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Charles Turzak Art

American, 1899-1986

Charles Turzak was born in Streator, Illinois. He was a printmaker, a painter, a muralist, a teacher and a graphic artist. Turzak received his art education at the Art Institute of Chicago and continued his studies abroad. He won wide recognition as an artist/author and illustrator through his woodcut biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Benjamin Franklin as well as other American Statesmen. Charles Turzak's work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Milwaukee, Kansas City, Missouri, Library of Congress and the University of Illinois to mention a few. He is listed in the Who's Who in 20th Century American Artists. Over the years his designs and illustrations for national publishers have brought Turzak many honors for his originality and creativity.

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Artist: Charles Turzak
Randolph Street - Chicago (From Series Chicago Moods in Color)
By Charles Turzak
Located in Chicago, IL
A rare, small edition, color woodblock print, titled "Randolph Street- Chicago", from the series "Chicago Moods in Color", by Chicago artist Charles Turza...
Category

1930s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Loop Alley
By Charles Turzak
Located in Chicago, IL
A rare, small edition, color woodblock print, titled "Loop Alley", by Chicago artist Charles Turzak. In the 1930s, Turzak created a series of fine and dramatic prints depicting the ...
Category

1930s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Autumn — American Modern
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'Autumn', color woodcut, edition 50, c. 1925. Signed, titled and numbered '17/50' in pencil. Signed in the block, lower left. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on...
Category

1920s American Modern Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Spring — American Modernism
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'Spring', color woodcut, edition 50, c. 1925. Signed, titled and numbered '4/50' in pencil. Signed in the block, lower left. A fine impression, with fresh colors, on ...
Category

1920s American Modern Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Dancers
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'Dancers', 1939, wood engraving, edition 100. Signed, titled, and numbered 72/100 in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white Japan paper, with full marg...
Category

Mid-20th Century Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

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Genre: Brazilian Art Deco, African Diaspora Bahian Carnival Subject: Abstract Medium: Print Surface: Paper Country: Brazil Dimensions of overall paper are listed. This is from a series of work he did in the 1940's, we sold one called Ritmo Negro, they are about Afro-Brazilian jazz, dance and music. Odetto Guersoni was born in the city of Jaboticabal, State of São Paulo, in 1924. From 1936 to 1941 he attended the Liceu de Artes de Ofícios in São Paulo, beginning his artistic career in 1945, when he exhibited paintings in the Hall of the Plastic Artists Union . Two years later he was part of the collective group of 19, alongside Aldemir, Charoux, Otavio Araújo, Grassmann, Maria Leontina and several other artists that time would make famous. He then practiced a figurative painting of accentuated Expressionist lauds, characterized by deformation and coloring, raw and Satirical- as, moreover, so many of his fellow exhibitors at the time. As a French government scholar, Odette Guerzoni went to Paris in 1947 and the following year took part in the Peintres et Graveurs Etrangers and Art Libre exhibitions. Student of engraving by Renê Cottet, gradually transformed this expressive medium into his favorite, to the detriment of painting, which he practically abandoned soon after. In 1947, he participated in the 19 Painters exhibition at the Prestes Maia Gallery together with Lothar Charoux, Maria Leontina,Grassmann, Aldemir Martins, Luiz Sacilotto and hiró. Guersoni was awarded a scholarship by the French government, and traveled to Paris, where he began work in engraving. Back in Brazil, in 1951, he founded the Art Workshop, in São Paulo. In 1954, he returned to Europe for a year, financed by the International Labor Organization (ILO). In Geneva, he studied engraving with René Cottet (1902 - 1992) and worked in Stanley william Hayter's studio, Atelier 17, in Paris (1901 - 1988). From 1956 to 1957, he became director of the Union of Plastic Artists of São Paulo. From 1960, he attended, as a trainee, some art schools in the United States and Japan such as The New York School of Printing and Osaka University. In 1971, also in Japan, he attended the workshop of I. Jokuriti. Two years later, he was voted Best Recorder of the Year by the Paulista Association of Art Critics - APCA. He took part in a special room at the Ibero-American Biennial in Montevideo in 1983. The Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo - Pesp presents a retrospective of his work in 1994. Odetto Guersoni explores the wide spectrum of possibilities of the engraving. In addition to using techniques such as metal etching, lithograph, serigraph, linocut and, especially, woodcut he developed, in the 1950s, the philigraphy, in which the forms he developed gained points of embroidery made by Bonadei (1906 - 1974) . And, in the 1960s, the plastigraphy, in which he makes engravings on pasty surfaces, obtained from gypsum or other soft material. In the 1970s, technical investigations were associated with pictographic, ideographic, archaic symbol searches, Brazilian cave paintings and plant forms. The drawings are reduced to stylized, geometric shapes and transformed into abstract graphic elements. The artist works with few matrices, which, organized in rectangles, squares or circles, become modules to be combined. Guersoni juxtaposes them, adds, changes colors, and thereby composes colorful mandalas and structural geometries. Based on concise compositions, it produces color vibrations through optical illusions. In many of his woodcut works of the 1980s he uses smooth wood, knives, saws, gouges, punches, avoiding the natural textures of wood. In printing, it leaves the vibrant color and employs dosed inks with colorless masses, obtaining transparencies by superpositions. New journeys of study and specialization in engraving techniques took him in 1954 to Switzerland, 1960 to the United States, and in 1966 to Germany and Austria. Today, after having performed more than 40 individuals including 16 abroad and having participated in more than 50 collectives in several countries, Guersoni is considered one of the most notable Brazilian engravers. Conquered awards in several shows. CHRONOLOGY Individual exhibitions 1946 - Sao Paulo SP - 10th Salon of the Artists' Union, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1947 - São Paulo SP - 19 Painters, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1948 - Paris France - Peintres et Graveurs Etrangers at the École des Beaux-Arts 1949 - São Paulo SP - 13th Salon of the Artists' Union, at the Prestes Maia Gallery 1951 - São Paulo SP - 1st Paulista Salon of Modern Art, at Prestes Maia Gallery - silver medal 1953 - São Paulo SP - 2nd International Biennial of São Paulo, at MAM / SP 1954 - São Paulo SP - 3rd Paulista Salon of Modern Art, in the Prestes Maia Gallery 1955 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - 4th National Salon of Modern Art 1955 - Salvador BA - 5th Baiano Salon of Fine Arts, in Belvedere da Sé - honorable mention 1962 - São Paulo SP - Leirner Prize for Contemporary Art at the Folha Art Gallery - 1st printing award 1963 - Curitiba PR - 20th Salão Paranaense de Belas Artes, at the Public Library of Paraná 1963 - Rio de Janeiro RJ - Individual, no MAM / RJ 1968 - Bradford England - First International Print Biennale 1970 - São Paulo SP - Antonio Henrique Amaral, Odetto Guersoni, Tomie Ohtake, Pedro Tort and Gerda Brentani, in the Alberto Bonfiglioli Gallery 1971 - São Paulo SP - 11th International Biennial of São Paulo, at the Biennial Foundation - acquisition award 1973 - Punta del Este Uruguay - 1st Engraving Meeting of the Prata Basin Countries - International Prize 1977 - São Paulo SP - The Groups: the 40's, at the Lasar Segall Museum 1982 - São Paulo SP - Ismenia Coaracy, Odetto Guersoni and Alice Brill...
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1940s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Walter DuBois Richards, The Lobster Float
By Walter DuBois Richards
Located in New York, NY
Ohio-born Walter DuBois Richards (1907-2006) was educated at the Cleveland School of Art. He re-located to New York around 1933 where he had a successful career as a commercial artis...
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1930s American Modern Charles Turzak Art

Materials

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Previously Available Items
Michigan Avenue Bridge — American Modernism
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'Michigan Avenue Bridge', 1929, woodcut, edition 50. Signed, titled, and numbered '27/50' in pencil. Signed in the block, upper left. A fine, black impression, on cream Japan paper, with full margins (1 5/8 to 2 1/4 inches), in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Scarce. Collection: National Gallery of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST Charles Turzak was born in Streator, Illinois, the third child and only son of Czechoslovakian immigrant parents. His father was a coal miner who worked long days, and the many chores of daily life occupied Turzak’s boyhood years. When he completed his duties, he retired to do what he most enjoyed—the careful carving of miniature animals from peach seeds, which he would sell for pennies. Turzak learned woodworking from a neighbor, an English cabinet maker, and soon apprenticed for making violins. He drew cartoons for his school's yearbook and sale bills for local merchants. In 1920, he won a cartoon contest sponsored by the Purina Company in St. Louis, Missouri, which helped him earn entrance to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He excelled in drawing and woodcarving and gained membership in Delta Phi Delta, an honorary art fraternity. He supported himself through freelance advertising, selling insurance, and teaching a class in woodcut and wood engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts. By the late 1920s, he had gained recognition from exhibiting and selling prints of Northwestern University and Chicago landmarks such as the Chicago Water Tower, Tribune Tower, and Buckingham Fountain, as well as watercolors of steel mills, boats, harbors, skylines, woodlands, parks, and still life subjects. In 1929 he traveled to Europe to study the works of the masters firsthand, visiting England, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, and France. He returned to the United States just as the Great Depression was taking hold of the country. During this severe economic downturn, Turzak created woodcut biographies of notable Americans—his first edition on Abraham Lincoln sold so well at the Century of Progress International Exhibition (Chicago World’s Fair...
Category

1920s American Modern Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Merchandise Mart — American Modernism
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'Merchandise Mart', 1931, woodcut, edition 50. Signed, titled, and numbered '33/50' in pencil. Signed in the block, lower right. A fine, black impression, on cream Japan paper, with full margins (1 3/4 to 3 inches), in very good condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Scarce. Collections: Art Institute of Chicago, Hubbard Fund, Library of Congress, Newark Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Charles Turzak was born in Streator, Illinois, the third child and only son of Czechoslovakian immigrant parents. His father was a coal miner who worked long days, and the many chores of daily life occupied Turzak’s boyhood years. When he completed his duties, he retired to do what he most enjoyed—the careful carving of miniature animals from peach seeds, which he would sell for pennies. Turzak learned woodworking from a neighbor, an English cabinet maker, and soon apprenticed for making violins. He drew cartoons for his school's yearbook and sale bills for local merchants. In 1920, he won a cartoon contest sponsored by the Purina Company in St. Louis, Missouri, which helped him earn entrance to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He excelled in drawing and woodcarving and gained membership in Delta Phi Delta, an honorary art fraternity. He supported himself through freelance advertising, selling insurance, and teaching a class in woodcut and wood engraving at the Academy of Fine Arts. By the late 1920s, he had gained recognition from exhibiting and selling prints of Northwestern University and Chicago landmarks such as the Chicago Water Tower...
Category

1930s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

The Kiss
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, 'The Kiss', 1932, wood engraving, edition 100. Signed, titled and numbered '70/100' in pencil. A fine, black impression, on cream Japan paper,...
Category

1930s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

The Kiss
The Kiss
H 8.75 in W 4.38 in
Loop Alley (Chicago)
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
Charles Turzak, Loop Alley (Chicago), color woodcut, edition c. 25, c. 1935. Signed and titled in pencil. A fine, richly-inked impression, with fresh colors, on cream wove Japan pape...
Category

1930s Art Deco Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Merchandise Mart (Chicago)
By Charles Turzak
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
A dramatic, period Chicago cityscape, in the artist's art deco inspired signature style. A brilliant black impression, the full sheet with margins (...
Category

1930s American Modern Charles Turzak Art

Materials

Woodcut

Charles Turzak art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Charles Turzak art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Charles Turzak in woodcut print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Art Deco style. Not every interior allows for large Charles Turzak art, so small editions measuring 5 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Frank Wootton, Roger Soubie, and George Biddle. Charles Turzak art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,100 and tops out at $4,000, while the average work can sell for $2,200.

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