Georges Rouault

MON DOUX OU-ETES-VOUS? / MY SWEET COUNTRY, WERE ARE YOU?

1927

CAMILLE PISSARRO (French 1830-1903) VACHERE au BORD de l’EAU 1890 (Delteil 93 viii/viii) Etching, unsigned as published in “Gazette des Beaux Arts”, Paris, 1890. On laid paper Very...

HERBERT GURSCHNER (Austrian / English (1901-1975) VILLAGE SCENE / TOWN FESTIVAL ca.1924 Color woodcut 4 ¾ x 5 3/8” Signed in pencil. Good strong colors. On thin paper. Faint darkeni...

LEOPOLDO MENDEZ (1902 – 1969) THE MAKING OF TORTILLAS 1954 Linocut. Edition unknown. This example signed in pencil and dated 1957. 14” x 47 3/8” ...

BERNARD (JOSEPH) STEFFEN (1907 – 1980) PULLING CORN (FODDER HOPPER) c. 1935-45 Color serigraph signed with a full signature below the image at the lower right sheet edge . Unknown e...

SADAO WATANABE (Japanese 1913-1996) JONAH, 1959 Color stencil, signed, numbered and dated in white ink. Sheet, 25 5/8 x 22 5/8 inches. Edition: 44/50. Good color and generally good ...

WILLIAM BLAKE (British 1757-1827) JOB'S SACRIFICE - And my Servant Job Shall Pray For You, 1825 (Bindman 1978.643; Binyon 1926.123 iii; Russell 1912.33) Engraving, First edition, one of 100 sets printed directly onto Whatman wove paper with a 1825 watermark. and the word “proof” removed. From "Illustrations of the Book of Job...

Catherina Dorothea Viehman (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Paper 1...

Sheet from “Rapunzel” story (from Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm) Text printed letterpress and “Rapunzel, Rapunzel let down your Hair” etching and aquatint on W S Hodgkinson paper watermarked "DH" and "PP" Etching 10.5 × 9.85 in. / 26.7 × 25 cm Paper 17.5 x 12.25 in. / 45 x 31 cm Unsigned: apart from the published edition of 400 books and 100 portfolios. This is one of eleven images recently found in our archive which we have decided to make available. There is one only of each image. Perhaps the most famous story from the Grimm Brothers, Rapunzel spins the tale of a beautiful young princess locked away by an evil sorceress. Captured in this scene is the moment a King's son came across the tower and fell in love with her sweet singing, beseeching her: 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let down your hair to me.' Though the sorcerer banishes Rapunzel and maims the prince, they are of course ultimately reunited to live happily together. Hockney illustrates this scene with incredible texture detail: layers of aquatint defining the soft forest floor, delicate hatching on the horse's haunch, the tower's tight crosshatching, and of course the lyrical gesture of Rapunzel's hair which cascades from the upper right corner. This print from our publisher's archives is one of thirty-nine etchings from David Hockney’s 1969 "Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm". Hockney worked on this series with Paul Cornwall-Jones at Petersburg Press over the course of a year. 400 books and 100 portfolios plus artist’s proofs were printed. The artist illustrated six stories: 'The Little Sea Hare', 'Fundevogel', 'Rapunzel', 'The Boy who left Home to learn Fear', 'Old Rinkrank' and 'Rumpelstilzchen'. According to Hockney, "They're fascinating, the little stories, told in a very, very simple, direct, straightforward language and style, it was this simplicity that attracted me. They cover quite a strange range of experience, from the magical to the moral." He was inspired by earlier illustrators of the tales, including Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, but Hockney reimagined the stories for a modern audience. The frontispiece for the project pictures Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, the elderly German woman who recounted fairy tales to the Grimm brothers when they were in their late twenties. In Hockney's words: “The stories weren’t written by the Brothers Grimm…they came across this woman called Catherina Dorothea Viehmann, who told 20 stories to them in this simple language, and they were so moved by them that they wrote them down word for word as she spoke.” Hockney drew the German woman in the style of Dürer, formally posed yet naturalistic against an impeccably crosshatched swath of grey. Hockney wrote about the surreal plots contained in the Brothers Grimm tales: “…the stories really are quite mad, when you think of it, and quite strange. In modern times, it’s like the story of a couple moving into a house, and in the next door’s garden they see this lettuce growing: and the wife develops this craving for the lettuce that she just must have and climbs over to pinch it, and the old woman who lives in the house next door says well, you can have the lettuce if you give me your child, and they agree to it. And if you put it into terms like this and imagine them in their semi-detached house agreeing to it all, it seems incredible.” Hockney enhanced this unbelievable quality with his illustrations which traverse inky, dense areas of intense crosshatching and minimalist line work. Rather than serving as direct interpretations of the plot, the images capture moments and feelings. Some portray the magic yet mundane -- Rapunzel's tiny face gazing placidly at a well-tended garden, or project danger and unease as in The Haunted Castle, with its citadel perched atop craggy rocks, dramatically lit against a dark sky. Hockney's sense of humor comes through in Cold Water About to Hit the Prince, in which a man tucked into bed stares straight at a rush of water drawn with a splash (this technique is likely Spit Bite, and the resultant bold spattered brushstroke contrasts beautifully with the rest of the carefully crosshatched image). A Wooded Landscape, with its lush textures, conveys the bucolic setting of a fairy tale and the potential danger hidden within the woods -- the viewer is left to wonder who lives on the hilltop in that diminutive cabin. These etchings defy the conventions of beautiful fairy tale illustrations...

Etching and aquatint on hand made F.J. Head & Co watermarked cream laid paper, full margins. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right margin. From the edition of 160 (from a total of ...

Etching and aquatint on antique laid paper, wide margins. Signed, dated and inscribed "Edition of 100" in pencil, lower margin. Second state (of 2)....

Etching with drypoint and aquatint on light cream wove paper, 5 1/2 x 5 inches (140 x 122 mm), full margins. Signed in pencil in the lower margin. One of a total of 400 signed impres...

Etching with aquatint printed in brownish black ink on watermarked BFK Rives cream wove paper, 9 1/2 x 7 11/16 inches (240 x 193 mm), full margins. Signed in pencil and numbered 79/...