Arthur B. Davies

Doorway to Illusion

1929

Artist: Le Corbusier (Charles-Édouard Jeanneret) (Swiss-French, 1887-1965) Title: "Unité, Planche 10" (Set of 2) Portfolio: Unité *Signed by Le Corbusier in pencil lower right. It is...

Artist: André Masson (French, 1896-1987) Title: "Le Fil d'Ariane (Ariadne's Clew)" Portfolio: For Meyer Schapiro *Signed by Masson in pencil lower right Year: 1973 Medium: Original Etching with Aquatint on Rives BFK paper Limited edition: 15/100 Printer: Atelier Crommelynck, Paris, France Publisher: The Committee to Endow a Chair in Honor of Meyer Schapiro at Columbia University, New York, NY Sheet size: 18" x 13.5" Image size: 11.5" x 8.5" Condition: Never framed, has been professionally stored away for decades. In excellent condition Rare Notes: Numbered by Masson in pencil lower left. Comes from the 1974 "For Meyer Schapiro" portfolio of twelve print editions by various artists. The "For Meyer Schapiro" portfolio consisted of four lithographs (one with embossing), three screenprints (one with stamp additions), two lithographs and screenprints (one with embossing), two etching and aquatints, and one duplicated drawing. Various printers were used. In addition to Masson, the following artists also contributed to the portfolio: Stanley William Hayter, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Alexander Liberman, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, Saul Steinberg, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol. Biography: André Masson (b. Balagny-sur-Thérain 1896 - Paris 1987) was a French artist. He was brought up in Belgium. He began his study of art at the age of eleven in Brussels, at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts under the guidance of Constant Montald, and later he studied in Paris. He fought for France during World War I and was seriously injured. His early works display an interest in cubism. He later became associated with surrealism, and he was one of the most enthusiastic employers of automatic drawing, making a number of automatic works in pen and ink. Masson experimented with altered states of consciousness with artists such as Antonin Artaud, Michel Leiris, Joan Miró, Georges Bataille, Jean Dubuffet, and Georges Malkine, who were neighbors of his studio in Paris. By the end of the 1920s, however, he was finding automatic drawing rather restricting, and he left the surrealist movement and turned instead to a more structured style, often producing works with a violent or erotic theme, and making a number of paintings in reaction to the Spanish Civil War. Under the German occupation of France during World War II, his work was condemned by the Nazis as degenerate. With the assistance of Varian Fry in Marseille, Masson escaped the Nazi regime on a ship to the French island...

Artist: Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954) Title: "Figure endormie dans un intérieur (Interior with Sleeping Figure)" *Signed and numbered by Matisse in...

Artist: Félix Bracquemond (French, 1833-1914) Title: "Canards Surpris (Surprised Ducks)" *Signed by Bracquemond in pencil lower right. It is also initial signed in ink lower left Year: 1882 Medium: Original Drypoint Etching on cream Japanese paper Limited edition: 100 Printer: Imprimerie Lemercier, Paris, France Publisher: likely the artist Bracquemond himself, Paris, France Reference: "Les graveurs du XIXe siècle: Guide de l'amateur d'estampes modernes", Vol. XII, Paris, 1885–1892 - Henri Béraldi: cat. No. 778; "Inventaire du Fonds Francais Apres 1800" - Jean Adhémar, Jacques Lethève: cat. No. 394, page 383; Laran No. 394 Framing: Recently framed in a gold Baroque moulding and rag matting from Holland Framed size: 23.75" x 19.75" Sheet size: 15.25" x 11.5" Image size: 14" x 10.5" Condition: In excellent condition Notes: "B" inscribed by Bracquemond in ink lower left. There is an example of this work in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY. Biography: Félix Bracquemond was born in Paris. He was trained in early youth as a trade lithographer, until Guichard, a pupil of Ingres, took him to his studio. His portrait of his grandmother, painted by him at the age of nineteen, attracted Théophile Gautier's attention at the Salon. He applied himself to engraving and etching about 1853, and played a leading and brilliant part in the revival of the etcher's art in France. Altogether he produced over eight hundred plates, comprising portraits, landscapes, scenes of contemporary life, and bird-studies, besides numerous interpretations of other artist's paintings, especially those of Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, Gustave Moreau and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. After having been attached to the Sèvres porcelain factory in 1870, he accepted a post as art manager of the Paris atelier of the firm of Haviland of Limoges. He was connected by a link of firm friendship with Édouard Manet, James McNeill Whistler, and all the other fighters in the impressionist cause, and received all the honors that await the successful artist in France, including the grade of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1889. Bracquemond was a prominent figure in artistic and literary circles in the second half of the 19th century. He was close to writers such as Edmond de Goncourt and critic Gustave Geffroy, and numbered among his friends Millet and Corot, Henri Fantin-Latour, Degas and the Impressionist circle, and Auguste Rodin. He was one of the more prolific printmakers of his time and he was awarded the grande medaille d'honneur at the Universal Exhibition of 1900. He was also a painter, ceramist, and an innovator in decorative arts. Gabriel Weisberg called him the "molder of artistic taste in his time". Indeed, it was he who recognised the beauty of the Hokusai woodcuts used as packing around a shipment of Japanese china, a discovery which helped change the look of late 19th-century art. He married French Impressionist artist Marie Bracquemond...

Artist: (after) Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520) Title: "L'Amour Montrant Psyche Aux Graces" Portfolio: Gazette des Beaux-Arts Year: 1883 Medium: Original Etching on chine appliqué on wo...

Artist: Philip Pearlstein (American, 1924-2022) Title: "Small Nude" *Signed and dated by Pearlstein in pencil lower right Year: 1976 Medium: Original Soft-Ground Etching on German Et...

This artwork titled "La Baigneuse aux Papillons" c.1930 in an etching on paper by French artist Raoul Dufy, 1877-1963. Unsigned as issue. Printed/publishe...

Color lithograph after the work by Henri Matisse, plate-signed by Matisse from the edition of 200. This lithograph was printed and published in 2007 in Paris using 100% cotton 300 g...

Artist: Marc Chagall Medium: Lithograph Title: Mother and Child before Notre Dame Portfolio: Verve Vol VII No. 27-28 Year: 1952 Edition: 6000 Signed: Unsigned Framed Size: 22" x 18 1...

"Jeune Hindoue" is an original hand-signed and numbered lithograph realized by Henri Matisse in 1929. It belongs to an edition of 50 prints. Excellent condition. Reference : Duthuit...

A very good, richly-inked impression of this lithograph. Signed and numbered 57/100 in pencil by Matisse. Printed at the studio of Duchatel, Paris 1929.

Color lithograph after the work by Henri Matisse, plate-signed by Matisse from the edition of 200. This lithograph was printed and published in 2007 in Paris using 100% cotton 300 g...