Levon West Figurative Prints

Le chapeau épinglé (La fille de Berthe Morisot et sa cousine) 3e planche. Etching realized by Renoir in 1894. Image dimension 11.5x8 cm. / sheet dimension 33.2x15.1 cm. The final s...

This artwork titled "Arch Beach, California" c.1910 is an original etching on Wove paper by American artist Harley DeWitt Nichols, 1859-1939. It is hand signed and titled in pencil by the artist. The plate mark (image) size is 6.5 x 9.5 inches, framed size is 13 x 17 inches. it is custom framed in a wooden silver frame, with off white matting. It is in excellent condition, especially considering the age. About the artist: Born in the small rural Wisconsin town of Barton, Harley lived a peripatetic life. As a young child, he accompanied his family to Lincoln, Nebraska where he found great excitement in the roaming herds of buffalo and Native Americans. It was in these years that a talent for drawing was discovered. In 1870, after several years of hardship, his father moved the family back to Wisconsin. At the age of 11 he became a water boy...

This artwork titled "Pomegranates" c.1970 is an original color aquatint on Japan paper by noted Indian artist Kaiko Moti, 1921-1989. It is hand signed and numbered XXII/LXXV in White pencil by the artist. The Size is 22 x 29.25 inches. Printed to the edge. It is in excellent condition, some hanging tape remaining on the back from a previous framing. About the artist: Born (Kaikobad Motiwalla) in Bombay, India on December 15, 1921, Moti was first educated at the Bombay School of Fine Arts but his talent led him onwards to study at the University College in London (on scholarship) and at the Slade School of Fine Arts, London, where he received a Master's degree in Painting and Sculpture. While still in London he studied under MacWilliam and Reginald Butler. Eventually moving to Paris in 1950, Moti attended the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere, Atelier Zadkine, to pursue his love of sculpture but lack of space soon compelled him to turn his attention to working on copper plates and he studied engraving with William Stanley Hayter...

Etching printed in dark brownish black ink on cream laid paper, 6 x 8 7/8 inches (152 x 226 mm); full margins. Extremely minor and unobtrusive band of toning along the top sheet edg...

This artwork titled "L'Ame du Poete (The Soul of the Poet)" 1901, is an original etching and aquatint by renown French artist Louis Auguste Mathieu Legrand, 1863-1951. Signed in the ...

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...

A lovely view of Venice from the water. Etching with drypoint on antique cream laid paper with a large figural watermark, signed in pencil, lower right. 14 1/4 x 11 inches (362 x 280...

This artwork titled "Delassement (Relaxation)" 1901, is an original etching and aquatint by renown French artist Louis Auguste Mathieu Legrand, 1863-1951. The plate mark (Image) size...

"Over Cape Cod" is an etching created by Frank W. Benson in 1932. Benson only printed trial proofs of this plate - there is no edition. This impression is a first state of four. There are six impressions of the first state, three impressions of the second, four impressions of the third, and eight of the fourth state have been recorded. Signed in pencil in the lower left under the image. The image size is 7 15/16 x 14 7/8" (20.1 x 37.8 cm) and sheet size 11 9/16 x 18 3/8" (29.3 x 46.7 cm). FRANK W. BENSON (1862-1951) Frank Weston Benson, well known for his American impressionist paintings, also produced an incredible body of prints - etchings, drypoints, and a few lithographs. Born and raised on the North Shore of Massachusetts, Benson, a natural outdoorsman, grew up sailing, fishing, and hunting. From a young age, he was fascinated with drawing and birding – this keen interest continued throughout his life. His first art instruction was with Otto Grundman at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and then in 1883 in Paris at the Academie Julian where he studied the rigorous ‘ecole des beaux arts’ approach to drawing and painting for two years. During the early 1880’s Seymour Haden visited Boston giving a series of lectures on etching. This introduction to the European etching...

"Veduta del Sepolcro della Famiglia Plauzia per la Strada Che Conduce da Roma a Tivoli vicino a Ponte Lugano" from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities), one of the most famous works by Piranesi. "Antichita" illustrates the tombs along the Appian Way...

Figurative landscape capturing dock workers' afternoon break by John Theodore Edward Stoll (b. Germany; 1889, d. California; 1974). Signed "John Stoll" lower right. Titled "Drowsy Bu...

Keying Up - The Court Jester Etching with drypoint, 1879 Signed in the plate lower left corner (see photos) Proof before engraved title and engraved names Printed on thin light golden Japanese tissue paper In the final state, with engraved titled and typeface engraved artist’s signature below the image Condition: excellent Plate size: 6-5/8 x 4-1/4" According to Pisano, this image was very popular during Chase’s life. It is based on his famous painting, Keying Up-The Court Jester, in the collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. The painting was created in Munich during the artist’s studies there. It was exhibited in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia where it won a Medal of Honor and helped establish the artist’s reputation as a leading American painter. Chase, always conscious of self promotion, created the etching and had numerous impressions printed. He sold them for a modest price to increase his fame. The etching was later published in Sylvester R. Koehler, American Art Review, September 1878. It was for this American Art Review printing that the engraved titled and type face signature below the image were added to the plate. This example was part of a group of impressions that came down in the Chase family via his daughter Dorothy Bremond Chase, his third daughter. They were acquired at auction in a single auction lot, housed in a paper board folder. The consignor was Associated American Artist’s as they were liquidating their stock prior to closing the gallery. Dorothy was the subject of Chase’s painting, My Little Daughter Dorothy. C. 1894, in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts as well as numerous other portraits of her. Reference: Pisano/Bake, Volume 1, Pr. 3, illustrates the rare 1st state, this being a 2nd state before any other the engraved title and Chase's name in the bottom margin which are found in the third state. Artist bio in file (Chase) In 1883 Chase was involved in the organization of an exhibition to help raise funds for a pedestal for the Statute of Liberty. The exhibition featured loans of three works by Manet and urban scenes by the Italian Impressionist Giuseppe de Nittis. Both artists influenced Chase's Impressionistic style that gave rise to a series of New York park scenes. It is also thought that he was influenced by John Singer Sargent's In the Luxembourg Gardens (1879) which was exhibited in New York at this time. Indeed, Chase had met Sargent in Europe in 1881, the two men becoming lifelong friends with Sargent painting Chase's portrait in 1902. On another European trip in 1885, Chase met James McNeill Whistler in London. While Whistler had a reputation for being difficult, the two artists got along famously and agreed to paint one another's portrait. Eventually, however, Whistler's moods began to grate with Chase who wrote home stating "I really begin to feel that I never will get away from here". For his part, Whistler criticized Chase's finished portrait and, according to Hirshler, "complained about Chase for the rest of his life". While no record exists of Whistler's portrait of Chase; Chase's portrait of Whistler remains a well-known piece in his oeuvre. In 1887 Chase married Alice Gerson, the daughter of the manager of a lithography company. Though some fifteen years his junior (Chase was 37), he had known Alice for some time through her family's devotion to the arts. The pair, who would enjoy a happy marriage with Alice in full support of her husband's career, settled initially in Brooklyn where their first child was born. The couple would parent six daughters and two sons and it was only his family that could rival his devotion to his art. Indeed, Chase often combined his two loves by painting several portraits of his wife and children in Brooklyn parks before the couple relocated to Manhattan. Later Period Between 1891 and 1902, Chase and his family spent their summers at a purpose-built home and studio in Shinnecock Hills, a close suburb of the upmarket town of Southampton on the south shore of Long Island (roughly 100 miles east of New York). Chase set up, and taught two days a week, at the nearby Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art which benefitted from the financial backing of local art collectors. It was at Shinnecock that Chase, taken in by the region's striking natural surroundings, painted several Impressionistic landscapes. As Bettis put it, "There, among the dunes, in the bright sunlight and sea air his painterly impulse was given free sway, and he produced some of his freest and loveliest work". His passion for the area was so felt he even gave his daughter Hazel the middle name of Neamaug, in honor of the rich Native American history of Shinnecock. Chase was equally focused on the students that came to the School and who he encouraged to paint in the modern plein air style favored by the French Impressionists. Although Chase was making a name for himself as an Impressionist, he never abandoned his commitment to the sombre tones and academic tropes he had learned in Munich, though these he reserved for his portraits, and for his series of striking still lifes featuring dead fish. Chase was in fact a successful society portraitist - he painted fashionable women for a fee of $2,000 - and would paint his students as "samples" which he then donated to leading art institutions (such as Lady in Black (1888) which he donated to the Metropolitan Museum in 1891). In 1896, facing financial difficulties, Chase flirted with the idea of giving up his teaching in New York and traveled with his family to Madrid where he developed a passion for bullfighting. Chase returned however to Shinnecock in June to teach his yearly summer art class, and in the fall of that year, established his own art school in Manhattan: the Chase School which was modelled on the Académie Julian in Paris. Chase lacked business savvy, however, and the Chase School lasted only two years before it was placed under new management. It continued as the New York School of Art (changed to Parsons School of Design starting 1941) with Chase as head the School for eleven more years. Chase also taught during this period at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1902, following the premature death of his friend John Twachtman, Chase was invited to join the Ten American Painters group (who included amongst its members, Frank Weston Benson, Thomas Wilmer Dewing...