George Biddle Art

Work on paper Ed: 63/75

The Golden Gate Lithograph on wove paper watermarked GC, 1940 Signed in pencil by the artist (see photo) Publisher: Associated American Artists Edition: 189, unnumbered The image depicts The Golden Gate Bridge which connects San Francisco and Marin County, California References And Exhibitions: Illustrated: Adams, The Sensuous Life of Adolf Dehn, Fig. 13.17, page 324 Reference: L & O 325 AAA Index 391 Adolf Dehn, American Watercolorist and Printmaker, 1895-1968 Adolf Dehn was an artist who achieved extraordinary artistic heights, but in a very particular artistic sphere—not so much in oil painting as in watercolor and lithography. Long recognized as a master by serious print collectors, he is gradually gaining recognition as a notable and influential figure in the overall history of American art. In the 19th century, with the invention of the rotary press, which made possible enormous print runs, and the development of the popular, mass-market magazines, newspaper and magazine illustration developed into an artistic realm of its own, often surprisingly divorced from the world of museums and art exhibitions, and today remains surprisingly overlooked by most art historians. Dehn in many regards was an outgrowth of this world, although in an unusual way, since as a young man he produced most of his illustrative work not for popular magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post, but rather for radical journals, such as The Masses or The Liberator, or artistic “little magazines” such as The Dial. This background established the foundation of his outlook, and led later to his unique and distinctive contribution to American graphic art. If there’s a distinctive quality to his work, it was his skill in introducing unusual tonal and textural effects into his work, particularly in printmaking but also in watercolor. Jackson Pollock seems to have been one of many notable artists who were influenced by his techniques. Early Years, 1895-1922 For an artist largely remembered for scenes of Vienna and Paris, Adolf Dehn’s background was a surprising one. Born in Waterville, Minnesota, on November 22, 1895, Dehn was the descendent of farmers who had emigrated from Germany and homesteaded in the region, initially in a one-room log cabin with a dirt floor. Adolf’s father, Arthur Clark Dehn, was a hunter and trapper who took pride that he had no boss but himself, and who had little use for art. Indeed, during Adolf’s boyhood the walls of his bedroom and the space under his bed were filled with the pelts of mink, muskrats and skunks that his father had killed, skinned and stretched on drying boards. It was Adolf’s mother, Emilie Haas Dehn, a faithful member of the German Lutheran Evangelical Church, who encouraged his interest in art, which became apparent early in childhood. Both parents were ardent socialists, and supporters of Eugene Debs. In many ways Dehn’s later artistic achievement was clearly a reaction against the grinding rural poverty of his childhood. After graduating from high school in 1914 at the age of 19—an age not unusual in farming communities at the time, where school attendance was often irregular—Dehn attended the Minneapolis School of Art from 1914 to 1917, whose character followed strongly reflected that of its director, Munich-trained Robert Kohler, an artistic conservative but a social radical. There Dehn joined a group of students who went on to nationally significant careers, including Wanda Gag (later author of best-selling children’s books); John Flanagan (a sculptor notable for his use of direct carving) Harry Gottlieb (a notable social realist and member of the Woodstock Art Colony), Elizabeth Olds (a printmaker and administrator for the WPA), Arnold Blanch (landscape, still-life and figure painter, and member of the Woodstock group), Lucille Lunquist, later Lucille Blanch (also a gifted painter and founder of the Woodstock art colony), and Johan Egilrud (who stayed in Minneapolis and became a journalist and poet). Adolf became particularly close to Wanda Gag (1893-1946), with whom he established an intense but platonic relationship. Two years older than he, Gag was the daughter of a Bohemian artist and decorator, Anton Gag, who had died in 1908. After her husband died, Wanda’s mother, Lizzi Gag, became a helpless invalid, so Wanda was entrusted with the task of raising and financially supporting her six younger siblings. This endowed her with toughness and an independent streak, but nonetheless, when she met Dehn, Wanda was Victorian and conventional in her artistic taste and social values. Dehn was more socially radical, and introduced her to radical ideas about politics and free love, as well as to socialist publications such as The Masses and The Appeal to Reason. Never very interested in oil painting, in Minneapolis Dehn focused on caricature and illustration--often of a humorous or politically radical character. In 1917 both Dehn and Wanda won scholarships to attend the Art Students League, and consequently, in the fall of that year both moved to New York. Dehn’s art education, however, ended in the summer of 1918, shortly after the United States entered World War I, when he was drafted to serve in the U. S. Army. Unwilling to fight, he applied for status as a conscientious objector, but was first imprisoned, then segregated in semi-imprisonment with other Pacifists, until the war ended. The abuse he suffered at this time may well explain his later withdrawal from taking political stands or making art of an overtly political nature. After his release from the army, Dehn returned to New York where he fell under the spell of the radical cartoonist Boardman Robinson and produced his first lithographs. He also finally consummated his sexual relationship with Wanda Gag. The Years in Europe: 1922-1929 In September of 1921, however, he abruptly departed for Europe, arriving in Paris and then moving on to Vienna. There in the winter of 1922 he fell in love with a Russian dancer, Mura Zipperovitch, ending his seven-year relationship with Wanda Gag. He and Mura were married in 1926. It was also in Vienna that he produced his first notable artistic work. Influenced by European artists such as Jules Pascin and Georg Grosz, Dehn began producing drawings of people in cafes, streets, and parks, which while mostly executed in his studio, were based on spontaneous life studies and have an expressive, sometimes almost childishly wandering quality of line. The mixture of sophistication and naiveté in these drawings was new to American audiences, as was the raciness of their subject matter, which often featured pleasure-seekers, prostitutes or scenes of sexual dalliance, presented with a strong element of caricature. Some of these drawings contain an element of social criticism, reminiscent of that found in the work of George Grosz, although Dehn’s work tended to focus on humorous commentary rather than savagely attacking his subjects or making a partisan political statement. Many Americans, including some who had originally been supporters of Dehn such as Boardman Robinson, were shocked by these European drawings, although George Grocz (who became a friend of the artist in this period) admired them, and recognized that Dehn could also bring a new vision to America subject matter. As he told Dehn: “You will do things in America which haven’t been done, which need to be done, which only you can do—as far at least as I know America.” A key factor in Dehn’s artistic evolution at this time was his association with Scofield Thayer...

This artwork titled "Iris" 1998 is an original color lithograph on Wove paper by noted American artist Gary Bukovnik, born 1947. It is hand signed, dated and numbered 109/200 in pencil by the artist. The image size is 10 x 9.75 inches, sheet size is 14.75 x 13.5 inches. It is in excellent condition, the colors are fresh and bright, has never been framed. About the artist. Born and educated in Cleveland Gary Bukovnik has lived in San Francisco for over 25 years. Primarily using the mediums of watercolor, monotype, and lithograph, Bukovnik creating colorful floral images of great depth and intensity. Bukovnik collaborates with Trillium Press, whose owner and master printer, David Salgado, studied at the Tamarind Workshop, formerly in Los Angeles. In 2003, the American Academy in Rome invited Bukovnik to attend the academy as a Visiting Artist for six weeks. He was asked to attend a second session in February 2005. In 2001, he was selected to create a poster for the prestigious List Collection, which creates posters to commemorate programs at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York. Lincoln Center past contributors have included Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alex Katz, Elizabeth Murray, and Donald Sultan. The work of Gary Bukovnik is held in public and private collections worldwide. Selected Museums Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario The Art Institute of Chicago Atlanta Botanical Garden Brooklyn Museum Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown Dallas Museum of Art Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Frye Art Museum, Seattle Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow Library of Congress, Washington, DC The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Modern Art, New York The Richard L. Nelson Gallery, U.C. Davis, California The New York Public Library Oakland Museum of California Philadelphia Museum of Art Phoenix Art Museum Portland Art Museum, Oregon Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence San Francisco Museum of Modern Art University of Arizona Museum of Art, Tucson University of California, Berkeley Art Museum Selected public collections ALZA Corporation, Mountain View ART In Embassies Program, U.S. Department of State AT&T, New York Atlantic Richfield, Los Angeles BankAmerica Corporation, Charlotte Citigroup, New York Cleveland Institute of Music Clorox Company, Oakland Comerica Bank, Costa Mesa & San Jose H.J. Heinz Company, Pittsburgh Illinois Bell Telephone...

Hand Signed. Edition of 150 prints in Arabic numbers plus 30 prints in roman numbers. Excellent conditions.

Artist: Billy Al Bengston – American (1934-2022) Title: Untitled Year: 1990 Medium: Lithograph, silkscreen on Arches paper Sight size: 19.5 x 25.5 inches. Sheet size: 24 x 30 inches. Signature: Signed lower right Publisher: Cirrus Editions, Ltd., Los Angeles, CA Edition: 250 This one: 120/250 Condition: Excellent This print is by Billy Al Bengston. It depicts what looks like a coyote staring out at the horizon on a full moon night. This print was created at the same time Bengston was creating his Moon paintings. The print has dark colors. As a result, my photographs are imperfect; they have a bit of glare. The print is in excellent condition. It is attached by two hinges to a matboard measuring 26 x 32 inches and has a Plexiglas frame. The frame is in fair condition with some light scratches. Billy Al Bengston (June 7, 1934 – October 8, 2022) was an American visual artist and sculptor who lived and worked in Venice, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. Bengston was probably best known for work he created that reflected California's "Kustom" car and motorcycle culture. He pioneered the use of sprayed layers of automobile lacquer in fine art and often used colors that were psychedelic and shapes that were mandala-like. ARTnews referred to Bengston as a "giant of Los Angeles's postwar art scene." Early life and education Bengston was born in Dodge City, Kansas, on June 7, 1934. His family relocated to Los Angeles in 1948. He attended Los Angeles City College in 1952. Subsequently, he studied painting under Richard Diebenkorn and Saburo Hasegawa at the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland, California, in 1955 and returned to Los Angeles to study at Otis Art Institute in 1956. Career Bengston began showing with the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles (founded and run by Walter Hopps and Edward Kienholz, and later Irving Blum), having five shows between 1958 and 1963. As a fixture at the gallery, he was among a cohort of artists that included Kienholz, Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell, Kenneth Price, Ed Moses, and Robert Irwin. (The gallery closed in 1966.) In a 2018 article in Vanity Fair, Bengston recalled that he and Irwin hung the 32 pieces in Andy Warhol's Campbell's soup-can paintings show at Ferus in 1962. He notably described the atmosphere of Ferus as a "macho intellectual gang bang". After seeing the work of Jasper Johns at the 1958 Venice Biennale he adopted the motif of a set of sergeant's stripes. This recurring chevron image was painted with industrial materials and techniques associated with the decoration of motorcycle fuel tanks and surfboards. According to Grace Glueck of The New York Times, Bengston "was among the first to ditch traditional oil paint on canvas, opting instead for sprayed layers of automobile lacquer on aluminum in soft colors, achieving a highly reflective, translucent surface." Bengston encouraged viewers in the early 1960s to associate his art with motorcycle subculture; on the cover of a 1961 catalogue for a Ferus show, he was seen straddling a motorcycle. (He also competed in motocross competitions.) "When I painted these motorcycle paintings...

Hilltopper is an original, hand drawn, limited edition lithograph(not a photo reproductioon or digital print) by Peter Sculthorpe (b.1948 Ontario, Canada) printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. Hilltopper is a finely detailed winter landscape drawing depicting a snow covered hilltop with a lone, English style horseback rider and nature details including dried grasses, branches, and large bare tree firmly anchored to the frozen earth. Print size - 32 x 27 inches, unframed, excellent condition, pencil signed by Peter Sculthorpe, inscribed PP#8(Printers Proof) aside from the edition of 275 Edition size - 275, plus proofs Year published - 1989 Printer - J K Fine Art Editions Co. NY Peter Sculthorpe's paintings are well known for their true to life depictions of rural stone barns, color changing shadowy skies, snow covered landscapes, cows, horses, lone figures that capture the countryside and stone architecture of the Brandywine Valley...

BACKLAND is an original hand drawn limited edition lithograph(not a photo reproduction or digital print) by the realist painter, Peter Sculthorpe (b.1948 Ontario, Canada) printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. BACKLAND is a finely detailed drawing of a Bucks County...

The work is mostly black and white to indicate that this is a night scene. On closer inspection, you will see areas of magenta and ivory throughout The publisher's label on verso ide...

Starry Night is a lithograph based on a watercolour by Charlie Mackesy. The edition is limited to 150 and each piece has been signed by Charlie Mackesy...

Nelson Mandela, Hand of Africa, Signed Limited Edition Lithograph Many people are unaware that Nelson Mandela turned his hand to art in his 80's as a way of leaving a legacy for his ...

Artist: Alex Katz, American (1927 - ) Title: Night: William Dunas Dance II Year: 1983 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 106/125 and there were also 17 artist...

Thomas Hart Benton, 'Goin' Home', lithograph, 1937, edition 250, Fath 14. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white, wove pape...