Harry Shokler Prints and Multiples

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 ...

In this sentimental work from 1939, Benton expresses his admiration for the rural lifestyle of the Midwest. He highlights the connection between man and the land by depicting two fig...

Original New England American Airlines vintage travel poster. Size 30” x 40”. Archival linen backed, untrimmed, A condition. This original vintage poster from the 1950s captures the essence of New England and American Airlines flights to the region. Designed by Bern Hill...

screenprint printed in color ink on wove paper. New York City subway station interior. Anthony Velonis (1911 – 1997) was an American painter and designer born in New York City who helped introduce the public to silkscreen printing in the early 20th century. While employed under the federal Works Progress Administration, WPA during the Great Depression, Velonis brought the use of silkscreen printing as a fine art form, referred to as the "serigraph," into the mainstream. By his own request, he was not publicly credited for coining the term. He experimented and mastered techniques to print on a wide variety of materials, such as glass, plastics, and metal, thereby expanding the field. In the mid to late 20th century, the silkscreen technique became popular among other artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Andy Warhol. Velonis was born into a relatively poor background of a Greek immigrant family and grew up in the tenements of New York City. Early on, he took creative inspiration from figures in his life such as his grandfather, an immigrant from the mountains in Greece, who was "an ecclesiastical painter, on Byzantine style." Velonis attended James Monroe High School in The Bronx, where he took on minor artistic roles such as the illustration of his high school yearbook. He eventually received a scholarship to the NYU College of Fine Arts, into which he was both surprised and ecstatic to have been admitted. Around this time he took to painting, watercolor, and sculpture, as well as various other art forms, hoping to find a niche that fit. He attended NYU until 1929, when the Great Depression started in the United States after the stock market crash. Around the year 1932, Velonis became interested in silk screen, together with fellow artist Fritz Brosius, and decided to investigate the practice. Working in his brother's sign shop, Velonis was able to master the silkscreen process. He reminisced in an interview three decades later that doing so was "plenty of fun," and that a lot of technology can be discovered through hard work, more so if it is worked on "little by little." Velonis was hired by Mayor LaGuardia in 1934 to promote the work of New York's city government via posters publicizing city projects. One such project required him to go on a commercial fishing trip to locations including New Bedford and Nantucket for a fortnight, where he primarily took photographs and notes, and made sketches. Afterward, for a period of roughly six months, he was occupied with creating paintings from these records. During this trip, Velonis developed true respect and affinity for the fishermen with whom he traveled, "the relatively uneducated person," in his words. Following this, Velonis began work with the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), an offshoot of the Civil Works Administration (CWA), where he was assigned to serve the different city departments of New York. After the formation of the federal Works Progress Administration, which hired artists and sponsored projects in the arts, he also worked in theater. Velonis began working for the federal WPA in 1935. He kept this position until 1936 or 1938, at which point he began working in the graphic art division of the Federal Art Project, which he ultimately led. Under various elements of the WPA program, many young artists, writers and actors gained employment that helped them survive during the Depression, as well as contributing works that created an artistic legacy for the country. When interviewed in December 1994 by the Library of Congress about his time in the WPA, Velonis reflected that he had greatly enjoyed that period, saying that he liked the "excitement" and "meeting all the other artists with different points of view." He also said in a later interview that "the contact and the dialogue with all those artists and the work that took place was just invaluable." Among the young artists he hired was Edmond Casarella, who later developed an innovative technique using layered cardboard for woodcuts. Velonis introduced silkscreen printing to the Poster Division of the WPA. As he recalled in a 1965 interview: "I suggested that the Poster division would be a lot more productive and useful if they had an auxiliary screen printing project that worked along with them. And apparently this was very favorably received..." As a member of the Federal Art Project, a subdivision of the WPA, Velonis later approached the Public Use of Arts Committee (PUAC) for help in "propagandizing for art in the parks, in the subways, et cetera." Since the Federal Art Project could not be "self-promoting," an outside organization was required to advertise their art more extensively. During his employment with the Federal Art Project, Velonis created nine silkscreen posters for the federal government. Around 1937-1939 Velonis wrote a pamphlet titled "Technical Problems of the Artist: Technique of the Silkscreen Process," which was distributed to art centers run by the WPA around the country. It was considered very influential in encouraging artists to try this relatively inexpensive technique and stimulated printmaking across the country. In 1939, Velonis founded the Creative Printmakers Group, along with three others, including Hyman Warsager. They printed both their own works and those of other artists in their facility. This was considered the most important silkscreen shop of the period. The next year, Velonis founded the National Serigraph Society. It started out with relatively small commercial projects, such as "rather fancy" Christmas cards that were sold to many of the upscale Fifth Avenue shops...

Original 17th Grand Prix of San Marino vintage Italian poster. Gran Premio di San Marino. Artist: Giovanni Cremonini. Larger format race poster. Linen backed and ready to frame. This original poster advertises the 17th Grand Prix in San Marino. This is a great poster for Ferrari enthusiasts. Archival is mounted on acid-free paper bonded to linen canvas. The San Marino Grand Prix (Italian: Gran Premio di San Marino) was a Formula One championship race that was run at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari...

Original Continental Airlines travel poster. Linen backed in fine condition. Signed and numbered 35/50. This original Continental Airlines poster is an artistic representation of regional destinations prominently served by Continental Airlines in the past. The design is modern and bold, showcasing a unique black-and-white theme with strong, futuristic typography and graphical illustrations. Each city is creatively depicted using stylized imagery that resonates with its character—Oklahoma City features a cowboy motif, New Orleans embraces a jazzy, cultural essence, Dallas reflects the energy of movement, and Midland/Odessa highlights industrial and oil-centric themes. This limited-edition poster is printed in black and white. It features the destinations of Hawaii, San Francisco, Albuquerque and Portland Above each name is a design that represents each destination city. Hawaii has rows of palm trees and hula dancers. San Francisco has rolling hills and cable cars. Albuquerque has tribal Indians dancing. Portland has the cruise shipping. This image features the Saul Bass l967 Continental logo in the design. Continental Airlines was a major United States airline founded in 1934 and eventually headquartered in Houston, Texas. The airline was acquired by UAL Corporation, the parent company of United Airlines, on October 1, 2010. This is an original vintage Continental Airlines poster...

TWA (Trans World Airlines) was formed in 1924 as Transcontinental & Western Air. The airline's first route was from New York to Los Angeles, followed by multiple National routes. The airline expanded to serve Europe, the Middle East, and Asia after WWII when the company was under Howard Hughes's owner's control from 1939 until 1961. Hughes was a dominant force in expanding and promoting his company's routes. The economy was vastly improving, and travel by air for business and pleasure increased, too. Posters were a crucial element in promoting this form of travel and TWA. The airline started a decline in the 1970s, ending in a third bankruptcy that caused its acquisition by American Airlines in 2001. The airline operated in 132 destinations worldwide and had a fleet size of 190. The Boston FLY TWA shows a three-masted schooner in the background, a large colonial drum in the center with an American Eagle...

Original XXII Gran Premio de Espana vintage poster; artist Michael Turner, size: 26.5" x 38". Year 1975. Archival linen backed original Spanish racing poster. 17th Gran Prix...

Original vintage poster: "Map of the United States as Californians See It". 1947, artist: Oren Arnold. Size: 16.5" x 20.5", R. H. MOEBUS COMPANY This poster is not linen-backed. This poster is in very good fine condition, ready to frame. A humorous satirical pictorial map from 1947 with the golden sun on the upper left, gives a detailed depiction of California, its relative size to the rest of the United States, showing Florida as "Death Valley", the rest of the United States as "Unexplored" 'Unimportant anyway, not in California". The image has your Mexican singer; bikini-clad bathers and others set in the image. Shows rivers, lakes, harbors, landmarks, parks, recreational activities, and local people. This map shows Los Angeles’ city...

Original “Wagon Lits” serigraph poster by the artist Valerio Adami. It was printed in France by GrafiCaza (Michel Caza), one of the finest serigraph companies on woven paper—in exce...

ANTON REFREGIER (1905 – 1979) DISCOVERY OF GOLD, 1949. Color serigraph. Signed and numbered in pencil, edition of 90. Image 23 ¼ x 21 ¾" Large sheet, 29 3/4 x 25 ¼”. Printed title...

Original Les Vignobles de France - Cote du Rhone vintage wine map poster. Horizontal. Size 36.5" x 27". Archival linen backed and ready to fram...