Luigi Lucioni On Sale

Luigi Lucioni was an Italian-born American painter. Lucioni lived and worked mainly in New York City, but also spent time working in Vermont. His still lifes, landscapes and portraits were known for their realism, precisely drawn forms and smooth paint surface. Like many of his fellow Regionalists, Lucioni’s work was marketed through Associated American Artists in New York. In 1915, Lucioni won a competition which allowed him to attend The Cooper Union. Lucioni had his first one-man show in New York in 1927 at the Ferargil Galleries. Lucioni was still in his mid-20s and within a short time won recognition, primarily through his still-life painting, as one of this country's most adept and successful artists. During the Depression, when other artists, especially the young and unestablished, found it extremely difficult to earn a living from their art, Lucioni could not produce his exquisitely composed, meticulously finished canvases quickly enough to satisfy the demand. Private collectors and public institutions across the country, including the Fogg Art Museum and the San Diego Museum of Art, acquired examples of his work, often while they were still hanging on the walls of his gallery in New York. Featured in group shows from Dallas to Milwaukee and Memphis, Lucioni cultivated and maintained a truly national reputation. In 1932, Lucioni had his first one-man show in Boston and scored a tremendous coup when The Metropolitan Museum of Art purchased his luminous Dahlias and Apples. Suddenly, Lucioni's name was in the headlines of the art pages. This is believed to be the first time an artist of Lucioni's years has been represented at the Metropolitan. It was reported in the New York Herald Tribune. "Painted with real skill and a modern feeling for composition, it is viewed as a characteristic and excellent work of the young painter."

Decorating with fine art prints — whether they’re figurative prints, abstract prints or another variety — has always been a practical way of bringing a space to life as well as bringing works by an artist you love into your home.

Pursued in the 1960s and ’70s, largely by Pop artists drawn to its associations with mass production, advertising, packaging and seriality, as well as those challenging the primacy of the Abstract Expressionist brushstroke, printmaking was embraced in the 1980s by painters and conceptual artists ranging from David Salle and Elizabeth Murray to Adrian Piper and Sherrie Levine.

Printmaking is the transfer of an image from one surface to another. An artist takes a material like stone, metal, wood or wax, carves, incises, draws or otherwise marks it with an image, inks or paints it and then transfers the image to a piece of paper or other material.

Fine art prints are frequently confused with their more commercial counterparts. After all, our closest connection to the printed image is through mass-produced newspapers, magazines and books, and many people don’t realize that even though prints are editions, they start with an original image created by an artist with the intent of reproducing it in a small batch. Fine art prints are created in strictly limited editions — 20 or 30 or maybe 50 — and are always based on an image created specifically to be made into an edition.

Many people think of revered Dutch artist Rembrandt as a painter but may not know that he was a printmaker as well. His prints have been preserved in time along with the work of other celebrated printmakers such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Andy Warhol. These fine art prints are still highly sought after by collectors.

“It’s another tool in the artist’s toolbox, just like painting or sculpture or anything else that an artist uses in the service of mark making or expressing him- or herself,” says International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) vice president Betsy Senior, of New York’s Betsy Senior Fine Art, Inc.

Because artist’s editions tend to be more affordable and available than his or her unique works, they’re more accessible and can be a great opportunity to bring a variety of colors, textures and shapes into a space.

For tight corners, select small fine art prints as opposed to the oversized bold piece you’ll hang as a focal point in the dining area. But be careful not to choose something that is too big for your space. And feel free to lean into it if need be — not every work needs picture-hanging hooks. Leaning a larger fine art print against the wall behind a bookcase can add a stylish installation-type dynamic to your living room. (Read more about how to arrange wall art here.)

Find fine art prints for sale on 1stDibs today.