The New Neutrals

“Mozart en France” – Original French Exhibition 1956 Poster, Linen-Backed. Grade A- condition, ready to frame. Fold marks restored. A striking, authentic mid-century poster creat...

Mary Lightfoot was born in Ravenna, Texas. She studied at the College of Industrial Arts in Denton and the North Texas State Teachers College prior to receiving a master of arts degree from Columbia University. Her entire teaching career was with the Dallas Public School system; she summered in Europe...

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...

Alphonse Mucha "Lorenzaccio, a play in five acts and an epilogue by Alfred de Museet" Plate #114 Image Size: 15" x 11" 1896 Alphonse Mucha was born in Southern Moravia on July 24, 1860. At the age of seventeen the artist left his home, to work as a painter of stage decorations...

Limited edition lithograph on Arches paper from edition of 2,000 of "La Revue Blanche" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Reproduction reissued in 1974. Th...

Original Alphonse Mucha decorative panel. Linen backed in very good condition A-/B+ condition. This lovely poster looks just like an oil painting. It is a rare design by Alphonse ...

"Combat Equestre" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (24/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts mu...

A man raises his hand to his chin, his neck tilted and face turned to look at a dilapidated farmhouse, barely held together by planks of wood and exposed to the elements. Behind him ...

Title: BLUE - Insightful Intent Painting Animal Dog Modern Gold Contemporary Striking Invest Bold Classic Joy Original One-of-a-kind This painting forms part of an artwork series c...

Alphonse MUCHA (1860-1939) "The Seasons" Variante 3 Rare original lithograph Each Season is signed at the lower part of the plate "Mucha". This lithograph is rare, since it was neve...

By French contemporary painter Sophie Dumont Horizons latents reflects Sophie Dumont’s ongoing exploration of inner landscapes and the silent architecture of memory. Built through a...

Title: Sunchasers Painting Animal Dog Modern Gold Contemporary Striking Invest Bold Classic Joy Original One-of-a-kind This painting forms part of an artwork series called BLUE. I ...