Jacques Hnizdovsky Prints and Multiples

Bluebreast is a modern artwork realized in 1870 by the British artist Alexander Francis Lydon (1836-1917) . Woodcut print, hand colored, published by London, Bell & Sons, 1870. Na...

'Wading Egret', color woodblock, c. 1900 - 1910. Signed 'Koson' in black ink with the artist’s red seal beneath, lower left. A superb, skillfully-inked impression, with fresh colors,...

"Farewell" is an original color woodcut by Carol Summers. The artist signed the piece. This woodcut depicts a river flowing through green hills beneath a blood-red sky. The edition number is 20/50. 24 1/4" x 37" art 32" x 45" frame Carol Summers has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of...

Kabukie is an original modern artwork realized by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 – 1861) in the half of the 19th Century. Original woodcut from the series...

Oriental figures is an original modern artwork realized after Katsushika Hokusai in the late 19th Century. Black and white woodcut print. Includes a gilded frame.

"Little Wolf's Last Camp" is a colored woodblock A/P signed by Carol Summers. In the image, a mountain looms over a circle of teat the edge of a lake, a scene likely inspired by the life events of the Northern Cheyenne Chief Little Wolf (c. 1820-1904) and his leadership during the Northern Cheyenne Exodus. The drama of the image is enhanced by Summers' signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form. Frame: 37 x 37 in This is an artist's proof from the edition of 100 Carol Summers (1925-2016) has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented. In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother. From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum. In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade. After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of Triumph, a new look prevailed. These woodcuts were larger in size and in color. Some incorporated metal leaf in the creation of a collage and Summers even experimented with silkscreening. Editions were now between 20 and 50 prints in number. Most importantly, Summers employed his rubbing technique for the first time in the creation of Fantastic Garden in late 1957. Dark Vision of Xerxes, a benchmark for Summers, was the first woodcut where Summers experimented using mineral spirits as part of his printmaking process. A Fulbright Grant as well as Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation followed soon thereafter, as did faculty positions at colleges and universities primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. During this period he married a dancer named Elaine Smithers with whom he had one son, Kyle. Around this same time, along with fellow artist Leonard Baskin, Summers pioneered what is now referred to as the “monumental” woodcut. This term was coined in the early 1960s to denote woodcuts that were dramatically bigger than those previously created in earlier years, ones that were limited in size mostly by the size of small hand-presses. While Baskin chose figurative subject matter, serious in nature and rendered with thick, striated lines, Summers rendered much less somber images preferring to emphasize shape and color; his subject matter approached abstraction but was always firmly rooted in the landscape. In addition to working in this new, larger scale, Summers simultaneously refined a printmaking process which would eventually be called the “Carol Summers Method” or the “ Carol Summers Technique”. Summers produces his woodcuts by hand, usually from one or more blocks of quarter-inch pine, using oil-based printing inks and porous mulberry papers. His woodcuts reveal a sensitivity to wood especially its absorptive qualities and the subtleties of the grain. In several of his woodcuts throughout his career he has used the undulating, grainy patterns of a large wood plank to portray a flowing river or tumbling waterfall. The best examples of this are Dream, done in 1965 and the later Flash Flood Escalante, in 2003. In the majority of his woodcuts, Summers makes the blocks slightly larger than the paper so the image and color will bleed off the edge. Before printing, he centers a dry sheet of paper over the top of the cut wood block or blocks, securing it with giant clips. Then he rolls the ink directly on the front of the sheet of paper and pressing down onto the dry wood block or reassembled group of blocks. Summers is technically very proficient; the inks are thoroughly saturated onto the surface of the paper but they do not run into each other. The precision of the color inking in Constantine’s Dream in 1969 and Rainbow Glacier in 1970 has been referred to in various studio handbooks. Summers refers to his own printing technique as “rubbing”. In traditional woodcut printing, including the Japanese method, the ink is applied directly onto the block. However, by following his own method, Summers has avoided the mirror-reversed image of a conventional print and it has given him the control over the precise amount of ink that he wants on the paper. After the ink is applied to the front of the paper, Summers sprays it with mineral spirits, which act as a thinning agent. The absorptive fibers of the paper draw the thinned ink away from the surface softening the shapes and diffusing and muting the colors. This produces a unique glow that is a hallmark of the Summers printmaking technique. Unlike the works of other color field artists or modernists of the time, this new technique made Summers’ extreme simplification and flat color areas anything but hard-edged or coldly impersonal. By the 1960s, Summers had developed a personal way of coloring and printing and was not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, inking and pulling himself. In 1964, at the age of 38, Summers’ work was exhibited for a second time at the Museum of Modern Art. This time his work was featured in a one-man show and then as one of MOMA’s two-year traveling exhibitions which toured throughout the United States. In subsequent years, Summers’ works would be exhibited and acquired for the permanent collections of multiple museums throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Summers’ familiarity with landscapes throughout the world is firsthand. As a navigator-bombardier in the Marines in World War II, he toured the South Pacific and Asia. Following college, travel in Europe and subsequent teaching positions, in 1972, after 47 years on the East Coast, Carol Summers moved permanently to Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. There met his second wife, Joan Ward Toth, a textile artist who died in 1998; and it was here his second son, Ethan was born. During the years that followed this relocation, Summers’ choice of subject matter became more diverse although it retained the positive, mostly life-affirming quality that had existed from the beginning. Images now included moons, comets, both sunny and starry skies, hearts and flowers, all of which, in one way or another, remained tied to the landscape. In the 1980s, from his home and studio in the Santa Cruz mountains, Summers continued to work as an artist supplementing his income by conducting classes and workshops at universities in California and Oregon as well as throughout the Mid and Southwest. He also traveled extensively during this period hiking and camping, often for weeks at a time, throughout the western United States and Canada. Throughout the decade it was not unusual for Summers to backpack alone or with a fellow artist into mountains or back country for six weeks or more at a time. Not surprisingly, the artwork created during this period rarely departed from images of the land, sea and sky. Summers rendered these landscapes in a more representational style than before, however he always kept them somewhat abstract by mixing geometric shapes with organic shapes, irregular in outline. Some of his most critically acknowledged work was created during this period including First Rain, 1985 and The Rolling Sea, 1989. Summers received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bard College in 1979 and was selected by the United States Information Agency to spend a year conducting painting and printmaking workshops at universities throughout India. Since that original sabbatical, he has returned every year, spending four to eight weeks traveling throughout that country. In the 1990s, interspersed with these journeys to India have been additional treks to the back roads and high country areas of Mexico, Central America, Nepal, China and Japan. Travel to these exotic and faraway places had a profound influence on Summers’ art. Subject matter became more worldly and nonwestern as with From Humla to Dolpo, 1991 or A Former Life of Budha, 1996, for example. Architectural images, such as The Pillars of Hercules, 1990 or The Raja’s Aviary, 1992 became more common. Still life images made a reappearance with Jungle Bouquet in 1997. This was also a period when Summers began using odd-sized paper to further the impact of an image. The 1996 Night, a view of the earth and horizon as it might be seen by an astronaut, is over six feet long and only slightly more than a foot-and-a-half high. From 1999, Revuelta A Vida (Spanish for “Return to Life”) is pie-shaped and covers nearly 18 cubic feet. It was also at this juncture that Summers began to experiment with a somewhat different palette although he retained his love of saturated colors. The 2003 Far Side of Time is a superb example of the new direction taken by this colorist. At the turn of the millennium in 1999, “Carol Summers Woodcuts...

The print 'Jones Island' is something of a self portrait. In the image, an artist stands before and easel, depicting the docks and buildings on the coast. The title indicates that this is Jones Island in Milwaukee, the peninsula along Lake Michigan that today is home to largely industrial buildings. The buildings and figures in the print suggest that this might be a view of the last of the Kashubian or German immigrant settlements on the peninsula before they were evicted in the 1940s to make way for the development of the harbor. The artist in the image thus acts as a documentarian of these peoples. The careful line-work of the woodblock engraving adds a sense of expressionism to the scene, leaving the figures and buildings looking distraught and dirty, though the image nonetheless falls into the Social Realist category that dominated American artists during the Great Depression. This print was published in 1936 as part of the Wisconsin Artists' Calendar for the year 1937, which included 52 original, hand-made prints – one for each week of the year. 6 x 5 inches, image 10 x 7.13 inches, sheet 13.43 x 12.43 inches, frame Signed "GS" in the print block,upper left Entitled "Jones Island" lower left (covered by matting) Inscribed "Wood Engraving" lower center (covered by matting) Artist name "Gerrit V. Sinclair" lower right (covered by matting) Framed to conservation standards using 100 percent rag matting and museum glass, all housed in a silver gilded moulding. Gerrit Sinclair studied at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1910 - 1915, under Vanderpoel, Norton, and Walcott. In World War I, he served in the Army Ambulance Corps and later recorded his experiences in a series of oil paintings. He taught in Minneapolis before arriving in Milwaukee in 1920 to become a member of the original faculty of the Layton School of Art. He was also a member of the Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors. Sinclair's paintings and drawings were executed in a lyrical, representational style, usually expressing a mood rather than a narrative. His paintings reveal a great sensitivity for color and atmosphere. His subject matter focused on cityscapes, industrial valleys, and working-class neighborhoods, captured from eye-level. A decade before the popularity of Regionalism, Sinclair's strong interest in the community was reflected not only in his paintings, but also in his encouragement to students to return to their communities as artists and teachers. Joseph Friebert...

ANOTHER DAY is an original limited edition woodcut by the American painter and sculptor, Otto Neals. The woodblock used to print ANOTHER DAY was hand carved by Otto Neals and printed in shades of brown, light blue, beige, and black on archival Rives BFK printmaking paper, 100% acid-free, enhanced with hand colored accents. ANOTHER DAY is a dramatic, contemporary black couple portrait portraying a man and woman standing back to back, the woman's arm raised up and pointing in front of her. She wears a stark white, bell-sleeved dress and large teardrop shaped dangle earrings and bangle bracelet, set against a dramatic natural wood grain patterned background, a large potted plant positioned on the table in the foreground. The man dressed in a warm brown colored suit, wearing white shirt and necktie, his dignified male profile looks straight ahead to the left of the composition adding visual interest and mystery. Print size - 25 x 20 inches, unframed, mint condition, pencil signed and numbered by Otto Neals, Certificate of Authenticity provided (actual print number may vary from photo upon availability) Image size - 19.75 x 15.75 Edition size - 100, plus proofs Printer - JK Fine Art Editions Co. NJ Publisher - Mojo...

This artwork titled " Etoile de Mer Rouge (Red Star Fish)" From the suite "Si je Mourais la Bas" is a rare original color woodcut on L.B hand made paper ...

This artwork titled "Heron Moon" c.1990, is a color woodblock print on paper by noted Canadian/Japanese artist Suezan Aikins, b.1952. It is signed, titled and numbered 58/150 in pencil by the artist. The artwork (image) size is 8.5 x 21 inches, framed size is 15.75 x 28.25 inches. Custom framed in a silver metal frame, with double off white matting. It is in excellent condition, the frame have some small minor rubs, barely visible. About the artwork: This artwork required have 5 different carved wood blocks and 9 layers of colors to complete. About the artist: Born in Montreal in 1952, Suezan was influenced early in her life by the works of modern Japanese woodblock printmakers which hung throughout her parents’ home. She attended the Fine Arts programme at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick (1969 - 1971), The Ontario College of Art (1971-73), L’ ecole du Musee des Beaux Arts (1974), Nova Scotia College of Art and Design -BFA (1975) as well as a very intensive year of study with Toshi Yoshida in Tokyo (1984-85). She has exhibited extensively in both public and private galleries throughout North America and Japan. Recent exhibitions include solo shows in Tokyo, Osaka, Okinawa, and Boston with group exhibitions at the Wenniger Gallery, Boston, Royal Canadian Academy in Toronto and the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. Her paintings and woodblock prints are found in many collections such as The Canada Council Art Bank, The Nickle Art Museum, The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, The Royal Bank of Canada, Prince Takamanonamiya Norihito, the Embassy of Canada in Tokyo, The Thomas Moore Institute as well as private collections. Suezan Aikins was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation grant in 1983, Nova Scotia Department of Culture - Development Grants in 1980, 1987 and 1988. She was elected to the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 1990 and received the Canadian Progress Club- Women of Excellence Award for Culture in 1993. Her work has been featured in a number of television documentaries as well as many Canadian magazines. STUDIES: Yoshida Woodblock Print Studio Tokyo, 84-85 Nova Scotia College of Art & Design, Halifax, 74-75 BFA Ecole du Musee des Beaux Arts, Montreal, 74 Ontario College of Art, Toronto, 71-73 Mt. Allison University, 69-72 SELECTED SOLO SHOWS: 25 Year Retrospective of Woodblock Prints traveled to three Public Galleries in Germany: Dornum Castle; Tollhousverein, Leer; Rastede Palace, Oldenberg 2000-2001 color catalog and reviews. Private Exhibitions, Falmouth, Mass., July 1996; Montreal, November 1996; Gibson Island, Md., April 1999. Gold Paintings and Woodblock Retrospective, travelling: Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo; Genkan Gallery, Tokyo American Club; Blue Nile Gallery, Osaka; Kanda's Gallery BOQ, Okinawa; May 1994 (color catalogue) Edo Gallery, Boston, November 1992, Private Exhibitions, Chatham, Mass, July 1992, Toronto, Oct. 1991 New Paintings and Woodblocks Kabutoya Gallery, Tokyo, May 1991, and also in 1987. Japanese Garden and Pavilion Foundation, Montreal, September 1990, Ownens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University 1988 Zwickers Gallery, Halifax, NS, 1979; Gallery 78; Fredericton, November, 1983; Robertson Galleries, Ottawa, November, 1982 SELECTED GROUP SHOWS: "A New Leaf" 30 foot instalation of mixed media/ goldleaf reliefs, Artsplace, Annapolis Royal, N.S., 2000 color catalog "Far and Wide" Juried Bienials, Art Gallery of Nova Scotia; 1996 to '99, travelling, catalogs "Moku Hanga Travelling Exhibition: Contemporary Japanese Woodcuts...

Shoko Uemura, 'Inside the Flowers (Java Sparrow and Peach Blossoms)', color woodcut, c. 1950s, edition 300. Signed in ink with the artist’s red seal beneath. A superb impression, with fresh, delicate colors, on cream wove Japan paper; the full sheet with margins (9/16 to 1 3/8 inches), in excellent condition. Archivally sleeved, unmatted. Image size 12 3/4 x 18 1/2 inches (324 x 470 mm); sheet size 14 3/4 x 20 3/16 inches (375 x 513 mm). Published by The Momose Print Company of Tokyo. ABOUT THE ARTIST Uemura Shoko (1902-2001) was the son of the famous shin-hanga artist Uemura Shoen...

The Metro Station in Paris is an original contemporary artwork realized by Sergio Birga (Florence, 1940) in 1994. Original B/W xylograph on ivory paper. Pa...