Maria Bennett

"The Winner" - Etching on Paper (10/25)

1970s

Finely balanced etching by Benjamin Vasserman (Estonian, b 1949). A squash sits atop a small black box with a latch. There is a drapery behind the squa...

"Church of St. Aignan Chartres" Etching in Ink on Paper (Demonstration Plate) Delicate and detailed drypoint etching of the Church of St. Aignan in Chartres, France by John Taylor Arms (American, 1887-1953). The viewer stands in an alley near the church, looking out of the shadows at the sunlit towers. The architectural details of the church are well-captured, including the texture of the stone walls, the roof, and ornamental detail. Titled, signed, dated, and inscribed along the bottom edge: Sketch, Saint Aignon, Chartres John Taylor Arms 1950 The inscription includes details about production, as well as a dedication "To my friends Georgia and Jasper Mathews, with my sincerest good wishes" Presented in a wood frame with an off-white mat. Frame size: 12.5"H x 9.25"W Image size: 7"H x 4.5"W John Taylor Arms was born in Washington, DC in 1887. He studied law at Princeton University, transferring to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, to study architecture, graduating in 1912. After serving as an officer in the United States Navy during World War I, he devoted himself full-time to etching. He published his first original etchings in 1919. His initial subject was the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City near which he worked. Arms developed a successful career as a graphic artist in the 1920s and 1930s, specializing in series of etchings of Gothic churches and cathedrals in France and Italy. In addition to medieval subjects, Arms made a series of prints of American cities. He used sewing needles and magnifying glasses to get a fine level of detail. A member of many printmaking societies, Arms served as president of the Society of American Graphic Artists. An educator, Arms wrote the Handbook of Print Making and Print Makers (1934) and did numerous demonstrations and lectures. Arms was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Associate member in 1930, and became a full member in 1933. His work was also part of the painting event in the art competition at the 1932 Summer Olympics...

Limited edition monochrome cyan drypoint etching of a potted plant and door by Barbara Cohn (American, 1923-2019). Numbered ("2/25"), titled ("Still Life with Door"), and hand signed...

Abstracted dry point etching by Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, 20th Century). Two walnuts sit in an abstracted space, with ropes in the background. Titled "II Walnuts" along the bottom edge. Signed and dated "T. Uchida - 89" in the lower right corner. Presented in a new grey mat with foam core backing. Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, b. 1947) was born in Tsuyama City in the Okayama prefecture in Japan. He graduated from Doshisha University, Kyoto, in 1970, and went on to become the artist-in-residence at the KALA Institute of Prints in Berkeley, CA, in 1989. He then moved to Australia, where he studied under Prof. Jorg Schmeisser...

Wonderful and evocative abstracted dry point etching of dragon fly and barbed wire titled "Rebirth" by Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, b. 1947). Presented in new custom cut mat. Unframed. Image size: 9"H x 15"W Titled "Unremembered Dream" along the bottom edge. Signed and dated "T. Uchida '89" in the lower right corner. Presented in a new custom-cut mat with foam core backing. Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, b. 1947) was born in Tsuyama City in the Okayama prefecture in Japan. He graduated from Doshisha University, Kyoto, in 1970, and went on to become the artist-in-residence at the KALA Institute of Prints in Berkeley, CA, in 1989. He then moved to Australia, where he studied under Prof. Jorg Schmeisser...

Wonderful and evocative abstracted dry point etching of the sea, a maddox. random fishing buoys and crab claw titled "Back to the Sea by Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, b. 1947). Presented in new custom cut mat. Unframed. Image size: 9"H x 15"W Titled "Back to the Sea" along the bottom edge. Signed and dated "T. Uchida '89" in the lower right corner. Presented in a new custom-cut mat with foam core backing. Tomoya Uchida (Japanese, b. 1947) was born in Tsuyama City in the Okayama prefecture in Japan. He graduated from Doshisha University, Kyoto, in 1970, and went on to become the artist-in-residence at the KALA Institute of Prints in Berkeley, CA, in 1989. He then moved to Australia, where he studied under Prof. Jorg Schmeisser...

I Won’t Eat You [2021] limited_edition Drypoint print Edition number of 30 Image size: H:81 cm x W:113 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H:92 cm x W:122 cm x D:0.1cm Sold Unframed ...

Izzy, a charming characterful terrier stands alert, holding her ball in her mouth. Colour etching hand made and printed by the artist. Helen Fay's art for sale online and in our gallery at Wychwood Art. Animals have always been at the heart of my work. I find the form, movement and behaviour of the creatures I draw a source of limitless fascination. I love the idea of them watching me, watching them as I draw. I hope my appreciation of the sentience and character of the animals I draw comes across in my work. Over my career I have drawn everything from primates to penguins, dogs, ostriches and even an echidna. These days dogs are my main focus, mostly because I adore dogs but also because they are such an integral part of life. I am delighted by the theory that humans and dogs co evolved, we wouldn’t be what we are without them and vice versa. I try to pare my images down to a balanced simplicity that directs attention to the subject of the picture. I try to balance the subject and the space it occupies, giving each equal importance. Light is hugely important to my work, I imagine my subject in three dimensions as I draw and the light describes the musculature and texture that gives the drawing it’s presence and grounds it in the picture. I aim to capture a pause, a moment where whatever I draw looks like it could wander off or leap up any minute. My influences include Japanese prints, Chinese and Japanese brush drawing and the European artists who were influenced by Japan. I am really excited by composition, by artists like Bonnard and Leon Spilliaert. I have long been a fan of Munch for his direct mark-making, colour and intensity and at the other end of the spectrum, Hammershoi for his limited palette, sense of space and calm. I am interested in black and white photography and film and have recently discovered and been amazed by the films of Yasujiro Ozu...

Leonard Merchant's mezzotint, "Snail in Cup" is inscribed for fellow artist, Fritz Eichenberg. While a student at the Central School for Arts and Crafts in London, a young Leonard Marchant found an engraving rocker in a cupboard and proceeded to turn himself into a master of the painstaking art of mezzotinting. Marchant, who has died in Shrewsbury aged 70, grew up in Simonstown, the Royal Navy's enclave in South Africa. Though his first job was as a parliamentary messenger, he taught himself to paint and, aged 19, was given a one-man show in Cape Town. Fired by this success, he left for England to study painting and, he claimed, to escape the stifling home atmosphere created by his Catholic mother and aunts. (His father was killed in the second world war.) Without contacts in London, he phoned Jacob Epstein, whose recommendation resulted in a grant to study briefly at the Central School. It was later, when studying full-time at the Central, that he saw the mezzotints of the Japanese master, Yozo Hamaguchi, in a London gallery. He was hooked. Creating a mezzotint is tedious in the extreme. The copper plate must first be prepared with a "rocker" which roughens the surface. A plate may be "rocked" 30 or 40 times. The rough texture is then reduced with a burnisher and a scraper, allowing the print a range of tones from velvety black through the greys to white. Marchant's plates could be months in the making. But the technical demands were the least of his worries. In its 18th- and 19th-century heyday, mezzotint was solely a reproductive medium, for copying masters such as Reynolds and Turner. The development of photography rendered it unfashionable, and by the 1960s the technique, known as la manière anglaise, was a bygone medium. Marchant, by now a teacher in printmaking at the Central, began to create original mezzotints with a colleague, Radavan Kraguly. A perfectionist, he seemed to revel in the straitjacket procedure. Perhaps it was the metaphor of bringing darkness out of light that appealed to this straight-talking, sometimes sombre, man, who would suddenly relax and light up like a gleaming hue on one of his prints. His work was of squares and triangles with the occasional cat, black and ominous, and carefully arranged still lifes, featuring plants, a seed pod, a pot he might have bought at auction to celebrate the sale of a print. There were one-man shows, notably at the Bankside Gallery. He sold well at the Royal Academy summer exhibition, was a Florence Biennale prizewinner, spent a fellowship year at the British School in Rome, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers. But making mezzotints was not a paying job. Marchant and his South African wife...

Python is a hand-pulled mezzotint in an edition of 25. This is #7/25. Jacob Crook was born in St. Louis, MO in 1985. Crook works primarily in the intagli...

This black and white mezzotint of a shell next to a violin is an artist proof that was inscribed Happy New Year 2000 and signed by the artist. The regular e...

An exclusive publication for Stone and Press Gallery, "Snow Does" was created in an edition of 100. It is FIROS #66 in the catalogue raisonne. Carol Wax originally trained to be a c...