accompany the dance and since it usually takes place at night, a campfire is the source of light. The conclusion occurs when all the onlookers, old and young and from many places, join hands with the dancers in a slow revolving movement, while those who can, sing the difficult but meaningful Indian song that flows with the rhythmical dance step and speaks of fellowship, brotherhood, friendship." - An excerpt from a descriptive statement, written by Lynd Ward, and distributed with the drypoint at the time of publication." Courtesy Old Print Shop Born Alice Glasier in Oakland, CA, Kloss grew up amid the worldly bustle of the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended the University of California at Berkeley, graduating with honors in art in 1924. She discovered her talents in intaglio printmaking during a senior-year course in figurative drawing. The professor, Perham Nahl, held up a print from Kloss’ first plate, still damp from the printing process, and announced that she was destined to become a printmaker. In 1925, Gene married Phillips Kloss, a poet and composer who became her creative partner for life. The match was uncanny, for in her own way Gene, too, was a poet and a composer. Like poetry, her artworks capture a moment in time; like music, her compositions sing with aesthetic harmony. Although she was largely self-taught, Kloss was a printmaking virtuoso. On their honeymoon the Klosses traveled east from California, camping along the way. They spent two week is Taos Canyon – with a portable printing press cemented to a rock near their campsite – where Gene learned to appreciate the wealth of artistic subject matter in New Mexico. The landscape, the cultures, and the immense sky left an indelible impression on the couple, who returned every summer until they made Taos their permanent home 20 years later. Throughout her life, Kloss etched more than 625 copper plates, producing editions ranging from five to 250 prints. She pulled every print in every edition herself, manually cranking the wheel of her geared Sturges press until she finally purchased a motorized one when she was in her 70s. Believing that subject matter dictated technique, she employed etching, drypoint, aquatint, mezzotint, roulette, softground, and a variety of experimental approaches, often combining several techniques on the same plate. She also produced both oil and watercolor paintings. Kloss’ artworks are filled with drama. Her prints employ striking contrasts of darkness and light, and her subjects are often illuminated by mysterious light sources. Though she was a devout realist, there is also a devout abstraction on Kloss’ work that adds an almost mythical quality. For six decades Kloss documented the cultures of the region-from images of daily life to those of rarely seen ceremonies. She and her husband shared a profound respect for the land and people, which made them welcome among the Native American and Hispanic communities. Kloss never owned a camera but relied instead on observation and recollection. Her works provide an inside look at the cultures she depicted yet at the same time communicate the awe and freshness of an outsider’s perspective. Although Kloss is best known for her images of Native American and Penitente scenes, she found artistic inspiration wherever she was. During the early years of their marriage, when she and Phil returned to the Bay Area each winter to care for their aging families, she created images of the California coast. And when the Klosses moved to southwestern Colorado in 1965, she etched the mining towns and mountainous landscapes around her. In 1970 the Klosses returned to Taos and built a house north of town. Though her artwork continued to grow in popularity, she remained faithful to Taos’ Gallery A, where she insisted that owner Mary Sanchez keep the prices of her work reasonable regardless of its market value. Kloss continued to etch until 1985, when declining health made printmaking too difficult. From her first exhibition at San Francisco’s exclusive Gump’s in 1937 to her 1972 election to full membership in the National Academy of Design, Kloss experienced a selective fame. She received numerous awards, and though she is not as well known as members of the Taos Society of Artists...

Darius at 10 Drypoint, 2022 Signed, titled and numbered in pencil Printed by Rebekah Wilhelm Her drystamp lower right Published by the artist Edition 14, plus proofs Condition: Excel...

Meditation and Minou Color lithograph and serigraph, 1980 Signed and numbered in pencil (see photo) Printer Styria Studio, Inc. New York Publisher: Harry Abrams...

WARNING! Register*Vote, INFLATION means DEPRESSION Photo lithograph, 1946 Signed in the image lower left Published by CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) before their merger w...

AFTER - WINSLOW HOMER (1836-1910) THANKSGIVING IN THE ARMY - After Dinner: the Wishbone, 1864 Original wood engraving as published by Harpers Weekly December 3, 1864, after a drawing by Winslow Homer. Image 9 3/4" x 14, Sheet 10 3.\/4 x 15 3/4" . Generally good condition, a small stain in the upper right margin. Homer contributed drawings to Harper's Weekly from 1857 to 1875. They were converted to wood engravings by Harper's craftsman and published in Harper's Weekly. Although after his original drawings, they are now accepted as an important part of his body of work by museums and collectors. They were very large editions. As such, they occur often in the marketplace. Harper's published during the Civil War years as this was, were widely read and kept as people followed the war first hand and its aftermath over the years continuing today as both Homer and Civil War collectables

This artwork titled "Trumpeteers" 1976 is an original wood engraving by Russian/American artist Leon Gilmour, 1907-1996. It is hand signed, titled, dated ...

Ward Lockwood (1894 - 1963) New Mexico, Texas, Kansas / Mexico Artist Image Size: 12 x 16 Frame Size: 17.75 x 21.75 Medium: Charcoal "Siesta By The Oven" Biography Ward Lockwood (1894 - 1963) Born in Atchison, Kansas, Ward Lockwood became a key painter in the Taos, New Mexico art colony, but diverse modernist art styles including Expressionism*, Cubism*, Surrealism* and Constructivism* reflected his wide ranging travels in Europe and the United States. From the 1920s to the 1960s, his work embraced a series of stylistic changes characteristic of people who influenced him, including John Marin and Andrew Dasburg. He studied at the University of Kansas, and from 1914 to 1917 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts* where he was introduced to Modernism*. In 1917, he began a two-year enlistment in the Army and served in France, and in 1921, a return visit to France led to his being influenced by Paul Cezanne and Vincent Van Gogh. During this time, he studied in Paris at the Academie Ranson*, but got bored with the academic climate of that school and spent time at the Louvre and galleries along the Rue de la Boetie. He painted from local models and traveled around France with fellow Kansan, Kenneth Adams. He was much impressed with the diversity of contemporary art movements including Futurism*, Cubism, and Dadaism*. His work from this period shows influences of Geometric Abstraction* and Impressionism. In 1922, he returned to Kansas, committed to the idea that an artist does best painting in his own culture. He worked as a commercial artist and also did portrait commissions. In 1926, he and his wife, artist Clyde Bonebrake, moved to Taos, New Mexico because of his friendship with Kenneth Adams, who was already established there. Lockwood became interested in the Taos Society of Artists...

Thomas Hart Benton, 'Goin' Home', lithograph, 1937, edition 250, Fath 14. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white, wove paper, with margins, in excellent condition. Published by Associated American Artists. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 7/16 x 11 7/8 inches; sheet size 10 3/4 x 13 5/16 inches. Impressions of this work are held in the following museum collections: Figge Art Museum, Georgetown University Art Collection, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST “Benton’s idiom was essentially political and rhetorical, the painterly equivalent of the country stump speeches that were a Benton family tradition. The artist vividly recalled accompanying his father, Maecenas E. Benton — a four-term U.S. congressman, on campaigns through rural Missouri. Young Tom Benton grew up with an instinct for constituencies that led him to assess art on the basis of its audience appeal. His own art, after the experiments with abstraction, was high-spirited entertainment designed to catch and hold an audience with a political message neatly bracketed between humor and local color.” —Elizabeth Broun “Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Spring 1987. Born in 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Washington, D.C., where his father, Maecenas Eason Benton, served as a Democratic member of Congress from 1897 to 1905. Hoping to prepare Benton for a political career, his father sent him to Western Military Academy. After nearly two years at the academy, Benton persuaded his mother to support him in attending the Art Institute of Chicago for two years, followed by two additional years at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1912, Benton returned to America and moved to New York to pursue his artistic career. One of his first jobs involved painting sets for silent films, which were being produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Benton credits this experience with equipping him with the skills necessary to create his large-scale murals. When World War I broke out, Benton joined the Navy. Stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, he was assigned to create drawings of camouflaged ships arriving at Norfolk Naval Station. These renderings were used to identify vessels that might be lost in battle. Benton later remarked that being a "camofleur" profoundly impacted his career: "When I came out of the Navy after the First World War," he said, "I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be just a studio painter, a pattern maker in the fashion then dominating the art world—as it still does. I began to think of returning to the painting of subjects, subjects with meanings, which people, in general, might be interested in." While developing his Regionalist vision, Benton also taught art, first at a city-supported school and later at The Art Students League from 1926 to 1935. One of his students was a young Jackson Pollock, who regarded Benton as both a mentor and father figure. In 1930, Benton was commissioned to paint a mural for the New School for Social Research. The "America Today" mural, now permanently exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, led to many more commissions as Benton’s work gained wide recognition. The Regionalist Movement became popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Painters such as Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry rejected modernist European influences, choosing instead to depict realistic images of small-town and rural life—comforting representations of the American heartland during a period of upheaval. Time Magazine referred to Benton as "the most virile of U.S. painters of the U.S. Scene," featuring his self-portrait on the cover of a 1934 issue that included a story titled "The Birth of Regionalism." In 1935, Benton left New York and returned to Missouri, where he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute. His outspoken criticism of modern art, art critics, and political views alienated him from many influential figures in both political and art circles. Nonetheless, Benton remained true to his beliefs, continuing to create murals, paintings, and prints that captured enduring images of American life. The dramatic and engaging characteristics of Benton’s artwork drawn the attention of Hollywood producers, leading him to create illustrations and posters for films, including his famous lithographs for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath," produced by Twentieth Century Fox. During the 1930s, The Limited Editions Club of New York asked Benton to illustrate special editions of three of Mark Twain’s books...