Rolph Scarlett Art

Gouache on paper, 18 7/8 x 14 3/4 in. Signed (at lower right): Morris; (with monogram, on the back): GLKM [monogram] / 1932 [sic] Executed circa late 1940s A passionate advocate of abstract art during the 1930s and 1940s, George L. K. Morris was active as a painter, sculptor, editor, and critic. An erudite man with an internationalist point of view, Morris eschewed the social, political, and figural concerns that preoccupied so many artists of Depression-era America, believing that painters should focus their attention on the beauty, refinement, and simplicity of pure form instead. His goal, he said, was “to wedge the expression further and further into the confines of the canvas until every shape takes on a spatial meaning” (as quoted in Ward Jackson, “George L. K. Morris: Forty Years of Abstract Art,” Art Journal 32 [Winter 1972–73], p. 150). Born into an affluent family in New York City, Morris was a descendent of General Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. From 1918 until 1924, he attended the Groton School in Connecticut, studying classics and art. He continued to focus on literature and art while attending Yale University (1924–28), an experience that prepared him well for his future activity as an artist-critic. After graduating in 1928, Morris studied at the Art Students League of New York, working under the realist painters John Sloan and Kenneth Hayes Miller, as well as Jan Matulka, the only modernist on the faculty. In the spring of 1929, Morris traveled to Paris with Albert E. Gallatin, a family friend and fellow painter who introduced him to leading members of the Parisian avant-garde, including Jean Arp, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean Hélion, and Piet Mondrian. Morris also took classes at the Académie Moderne, studying under Fernand Léger and Amédée Ozenfant, important exponents of Synthetic Cubism who influenced his aesthetic development. Indeed, after experimenting with the simplified forms of Modernism for a few years, Morris moved on to abstraction by 1934, adopting a hard-edged, geometric approach inspired by Leger’s cubist style and the biomorphic shapes of Arp and Joan Miró. Following his return to New York in 1930, Morris built a white-walled, open-spaced studio (inspired by that of Ozenfant, which had been designed by Le Corbusier) on the grounds of Brockhurst, his parents’ 46-acre estate in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1935, he married the painter and collagist Estelle “Suzy...

Bight abstract geometric composition by Alexandra Zinih (20th Century). Signed and dated ("Alexandra Zinih '09") in the upper left corner. Presented in a black frame with a white bac...

Colour pencil and acrylic on paper. Unframed. This fluid abstract work on paper is intuitively made with a coloured pencil and acrylic. The intersecting multi-layered forms create ...

Acrylic, ink, glitter on canvas Dimitri operates from the idea of the “unfinished.” It informs his choice of materials and the way he handles them. It informs the imagery. The unfin...

Katherine S. Dreier, 'Variation 5, Vol. I' from '1 to 40 Variations', lithograph with pochoir and hand-coloring, 1934, edition 65. Stenciled signature and date, lower right. Annotate...

Soft watercolor accents add to the beauty of this cyanotype and watercolor titled "Elkhorn Slough" by Cheryl Trotter (American, 20th century), c.1980's....

A contemporary mixed media vinyl and watercolor paint on paper by emerging female artist Winslow Tee. This work measures 20 x 16 on the wall, and the paper size is 14" x 11". A wh...

Signed verso lower left, 'Isaac Mizrahi'. A fashion designer and creator of costume, Isaac Mizrahi attended the Parsons School of Design before becomin...

This colored pencil drawing was created by American artist David Roth. Roth's images are proportioned according to a strict mathematical formula - the pictures are composed according...

EDWARD HAGEDORN (AMERICAN 1902 – 1982) SURREAL LANDSCAPE 1931 mixed media on paper, Graphite, ink and watercolor. Unsigned. Dtaed 2/26/31, in ink lower left margin. Image 13 3/4 x 16 1/2 inches. On a large sheet 20 x 25 inches. Provenance: Hagedorn estate, Around the mid 1980's The Hagedorn estate was dispersed in Berkeley by a local dealer. This drawing was part of a group of Hagedorn works on paper that I acquired from that dispersal. Much of the balance was later acquired the Struart Denenberg Fine Art. Denenberg published a very fine book on the artist's work. EDWARD HAGEDORN: CALIFORNIA MODERNIST, RESTLESSNESS AND RESTRAINT Hardcover – January 1, 2009 Subsequently Hagedorn's works on paper have been acquired by many museums and some accompanying exhibitions. ALL OF THE COMMENTS BELOW ARE FROM THE FOLLOWING EXHIBITION EDWARD HAGEDORN (1902-1982) American Modernist A New Traveling Exhibition “VOLCANOS, WRECKS, RIOTS, & NUDES”, EDWARD HAGEDORN (1902-1982) premiere at the Danforth Museum. Framingham, MA, in March 2016. The exhibition includes 75 works of art in various mediums and is accompanied by the first monograph devoted to the artist’s work with essays by leading curators, critics, and art historians. Edward Hagedorn was a true Modernist who created a trove of powerful works on paper--drawings, watercolors, oils, and original graphics that reveal the hand of a master draftsman and the mind of an astute political observer. He rejected the general trend in early 20th century California of local landscapes and coastal views, becoming virtually the single voice of Expressionism. He conveyed the darkness and upheaval that gripped the country in the depression years between the two World Wars, 1925- 1935, more forcefully than any of his contemporaries, influenced by German art of the time, engaging in modernist styles of Expressionism and Surrealism. Hagedorn’s skeletons are ferocious yet somehow endearing; printed in deep black ink on off-white paper, they march across Lilliputian landscapes of grim disorder and destruction. Comets and volcanoes explode in fauvist colors, their other-worldly fluorescent temperas framed in black, while nude female figures, executed in exquisitely refined pen and ink, or graphite line drawings, are as economical in their means as Matisse, and can be compared with the neo-classical drawings of Picasso. Among his most lyrical works of the 1920s is a series of rhythmically abstracted watercolor and ink views of Golden Gate Park, evoking the sensual demi-geometries of Balthus, Derain , and early Mondrian. American Modernist Edward Hagedorn (1902-1982) was born in San Francisco of German descent; his mother (née Kafka) died in childbirth, and he was legally adopted and raised by his grandmother and aunt. After attendance at the San Francisco School of Fine Arts in the early 1920s, by age 22 he had a studio in the famed "100" block of Montgomery Street ("the Monkey Block,") then a haven for bohemians. In 1926, a year of tremendous importance in California artists' embrace of modern art, the Oakland Art Gallery, with the guidance and inspiration of their European representative Emmy (Galka) Scheyer, was the first museum in the United States to show the art of the "Blue Four," among the leading artists of International Modernism--Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Alexei Jawlensky...

Bright, monochromatic abstract in warm, glowing desert tones by Marianne K. Brown (American, 1928-2019), 2000. The free flowing color field background is accented with areas of patterns evoking the Southwest. Signed "Marianne K. Brown" in the lower right and was acquired with a collection of Brown's work. Title "Desert Days" and date 2000 are written on verso. No frame. Marianne K. Brown (American, 1928-2019) has taught watercolor and design for thirty years. Her work has been shown in many art magazines, including Watercolor Magic and The International Artist Magazine, and several books on watercolor painting. She was elected secretary of Orange County Art Association in 1964. Listed in the National Watercolor Society. Author, Watercolor by Design Member, East Bay Watercolor Society 1964 - 3rd Place, non-figurative exhibit of Orange County Art Association 1978 - Honorable Mention, Central California Art...

Gorgeous burst of blue behind a flat top mountain with splashes of orange in this abstract geometric landscape by Erle Loran (American, 1905-1999). Signed and dated lower right "Erle...