Robert De Launay Figurative Prints

An early 19th century print entitled "Bow Street Office", an illustration (Plate 11) from "The Microcosm of London", published in London in 1808 by R. Acker...

Leonor Fini - Cats - Original Engraving Mme.Helvetius' Cats Original etching created in 1985, Printed Signature (LF). Conditions: excellent Edition: 100 Support: Arches paper. Dimensions: Paper dimensions: 44 x 28 cm Editions: Moret, Paris. Leonor Fini is considered one of the most important women artists of the mid-twentieth century, along with Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, Meret Oppenheim, Remedios Varo, and Dorothea Tanning – most of whom Fini knew well. Her career, which spanned some six decades, included painting, graphic design, book illustration, product design (the renowned torso-shaped perfume bottle for Schiaparelli’s Shocking), and set and costume design for theatre, ballet, opera, and film. In this compellingly readable, exhaustively researched account, author Peter Webb brings Fini’s provocative art and unconventional personal life, as well as the vibrant avant-garde world in which she revolved, vividly in life. Born in Buenos Aires in 1907 (August 30 – January 18, 1996, Paris) to Italian and Argentine parents, Leonor grew up in Trieste, Italy, raised by her strong-willed, independent mother, Malvina. She was a virtually self-taught artist, learing anatomy directly from studying cadavers in the local morgue and absorbing composition and technique from the Old Masters through books and visits to museums. Fini’s fledging attempts at painting in Trieste let her to Milan, where she participated in her first group exhibition in 1929, and then to Paris in 1931. Her vivacious personality and flamboyant attire instantly garnered her a spotlight in the Parisian art world and she soon developed close relationships with the leading surrealist writers and painters, including Paul Eluard, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Max Ernst, who became her lover for a time. The only surrealist she could not abide because of his misogyny was André Breton. Although she repeatedly exhibited with them, she never considered herself a surrealist. The American dealer Julien Levy, very much impressed by Fini’s painting and smitten by her eccentric charms, invited her to New York in 1936, where she took part in a joint gallery exhibition with Max Ernst and met many American surrealists, including Joseph Cornell and Pavel Tchelitchew. Her work was included in MoMA’s pivotal Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism exhibition, along with De Chirico, Dali, Ernst, and Yves Tanguy. In 1939 in Paris she curated an exhibition of surrealist furniture for her childhood friend Leo Castelli for the opening of his first gallery. Introductions to her exhibition catalogues were written by De Chirico, Ernst, and Jean Cocteau. A predominant theme of Fini’s art is the complex relationship between the sexes, primarily the interplay between the dominant female and the passive, androgynous male. In many of her most powerful works, the female takes the form of a sphinx, often with the face of the artist. Fini was also an accomplished portraitist; among her subjects were Stanislao Lepri...

"Combat Equestre" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (24/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts mu...

Limited edition, 8/10. ANNA MIKKE (born in 1950) She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 1975. After graduation, she was engaged in graphic design, including designing...

A Fierce Bull. 1911. Drypoint. Hardie 108. 5 3/8 x 8 (sheet 8 5/16 x 11 7/8). Edition 8. An exceptional impression with rich drypoint burr printed on antique laid paper. A proof of t...

William P. Hicks has drawn everything about the circus that will fit in the plate. The main figure is an aerial act with a woman balancing on rope held by a figure on the floor. Ther...

From David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio, an image from the story of ‘The boy who left home to learn fear’. Hockney chose this story for its ...

From David Hockney’s celebrated Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm portfolio, an image of the story ‘The boy who left home to learn fear’. Hockney chose this story for its obscu...

Edmund Blampied, R.E. The Butterfly. 1928-29. Drypoint. Appleby 133. 9 5/8 x 7 7/8). Etching (sheet 15 1/4 x 10 3/16)on 100. A rich impression printed on cream-colored laid 'F.J.He...

This large framed 18th century etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi is entitled "Vaso antico di Marmo adornato di eccellenti Sculture si nella parte anteriere che nell' opposta, le ...

Limited edition, 6/10. ANNA MIKKE (born in 1950) She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 1975. After graduation, she was engaged in graphic design, including designing...

The Matador. 1911. Drypoint. Hardie 109. 6 7/8 x 10 7/8 (sheet 7 7/8 x 12). Edition 15. A few scattered foxing marks and slight mat line; otherwise fine o...