William Cheesborou Ostrander Art

Delicate watercolor, pen and ink floral study of a cyclamen blending into line drawing, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Debora...

Delicate watercolor, pen and ink floral study of cyclamen, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style blending into line drawing by California artist Deborah E...

Robert Kipniss (American, b. 1931) At Dawn, 1975 Pencil on paper 10 1/2 x 7 1/4 in. Framed: 14 2/3 x 11 1/3 in. Signed upper right: Kipniss '75 Verso bears Hirschl & Adler Galleries Label Robert Kipniss, painter and printmaker, was born in New York City in 1931. He creates essentially monochromatic*, stylized vistas with natural and architectural elements intended to evoke an elegiac, nearly surrealistic mood in haunting, silent landscapes; the melancholy of nostalgia. Trees, in mid and far-distance, form clusters or act as misty individuals containing a haunted, indefinable presence, witnesses to the foreground drama of more specific shape, form and detail, often a close-up tree. Kipniss studied at the Art Students League* in 1947; Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, 1948-50; and the University of Iowa, receiving a BA degree in English literature in 1952, and an MFA in painting and art history in 1954. The artist employs a meticulous technique combining a multiplicity of specific strokes, whether with brush, pencil or print-maker's needle and burin*, to create the essence of his generalized, non-specific forms. Light and darkness are clearly Kipniss' compositionally constructive elements. They also exist as contestants in the emotional drama at the heart of each work of art. The contrast, and sometimes combat, between these two opposites, symbolically represent with blackness -- ideas of threat, fear, trouble, evil; with whiteness safety, redemption, fulfillment and good. In Kipniss' 1995 mezzotint*, Clear Vase and Landscape, with a foreground image of precisely leafy stalks, the vase holding them, nearly invisible in its transparency, suggests an almost Salvador Dali-like surrealist device. This central image dominates but seems to invite association with, and commentary from, the surrounding clumps and individual round-topped, yet cedar-like trees. His mezzzotint, For Stella," 1997, depicts a gently twisting, curving, pale and smoothly-barked foreground, leafless tree limb or trunk, like a female human body, suggesting weakness, fatigue, an inability to deal with the staccato background screen of textured bush that seems to uncomfortably impinge upon it. This print is arguably a metaphor for a delicate soul struggling to overcome the prickly difficulties of domineering life. The classic mezzotint process, invented in the middle of the 17th Century, is the reverse of most of the other print-making media, since the artist works from a black ground to increasingly lighter areas. The copper plate is first roughened by a "rocker," creating a burr over the entire surface (the more burr left intact, the more ink it holds, the darker the final finished print). The artist, Robert Kipniss, in this instance, gradually burnishes, smoothes down the burr in varying degrees to produce the gradations of lights and darks of the final design. The deepest darks in the final picture are those areas on the plate that have been little touched after the initial roughening. Mezzotint relies on shade and tone rather than outline for its effect, which fits the Kipniss style of atmospheric* masses of value. A recent oil painting by Robert Kipniss, Hillside Silhouettes, 2001, 40 x 29, is somewhat more complex in composition than many, with four cubically-constructed houses each set in their own zones, seemingly unrelated to one another, with receding hills and similarly isolated, increasingly misty trees beyond. In his career, Robert Kipniss has had over 40 one-man shows since the first in New York in 1951, including an important retrospective exhibition at the Associated American Artist Gallery, New York in 1977. Many of these one-man exhibitions have been mounted by over 50 museums in the United States, South America and Europe, including the Chicago Art Institute, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modem Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Library of Congress and British Museum in London. Robert Kipniss is represented in the permanent collections of the institutions above, among many others, as well as the Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York Public Library; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Detroit Art Institute; Yale University Museum; National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Portland Art Museum; and the New Orleans Museum of Art. He was elected to the National Academy of Design* in 1980, and to the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, London in 1998 Robert Kipniss can be referenced in numerous publications, including Who's Who in American Art from the 1950s to the present, and multiple reviews in periodicals like Art News, Art in America and Art Forum. There are also three important catalogues raisonne published on his work. Robert Kipniss has received many awards: 1965 - Ohio University National Drawing Show, Purchase Prize 1976 - National Academy of Design, New York City, The Ralph Fabri Prize 1978 - The Print Club of Philadelphia, Charles M Lea Prize 1979 - Charlotte Printmakers Society, Purchase Award 1979 - Society of American Graphic Artists, Printmaking Award 1979 - Wittenberg University, Springfield, OH, Honorary Doctorate 1980 - Elected to the National Academy of Design, New York City 1980 - Audubon Artists, New York City, Silver Medal 1980 - National Academy of Design, New York City, The Leo Meissner...

Beautiful watercolor, pen and ink floral study of tiger lilies, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist De...

Beautiful watercolor, pen and ink floral study of a purple iris, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy (American, b.194...

Delicate watercolor, pen and ink floral study of Japanese irises, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy (American, b.19...

Beautiful watercolor, pen and ink floral study of light pink begonias blending into line drawing, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California art...

Vintage Rose Illustration -- "Georgia On My Mind" Beautiful and highly detailed illustration of a pink rose on a complex matrix background by Ben Black (American, 1922-2003). Titled "Georgia on My Mind" lower left. Signed "Ben Black" lower right. Unframed. Image size, 22.5"H x 18.25"W on a 25"H x 20"W Mat. The artist takes many days creating the hand drawn matrix background of circles and line. Ben Black was born in Boston, he graduated from the Massachusetts College of Art 1947. He served in World War 2. He was an art director at one of Boston's leading advertising firms, later opened his own studio where his works were included in The New Yorker Magazine, Saturday Evening Post, Reader's Digest, establishing himself as a leading American Illustrator. He had many solo and group exhibitions throughout New England and his work is collected throughout the world. Originally known for his clowns, he created a limited edition series of plates for Royal Daulton as well as clown figurines...

Vibrant watercolor, pen and ink floral study of Peruvian lilies, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy (American, b.194...

Vibrant watercolor, pen and ink floral study of red gladiolas, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy (American, b.1943)...

Vibrant watercolor, pen and ink floral study of red begonia, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy (American, b.1943). ...

Delicate watercolor, pen and ink floral study of light pink roses in full bloom, with brilliant attention to detail and a signature delicate style, by California artist Deborah Eddy ...