James Siena

Upside Down Devil

1997

La Promenade Etching, soft-ground, aquatint & drypoint, Signed in pencil lower left Published by Edmund Sagot, Paris Edition of 50 in black only, aside from the edition of 50 in co...

Original artist proof engraving, aquatint, intaglio on archival paper by the Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Signed in pencil lower right and dated 1947. Condition: good...

Artist proof, aquatint, mixed intaglio engraving by the Russian/American artist, Nahum Tschacbasov. Pencil signed and dated lower right, 1947. Artist Proof. Condition: good; slight...

This exquisite 1809 engraving captures Joséphine de Beauharnais, Empress of the French and Queen of Italy, in a stately, neoclassical pose. Drawn by Jean-Baptiste Bosio and engraved ...

In "Late Night", Frederick Mershimer created a winter scene where Berkeley Place meets Seventh Avenue in Brooklyn's Park Slope. This image, the seventh in t...

This color intaglio of the "New York Stock Exchange" was issued in a limited edition of 100. This impression is one of the Artist Proofs from the edition. The Stock Exchange is seen from Federal Hall...

"Venice II L'Ombre du Coleone" is a Jean Michel Mathieux-Marie aquatint and etching of a Venetian scene. It is from an edition of 120. Mathieux-Marie was born in Paris in 1947. He...

In "Destinations", Frederick Mershimer creates an image of taxis rushing by the Fuller Building, better known as Flatiron Building. The building is only six feet wide at its rounded...

The illusions and reflections in Sietins prints often bring M.C. Escher to mind, but his prints have a distinctive feel all their own. This is one of the smallest prints done by Siet...

Aquating Engraving Image Size: approx. 20 1/4 x 13 3/8 Framed Size: 28 x 20.5 inches Pencil Signed Lower Right Louis Justin Laurent Icart was born in Toulouse in 1890 and died in Paris in 1950. He lived in New York City in the 1920s, where he became known for his Art-Deco color etchings of glamourous women. He was first son of Jean and Elisabeth Icart and was officially named Louis Justin Laurent Icart. The use of his initials L.I. would be sufficient in this household. Therefore, from the moment of his birth he was dubbed 'Helli'. The Icart family lived modestly in a small brick home on rue Traversière-de-la-balance, in the culturally rich Southern French city of Toulouse, which was the home of many prominent writers and artists, the most famous being Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Icart entered the l'Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Toulouse in order to continue his studies for a career in business, particularly banking (his father's profession). However, he soon discovered the play writings of Victor Hugo (1802-1885), which were to change the course of his life. Icart borrowed whatever books he could find by Hugo at the Toulouse library, devouring the tales, rich in both romantic imagery and the dilemmas of the human condition. It was through Icart's love of the theater that he developed a taste for all the arts, though the urge to paint was not as yet as strong for him as the urge to act. It was not until his move to Paris in 1907 that Icart would concentrate on painting, drawing and the production of countless beautiful etchings, which have served (more than the other mediums) to indelibly preserve his name in twentieth century art history. Art Deco, a term coined at the 1925 Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs, had taken its grip on the Paris of the 1920s. By the late 1920s Icart, working for both publications and major fashion and design studios, had become very successful, both artistically and financially. His etchings reached their height of brilliance in this era of Art Deco, and Icart had become the symbol of the epoch. Yet, although Icart has created for us a picture of Paris and New York life in the 1920s and 1930s, he worked in his own style, derived principally from the study of eighteenth-century French masters such as Jean Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard. In Icart's drawings, one sees the Impressionists Degas...