Kurt Wirth Art

Etching on cream wove paper. 6 5/16 x 3 3/4 inches (159 x 94 mm), full margin. Signed in pencil lower center margin, from the edition of 111. A well inked impression with a minor cre...

James Lesesne Wells, 'Sisters', linocut, edition not stated but small, 1928. Signed, titled, and annotated 'imp' in pencil. A fine impression on off-white wove Japan paper, with wide margins (1 7/8 to 3 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Printed by the artist. Very scarce. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 8 3/16 x 6 3/4 inches (208 x 171 mm); sheet size 13 1/2 x 10 3/4 inches (343 x 273 mm). Exhibition and Literature: 'Narratives of African American Art and Identity: The David C. Driskell Collection,' The Art Gallery at the University of Maryland, extensive touring exhibition, 1998-2000. Collections: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution (Anacostia Community Museum). ABOUT THE ARTIST “Wells is more than an artist with a deep concern for his fellow man. He carries many of his themes a step further into an apocalyptic world, a world of revelation and shifting lights. … He works on large blocks in a bold free style. … His work has a vigor, therefore, that is not often used in the medium today.” —Jacob Kainen (painter, critic, and collector) from Richard J. Powell’s 1986 essay Phoenix Ascending: The Art of James Lesesne Wells. James Lesesne Wells was an American painter, printmaker, educator, and pioneering figure of the Harlem Renaissance, whose work established a vital connection between African heritage, modernist form, and African American cultural identity. Known for his innovative use of linoleum and woodblock printing, Wells played a key role in shaping 20th-century African American art and inspired countless students throughout his lengthy career as a teacher at Howard University. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Wells' early exposure to the arts came through church and community, where African American cultural traditions were central. He pursued formal artistic training at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania (earning a B.A. in 1924), followed by studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Barnes Foundation, where he encountered European modernists as well as traditional African sculpture, which profoundly influenced his style. Wells moved to New York in the late 1920s, swiftly immersing himself in the lively artistic and intellectual scene of Harlem. There, he became associated with artists, writers, and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, contributing to the growth of Black cultural identity. Considered a mentor to many famed artists of the Harlem Renaissance, Wells served as director of a summer art workshop in Harlem where his assistants included Charles Alston, Jacob Lawrence, and Palmer Hayden...

1926. Etching in sepia ink on Japon paper, 9 5/8 x 11 1/2 inches (245 x 292 mm), full margins with the lower margin slightly notched. Signed, titled and dated in pencil in the lower ...

William T. Wiley Mr. Unpopular Original Color Lithograph Year: 1980 Edition: L.P. Impression outside and edition of 35 Publisher: Landfall Press, Chicago, IL, United States Paper Si...

An enchanting Southern landscape by the mother of the Charleston Renaissance. A native of Charleston, South Carolina, and educated under the tutelage of Thomas Anshutz at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, O'Neill Verner was a teacher, a mother, an artist, an ardent preservationist, and a skilled autodidact. Having previously focused on painting, in the early 1920s she found herself deeply moved by printmaking as a media, and especially so by the simple, peaceful themes and tableaus she discovered in Japanese art. She embarked on a effort to teach herself Japanese printmaking techniques, and in the process, produced the charming images of every day life in Charleston and its environs that earned her recognition as a cultural icon in her day, and in more modern times, as the mother of the Charleston Renaissance, which flourished well into the 1930s. In 1923 she opened a studio in Charleston where she focused on documenting the local color and the architecture and landscape that distinguishes Charleston as one of the South's most beautiful cities, all the while applying the gentle and poetic thematic sensibilities of Japanese printmaking. O'Neill Verner soon found herself in high demand when municipalities and institutions throughout the country sought commissions from her to document the beauty of their grounds and historic buildings. She worked as far north as the campuses of Harvard and Princeton, and extensively across the South, including in Savannah, Georgia, where through sweeping commissions she was able to marry her love of southern preservation and art. O'Neill Verner was a lifelong learner, and continued a path of edification that led her to study etching at the Central School of Art in London, to travel extensively through Europe, and to visit Japan in 1937, where she studied sumi (brush and ink) painting. She was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club, and the Southern States Art League. Her works are represented in the permanent collections of leading museums across the American south, and in major national institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Boston's Museum of Fine Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. O'Neil Verner...

Tête-à-Tête in the Garden. 1894. Lithograph. Way 54, Levy 85, Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink 90. 8 x 6 1/2(sheet 10 7/8 x 8 1/2). Edition of 25-lifetime impressions plus a few proofs re...

Etching with drypoint on cream wove paper with deckle edges, 4 3/8 x 12 3/4 inches (233 x 323 mm); sheet 9 1/2 x 15 3/4 inches (240 x 338 mm), full margins. Signed and numbered 4/75 ...

James McBey. 1931. Drypoint. 8 7/8 x 5 7/8 (sheet 11 1/2 x 9 ). An extremely rich impression with drypoint burr, printed by the artist on cream wove paper. Signed in the plate lower ...

This lithograph by artist Ron Adams depicts the renowned printer Robert Blackburn in his workshop in NYC. Blackburn was involved with every major player of the Harlem Renaissance alo...

Chelsea Rags. Chelsea Rags. 1888. Lithograph. Way 22, Levy 35, Tedeschi, Stratis and Spink 26. 7 1/8 x 6 5/16 (sheet 12 3/4 x 8). Printed on cream laid paper. Provenance: Miss Rosalind Birnie Philip, Whistler's sister-in-law, her seal verso: (Lugt 405). Michael Parkin Fine Art, Ltd. from whom purchased in 1972. Christie's, King Street.Signed with the butterfly in the image. One of 13 impressions listed by Way, before the image was transferred to supplementary stones for the edition of 500-1,000 printed by Way and issued in the Albemarle, January, 1892. Signed with the butterfly in the stone and in pencil. Housed in an elegant silk mat with a silver liner, and in a 16 3/4 x 14 3/4-inch silver leaf frame decorated with fleur-de-lis decorations. "And his interest in London has not been restricted to the Thames. Seeing the beautiful, where other men might be discouraged by dullness, he has taken his subject, now in the little cheap shop opening a low window upon the street, now in the forgotten church hidden away in a lonely square. And Chelsea Rags, the Shops of Chelsea, the Drury Lane, as well as The Butcher's Dog, are impressions of vague Rembrandtesque interiors where figures, grim or graceful, peer from out deep shadows— shops as lovely in his prints as the halls of a Veronese, or the palaces of a Claude." Elizabeth Robins...

Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978) Family Tree Original painting produced 1959, this print published 1959 in Japan by The Curtis Publishing Company Lithograph Sight: 19 1/4 x 13 3...

Twenty hand-signed, numbered, and titled images based on the selected work of Maupsassant. Portfolio containing 20 lithographs based on selected tales by de Maupassant, printed on h...