George T. Chrest

"Marlowe and the s. o. raincloud" Etching & Aquatint, Signed by Artist

1977

"Banco", an aquatint from Robert Rauschenberg' s "Ground Rules" series is an exemplary piece where the window moldings become a metaphor for the formal role it plays in anchoring it into a simple, legible grid. A vivid palette with brilliant, translucent greens, blues, and oranges render discrete patches and the clarity of the printing seems more firmly "grounded" than the photographs in their grids. There is a recurrence of artistically self-referential motifs like the central white rectangle with a sign, YOUR NAME HERE, superimposed over the window rather obliquely. In the window of "Banco" reflections become opacities that destroy its translucency, bring back the surface; and across that surface, scraps of imagery drift, bringing back, in turn through their transparency, the illusion of depth. The sheet itself is 41 5/16 x 27 9/16" (105 x 70 cm). This is number 32 from an edition of 44 and has been numbered and signed by the artist. Robert Rauschenberg, the irrepressibly prolific American artist, is known as the one who time and again reshaped art in the 20th century. He was a painter, photographer, printmaker, choreographer, onstage performer, and set designer. In later years, it is said, he was even a composer. He defied the traditional idea that an artist must stick to one medium or style. He pushed, prodded and sometimes reconceived all the mediums in which he worked. Similar to the artists, Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Joseph Cornell, John Cage and others, Rauschenberg helped obscure the lines between painting and sculpture, painting and photography, photography and printmaking, sculpture and photography, sculpture and dance, sculpture and technology, technology and performance art. Per the art critic, Jerry Saltz: Rauschenberg invented a new form called the combine. It was not quite a painting nor was it considered sculpture. For Rauschenberg, though, it was like discovering fire it so transformed his art. He used bedding, doors, parachutes, a tire, a stuffed goat and combined them into new forms. One combine, Monogram, features a stuffed goat encircled by a tire atop a horizontal painting. Saltz says, “Rauschenberg is a mischievous Satyr grazing on art history, or the goat is a gargoyle protecting the art. Either way, the title suggests that Rauschenberg was leaving his mark.” And leave his mark he did. He became known as the giant of American Art. Jasper Johns, his sometime lover, said, “Rauschenberg was the man who in this century invented the most since Picasso.” Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. He received numerous awards during his nearly 60-year artistic career. Among the most prominent were the International Grand Prize in Painting at the 32nd Venice Biennale in 1964 and the National Medal of Arts in 1993. He lived and worked in New York City and on Captiva Island, Florida, At 18, Rauschenberg was admitted to the University of Texas at Austin where he began studying pharmacology, but he dropped out shortly after due to the difficulty of the coursework—not realizing at this point that he is dyslexic—and his unwillingness to dissect a frog in biology class. He was drafted into the United States Navy in 1944. Based in California, he served as a neuropsychiatric technician in a Navy hospital until his discharge in 1945 or 1946. Rauschenberg subsequently studied at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he met fellow art student Susan Weil...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY Claes’ first kinetic sculpture, 1970, was “Ice Bag” rising in height from 7 to 16 feet with a diameter of 18 feet. He was interested in ice bags as a sculptural subject because of their compelling form. The surface wavers between rippled and smooth, hard and soft. This lithograph with blue and red crayon is a sketch of the “Ice Bag” sculpture and was created by Claes as a thank you gift for certain individuals. Eric Saarinin & Associates had rented an art studio to film Oldenburg sketching on its walls the genesis of the ice bag and his thoughts about the Icebag. When the owner of the studio returned and found his pristine walls covered with scrawls, he had a fit…until he understood the present value of that heavily marked, white expanse. They thought about how to remove the drawings. Well, it couldn’t be done, but they are preserved in the film directed by Michael Hugo and produced by Eric Saarinen. The Lithograph is printed by Kenneth Tyler, carries the blind stamp and is marked (Gem.II), G.E.L. It is numbered 2 of 26, dated and signed by Oldenburg and owned by Eric Saarinen who received it as a gift from Claes. Unframed it measures 16 1/8 x 22 5/16. Claes Oldenburg was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions of everyday objects. Many of his works were made in collaboration with his wife, Coosje van Bruggen, who died in 2009; they had been married for 32 years. Oldenburg was born in Stockholm, Sweden, but because of his father’s diplomatic career he lived most of his life in the states mainly New York and California. He attended Yale University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Oldenburg became associated with the pop art movement and created many happenings, that were so popular in the late 1960s and thru the 1970s. They were performance art related productions. The name he gave to his own productions was "Ray Gun “Theater”. The cast of colleagues who appeared in his performances included artists: Lucas Samaras, Tom Wesselmann, Carolee Schneemann...

An etching by Kiki Smith titled "Bat." Smith has used one of her animal/insect iconic figures for this etching on wove paper creating it close to life size and therefore causing the ...

This monograph contains Nystuen's calculations, actually used by Barr to position his abstract tetrahedral sculpture within the earth. Placement of the sculpture vertices in Easter I...

A collage lithograph from her series Various Flying Creatures by Kiki Smith titled: "squirrel." Smith has used one of her animal/insect iconic figur...

A collage lithograph from her series Various Flying Creatures by Kiki Smith titled: "fly." Smith has used one of her animal/insect iconic figures for this glassine paper and wove pap...

Study for Sculpture in the Form of an Inverted Q: Above and Below Ground, 1975 Lithograph, soft-ground etching, and aquatint in six colors on cream, thick, slightly textured Rive BFK paper 14 × 11 in. / 35.2 × 28 cm Signed and dated in pencil, lower right, numbered in pencil, lower left. Edition of 100 with 20 AP. Printed by Bill Law, Winston Roeth and Allan Uglow at Petersburg Press...

According to Gesine Tosin, Richard Hamilton irritated contemporary critics in the 1970s with a series of works -- romantic images of flowers, still lifes and landscapes, interspersed...

"One of Diamonds and Thirteen of Diamonds" (from Playing Cards) 1990 Aquatint Engravings Framed Together Each Signed, Titled and Dated Each Numbered Lower Right 2/44 aside from the 1...

A very good impression of this color etching and aquatint on Pescia Italia white wove paper. Signed, dated, inscribed "2 state" and numbered 10/78 in pencil. Printed by Aripeka, Ltd....

A superb impression of this color aquatint, etching and pochoir on Pescia Italia white wove paper. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 68/78 in pencil by Rosenquist. Printed by Flatst...

A very good impression of this color etching and aquatint on Pescia Italia paper. Signed, dated, titled and numbered 37/78 in pencil by Rosenquist. Printed by Charles Levien, Aripeka...