Al Held Art

Associated with the Minimalist art movement of the 1960s, Mangold developed a reductive vocabulary based on geometric forms, monochromatic color, and an emphasis on the flatness of t...

A beautiful abstracted landscape, mixed media print and painting, in soft pastel hues by California artist Katherine Chang Liu (American, 20th-century). Signed and dated "Katherine C...

Mark Tobey, American (1890 - 1976) - Summer Joy, Year: 1971, Medium: Color Aquatint, signed, numbered and dated in pencil, Edition: 10/96, Image Size: 10.75 x 8.75 inches, Frame Si...

Larry Zox Untitled IV, ca. 1979 Pochoir on Arches Paper with Deckled Edges. Hand signed and annotated Printers Proof in pencil on the lower front. 28 1/2 × 22 1/2 inches Unframed This beautiful Larry Zox pochoir on Arches paper with deckled edges a unique Printers Proofs - signed by the artist in pencil on the lower front. We do not know the size of the regular edition, or whether there is a regular edition, but this is indeed a unique PP. LARRY ZOX BiIOGRAPHY A painter who played an essential role in the Color Field discourse of the 1960s and 1970s, Larry Zox is best known for his intensely and brilliantly colored geometric abstractions, which question and violate symmetry. Zox stated in 1965: “Being contrary is the only way I can get at anything.” To Zox, this position was not necessarily arbitrary, but instead meant “responding to something in an examination of it [such as] using a mechanical format with X number of possibilities.”[2] What he sought was to “get at the specific character and quality of each painting in and for itself,” as James Monte stated in his introductory essay in the catalogue for Zox’s 1973–74 solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.[3] Zox also at times used a freer, more intuitive method, while maintaining coloristic autonomy, which became increasingly important to him in his later career. Zox began to receive attention in the 1960s, when he was included in several groundbreaking exhibitions of Color Field and Minimalist art, including Shape and Structure (1965), organized by Henry Geldzahler and Frank Stella for Tibor de Nagy, New York, and Systemic Painting (1966), organized by Lawrence Alloway for the Guggenheim Museum. In 1973–74, the Whitney’s solo exhibition of Zox’s work gave recognition to his significance in the art scene of the preceding decade. In the following year, he was represented in the inaugural exhibition of the Hirshhorn Museum, which acquired fourteen of his works. Zox was born in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended the University of Oklahoma and Drake University, and then studied under George Grosz at the Des Moines Art Center. In 1958, Zox moved to New York, joining the downtown art scene. His studio on 20th Street became a gathering place for artists, jazz musicians, bikers, and boxers. He occasionally sparred with visiting fighters. He later established a studio in East Hampton, a former black smithy used previously by Jackson Pollock. Zox’s earliest works were collages consisting of pieces of painted paper stapled onto sheets of plywood. He then produced paintings that were illusions of collages, including both torn- and trued-edged forms, to which he added a wide range of strong hues that created ambiguous surfaces. Next, he omitted the collage aspect of his work and applied flat color areas to create more complete statements of pure color and shape. He then replaced these torn and expressive edges with clean and impersonal lines that would define his work for the next decade. From 1962 to 1965, he produced his Rotation series, at first creating plywood and Plexiglas reliefs, which turned squares into dynamic polygons. He used these shapes in his paintings as well, employing white as a foil between colors to produce negative spaces that suggest that the colored shapes had only been cut out and laid down instead of painted. The New York Times noted in 1964: “The artist is hip, cool, adventurous, not content to stay with the mere exercise of sensibility that one sees in smaller works.”[4] In 1965, he began the Scissors Jack series, in which he arranged opposing triangular shapes with inverted Vs of bare canvas at their centers that threaten to split their compositions apart. In several works from this series, Zox was inspired by ancient Chinese water vessels. With a mathematical precision and a poetic license, Zox flattened the three dimensional object onto graph paper, and later translated his interpretation of vessel’s lines onto canvas with masking tape, forming the structure of the painting. The Diamond Cut and Diamond Drill paintings...

Alan Shields Alice in Grayland, 1979 Mixed media collage: Etching, aquatint, screen print with stitching and collage on hand made paper Hand signed, dated, titled and numbered 1/13 by Alan Shields on the front Unique variant This very unique and imaginative mixed media paper collage with stitching and fabric is floated and framed in a museum quality white wood frame with UV plexiglass. It is hand signed, dated, titled and numbered from the limited edition of 13 - but each is a unique variant. Frame included: Measurements: Frame: 27.75 x 22.5 x 2 inches Artwork: 23.5 x 18 inches Catalogue Raisonne: K. Tyler Tyler Graphics: Catalogue Raisonné, 1974-1985, New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. p. 289. Alan Shields came of age artistically in the late 1960s in New York. Expanding the boundaries of Minimalism, he became known as a master of aesthetic invention through his wide-ranging exploration of materials and techniques. His mixed media works often contain combinations of traditional silkscreen processes combined with found materials. New York Times critic Roberta Smith wrote in her 2005 obituary for the artist: "Mr. Shields's work combined expanses of gorgeous stained color, reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler's canvases, with the humbler crafts and a Gypsy sense of portability." Critic Robert Hughes has described Shields as a brilliant bricoleur who could, and often did, make art out of just about anything. He became an innovative printmaker, experimenting with handmade paper and turning out editions in which each print was unique. After his passing, Shields was awarded a Judith Rothschild Foundation grant given to recently deceased abstract artists whose work is of the highest quality but merits further recognition. About Alan Shields: Alan Shields (b. 1944, Herington, KS; d. 2005, Shelter Island, NY) created unique, imaginative, and theatrical structures using unconventional materials and vibrant color. His three-dimensional paintings convey a playful, deconstructive impulse through the incorporation of un-stretched hand-dyed canvas, rope, yarn, beads, and wood. Shields moved to New York City in 1968, where he showed with Paula Cooper...

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U....

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U....

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U....

Associated with the Minimalist art movement of the 1960s, Mangold developed a reductive vocabulary based on geometric forms, monochromatic color, and an emphasis on the flatness of t...

Leon Polk Smith (1906 -1996) holds a unique place in a long tradition of American geometric abstract painting. Born near Chikasha, a Native American territory later annexed by the U.S. as the state of Oklahoma, Smith’s parents, who were of Cherokee ancestry, raised him with both a strong sense of his heritage and an abiding respect for the land. Art would eventually draw Smith to New York where he would quickly embrace elements of geometric abstraction in his work. Many of Smith’s hard-edge compositions could be viewed as distillations of imagery drawn from the Oklahoma landscape...

Antoni Tapies (Spanish, 1923-2012) Color Etching, aquatint and polychrome carborundum print Estisores-2, c. 1979 Hand signed and numbered 31/75 in pencil in the lower margin, publi...

Thomas Nozkowski Untitled #2, 2008 Color etching with aquatint on Hahnemühle paper Signed and numbered 5/35 in graphite on the back. Die cut window flap on the back of the frame reve...