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Karl Fortress Art

American, 1907-1993

Karl Fortress was a painter, printmaker and teacher. He was born in Antwerp, Belgium on October 13, 1907, and became an American citizen in 1923. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League of New York, and the Woodstock School of Art with Yasuo Kuniyoshi. Fortress taught at the Art Students League of New York, Brooklyn Museum Art School, Louisiana State University, Fort Wright College and Boston University College of Fine Arts. Karl Eugene Fortess died in Woodstock, New York on July 8, 1993.

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Artist: Karl Fortress
Untitled (Collapsed Shacks)
By Karl Fortress
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Untitled (Collapsed Shacks), c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 ½ x 26 ½ inches, presented in a period frame This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: ...
Category

1940s American Modern Karl Fortress Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Modernist Landscape with a Hop Scotch Board
By Karl Fortress
Located in Buffalo, NY
A modernist oil painting by New York modernist Karl Fortress (1907-1993). The painting has provenance from the Cornell Art Museum. In excellent original condition. Signed lower le...
Category

1930s American Modern Karl Fortress Art

Materials

Canvas, Oil

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Six O'Clock
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Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...
Category

1940s American Modern Karl Fortress Art

Materials

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Six O'Clock
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"Drama Teacher" 1938 WPA Mid 20th Century American Theatre Surrealism Modernism
By Leon Bibel
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1930s American Modern Karl Fortress Art

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Karl Fortress art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Karl Fortress art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Karl Fortress in canvas, fabric, oil paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1930s and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Karl Fortress art, so small editions measuring 30 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Harold Vincent Skene, Francis Chapin, and Simka Simkhovitch. Karl Fortress art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $2,500 and tops out at $2,500, while the average work can sell for $2,500.

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