Karl Eugene Fortess Art

"The Waiting" - 1977 Surrealist Lithograph on Paper Surrealist lithograph titled "The Waiting" by Jim Crabb (American, b. 1947-). Black and white surrealist figures take up the pape...

Chuck Close Untitled Daguerreotypes, 2001 Two (2) pigmented digital output iris prints from daguerroeotype printed in a single sheet of wove paper 22 × 29 1/4 inches Signed in pencil...

Title: Mecklenburg Autumn Medium: Lithograph in colors Year: 1979 Edition: AP (artist's proof, aside from the edition of 175) Signature: Stamped signature Image Size: 22 1/4" x 17 1/...

Marc Chagall "Le Christ a l'Horloge, Paris" (Christ in the Clock) 1957 (M. 196) Color Lithograph on Arches Wove Paper Signed in Pencil "Marc Chagall" Lower Right Initialed "H.C." (Hors Commerce) Lower Left, aside from numbered edition of 90 *Floated in Gold Frame with Linen Matting, UV Plexiglass Sheet Size: 18 3/4 x 14 3/4 inches (47.5 cm x 38 cm) Image Size: 9 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches Framed Size: 28.5 x 24.25 inches Marc Chagall was a man of keen intelligence, a shrewd observer of the contemporary scene, with a great sympathy for human suffering. He was born on July 7, 1887 in Vitebsk, Russia; his original name was Moishe Shagal (Segal), but when he became a foremost member of the Ecole de Paris, he adopted French citizenship and the French spelling of his name. Vitebsk was a good-sized Russian town of over 60,000, not a shtetl. His father supported a wife and eight children as a worker in a herring-pickling plant. Sheltered by the Jewish commandment against graven images, the young Chagall never saw so much as a drawing until, one day, he watched a schoolmate copying a magazine illustration. He was ridiculed for his astonishment, but he began copying and improvising from magazines. Both Chagall's parents reluctantly agreed to let him study with Yehuda Pen, a Jewish artist in Vitebsk. Later, in 1906, they allowed their son to study in St. Petersburg, where he was exposed to Russian Iconography and folk art. At that time, Jews could leave the Pale only for business and employment and were required to carry a permit. Chagall, who was in St. Petersburg without a permit, was imprisoned briefly. His first wife, Bella Rosenfeld, was a product of a rich cultivated and intellectual group of Jews in Vitebsk. Chagall was made commissar for the arts for the area, charged with directing its cultural life and establishing an art school. Russian folklore, peasant life and landscapes persisted in his work all his life. In 1910 a rich patron, a lawyer named Vinaver, staked him to a crucial trip to Paris, where young artists were revolutionizing art. He also sent him a handsome allowance of 125 francs (in those days about $24) each month. Chagall rejected cubism, fauvism and futurism, but remained in Paris. He found a studio near Montparnasse in a famous twelve-sided wooden structure divided into wedge-shaped rooms. Chaim Soutine, a fellow Russian Jew, and Modigliani lived on the same floor. To Chagall's astonishment, he found himself heralded as one of the fathers of surrealism. In 1923, a delegation of Max Ernst, Paul Eluard and Gala (later Salvador Dali's wife) actually knelt before Chagall, begging him to join their ranks. He refused. To understand Chagall's work, it is necessary to know that he was born a Hasidic Jew, heir to mysticism and a world of the spirit, steeped in Jewish lore and reared in the Yiddish language. The Hasidim had a special feeling for animals, which they tried not to overburden. In the mysterious world of Kabbala and fantastic ancient legends of Chagall's youth, the imaginary was as important as the real. His extraordinary use of color also grew out of his dream world; he did not use color realistically, but for emotional effect and to serve the needs of his design. Most of his favorite themes, though superficially light and trivial, mask dark and somber thoughts. The circus he views as a mirror of life; the crucifixion as a tragic theme, used as a parallel to the historic Jewish condition, but he is perhaps best known for the rapturous lovers he painted all his life. His love of music is a theme that runs through his paintings. After a brief period in Berlin, Chagall, Bella and their young daughter, Ida, moved to Paris and in 1937 they assumed French citizenship. When France fell, Chagall accepted an invitation from the Museum of Modern Art to immigrate to the United States. He was arrested and imprisoned in Marseilles for a short time, but was still able to immigrate with his family. The Nazi onslaught caught Chagall in Vichy, France, preoccupied with his work. He was loath to leave; his friend Varian Fry rescued him from a police roundup of Jews in Marseille, and packed him, his family and 3500 lbs. of his art works on board a transatlantic ship. The day before he arrived in New York City, June 23, 1941, the Nazis attacked Russia. The United States provided a wartime haven and a climate of liberty for Chagall. In America he spent the war years designing large backdrops for the Ballet. Bella died suddenly in the United States of a viral infection in September 1944 while summering in upstate New York. He rushed her to a hospital in the Adirondacks, where, hampered by his fragmentary English, they were turned away with the excuse that the hour was too late. The next day she died. He waited for three years after the war before returning to France. With him went a slender married English girl, Virginia Haggard MacNeil; Chagall fell in love with her and they had a son, David. After seven years she ran off with an indigent photographer. It was an immense blow to Chagall's ego, but soon after, he met Valentine Brodsky, a Russian divorcee designing millinery in London (he called her Fava). She cared for him during the days of his immense fame and glory. They returned to France, to a home and studio in rustic Vence. Chagall loved the country and every day walked through the orchards, terraces, etc. before he went to work. Chagall died on March 28, 1985 in the south of France. His heirs negotiated an arrangement with the French state allowing them to pay most of their inheritance taxes in works of art. The heirs owed about $30 million to the French government; roughly $23 million of that amount was deemed payable in artworks. Chagall's daughter, Ida and his widow approved the arrangement. Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California. Sources: Hannah Grad Goodman in Homage to Chagall in Hadassah Magazine, June 1985 Jack Kroll in Newsweek, April 8, 1985 Andrea Jolles in National Jewish Monthly Magazine, May 1985 Michael Gibson...

Title: Morning Medium: Lithograph in colors Year: 1979 Edition: AP (artist's proof, aside from the edition of 175) Signature: Stamped signature Image Size: 21 3/4" x 27 3/4" Sheet Si...

COLOUR COMPOSITION Sheet size: 38 x 30 cm Image size: 31 x 23.5 cm Lithograph on paper A 20th century limited edition (111/230) coloured lithograph by Mary Anne Rose. It is signed ...

Lithograph in colors on Guarro paper. Hand signed lower right by Joan Miro. Hand numbered '13/150" lower left (from the edition before letters). Sheet size: 29.62 x 22.75 inches. ...

Night Table is a lithograph on paper with an image size of 3 x 3.75 inches, initialed 'FMB' lower right and annotated lower left, framed in a contemporary silver and dark gray frame....

"Le Bouquet tout fait (The Ready-made Bouquet)" is a color lithograph after a 1954 original painting by Rene Magritte. A bourgeois "little man" faces away from the viewer looking towards a fall forest. Flora, the goddess of flowers and season of spring, from Sandro Botticelli's "Primavera" is painted on the back of the man. This juxtaposes fall and spring. Art: 12 x 9.75 in Frame: 22.38 x 20.38 in René-François-Ghislain Magritte was born November 21, 1898, in Lessines, Belgium and died on August 15, 1967 in Brussels. He is one of the most important surrealist artists. Through his art, Magritte creates humor and mystery with juxtapositions and shocking irregularities. Some of his hallmark motifs include the bourgeois “little man,” bowler hats, apples, hidden faces, and contradictory texts. René Magritte’s father was a tailor and his mother was a miller. Tragedy struck Magritte’s life when his mother committed suicide when he was only fourteen. Magritte and his two brothers were thereafter raised by their grandmother. Magritte studied at the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts from 1916 to 1918. After graduating he worked as a wallpaper designer and in advertisement. It was during this period that he married Georgette Berger, whom he had known since they were teenagers. In 1926, René Magritte signed a contract with the Brussels Art Gallery, which allowed him to quit his other jobs and focus completely on creating art. A year later he had his first solo show at the Galerie la Centaurie in Brussels. At this show Magritte exhibited what is today thought of as his first surrealist piece, The Lost Jockey, painted in 1926. In this work a jockey and his steed run across a theater stage, curtains parted on either side. Throughout the scene, there are trees with trunks shaped somewhat like chess pawns with musical scores running vertically up their sides and branches sticking out from all angles. Critics did not enjoy this style of art; it was new, different, and took critical thought to understand, but The Lost Jockey was only the first of many surrealist artworks Magritte would paint. Because of the bad press in Brussels, René and Georgette moved to Paris in 1927, with the hope that this center of avant-garde art would bring him success and recognition. In Paris, he was able to become friends with many other surrealists, including André Breton and Paul Éluard. They were able to learn from and inspire one another, pushing the Surrealist movement further forward. It was also in Paris that Magritte decided to add text to some of his pieces, which was one of the elements that made his artwork stand out. In 1929, he painted one of his most famous oil works: The Treachery of Images. This is the eye-catching piece centered on a pipe. Below the pipe is written “Ceci n’est pas un pipe,” which translates to “This is not a pipe.” This simple sentence upset many critics of the time, for of course it was a pipe. Magritte replied that it was not a pipe, but a representation of a pipe. One could not use this oil on canvas as a pipe, to fill it with tobacco and smoke it. Thus, it was not a pipe. In 1930, Magritte and Georgette moved back to Brussels. Though they would travel to his exhibitions elsewhere, their home going forward would always be in Brussels. Magritte had his first American exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York City in 1936 and his first show in England two years later in 1938 at The London...

Floating Books is a lithograph on paper with an image size of 3.5 x 2.5 inches, initialed 'FMB' lower right and annotated lower left, framed in a contemporary silver and dark gray fr...

The complete "L'Aventure Medicale" Suite by Salvador Dali comprising two lithographs "La Lumiere de la guerison" and "La Lutte contre le mal" with coversheet and colophon within blac...

Artist: Robert Longo Title: The Entertainer Year: 1986 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 85 Size: 30 x 22 inches (76 x 56 cm)