Craig Mitchell Smith

"Poppies", Deep Red and Orange Glass, Vase,

2000s

This Jose A Cunha Portuguese Palissy Majolica plate features a snake, spider, frog, caterpillar, and butterfly on green shredded clay ground. The piece bears the maker's marks for Jose A Cunha pottery. Palissy ware is a style of ceramics that is also known as rusticware due to their earth-toned palettes and naturalistic plant and animal scenes that are cast to it. The style was coined in reference to the 16th century French potter Bernard Palissy and experienced a significant revival in the 19th century thanks to Charles-Jean Avisseau. It's strongest revival however was in Portugal where it was produced by the potteries of Mafra, Jose A. Cunha, Alves, José Francisco de Sousa...

"Pod" is a precious sculpture with a decorated tactile surface and a warm glaze giving the piece a soft glow. The transparent glaze enhances the creamy tones of the clay. Ms. Oka Doner created unique hand-size sculptures during the 1960s of which the "Pod" is an exquisite example. Her clay technical skills cover a wide range from enormous wall pieces to small decorative pieces that demand to be touched and held. This piece, despite being a fruit, is the perfect example of her famous "Tatooed" figurative sculptures. Michele Oka Doner (born in Miami Beach, Florida, United States) is an American artist and author who works in a variety of media including sculpture, prints, drawings, functional objects and video. She has also worked in costume and set design and has created over 40 public and private permanent art installations. She is best known for her “A Walk On The Beach,” a one and a quarter mile long bronze and terrazzo concourse at Miami International Airport. It is composed of over 9000 bronzes embedded in terrazzo with mother-of-pearl. At one and quarter linear miles, it is one of the largest artworks in the world. She is granddaughter of painter, Samuel Heller. She attended the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her art instructor Milton Cohen was experimenting with The Space Theater and George Manupelli began the Ann Arbor Film Festival. Their students were engaged in poetry, dance, light, music, all combined into a unitary vision, a motif that shaped Oka Doner's student years and is characteristic of her work today. She participated in a Manupelli experimental film, a "Map Read" performance with art drawing instructor Al Loving and Judsonite dancer Steve Paxton as well as several "Happenings." Another influence was art historian and Islamic scholar, Oleg Grabar, who illustrated how patterns in architecture are able to dissolve space. She received her BS and MFA from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. In 2008 she was a U of M Penny Stamps Distinguished Speaker. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan; Germans Van Eck Gallery, New York; Diane Brown Gallery, New York; Art & Industrie Gallery, New York; Willoughby, Marlborough Gallery, New York; Studio Stefania Miscetti in Rome; and Gloria Luria Gallery in Miami, Florida. During the 1960s Michelle Oka Doner was living and working in Detroit, Michigan, where she became acquainted with Charles McGee and his gallery located in the Fisher Building...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY “Santa Cruz de las Huertas Jalisco” is a whimsical, charming and colorfully ceramic rendition painted blue and red of a local bus that traversed the town where the artist Candelario Medrano...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "El Tren" is a whimsical and playful rendition of a train. It is beautifully glazed in various colors. This particular ceramic was from the collection of Jane and Richard Knight’s Estate. Jane Knight was a famous fiber and textile artist. Richard was a photographer who worked for Eliel Saarinen and Alexander Girard. The Knights and Girard became close friends and it was Girard who gifted “Santa Cruz De Las Huertas Jalisco” to the Knights. Alexander Girard left his personal collection to the Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM. The Girards eventually amassed a collection of more than 106,000 objects from across the globe. Their 1978 gift of this collection to the Museum of International Folk art quintupled the size of their collection and prompted the construction of a new wing, which opened in 1982 and houses a mere 10% of the Girard Collection in the permanent exhibition Multiple Visions: A Common Bond, which was designed by Alexander Girard himself. This collection includes numerous multiples and is notable for its great breadth, including traditional arts, popular arts, and paper ephemera. “I believe we should preserve this evidence of the past, not as a pattern for sentimental imitation,” Girard once said, “but as nourishment for the creative spirit of the present.” Indeed, folk art was an important inspiration for Girard’s design work. The renowned Candelario Medrano...

Dionisios Fragias is a New York -based artist born on the Greek island of Kefalonia and raised in New York City. He is the protege of the artist Jeff Koons whose years-long mentorshi...

Bronze Jewish Rabbi. Original Patina. Art-deco wood carved base. It is signed with initials P.K. and marked "Calif Art Bronze Fdry LA" (California Art Bronze Foundry Los Angeles). it is not dated. PETER KRASNOW (1886-1979), Russian-Ukrainian, American artist painter and sculptor, born Feivish Reisberg, was a California modernist and colorist artist known for his abstract wood sculptures and architectonic hard-edge paintings and drawings which were often based on Hebrew calligraphy and other subjects related to his Jewish heritage...

This painted porcelain vase is of Chinese origin. Women can be seen socializing in an ancient Chinese garden. The analogous color scheme creates a serene and comfortable design. Or...

A continuation of her evocative Venice Biennale's installation, Bertlmann creates this sculpture as a symbol of both attractiveness and strength. Knife-rose by Renate Bertlmann Murano glass and metal, protected by acrylic case Edition of 50, plus 20 APs In mint Condition, accompanied by Certificate of Authenticity Acquired directly from the manufacturer Signed, numbered and dated PLEASE NOTE: Edition numbers could vary from the one shown in the pictures. A continuation of her installation, 'Discordo Ergo Sum‘ ('I dissent, therefore I am‘); which consisted of 312 glass roses, Bertlmann represented the Austrian Pavilion, as the first female solo artist, at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, where she focuses on the dichotomy of the human existence. The focal point of Bertlmann´s practice lays within the playground of gender and social issues, as can be seen in Knife-rose, an edition of 50 hand-blown Murano glass roses. The flaming and voluptuous red rose may be inviting, but from its core a sharp knife penetrates its petals and is ready to defend itself, awaiting an attack. "Perhaps it was novel for me to focus from the very start on investigating and developing a new image of the male by the female and did not restrict myself to developing a new image of the female by the female."—Renate Bertlmann RENATE BERTLMANN Austrian feminist avant-garde artist, Renate Bertlmann´s multimedia practice explores the gender roles within societal conventions. Her provocative pieces challenge the way women are held back by societal conventions. Active since the 1970s Bertlmann, who was born in Vienna in 1943, has worked in a variety of mixed media; including collages, drawings, photographs, photo-films, performances, and sculptural objects. The fil rouge of her work is the ambivalence of the feminine and masculine relationship, pursuing, often also with humor, an interrogation on gender relations. "My main interest became the phenomenon of male abuse of power; power as disinhibiting aphrodisiac, especially within the realm of sexuality."—Renate Bertlmann In 1975, Bertlmann participated in the ground-breaking exhibition 'MAGNA. Feminismus: Kunst und Kreativität' [MAGNA. Feminism: Art and Creativity] curated by fellow feminist artist Valie Export...