Millard Sheets Figurative Prints

Thomas Hart Benton, 'Goin' Home', lithograph, 1937, edition 250, Fath 14. Signed in pencil. Signed in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on off-white, wove paper, with margins, in excellent condition. Published by Associated American Artists. Archivally matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 9 7/16 x 11 7/8 inches; sheet size 10 3/4 x 13 5/16 inches. Impressions of this work are held in the following museum collections: Figge Art Museum, Georgetown University Art Collection, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. ABOUT THE ARTIST “Benton’s idiom was essentially political and rhetorical, the painterly equivalent of the country stump speeches that were a Benton family tradition. The artist vividly recalled accompanying his father, Maecenas E. Benton — a four-term U.S. congressman, on campaigns through rural Missouri. Young Tom Benton grew up with an instinct for constituencies that led him to assess art on the basis of its audience appeal. His own art, after the experiments with abstraction, was high-spirited entertainment designed to catch and hold an audience with a political message neatly bracketed between humor and local color.” —Elizabeth Broun “Thomas Hart Benton: A Politician in Art,” Smithsonian Studies in American Art, Spring 1987. Born in 1889 in Neosho, Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton spent much of his childhood and adolescence in Washington, D.C., where his father, Maecenas Eason Benton, served as a Democratic member of Congress from 1897 to 1905. Hoping to prepare Benton for a political career, his father sent him to Western Military Academy. After nearly two years at the academy, Benton persuaded his mother to support him in attending the Art Institute of Chicago for two years, followed by two additional years at the Académie Julian in Paris. In 1912, Benton returned to America and moved to New York to pursue his artistic career. One of his first jobs involved painting sets for silent films, which were being produced in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Benton credits this experience with equipping him with the skills necessary to create his large-scale murals. When World War I broke out, Benton joined the Navy. Stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, he was assigned to create drawings of camouflaged ships arriving at Norfolk Naval Station. These renderings were used to identify vessels that might be lost in battle. Benton later remarked that being a "camofleur" profoundly impacted his career: "When I came out of the Navy after the First World War," he said, "I made up my mind that I wasn’t going to be just a studio painter, a pattern maker in the fashion then dominating the art world—as it still does. I began to think of returning to the painting of subjects, subjects with meanings, which people, in general, might be interested in." While developing his Regionalist vision, Benton also taught art, first at a city-supported school and later at The Art Students League from 1926 to 1935. One of his students was a young Jackson Pollock, who regarded Benton as both a mentor and father figure. In 1930, Benton was commissioned to paint a mural for the New School for Social Research. The "America Today" mural, now permanently exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, led to many more commissions as Benton’s work gained wide recognition. The Regionalist Movement became popular during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Painters such as Benton, Grant Wood, and John Steuart Curry rejected modernist European influences, choosing instead to depict realistic images of small-town and rural life—comforting representations of the American heartland during a period of upheaval. Time Magazine referred to Benton as "the most virile of U.S. painters of the U.S. Scene," featuring his self-portrait on the cover of a 1934 issue that included a story titled "The Birth of Regionalism." In 1935, Benton left New York and returned to Missouri, where he taught at the Kansas City Art Institute. His outspoken criticism of modern art, art critics, and political views alienated him from many influential figures in both political and art circles. Nonetheless, Benton remained true to his beliefs, continuing to create murals, paintings, and prints that captured enduring images of American life. The dramatic and engaging characteristics of Benton’s artwork drawn the attention of Hollywood producers, leading him to create illustrations and posters for films, including his famous lithographs for the film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s "The Grapes of Wrath," produced by Twentieth Century Fox. During the 1930s, The Limited Editions Club of New York asked Benton to illustrate special editions of three of Mark Twain’s books...

Nocturne is an original limited edition lithograph by the African American artist Hughie Lee-Smith printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Arches paper, 100% acid free. Nocturne is a mysterious, surreal stage-like theatrical scene featuring a dramatic deep midnight blue night sky with two young black women each wearing pink clothing...

Alexander CALDER Flying Colors : Plane under Red Sun, 1976 Original lithograph Printed signature in the plate On light vellum 58 x 83 cm (c. 23 x 33 in) INFORMATION : Calder create...

Royal Hotel - New Orleans 1920s Depression Art Lithograph in Ink on Paper Dramatic street scene with a man wearing a trench coat and hat by Robert J We...

Little is known about the artist, Edward (Ed) Sacks, although this print may have been made at the Art Students League in NYC. it is a cross between, as the title suggests, a Seated ...

"The Putting Green" - Figurative Landscape 20th century lithograph copy (restrike) of an original painting by British artist Douglas Adams (English, 185...

Jean-Pierre Cassigneul was born in 1935 and first exhibited his work at age 17. He went on to participate in various group exhibitions, including the Salon d’Automne in Paris, the Sa...

Original chromolithograph by Louis Prang (German/American, 1823-1909) of L. Prang & Co. (American, founded 1860), after "Under the Apple Tree" by George E. Niles (American, 1837-1898). This late 19th century figurative chromolithograph depicts a small boy in a country setting and period dress under an apple tree, reaching into a barrel with a basket of apples spilling into the grass. A German style chromolithograph, this limited edition 188/250 print was created with heavy, oil-based inks which were applied in several layers to impart a texture similar to an original oil painting. Signed and dated in the plate "G.E. Niles 1867". Tag on verso with "Prang's American Chromos - Under the Apple Tree, after Niles - Chromolithographed and published by L. Prang & Co. ...Boston". Displayed in a rustic giltwood beveled frame. Image size: 9"H x 7.25"W. Louis Prang was a foremost lithographer and publisher in New York City from the mid to the end of the 19th Century. Born in Breslau, Germany to a father who was a calico printer, he was an apprentice to his father during his teen-age years and then spent five years as a journeyman, learning printing and dyeing and living in Austria, France and England. However, Prang's liberal political vliews caused him to be deported by the Prussian government during the Revolution of 1848, and fled via Bohemia and Switzerland to get to America. In 1850, Prang went to Boston, having stopped briefly in New York City, and became a publisher and taught himself wood engraving. In 1856, he turned to lithography in partnership with Julius Mayer. In 1860, he founded Louis Prang and Co., which was his own company and the first stiff competition to Currier and Ives. A primary reason for this competition was Prang's active imagination and energetic pursuit of his business. During the Civil War, he published maps and battle plans so that people at home could follow military movements. He also created printed card portraits of Union soldiers...

A black and white, large-scale surreal mythical landscape of an ocean voyage, with a snake wrapped around a clock, a ship, Venus sculpture, greek ur...

Howard Cook, 'Financial District', lithograph, 1931, edition 75, Duffy 155. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, the full sheet with wide margins (2 3/4 to 5 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 13 5/16 x 10 3/8 inches (338 x 264 mm); sheet size 23 x 16 inches (584 x 406 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. Literature: 'American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection', the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987. Collections: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Howard Norton Cook (1901-1980) was one of the best-known of the second generation of artists who moved to Taos. A native of Massachusetts, he studied at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Woodstock Art Colony. Beginning his association with Taos in 1926, he became a resident of the community in the 1930s. During his career, he received two Guggenheim Fellowships and was elected an Academician in the National Academy of Design. He earned a national reputation as a painter, muralist, and printmaker. Cook’s work in the print mediums received acclaim early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He received numerous honors and awards over the years, including selection in best-of-the-year exhibitions sponsored by the American Institute of Graphics Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Society of American Etchers, and the Philadelphia Print Club. His first Guggenheim Fellowship took him to Taxco, Mexico in 1932 and 1933; his second in the following year enabled him to travel through the American South and Southwest. Cook painted murals for the Public Works of Art Project in 1933 and the Treasury Departments Art Program in 1935. The latter project, completed in Pittsburgh, received a Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. One of his most acclaimed commissions was a mural in the San Antonio Post Office in 1937. He and Barbara Latham settled in Talpa, south of Taos, in 1938 and remained there for over three decades. Cook volunteered in World War II as an Artist War Correspondent for the US Navy, where he was deployed in the Pacific. In 1943 he was appointed Leader of a War Art Unit...

This lithograph is signed in pencil under the image at the lower right. Just above that, in the image, are the artist's initials and the date, 1942. This well-known walkway on the P...

This is an enigmatic image. Between the two center/left trees there appears to be a figure, possibly a woman. At the right, seated on a rock, is a man, in robes. Religious images are...