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Style: American Modern
Period: 20th Century
'Mokihana (Hawaii)' — Classic Polynesian Portrait
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
John Melville Kelly, 'Mokihana (Hawaii)', drypoint, 1946. Signed, titled, and annotated 'No 5' in pencil. A superb, finely nuanced impression, in dark brown ink, on cream wove Japan ...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Drypoint
Flying Colors : Plane under Red Sun - Original lithograph
Located in Paris, IDF
Alexander CALDER
Flying Colors : Plane under Red Sun, 1976
Original lithograph
Printed signature in the plate
On light vellum 58 x 83 cm (c. 23 x 33 in)
INFORMATION : Calder create...
Category
1970s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Chrysler Building (Chrysler Building in Construction)
Located in New York, NY
Howard Cook (1901-1980), Chrysler Building (Chrysler Building in Construction) – –1930, Wood Engraving.
Duffy 122. Edition 75, only 50 printed. 19...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Woodcut
Tunnel /Target
By June Wayne
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JUNE WAYNE (1918 - 2011)
THE TUNNEL II, 1951 (B.69; G.14; Conway 67)
Lithograph, signed, numbered, dated July 1951 and titled incorrectly The Target.
Edition 35. 15 3/4 x 19 3/4 inc...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Wake on the Ferry.
Located in Storrs, CT
Wake on the Ferry. 1949. Etching. Morse catalog 313. state v. 5 x 7 (sheet 8 3/4 x 11 7/8). Edition of 350: 200 for the Art Students League and 150 for the artist. A fine impression ...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Etching
"Colors in Space II" (SF-95) Signed Printer's Proof Lithograph on Archival Paper
By Sam Francis
Located in Soquel, CA
"Colors in Space II" (SF-95) Signed Printer's Proof Lithograph on Archival Paper
Bright and playful abstract composition by Sam Francis (American, 1923-1994). Splashes of yellow, or...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Archival Paper, Lithograph
Commencement
Located in New Orleans, LA
Caroline Durieux's image captures a lone figure in her garden in this southern plantation in Louisiana. "Plantation Garden" is a lithograph created by Durieux in 1946 in an edition of 20. It is signed in pencil.
Durieux shared her feeling about this piece with these reflections.
“The spectrum analysis of satire runs from the red of invective at one end to the violet of the most delicate irony at the other.” David Worcester 16, "The Art of Satire".
The feeling expressed in Plantation Garden is that of a dirge with ironic overtones; it is sad, nostalgic yet satirical. The bent figure of the old lady, the ancient trees, the static moss, all seem to belong to the past; even the lady is old. For contrast, a ray of late afternoon sun lights up the only young note in the picture: perennials in the foreground.
When “we are satirical and we are friendly at the same time, the consciousness of the friendship gives a regretful and tender touch to the satire, and the sting of the satire makes the friendship a trifle humble and sad.” George Santayna 255, "The Sense of Beauty".
This concept of satire mixed with friendship comes closer to humor because there is less censure involved. In "Plantation Garden", the satire is tempered by a feeling of empathy.
Caroline Durieux (American, 1896 – 1989)
Printmaker, painter, satirist, innovator, social activist, Caroline Durieux was born in New Orleans and was already making sketches by the age of four. Her formal art training was at Newcomb College (1912-1917) and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1918-1920).
Carl Zigrosser of the Philadelphia Museum of Art encouraged Durieux to try lithography. While living in Mexico, she learned lithography from Emilio Amero...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
'Judges' from 'In Praise of Folly' — Mid-Century Graphic Modernism
By Lynd Ward
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Lynd Ward, 'Judges' from the series 'Moriae Encomium (In Praise of Folly),' mezzotint, 1943, no edition, proofs only. Signed, dated, and titled in pencil. A superb, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper; the full sheet with margins (1 1/4 to 2 inches) in excellent condition. Scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
Image size 7 13/16 x 4 7/8 inches (198 x 124 mm); sheet size 10 3/4 x 8 1/8 inches (273 x 206 mm).
Created by the artist for 'Erasmus's Moriae Encomium,' or 'In Praise of Folly,' published by the Limited Editions Club, 1943. A rare, signed, proof impression apart from the Limited Editions Club publication.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lynd Ward is acknowledged as one of America’s foremost wood engravers and book illustrators of the first half of the twentieth century. His innovative use of narrative printmaking as a stand-alone storytelling vehicle was uniquely successful in reaching a broad audience. The powerful psychological intensity of his work, celebrated for its dynamic design, technical precision, and compelling dramatic content, finds resonance in the literature of Poe, Melville, and Hawthorne. Like these classic American writers, Ward was concerned with the themes of man’s inner struggles and the role of the subconscious in determining his destiny. An artist of social conscience during the Great Depression and World War II, he infused his graphic images with his unique brand of social realism, deftly portraying the problems that challenged the ideals of American society.
The son of a Methodist preacher, Lynd Ward, moved from Chicago to Massachusetts at an early age. He graduated from the Teachers College of Columbia University, New York, in 1926, where he studied illustration and graphic arts. He married May Yonge McNeer in 1936 and left for Europe for their honeymoon in Eastern Europe. After four months, they settled in Leipzig, where Ward studied at the National Academy of Graphic Arts and Bookmaking. Inspired by Belgian expressionist artist Frans Masereel's graphic novel ‘The Sun,’ and another graphic novel by the German artist Otto Nückel, ‘Destiny,’ he determined to create his own "wordless" novel. Upon his return to America, Ward completed his first book, ‘God's Man: A Novel in Woodcuts,’ published in 1929. ‘Gods’ Man’ was a great success for its author and publisher and was reprinted four times in 1930, including a British edition. This book and several which followed it, ‘Madman’s Drum,’ 1930, ‘Wild Pilgrimage,’ 1932, ‘Prelude to a Million Years,’ 1933, ‘Song Without Words,' 1936, ‘Vertigo,’ 1937; and ‘Last Unfinished Wordless Novel’ (created in the 1960s and published in 2001) were comprised solely of Ward's wood engravings. Ward designed each graphic image to occupy an entire page, the sequence of which conveys the story's narrative.
In 1937, Ward was named Director of the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project, a division of the Works Progress Administration (WPA). In the following years, Ward went on to illustrate more than one hundred books (some of which he wrote), including classics for the Limited Editions Club Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ Faulkner’s ‘A Green Bough,’ and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein,’ and several children’s books. He also produced single-subject wood engravings, paintings, and drawings. His print ‘Sanctuary,’ 1939, was shown at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, and ‘Clouded Over,’ 1948, received the 1948 Library of Congress Award and was included in ‘American Prize Prints of the 20th Century’ by Albert Reese. He received the National Academy of Design Print Award (1949), the New York Times Best Illustrated Award (1973), and the Regina Award (Catholic Library Association, 1975). ‘The Biggest Bear,’ a children’s book with illustrations by Ward, was the recipient of the esteemed 1952 Caldecott Medal of the American Library Association.
An Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers, Ward was a member and board member of the National Academy of Design and the Artists’ League of America. He served several terms as president of the Society of American Graphic Artists and was a member of the American Artists Congress and the Society of Illustrators. Ward exhibited at the American Artists Congress; the National Academy of Design; the John Herron Art Institute; and the Library of Congress. He had a one-person show at Associated American Artists, NY, on the publication of his monograph 'Storyteller Without Words,' 1974; AAA mounted a memorial exhibition in 1986. The May 1976 issue of 'Bibliognost,' a book collector’s publication, was dedicated to Ward. ‘Lynd Ward, His Bookplate Designs,’ an article by Dan Burne Jones, was published in the American Society of Bookplate Collectors and Designers Yearbook, 1981/82.
In 2001, sixteen years after his death, Rutgers University Libraries published ’Lynd Ward’s Last Unfinished Wordless Novel.’ The blocks were intended to be part of a novel in woodcuts, the first since Vertigo, but Ward did not live to complete the project. Master printer and book designer Barbara Henry collated and printed the twenty-six finished blocks out of the forty-four initially planned for the still unnamed narrative.
In 2010 the Library of America honored Ward’s achievements with the meticulous production of a collection of Ward’s woodcut novels—the first time the Library had gone wordless. The publication replicated his original editions with a single full-size image printed on the right page of each double-page spread. In his introduction to the books, renowned cartoonist/illustrator Art...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Mezzotint
Original Vetements Forchic French fashion vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original lithograph, linen backed. Vetements Forchic. Pour Lui; Elle a Choise. Archival linen-backed vintage French fashion poster in fine...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
'Girl with Hands to Face' — Mid-century Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Benton Spruance, 'Girl with Hands to Face', two-color lithograph, 1940, edition 30, Fine and Looney 180. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Ed. 30' in pencil. A superb impression, on cr...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
"Dodge Rebellion Girls" - 1967 Original Silkscreen on Paper Artists Proof
Located in Soquel, CA
"Dodge Rebellion Girls" - 1967 Silkscreen on Paper
1967 color silkscreen depicting the Dodge Rebellion Girls by Marc Foster Grant (American, b. 1947). A silhouette of the 'dodge gi...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Paper, Ink, Screen
Work Bench — Mid-century Modern
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Quest, 'Work Bench', 1949, wood engraving, edition 40. Signed, dated and numbered 9/40 in pencil. Titled and annotated 'wood engraving 1949' in pencil, in the artist’s hand, lower right margin. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white wove Japan, with full margins (1 3/4 to 2 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Charles Quest, a successful artist, and fine art instructor, worked in a variety of mediums including mosaic, stained glass, mural painting, and sculpture, but remains best known as a printmaker. Quest grew up in St. Louis, his talent evident as a teenager when he began copying the works of masters such as Michelangelo on his bedroom walls. He studied at the Washington University School of Fine Arts where he later taught from 1944 to 1971. He traveled to Europe after his graduation in 1929, and studied at La Grande Chaumière and Academie Colarossi, Paris, continuing to draw inspiration from the works of the Old Masters. After returning to St. Louis, Quest received several commissions to paint murals in public buildings, schools, and churches, including one from Joseph Cardinal Ritter to paint a replica of Velasquez's Crucifixion over the main altar of the Old Cathedral in St. Louis.
Quest soon became interested in the woodcut medium which he apparently learned through his study of J. J. Lankes' A Woodcut Manual (1932) and Paul Landacre's articles in American Artist magazine ‘since no artists in St. Louis were working in wood’ at that time. Quest also revealed that for him, wood cutting and engraving were ‘more enjoyable than any other means of expression.’ In the late 1940s, his graphic works began attracting a lot of critical attention—several of his woodcuts won prizes and were acquired by major American and European museums. His wood engraving entitled ‘Lovers’ was included in the American Federation of Art's traveling print exhibition in 1947. Two years later Quest's two prize-winning prints, ‘Still Life with Grindstone’ and ‘Break Forth into Singing’ were exhibited in major American museums in a traveling show organized by the Philadelphia Print Club. His work was included in the Chicago Art Institute's exhibition, ‘Woodcut Through Six Centuries’ and the print ‘Still Life with Vise’, was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
In 1951 he was invited by artist-Curator Jacob Kainen to exhibit thirty wood engravings and color woodcuts in the Graphic Arts Division of the Smithsonian's National Museum (now known as the American History Museum). This one-man exhibition was a remarkable achievement for Quest, who had been working in the medium for only about ten years. In the press release for the show, Kainen praised the ‘technical refinement’ of Quest's work: ‘He obtains a great variety of textural effects through the use of the graver, and these dense or transparent grays are set off against whites or blacks to achieve sparkling results. His work has the handsome qualities characteristic of the craftsman and designer.’
At the time of the Smithsonian exhibition, Quest's work was represented by three New York galleries in addition to one in his home town. He had also won 38 prizes, and his prints were in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Chicago Art Institute, the Metropolitan Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In cooperation with the Art in Embassies program, his color woodcuts were displayed at the American Embassy in Paris in 1951. Recognition at home came in 1955 with his first solo exhibition in St. Louis. Press coverage of the show heralded the ‘growth of graphic arts toward rivaling painting and sculpture as a major independent medium’.
Charles Quest retired from teaching in 1971 and made relatively few prints in his later years, as the rigors of the medium were too demanding. He moved to Tryon, North Carolina, with his wife Dorothy, an artist and portrait painter, and remained active as a painter until his death in 1993. An exhibition of his prints at the Bethesda Art Gallery in 1983 attracted the interest of Curator Emeritus Joseph A. Haller, S.J., who began purchasing his work for the University's collection.
In 1990 Georgetown University Library's Special Collections Division became the grateful recipient of a large body of Quest's work including prints, drawings, paintings, sculpture, and stained glass, as well as his archive of correspondence and professional memorabilia. These extensive holdings, including some 260 of his fine prints, provide a rich opportunity for further study and appreciation of this versatile and not-to-be-forgotten mid-Western American artist...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Woodcut
Original Pin-Up - Telephone Call linen backed vintage pinup girl.
Located in Spokane, WA
Behold the original lithographic Petty Pin-up, a unique vertical-format piece. The see-through bathing suit she wears seems to make her glow, especially with her red hair peeking fro...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Olivetti
Located in New York, NY
Pintori, Giovanni. Olivetti. 1967. 2nd printing. 1st Printing 1946.
Offset Lithograph. Rare
Giovanni Pintori (1912 – 1999) was an Italian graphic designer and painter. His most famous works are the advertisement posters for Olivetti typewriters...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Offset
'The Yankee' — America's Cup, 1934
By Jacques La Grange
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Jacques La Grange, 'The Yankee', color woodcut, edition 500, 1934. Signed and numbered '25/500' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on cream wove paper, with margins (1 1/8 to 1 1/4 inches), in excellent condition. A work from La Grange’s celebrated series of woodcuts 'Drama and Color in the America's Cup Races'. Image size 10 x 10 11/16 inches (254 x 271 mm); sheet size 12 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches (311 x 337 mm). Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed.
When the artist created this print in 1934, the 'Yankee' was one of the most promising yachts eligible for the America's Cup but ultimately 'Rainbow' was chosen to defend against England's 'Endeavor' in that year's race. The 'Endeavor' was built for Thomas Sopwith who used his aviation design expertise to ensure the yacht was the most advanced of its day with a steel hull and mast. She was launched in 1934 and won many races in her first season but the Cup challenge was blighted by a strike of Sopwith's professional crew prior to departing for America. Forced to rely mainly on keen amateurs, who lacked the necessary experience, the campaign failed. 'Rainbow' won the series 4–2. This was one of the most contentious of the America's Cup battles and prompted the headline "Britannia rules the waves and America waives the rules."
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jacques La Grange was born in Clanwilliam (near Cape Town) in South Africa in 1895. He studied at London University and later immigrated to the United States. La Grange established himself as a painter, illustrator, and printmaker specializing in nautical subjects. He and his wife, Helen La Grange, published 'Drama and Color in the America's Cup Races' in 1934 and 'Clipper Ships of America and Great Britain 1833-1869', in 1936. Both were deluxe hardcover limited edition volumes with signed original color woodblock prints. La Grange had solo exhibitions at the Buchanan Gallery in 1929; the Babcock Gallery and the 56th Street Gallery, New York, in 1930; and at the Nicholas Roerich...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Woodcut
Bernard Sanders, Head of Girl
Located in New York, NY
For a print that's nearly one hundred years old it feels very contemporary.
Signed in pencil; titled in lower margin in pencil.
Category
Early 20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Drypoint
Original Resilio Scotchspun Heiland Lassie vintage fashion poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original horizontal “Resilio Scotchspun” vintage fashion poster. Archival linen backed and presents in excellent condition. “A Bonnie Heila...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Mexican Babysitter, Folk Art Lithograph by Millard Sheets 1949
Located in Long Island City, NY
Mexican Babysitter
Millard Owen Sheets, American (1907–1989)
Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition of AP
Image Size: 24 x 11 inches
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
A Winter - Seeming Summers Night
By June Wayne
Located in Santa Monica, CA
JUNE WAYNE (1918 - 2011)
A WINTER - SEEMING SUMMER'S NIGHT, 1957 From the John Donne Series. (Conway 122, Basket 106: Gilmour 50)
Lithograph signed, title...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original Watch Out .. Safe Direction NRS vintage gun safety poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original “Watch Out .. Point the Muzzle in a SAFE Direction” vintage National Rifle Association of America vintage poster. Printed in 1946 on a thick cardboard stock. Excellent ...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Paris Bourse, Pop Art Screenprint by LeRoy Neiman
By LeRoy Neiman
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: LeRoy Neiman (American, 1921-2012)
Title: Paris Bourse
Year: 1981
Medium: Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: PP
Image Size: 29.5 x 37 inches
Frame Size: 41 ...
Category
1980s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
'Time Silhouette' —Mid-Century Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Edward Landon, 'Time Silhouette', color serigraph, 1969, edition 30, Ryan 201. Signed, titled, and annotated 'Edition 30' in pencil. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on cream wo...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Original Let's Go U. S. Marines On Land at Sea in the Air vintage WW2 poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original, LET’S GO! U.S. MARINES, on Land at Sea and in the Air, 1941 vintage poster. Archival linen backed and ready to frame. Original US Government-issued fold marks were pr...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Charles Locke, McCosh Walk, Princeton University
Located in New York, NY
This lithograph is signed in pencil under the image at the lower right. Just above that, in the image, are the artist's initials and the date, 1942.
This well-known walkway on the P...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Old Man Reading
Located in London, GB
Accompanied by a lantern, an elderly man sits alone, engrossed in a newspaper. Benton used a lithographic process to draw and produce this image. He renders the face and paper well-l...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Palazzo dell'Angelo
Located in Middletown, NY
Palazzo dell'Angelo
1931
Etching and drypoint on cream-colored, handmade laid paper with deckle edges, 7 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches (185 x 171 mm), edition of 100, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered "Ed. 100" in pencil, lower margin, second state (of three). Printed by Henry Carling, New York. Extremely minor mat tone and some inky residue in the top right corner, all unobtrusive and well outside of image area. An exquisite impression of this intricate image, with astonishing detail, and all the fine lines printing clearly. The image represents the first print which Arms printed on his own handmade paper. Framed handsomely with archival materials and museum grade glass in a wood gilt frame with a flower and garland motif.
Illustrated: Dorothy Noyes Arms, Hill Towns and Cities of Northern Italy, p. 180; Anderson, American Etchers Abroad 1880-1930; Eric Denker, Reflections & Undercurrents: Ernest Roth and Printmaking in Venice, 1900-1940, p. 116.
[Fletcher 233]
Born in 1887 in Washington DC, John Taylor Arms studied at Princeton University, and ultimately earned a degree in architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1912. With the outbreak of W.W.I, Arms served as an officer in the United States Navy, and it was during this time that he turned his focus to printmaking, having published his first etching in 1919. His first subjects were the Brooklyn Bridge, near the Navy Yard, and it was during his wartime travel that Arms created a series of extraordinarily detailed etchings based on Gothic cathedrals and churches he visited in France and Italy. He used what was available to him, namely sewing needles and a magnifying glass, to create the incredibly rich and fine detail that his etchings are known for. Upon his return to New York after the war, Arms enjoyed a successful career as a graphic artist, created a series of etchings of American cities, and published Handbook of Print Making and Print Makers (Macmillan, 1934). He served as President of the Society of American Graphic Artists, and in 1933, was made a full member of the National Academy of Design.
In its most modern incarnation, Palazzo dell'Angelo was constructed in or around 1570. The building, which has a rich and storied history, was erected upon the ruins of an earlier structure which predates the Gothic period. Some remnants of the earliest features of the residence were most certainly still visible when Arms visited, as they are today. Having a background in architecture, there's no question that Arms was moved by the beauty, history and ingenuity represented in the physical structure. One thing specifically gives away Arms's passion for the architecture, and that is the fact that he focused on the building's Moorish entranceway, balustrade, and two mullioned windows, and not on the curious Gothic era bas-relief of an angel nestled into the facade of the building, after which the structure is named. The sculpture itself doesn't appear in Arms's composition at all, despite the fact that it is the feature of the building that is most famous in its folklore. Arms instead focuses on the oldest portion of the architecture, even documenting some of the remnants of a fresco, and a funerary stele for the freedman Tito Mestrio Logismo, and his wife Mestria Sperata (visible above the water level, to the left of the door, behind the gondola), which was first described in 1436.
Among the many notable bits of history regarding the Palazzo, it has been documented that Tintoretto painted frescos of battle scenes on the facade of the building. The paintings have been lost to time and the elements, but not entirely to history. The empty frame...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Drypoint, Etching
Original Germany Anytime is Travel Time in Germany vintage 1956 poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Any Time is Travel Time in Germany vintage railroad poster. German Federal Railway. Archival linen backed, very condition, ready ...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original Foire de Paris, Paris Fair, 1954 vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Foire de Paris; original lithograph; artist: Albert Solon. Year: 1954. Acid free archival linen backed Size 10.5" x 16 5/8". Excellent condition. Ready to frame
The top of this antique poster features the image of the first poster from 1904 in the art nouveau style; and the bottom of the 1954 Foire de Paris where the sails cover part of the earliest poster image. The bottom portion of this design is reflected in its art deco style with the wording of the name of the Foire de Paris reflecting in the water.
Original. Linen-backed. The annual Paris Fair was a large international industrial exhibition that attracted not only manufacturers from around the world, but also posterists who vied for the honor of having their design selected as the official poster of the event. For 1954, this poster artist is nostalgic for the turn of the century. He is reminding us that it is the 50th anniversary of the Paris Fair. The vintage poster...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Porta del Paradiso, Venezia
Located in Middletown, NY
Etching on cream laid paper, 1930. 7 1/2 x 3 7/8 inches (190 x 970 mm), full margins. Signed and inscribed "Edition 100" in pencil, lower margin. In very good condition with minor s...
Category
Early 20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Laid Paper, Etching
Wilby Church, Northhamptonshire, England
Located in Middletown, NY
A fine proof impression on antique paper
Etching on antique laid paper with a large heraldic watermark. 4 1/4 x 2 3/8 inches (109 x 61mm), full margins. Signed, dated, and inscribed...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Laid Paper, Etching
Cathedral of Saint Cyr and Saint Julitta, Nevers
Located in Middletown, NY
Etching on antique cream laid paper, 12 7/8 x 5 1/2 inches (328 x 140 mm), full margins. Signed in pencil, lower margin. Laid down to non-archival board, general age tone and some ma...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Handmade Paper, Laid Paper, Etching
Freedom From Want - The Four Freedoms
Located in New York, NY
NORMAN ROCKWELL (1894-1978) - The Freedom from want - [from the series THE FOUR FREEDOMS.] 1943.
40x28 1/4inches, 101 1/2x71 3/4 cm.
World War II poster
U.S. Government Printing Office...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Paper
Ball Park, Signed Baseball Screenprint by Ralph Fasanella
Located in Long Island City, NY
Ball Park
Ralph Fasanella
American (1914–1997)
Date: 1974
Screenprint, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition of 122/250
Image Size: 25 x 37 inches
Size: 31 in. x 43 in. (78.74 cm x...
Category
1970s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Screen
Original Jeva de la tête aux pieds from head to toe vintage French poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Jeva de la tête aux pieds vintage French fashion poster.
Jeva would dress you from your head to your feet, and this cat implies in this poster de...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Alexander Calder Circus Reproduction Lithograph After a Drawing
Located in Surfside, FL
(after) Alexander Calder
"Calder's Circus" offset lithograph on wove paper after drawings by the artist
Published by Art in America and Perls gallery in 1964 (from drawings done in the 1930's)
these range slightly in size but they are all about 13 X 17 inches (with minor variations in size as issued.) These have never been framed. The outer folio is not included just the one lithograph.
James Sweeny from the introduction “The fame of Calder’s circus spread quickly between the years 1927 and 1930. All the Paris art world came to know it. It brought him his first great personal success. But what was more important, the circus also provided the first steps in Calder’s development as an original sculptor”
Clive Gray wrote ”A visit to the studio of Alexander Calder led to the chance discovery of some hundred masterful circus drawings completed over thirty years ago. We publish, for the first time, a choice of sixteen from that group.” With signed introduction by Miro.
These whimsical drawings, done in the style of wire sculpture, include acrobats, clowns, jugglers, trapeeze artists, an elephant, dog and lion. they are great.
Alexander Calder is widely considered to be one of the most important American sculptors of the 20th century. He is best known for his colorful, whimsical abstract public sculptures and his innovative mobiles, kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents, which embraced chance in their aesthetic. Born into a family of accomplished artists, Calder's work first gained attention in Paris in the 1930s and was soon championed by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, resulting in a retrospective exhibition in 1943. Major retrospectives were also held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (1964) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1974). Calder’s work is in many permanent collections, most notably in the Whitney Museum of American Art, but also the Guggenheim Museum; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Centre Georges Pompidou. He produced many large public works, including .125 (at JFK Airport, 1957), Pittsburgh (Carnegie International prize winner 1958, Pittsburgh International Airport) Spirale (UNESCO in Paris, 1958), Flamingo and Universe (both in Chicago, 1974), and Mountains and Clouds (Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., 1976). Although primarily known for his sculpture, Calder was a prodigious artist with a restless creative spirit, whose diverse practice included painting and printmaking, miniatures (such as his famous Cirque Calder), children’s book illustrations, theater set design, jewelry design, tapestry and rug works, and political posters. Calder was honored by the US Postal Service with a set of five 32-cent stamps in 1998, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, posthumously in 1977, after refusing to receive it from Gerald Ford one year earlier in protest of the Vietnam War.
Calder moved to New York and enrolled at the Art Students League, studying briefly with Thomas Hart Benton, George Luks, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and John Sloan. While a student, he worked for the National Police Gazette where, in 1925, one of his assignments was sketching the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Calder became fascinated with the action of the circus, a theme that would reappear in his later work.
In 1926, Calder moved to Paris, enrolled in the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and established a studio at 22 rue Daguerre in the Montparnasse Quarter. In June 1929, while traveling by boat from Paris to New York, Calder met his future wife, Louisa James (1905-1996), grandniece of author Henry James and philosopher William James. They married in 1931. While in Paris, Calder met and became friends with a number of avant-garde artists, including Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, and Marcel Duchamp. Cirque Calder (on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art at present) became popular with the Parisian avant-garde. He also invented wire sculpture, or "drawing in space," and in 1929 he had his first solo show of these sculptures in Paris at Galerie Billiet. Hi! (Two Acrobats) in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an early example of the artist's wire sculpture. The painter Jules Pascin, a friend of Calder's from the cafes of Montparnasse, wrote the preface to the catalog. A visit to Piet Mondrian's studio in 1930, where he was impressed by the environment-as-installation, "shocked" him into fully embracing abstract art, toward which he had already been tending.
Dating from 1931, Calder’s sculptures of discrete movable parts powered by motors were christened “mobiles” by Marcel Duchamp, a French pun meaning both "motion" and "motive." At the same time, Calder was also experimenting with self-supporting, static, abstract sculptures, dubbed "stabiles" by Jean Arp in 1932 to differentiate them from mobiles.
Public commissions increasingly came his way in the 1960s. Notable examples are .125 for JFK Airport in 1957, Spirale for UNESCO in Paris 1958 and Trois disques, commissioned for Expo 67 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Calder's largest sculpture at 25.7 meters high was El Sol Rojo, constructed outside the Aztec Stadium for the 1968 Summer Olympics "Cultural Olympiad" events in Mexico City. Many of his public works were commissioned by renowned architects; I.M. Pei commissioned his La Grande Voile (1966), a 25-ton, 40-foot high stabile for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Part of Calder's repertoire includes pivotal stage sets for more than a dozen theatrical productions, including Nucléa, Horizon, and most notably, Martha Graham’s Panorama (1935), a production of the Erik Satie symphonic drama Socrate (1936), and later, Works in Progress (1968).
In addition to sculptures, Calder painted throughout his career, beginning in the early 1920s. He picked up his study of printmaking in 1925, and continued to produce illustrations for books and journals.As Calder’s professional reputation expanded in the late 1940s and 1950s, so did his production of prints. Masses of lithographs based on his gouache paintings hit the market, and deluxe editions of plays, poems, and short stories illustrated with fine art prints by Calder became available for sale.
One of Calder's most celebrated and unconventional undertakings was a commission from Dallas-based Braniff International Airways to paint a full-size Douglas DC-8-62 four-engined jet as a "flying canvas."
Calder created over 2,000 pieces of jewelry over the course of his career, many of them as gifts for friends and relatives. For his lifelong friend Joan Miró, he set a shard of a broken porcelain vessel in a brass ring. Peggy Guggenheim received enormous silver mobile earrings and later commissioned a hammered silver headboard...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
The Whore of Babylon
By Adolf Dehn
Located in Middletown, NY
A scarce impression by Dehn, the spirit of sedultive culture personified.
Lithograph on white wove paper with deckle edges, 13 1/2 x 17 1/8 inches (343 x 435 mm), full margins. Sign...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Handmade Paper, Lithograph
Joseph Zirker, Playhouse
Located in New York, NY
In the 1950s woodcuts started to get bigger and bigger as they competed with paintings for a space on the wall. This California print by Joseph Zirke...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Woodcut
Untitled (Nude with Horse)
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Boris Lovet-Lorski, Untitled (Nude with Horse), lithograph, edition 250, 1929. Signed and numbered 10 in pencil. Number 10 of Volume 1, a series of 10 ...
Category
1920s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Bauxite Factory, Suriname, Signed Lithograph by Clarence Carter
Located in Long Island City, NY
Bauxite Factory, Suriname
Clarence Holbrook Carter
American (1904–2000)
Date: 1980
Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition of 200, AP 30
Image Size: 17.75 x 26 inches
Siz...
Category
1980s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Eglise Notre Dame, Les Andelys
Located in Middletown, NY
Etching and drypoint on greenish cream wove paper, 3 1/4 x 1 15/16 inches (81 x 48 mm), full margins. Signed, dated, and inscribed "III" in pencil. Number 46 from the French Churche...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Handmade Paper, Etching
Original "Back Our Girls Over There, YWCA vintage WW1 poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Back Our Girls Over There Y.W.C.A. WW1 antique poster: Linen-backed original Beautiful Y.W.C.A. Telephone operator sitting at the control pane...
Category
1910s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original "Wonderful Copenhagen" vintage travel poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original vintage poster: WONDERFUL COPENHAGEN created by the artist Viggo Vagnby. This antique poster is archival linen backed, in excellent co...
Category
1950s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Angry Skies (Andante Cantabile) — Central Park, New York City
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Louis Lozowick, 'Angry Skies (Andante Cantabile)', lithograph, 1935; edition 10, AAA 250; Flint 123. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower left. A fine, richly-inked impressio...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Enchanted Doorway, Venezia (La Porta della Carta, Venezia '29)
Located in Storrs, CT
Enchanted Doorway, Venezia (La Porta della Carta, Venezia '29). 1930. Etching. Fletcher catalog 227 state ii. 12 3/8 x 6 9/16 (sheet 15 13/16 x 9 15/16). Edition 148 in this state (...
Category
1920s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Etching
'Kaf With' — Mid-century American Surrealism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Robert Vale Faro, 'Kaf With', color lithograph, 1945, edition 15. Signed, dated, titled and numbered '84' and '6/15' in pen, recto. Titled, numbered '#84' and '6/15' and dated '7/22/...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
"Die Segen" (Sins/Blessing) - 1986 Lithograph On Paper
Located in Soquel, CA
"Die Segen" (Sins/Blessing) - 1986 Lithograph On Paper
Original 1986 lithograph on paper titled "Die Segen" ("Sins/Blessing") by Deborah Rumer. Red, green, purple, black and white m...
Category
1980s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Laid Paper, Lithograph, Acrylic
'Victim of Misfortune and Folly' — Surrealist Fantasy
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Zena Kavin, 'Victim of Misfortune and Folly, lithograph, c. 1935, edition 20. Signed, titled, and numbered '17/20' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, wi...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original Washington D.C. American Airlines vintage travel poster Midcentury
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Washington (D.C.) American Airlines mid-century vintage travel poster. Professional archival linen backed in very fine condition, ready to frame.
Featuring one of the ...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original Rome Fly TWA Jets vintage American travel poster
By David Klein
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Rome Fly TWA Jets vintage travel poster. Conservation linen backed in excellent condition, ready to frame. This is the earlier edition of the image Before ‘up up and away’!
TWA (Trans World Airlines) was formed in 1924 as Transcontinental & Western Air. The airline's first route was from New York to Los Angeles, followed by multiple National routes. The airline expanded to serve Europe, the Middle East, and Asia after WWII when the company was under Howard Hughes's owner's control from 1939 until 1961. Hughes was a dominant force in expanding and promoting his company's routes. The economy was vastly improving, and travel by air for business and pleasure increased, too. Posters were a crucial element in promoting this form of travel and TWA. The airline started a decline in the 1970s, ending in a third bankruptcy that caused its acquisition by American Airlines in 2001. The airline operated in 132 destinations worldwide and had a fleet size of 190.
This Rome poster was created by the gifted American artist David Klein (1918 -2005), and depicts a member of the Pontifical Swiss Guard in the center wearing the iconic yellow, blue, and red uniform. The Guard is playing a drum that has the pontifical emblem. In the background, we see a representation of the ancient Roman Coliseum and the Baroque...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Offset
Rendez-Vous — Early 20th-Century Modernism
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Boris Lovet-Lorski, Untitled (Rendez-Vous), lithograph, edition 250, 1929. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. From a suite of 10 lithographs published by the artist ...
Category
1920s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
He Repeated the Letters of the Alphabet
By Corita Kent
Located in Missouri, MO
Sister Mary Corita Kent (American, 1918-1986)
He Repeated the Letters of the Alphabet...
Color Screenprint
22.5 x 38.75 inches
Signed Lower Right
Sister Mary Corita Kent, once the n...
Category
Mid-20th Century American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Color, Screen
'The Visitor' — Surrealist Fantasy
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Zena Kavin, 'The Visitor', lithograph, c. 1935, edition 20. Signed, titled, and numbered '9/20' in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (7/...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Financial District
Located in New York, NY
Howard Cook (1901-1980), Financial District, lithograph, 1931, signed and dated in pencil lower right and numbered 75 lower left. Reference: Duffy 155, from the stated edition of 75....
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original San Francisco United Air Lines vintage travel poster mid-century
Located in Spokane, WA
The Original San Francisco United Air Lines Vintage Poster, 1967 Travel, is in very good condition, A-, and backed in Mid-Century Modern Linen. Ready to frame.
Capture the timeles...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Offset
Original Avenge December 7th vintage poster
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Avenge December 7th vintage poster. Linen backed; excellent condition. Artist: Bernard Perlin. Office of War Information, Washington, D.C., U.S. Government Printing Office: 1942-O-491978
Dramatic original World War II poster depicting a sailor with his fist raised, standing above a scene of an exploding battleship, with the words “Avenge December 7” in red across the middle of the poster. The striking image on OWI “Poster No. 15,” memorializing the events of December 7, 1941, was created by artist Bernard Perlin.
U. S. Government Printing Office. Year: 1942
As a Life Magazine war art correspondent living in Europe during the 1940s and 1950s, Perlin continued to document social change uniquely. An American painter primarily known for creating many American posters during WWII and for magic realism...
Category
1940s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Offset
"Flood Waters, " Landscape Wood Engraving by Harold Wescott
By Harold Wescott
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Flood Waters" is an original wood engraving by Harold Wescott, It features a tree in the center, with its roots wrapping languidly over a form. High waters rise up from the back. Un...
Category
1930s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Woodcut
Cowboys and Indians, Warrington Colescott
Located in Fairfield, CT
Artist: Warrington Colescott (1921-2018)
Title: Cowboys and Indians
Year: 1969
Edition: 24/75, plus proofs
Medium: Lithograph on paper
Inscription: Signed & numbered in pencil
Size: ...
Category
1960s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Lithograph
Original The Rocky Horror Picture Show US 1 sheet movie poster, on linen, 1975
Located in Spokane, WA
Original The Rocky Horror Picture Show vintage movie poster, professionally linen backed with original fold marks restored, The Rocky Horror Picture Show. A different set of jaws. ...
Category
1970s American Modern Prints and Multiples
Materials
Offset
American Modern prints and multiples for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic American Modern prints and multiples available for sale on 1stDibs. Works in this style were very popular during the 21st Century and Contemporary, but contemporary artists have continued to produce works inspired by this movement. If you’re looking to add prints and multiples created in this style to introduce contrast in an otherwise neutral space in your home, the works available on 1stDibs include elements of blue, orange, purple, yellow and other colors. Many Pop art paintings were created by popular artists on 1stDibs, including Destro, John Taylor Arms, Tom Blachford, and Carol Wax. Frequently made by artists working with Lithograph, and Etching and other materials, all of these pieces for sale are unique and have attracted attention over the years. Not every interior allows for large American Modern prints and multiples, so small editions measuring 1.5 inches across are also available. Prices for prints and multiples made by famous or emerging artists can differ depending on medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $36 and tops out at $80,000, while the average work sells for $800.