Costello Art

Large gilt framed abstract modernist landscape of Jerusalem. Framed it measures 33.25 X 41.25 inches. Canvas measures 28 x 36 inches. Bold Blue sky. Avraham Binder was born in 1906 in Vilnius (or Vilna), now part of Lithuania. He began painting at an early age and completed the prescribed studies in painting at the academy of arts in his native city. Upon graduation, at the commencement exhibition of works submitted by the graduates, he was awarded a prize in recognition of his talents. Artistic talent had deep roots in the Binder family. Avraham's father and grandfather were both artistically inclined, as was his sister Zila Binder and daughter Yael. In fact, he came from a long line of master artistic bookbinders, hence the family surname. The Binder family emigrated to Palestine in 1920. There, his father established a bookbinding workshop in Tel-Aviv while Avraham pursued painting. Binder has not identified with any particular modern school nor narrow artistic doctrine. He struggles to verbally explain his personal conception. Instead, he derives inspiration from emotions, resulting in a great variety of artistic treatments. Particularly memorable are his urban landscapes with their predominance of blues and aquamarines, composed of a profusion of squares and rectangles, crowding one another and covering nearly the entire canvas. The angular shapes are interspersed with radiant dots of red, gold and yellow, like the lights of the big city. Those squares and rectangles reflect, perhaps, impressions of a childhood spent among books which were scattered about the home and workshop of his father, the bookbinder. These shapes, no doubt, had their influence upon the artist whose first youthful impressions were – books. Traces of these shapes are discernible in Binder’s work to this day, in the angularity of splashes of color which, no longer crowded together, are now well separated to create an airy spaciousness. Not only the splashes of color – the inventing space, too – creates figurative effects in the artist’s treatment. Avraham Binder is not a “cerebral” painter. Neither identified with any particular modern school, nor preaching any narrow artistic doctrine, he is an emotional artist: his inspiration, derived from the heart, leads him on to the most varied range of treatments in his artistic work. In vain might one try to persuade him to define his personal conception of painting. He is not one to indulge in verbal explanation. But his sheer artistic skill, his virtuosity with the paint brush, did impel him to experiment widely with the artistic techniques of the modern age. And his exceptional talent stood him in good stead in all this experimentation. Binders large-scale urban landscapes are not mere constructs to represent our present-day architecture with its pervasive angularity. Made up as they are of color, Binder’s unique color composition qualifies these canvases to be ranked among the foremost artistic works in Israeli painting. They are uniquely Binder, very different from what we see in the work of his contemporaries. Here and there, Binder also introduces the human element into these paintings. He lives and breathes the atmosphere of his surroundings, deeply experiencing the sea and the shore of Tel-Aviv that confront him day after day, and which he has transferred to his canvases, as metaphors in paint, throughout the life. More recently, he has created a new series of shore-and-seascapes, in tones ranging from brown to blue. ochre, violet and pale yellow – marvelous views of the sea and of figures enlivening its shore. In yet another series, featuring nearly the same range of hues, he lets us view, through his eyes, the Carmel Market in Tel-Aviv, or the city’s coffee houses with their crowds of people, heads bunched together as if in search of human closeness, with the windows looking in upon them. He has also done large paintings of Jerusalem – not the Jerusalem of gloom and holiness, but a Jerusalem in contrast to the flat topography of Tel-Aviv; it is this different topography which here provides the challenge for him as a painter. And the colors – the colors are bright, full of light, an inner illumination which seems to emanate from the artist himself, rather than from the sun beating down from above. So many great artists have built their life’s work upon watercolors. Binder’s watercolors are in no way inferior in their artistic worth to many of those, what with their spontaneity, their translucent quality, their color combinations, and the artist’s ability to say so much with an economy of brush strokes. We have here a painter who, until the end of his life, was still in his full creative powers, and who continued to add to his impressive storehouse of artistic works. Hundreds of his paintings grace the homes of collectors in Israel and throughout the world, or hang in his private collection; they include Israel landscapes and, most importantly, cityscapes; an exquisite series of wild flowers; many portrait paintings; experimental wood sculptures; murals painted on wood panels; reliefs…, etc. All these are testimony to an artist who refuses to rest on his laurels, who forever reaches out to try his hand at new challenges, strikes out in novel directions, discovers innovative techniques, and experiments in all the dimensions of the plastic arts. On the Israel Museum website they have listed an exhibition of his Artists in Israel for the Defense, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavilion, Tel Aviv 1967 Artists: Avraham Binder, Motke Blum, (Mordechai) Samuel Bak, Yosl Bergner, Nahum Gilboa, Jean David, Marcel Janco, Lea Nikel, Jacob Pins, Esther Peretz Arad, Dani Karavan, Reuven Rubin, Zvi Raphaely, Yossi Stern...

Born in 1933, Otis Huband declared his intention to be an artist at age 6. He earned his BFA and MFA at Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William & Mary, now Virginia...

In The New York Times Arts in America column, Edward M. Gomez writes of Valton Tyler, "visionary seems the right word for describing his vivid, unusual and technically refined painti...

Biography: Abram (Abraham) Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the University of Caen. In 1939 at...

Hanna Ben Dov is an Israeli abstract painter who was born in Jerusalem in 1919 and died in Paris in 2008. Ben Dov's father, Yacov Ben-Dov, was a famous Israeli photographer who founded the photography department in the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in 1910. Hannah herself attended Bezalel during the 1940s, and later continued to Camberwell College of Arts in London. After the completion of her formal education she moved to Paris, where she exhibited for the first time in 1948 and has been living and working there since, as a part of the local abstract artists school. She took part in the first French Biennale of 1951, that was held in Menton. Collections Her paintings can be found in several collections, including the French State Collection, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art collection, the Bezalel National Museum collection in Jerusalem and the Rockefeller Museum collection in New York. Ben Dov resided for her last two years at the Maison Des Artistes Home in Nogent-Sur-Marne, France, just outside Paris. Exhibitions Gallery97 Tel Aviv Paintings...

Fereydoun (Fred) Rahimi Assa (Iranian, b. 1936) "Lonely Soul in Desert" Oil and mixed media on canvas, Hand signed lower left Framed : 40-1/2"h x 30-1/2"w Sight: 40"h x 30"w Made with metallic foil or paint, the patchwork-like piece bears geometric designs and symbols. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Fereydoun Rahimi Assa (b. 1936) moved to Tehran at the age of three. He attended the College of Decorative Arts, Tehran in the same year group as well-known formidable masters, Hossein Zenderoudi and Massoud Arabshahi. After being awarded a travelling scholarship in 1964, Rahimi-Assa went to Israel for three months of study. Although Rahimi-Assa saw success through the several exhibitions he held in Israel, unable to secure a long-term visa and not keen to return to Iran, he found himself in the US – in no small part, thanks to the help of Eric Azari in obtaining a long-term residency visa. Fred Rahimi-Assa went first to New York and later settled in New Jersey. While in New York, he worked in some capacity at Columbia University’s Painting department where he also exhibited several times, including a solo show in 1968. In the same year, Rahimi-Assa participated in a group exhibition of Modern Persian painting, sponsored by the Centre for Iranian Studies at Columbia University – founded that year by Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University). After moving out of the City, to New Jersey in the 1970s, Rahimi Asa continued to exhibit with local institutes and organized art seminars in the homes of various artists. His work was included in the Middle East auction held by Sotheby's. It includes pioneering artists such as Egyptian Mahmoud Mokhtar, Moroccan modernism, Mohamed Melehi...

Fereydoun (Fred) Rahimi Assa (Iranian, b. 1936) Oil and mixed media on canvas, Hand signed lower left Framed : 48-1/2"h x 36-1/2"w Sight: 48"h x 36"w Made with metallic paint, the abstract expressionist bears geometric designs and symbols. Born in Baku, Azerbaijan, Fereydoun Rahimi Assa (b. 1936) moved to Tehran at the age of three. He attended the College of Decorative Arts, Tehran in the same year group as well-known formidable masters, Hossein Zenderoudi and Massoud Arabshahi. After being awarded a travelling scholarship in 1964, Rahimi-Assa went to Israel for three months of study. Although Rahimi-Assa saw success through the several exhibitions he held in Israel, unable to secure a long-term visa and not keen to return to Iran, he found himself in the US – in no small part, thanks to the help of Eric Azari in obtaining a long-term residency visa. Fred Rahimi-Assa went first to New York and later settled in New Jersey. While in New York, he worked in some capacity at Columbia University’s Painting department where he also exhibited several times, including a solo show in 1968. In the same year, Rahimi-Assa participated in a group exhibition of Modern Persian painting, sponsored by the Centre for Iranian Studies at Columbia University – founded that year by Professor Ehsan Yarshater (Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies, Columbia University). After moving out of the City, to New Jersey in the 1970s, Rahimi Asa continued to exhibit with local institutes and organized art seminars in the homes of various artists. His work was included in the Middle East auction held by Sotheby's. It includes pioneering artists such as Egyptian Mahmoud Mokhtar, Moroccan modernism, Mohammed Melehi, Lebanese Huguette Caland and Bahman Mohasses...

Genre: Modern Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Canvas Country: United States Dimensions: 18" x 24" Dimensions w/Frame: 18.5" x 24.5" Cubist Surrealism, reminescent of the Later Pop Art works of Roy Lichtenstein. Alan Tompkins a prolific artist, he continued to paint into his 100th year and strongly desired one thing: to be remembered for his art. “I’m not a hobbyist, I’m not an educator,” said Tompkins. “I want to be remembered as a painter.” Tompkins produced thousands of paintings, many showing the influence of Cubism and abstract art, during a long and productive career. Tompkins played a pivotal role in the formation of the University of Hartford. He was director of the Hartford Art School in 1957 when it merged with the original Hillyer College and the Hartt College of Music to become the University of Hartford. He served as director until 1969 and then taught art history and visual studies until his retirement in 1974. A graduate of Columbia University...

Wonderful scene of the Moulin Rouge cabaret nightclub at Place Pigalle in Paris. Painted in wonderful moody blue and red colors. Size includes frame. Abram Abraham Krol was born Jan...

Shabbat Evening Large Israeli masterpiece painting. Hand signed lower right Provenance: Sara Kishon Gallery Naftali Bezem (Hebrew: נפתלי בזם‎‎; born November 27, 1924) is an Israel...

Abram Abraham Krol was born January 22, 1919, in Pabianice (Lodz), Poland. Abram Krol went to France in 1938 to study civil engineering at the Universit...

"Dusseldorf, Germany" 1993, oil on canvas, hand signed and dated lower left, Canvas (unframed):18 X 48. framed: 19.5 X 49.5 Provenance: directly from the artist. Exhibited at Phyllis Kind Gallery in NYC in 1987. Archie Rand (American, born 1949) is an artist from Brooklyn, New York. Rand's work as a painter and muralist is held in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris, and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. His graphic works and books are held by the Metropolitan Museum Of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Art Institute Of Chicago, The Brooklyn Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, and The New York Public Library; and are owned by Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Brown, and Johns Hopkins universities. Born in Brooklyn, Rand received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in cinegraphics from the Pratt Institute, having studied previously at the Art Students League of New York. His first exhibition was in 1966, at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York. He has since had over 100 solo exhibitions, and his work has been included in over 200 group exhibitions. He is currently Presidential Professor of Art at Brooklyn College which granted him the Award for Excellence in Creative Achievement in 2016. Before joining Brooklyn College, Rand was the chair of the Department of Visual Arts at Columbia University. The Italian Academy For Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University presented him with The Siena Prize in 1995. He was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Foundation Fellowship in 1999 and was made a Laureate of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, which awarded him the Achievement Medal for Contributions in the Visual Arts. In 2002 he received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching from Columbia University. In 2002 he became the artistic advisor to film director Ang Lee for his production of The Hulk, and was asked by Milestone Films to provide a commentary track for the DVD release of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s classic 1955 film The Mystery of Picasso. Archie Rand’s earliest major works are “The Letter Paintings” (or “The Jazz Paintings”) (1968–71), a radically positioned series of technically inventive, mural-sized canvases. The Letter Paintings, by incorporating the names of mainly male and female African-American musicians, undermined prevailing aesthetic categories by conflating many contemporary movements including Conceptual Art, Color Field, Pattern and Decoration, diary entry and social commentary. In 1974 Rand received a commission from Congregation B’nai Yosef in Brooklyn. Rand was asked to paint thematic murals on the complete 16,000-square-foot (1,500 m2) interior surfaces of the synagogue. The work took three years, and completing this commission made Rand the author of the only narratively painted synagogue in the world and the only one we know of since the 2nd Century Dura-Europos. The religious legal controversy raised by placing wall paintings in a traditionally iconoclastic space was resolved by the verdict of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, then considered to be the world’s leading Talmudic scholar, who declared the paintings to be in conformity with the law. His subsequent turn to figuration may have been influenced by his friendship with Philip Guston, whose own work was transformed in the late 1960s. Like Guston, Rand "chafed at the limitations of purely abstract forms." A near-cult figure who started out as a child prodigy and whose admirers range from John Ashbery to Julian Schnabel. Rand’s paintings display a vast and savvy menu of inventive and finely executed approaches. He has completed many series after the works of Paul Celan, Moyshe-Leyb Halpern, Eugenio Montale, Yehuda Amichai, Rainer Maria Rilke, Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard and Jack Spicer. Working often with poets, he has produced books and continues to engage in publishing collaborative projects. He maintained a correspondence with the American British Jewish painter R.B. Kitaj. In 2008, on a warehouse wall, Rand mounted the painting, “The 613”, which at 1700 square feet (17’ x 100’) is nearly twice the size of James Rosenquist’s F-111. It is one of the largest freestanding paintings ever made. Reminiscent of “The Segments” paintings it is intimidatingly enormous. Paradoxically, despite the raucous cartoony bytes that shoot colorful flashes from the manic surface, “The 613” glows warmly. Its overall effect is strangely calming and majestic. In an article on a 2011 exhibition of Rand's "Had Gadya" series, David Kaufmann wrote: Rand displayed his work in 15 solo exhibitions between 2008 and 2017, many of them showcasing paintings done after Scripture, or his workings with poets: Including “Had Gadya, 2005”, Borowsky Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2011); “Gods Change, Prayers Are Here To Stay (after Yehuda Amichai), 2000", Katz Gallery, Atlanta, GA (2014); “Psalm 68, 1994”, Derfner Museum, Riverdale, NY (2014); “The Chapter Paintings”, Tribeca Gallery, NY (2015); “Men Who Turn Back (after Eugenio Montale), 1995", SRO Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2016); “Sixty Paintings From the Bible” & “The Book of Judith, 2012”, Cleveland State University Galleries, Cleveland, OH (2016) & The American Jewish Museum, Pittsburgh, PA (2017); “Archie Rand: Early Works With Poetry: Jack Spicer, 1991 and Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard, 1993”, St. Francis College, Brooklyn, NY (2017). "The 613" In 2015 Blue Rider/Penguin/Random House published The 613, allotting one color plate per page for each of the 614 units in the painting. The Wall Street Journal labeled The 613 as “dynamic…remarkable…thrilling” The New York Times selected the book as “Editors' Choice” and praised it in two separate reviews calling it “wonderfully garish” and declaring that “nothing prepared the art world for 'The 613.' Recent Activity In 2016 Rand showed two bodies of work that were done in Italy, “La Certosa Di Pontignano, 1995” and “Mount Etna, 2005,” at The Interchurch Center Galleries, New York. From 2016 to 2017 he served as the Curator and Juror for the Governor of Wyoming’s Capitol Arts Exhibition at The Wyoming State Museum, Cheyenne, WY. A 2017 exhibition, “Archie Rand: Early Works With Poetry”, featured two series of work from 1991 and 1993 after poems by Jack Spicer and Samuel Beckett/Paul Eluard. This painting was exhibited in the Phyllis Kind Gallery in NY in 1987. (Phyllis Kind was an American art dealer active in Chicago and New York. She promoted the work of the Chicago Imagists, The Monster Roster and The Hairy Who and outsider artists. Kind opened a gallery in Chicago in 1967. Called Pro Grafica Arte, the gallery dealt in master prints and drawings. In 1975, she opened a gallery on Spring Street in New York's SoHo district. She gave some of the artists in the movement their first solo shows: Jim Nutt and Gladys Nilsson...