David Cook Galleries

'Ethel, The Blue Spotted Cow' is an oil on board vibrant folk art painting by Marin Saldana with colorful cattle, birds, and cowboys with a blue sky with clouds and airplanes. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 40 ¼ x 50 ¼ inches. Image measures 29 x 39 inches. About the Artist: Born on December 11, 1874, at Rancho Nuevo, 40 miles north of San Luis Potosí, Mexico, Martin Saldaña’s life began humbly on a family ranch established by his grandfather. His father, a cattle dealer, raised nine children, and though Martin was the smallest in the family, he overcame the odds to live a remarkable life. From a young age, he worked on the ranch, caring for pigs at age 8 and joining his brothers on horseback at age 10 to help herd cattle. He had a fondness for gardening, managing a large flower garden on the ranch by the time he was 15. Resourceful and driven, Martin sold wood to fund his trip to San Antonio, where he found better-paying work picking cotton. After saving $350, Saldaña traveled to Tampico, Mexico, where he worked as a stoker on a ship, enduring the physically grueling job of shoveling coal while standing in water all day. Using his earnings, he and a few companions pooled their money to purchase mules, enabling them to peddle dishes to women in the mountainous regions near the mining town of Pacuoco. His time there was marked by danger, as mountain lions roamed the area—he recalled seeing the bodies of four men who had fallen victim to the wild cats. To avoid a similar fate, Martin and his companions built large fires at night for protection. Saldaña's adventurous spirit led him to work as a cook on a fishing boat, where he narrowly escaped drowning after falling between the boat and the pier. His cooking career took him across the United States, from Alabama to Kentucky and Tennessee, where he worked in various restaurants, including Italian and Greek establishments. In Tennessee, he was captivated by the sight of waitresses in white silk dresses—a memory that would later influence his art. In 1912, Saldaña arrived in Denver, Colorado, where he found work as a cook at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital. In 1915, he began a long career as a cook at the Brown Palace Hotel, a Denver landmark, where he worked for decades. By 1950, at the age of 76, Saldaña had saved enough to afford his own room nearby. It was then, in an unexpected twist, that he was invited to join a children's watercolor class at the Denver Art Museum. Embraced by both the children and their teacher, Saldaña discovered a passion for painting. Encouraged by this new creative outlet, he enrolled in art classes at the Emily Griffith School of Opportunity, where he studied under Lester Bridaham. Bridaham became Saldaña’s mentor, patron, and biggest advocate, buying every painting the artist created. He helped promote Saldaña's work in galleries and museums around the world. In 1953, Life magazine published an article titled “An Old Cook’s New Art,” celebrating Saldaña’s unexpected artistic journey. Saldaña only painted for the last 15 years of his life, working primarily from memory and imagination. His paintings, often depicting scenes from his childhood in San Luis Potosí, showcased ranch life, vibrant landscapes, animals, and his beloved flower garden. His bold use of color and geometric forms echoed the tapestry traditions of his Mexican heritage. Despite a relatively brief painting career, Saldaña completed a new work every three days and left behind a significant body of work. Saldaña passed away on September 5, 1965, at the age of 91. His legacy endures through his distinctive and heartfelt paintings, which are held in major collections including the Denver Art Museum, the University of Wyoming Art Museum, the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the International Folk Art Museum, Neuss in Aberthaw Museum (London), and the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam). ©David Cook Galleries...

Original semi abstract southwestern landscape painting titled, 'Walpi #4 (Hopi Village on First Mesa, Arizona)' by Bert Van Bork (1928-2014). Native American Pueblo village with adobe buildings set high on a mesa, painted shades of deep blue, yellow, orange, and pink. Presented in a custom white frame with all archival materials and UV protectant glass, outer dimensions measure 8 ½ x 10 ½ x ½ inches. Image size is 4 ¾ x 7 inches. Provenance: Estate of Bert Van Bork, Evanston, Illinois About the Artist: Bert Van Bork - Student of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, confidant to Jacques Lipchitz, Joan Miró and numerous artists of the 20th century, nominee by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Short Documentary in 2000 — was himself an artist, photographer, filmmaker, writer and world traveler whose talent and respectful observance of the communities he visited allowed him rare entrance into artist studios in Europe, Mexico and the United States, including selected Native American villages in the Southwest. Born in Augustusburg, Saxony, Germany, at the age of 15, he entered and won a statewide competition to study at the prestigious Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste (State College of Fine Arts) in Berlin, where he had the opportunity to join Masterclasses by Karl-Schmidt-Rottluff, a pioneer of the German Expressionism movement “Die Brücke”. After WWII, Van Bork continued his studies at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst (College for Graphic Arts) in Leipzig, Germany. Later returning to Berlin to work, he became an active contributor to a small and struggling post-war artist community. One of his poignant woodcuts titled Witwe (Widow) was chosen in 1949 to be featured on the poster for the art exhibition of the Kunstamt Berlin-Mitte. In 1954 Van Bork immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York and later settling in Chicago. There, he began his diverse career as an artist, printmaker, master-photographer and film producer. He produced more than 100 documentary and educational films, which won him numerous national and international film awards. In 1998 he began production on the documentary film entitled “EYEWITNESS, the Legacy of Death Camp Art...

Original oil painting of a western mountain landscape, likely California or Colorado by Turner B. Messick (1878-1952), with snow covered pea...

Abstract art by 20th century Denver, Colorado woman artist Wilma Fiori (1929-2019). Untitled Monotype on paper signed lower right and numbered, 1 of 1, lower left. Colors include blu...

"The Coast" vintage midcentury circa 1950s - 1970s original oil painting of a marine landscape in moonlight by 20th century New Mexico artist, Marjorie Chambers (1923-2006). Painted in evening colors of blue, green, brown and white. Nocturne oil painting on wood panel, signed by the artist lower right and titled on the reverse. Presented in a custom frame with a dark finish and gold lip; outer dimensions measure 18 ¼ x 21 ¾ x 1 inches. Image size is 11 x 15 inches. About the Artist: Marjorie Bell Chambers (Marjorie Bell, Marjorie Chambers) was born in New York in 1923. In 1943, she graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Art History and political science and went on to earn a Master of Arts (M.A.) from Cornell University in 1948. She married physicist, William H. Chambers in 1945 and the couple moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico a few years later where he worked in the National Laboratory. Chambers spent the following years raising their children and worked as a substitute teacher in Los Alamos. In 1974, Marjorie Chambers received a PhD in History and Political Science at the University of New Mexico. She went on to serve on the faculty of the University of New Mexico and served as dean of the Midwest region of the Union Institute Graduate School. Marjorie Chambers served as the first woman president of Colorado Women's College (a division of the University of Denver). Chambers also served as president of the American Association of University Women (AAUW). A lifelong advocate for women's rights, Dr. Marjorie Bell Chambers was appointed her to the National Advisory Council on Women's Educational Programs in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. Chambers served as vice-chair and acting chair of President Carter...

"Enchanted Garden", by Edward Marecak, vintage 1980s original abstract painting. Oil painting on canvas, titled and estate stamp on reverse. Abstract composition with geometric of interconnected geometric shapes. The painting has a great texture due to the impasto of the series of dots of paint. Colors include brown, red, yellow, pink, purple, blue, green and black. Unframed, custom framing options are available. Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett's Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation's leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world's most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak's studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson's specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High...

Original large format southwestern landscape painting of the Grand Canyon in Arizona by Pawel Kontny. Evening scene with sunset coloring over the canyon with dramatic clouds and trees in the foreground. Colors include blue, purple, green, red/brown and white. Original painting with Kontny's unique process combining marble dust, gesso and oil glaze on masonite to create rich tones and a sense of depth and texture. Signed by the artist, lower left. Presented in a custom frame, outer dimensions measure 45 ¼ x 59 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 34 x 48 inches. About the Artist: The second oldest of five children of a prosperous bakery shop-café owner, Pawel Kontny (Paul Kontny, Pawel August Kontny) began sketching and drawing Indians based on Karl May's popular Western novels which he read as a youngster growing up in Europe. Initially designated to take over the family business, Kontny's father finally accepted his son's interest in art. After relocating the family to Gleiwitz in Upper Silesia (today, Gliwice, Poland) in 1936, he engaged an unemployed artist, Michael Uliga, to provide Paul some initial art instruction. In high school Kontny received additional encouragement and direction from Professor Pautsch. While still a student he was commissioned to paint a large image of St. Anthony for the family's parish church in Gleiwitz. In addition to formal instruction, Kontny's father financed Paul's trip to the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden (the home of his aunt) and to the Silesian Fine Arts Museum in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland). The trip provided him a firsthand introduction at age thirteen to painting and drawing by European masters and to the work of some of the German Expressionists, soon afterward banned as "degenerate artists" and removed from museums throughout Germany by the Nazi regime. After graduation from Emperor Wilhelm State High School in Gleiwitz, Kontny briefly studied at the local mechanical engineering and metallurgy school, addressing his parents' concern about the economic prospect of his earning a decent livelihood as an artist. In 1940 he transferred to the technical college in Breslau where he studied architecture until being drafted into the German army in 1941. His first choice had been the Breslau Art Academy, but the Nazi authorities closed it down in 1932. After 1940 he had no other formal art training. During World War II his army unit served on the Eastern Front in the former Soviet Union. He documented his wartime experiences there and elsewhere in Eastern Europe with sketches and drawings which he temporarily stored in his gas mask canister until mailing them to his parents in Gleiwitz. Captured in northern Italy by Allied forces at the end of the war, his talent impressed General Wade H. Haislip of the 7th Army and the Western Military District in Germany who dispatched him under armed guard on a private sketching trip to northern Italy, including Venice. After his release from captivity, Kontny initially lived with his cousin's family in Eberhardsbühl, Germany, before being hired to help build the new European publishing center of Stars and Stripes, the American military newspaper, in Altdorf near Nuremberg, Germany. During his free time, he bicycled and sketched the small, historic Bavarian towns near Altdorf. His involvement with the Stars and Stripes project and his postwar village reconstruction work in Bavaria earned him an architect's card and membership in the Nuremberg Architects' Association in 1946. One of eleven architects on its working team, he helped design new housing in the city's residential areas destroyed by Allied bombing during the war. In the late 1940s he also designed the building for the Giesenhagen insurance company and the interior of the Schrafft Delicatessen in Nuremberg, and with two other colleagues a private home in Bavaria influenced by the International Style in architecture. After completing his work with the architects' association in Nuremberg where he also painted urban landscapes of the bombed wartime ruins, he returned to Eberhardsbühl where he began depicting the local residents and the landscape in a modernist style. In 1949 his work was introduced to the public in a lecture at the Amerika Haus in nearby Sulzbach-Rosenberg by art critic, Janheinz Jahn. His encouragement prompted Kontny to relocate to Nuremberg where he joined the Association of Independent Professional Nuremberg Artists and participated in its 1949 exhibition. His early success in Nuremberg led to solo shows at the Galerie Schröder and Galerie Stenzel in Munich, as well as at the Alioth Gallery in Basel and Saint Moritz, Switzerland. He also had a solo show at the Little Studio Gallery in New York in 1957 and at the Pogzeba Gallery in Denver in 1958. His participation in the all-German "Iron and Steel" exhibition at the Dusseldorf Museum in 1952 enhanced his reputation as an artist outside of Bavaria. The money he received from the sale of his work at that exhibition financed his first trip to France, Spain and North Africa. His urbanscapes of cities in North Africa reflect the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee, one of his favorite artists. Another influence was J.W.W. Turner whose work he studied at the Tate Gallery in London on a summer trip to England and Ireland in 1953 with Professor F.W. Schoberth of the Academy for Economics in Erlangen, Germany. Kontny did a number of sketches of people he observed during his trip, as well as watercolors and pastels of the various locations he visited. In the early 1950s his painting style showed the influence of the Die Brücke (The Bridge), a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905 who had a major impact on the evolution of modern art in the twentieth century in Germany. By the middle of the decade his style incorporated more referential abstraction and total abstraction, resulting in part from his study of Hans Hartung, a German artist based in Paris who exhibited his gestural abstract work in Germany. Kontny also benefitted from his contact with Karl Dahmen, a German abstract painter artist in the Rhineland. His friendship with Dahmen led him to experiment with marble dust for added texture in his work. Along with his painting, he produced lithographs of figures and urban vignettes for about five years beginning in the mid-1950s. At the same time he also sculpted in bronze and stone which he continued into the following decade. In the early 1950s he also did a number of drawings of authors, musicians and artists for the Nürnberger Nachricten (Nuremberg News), and illustrated the writings of German authors, Wolfgang Borchert and Hans Pflug-Franken. In 1960 the president of the Schaefer Pen Company, a collector of Kontny's work, invited him and his family for a summer trip to the United States that included New York, Chicago and Denver. Kontny visited the Metropolitan and Guggenheim Museums and the New York galleries, acquainting himself firsthand with the postwar developments in American art. He traveled with his family to Chicago to see the Marshall Fields Gallery where he had exhibited in 1957, and then on to Denver to meet gallery dealer John Pogzeba who had arranged his first solo show in the Mile High City in 1958. Pogzeba took the Kontnys to Taos and Santa Fe whose Native American and Hispano cultures provided Paul with abundant subject matter after relocating to Denver, Colorado, in 1962. He facilitated shows of Konty's work at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, and the Maxwell Galleries in San Francisco. In Denver Kontny refined his marble dust technique during the 1960s, producing various grades shifted through his wife's pantyhose. He switched to masonite for his painting surface after discovering that traditional canvas could not adequately support his gessoed marble dust mixture. He used the mixture to sculpt the image on the masonite, then allowing it to dry before applying oil glazes. His marble dust technique easily lent itself to depicting the architecture of Paris, Naples, and Dubrovnik, as well as the multistoried tribal pueblos in northern New Mexico and Arizona. His initial encounter with Native Americans in New Mexico extended his search for subject matter to the Plains Indians in Wyoming and Montana whom he had read about in Karl May's adventure novels and whom he chose to depict in oil, watercolor and pastel. He also applied his marble dust technique to three non-representational series he pursued until the end of his life – Cosmos, inspired by the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969 and Carl Sagan's Cosmos television series in the 1980s; the Age of Technology, symbolizing his admiration for modern technological achievement; and Ancient Memories, synthesizing his life-long interest in the ancient cultures of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Babylon, as well as those of the Aztecs, Mayan and Incas of the Western Hemisphere. Although based in Denver, Kontny remained an inveterate traveler. His frequent trips to Europe, Mexico and Hawaii provided him a wealth of new material, augmented with portraits and still lifes including the official portrait of Governor Richard Lamm in 1976 for the Colorado State Capitol in Denver. To keep his eye fresh throughout his career, Kontny did hundreds of ink drawings in both representational and nonobjective styles. He likened them to a pianist's need for daily keyboard practice. His love of classical music and jazz is reflected in nonobjective paintings and pastels done both in Europe and the United States. Apart from his disciplined daily studio schedule in Denver, Kontny willingly trained a younger generation of professional artists, sharing with them his extensive knowledge of art history and the techniques of his facility in oil, watercolor, pastel and drawing. Among those benefitting from his instruction, counsel and assistance were Lorenzo Chavez, Tim Cisneros, Len Garon, Carol Katchen, Desmond O'Hagan, Leon Loughridge, George Tate...

"Demeter and Persephone", vintage 1960s original signed oil painting on canvas by 20th century Denver artist, Edward Marecek. Based on greek mythology, this mid century modern figural abstraction painting depicts the ancient greek goddess of the harvest, Demeter, and her daughter, Persephone. The two female figures are holding a bouquet of flowers. Rendered in a geometric, cubist, style in colors of brown, black, pink, purple, green, blue, orange, red, white, and green. Presented in the original/vintage frame, outer dimensions measure 34 ½ x 20 ¼ x 1 ½ inches. Image size is 17 ½ x 13 inches. Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett's Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation's leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world's most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak's studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson's specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High...

"Mystic Writing", ink and acrylic on paper by Denver artist Edward Marecak (1919-1993) of an abstract image with mystical symbols in blue/green rectangles and a border of brown squares. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 22 ¾ x 19 ¾ inches. Image size Provenance: Estate of Edward Marecak About the Artist: Born to immigrant parents from the Carpathian region in Slovakia, Marecak grew up with his family in the farming community of Bennett’s Corners, now part of the town of Brunswick, near Cleveland, Ohio. When he turned twelve, his family moved to a multi-ethnic neighborhood of Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenians in Cleveland. His childhood household cherished the customs and Slavic folk tales from the Old Country that later strongly influenced his work as a professional artist. During junior high he painted scenery for puppet shows of "Peter and the Wolf," awakening his interest in art. In his senior year in high school he did Cézanne-inspired watercolors of Ohio barns at seventy-five cents apiece for the National Youth Administration. They earned him a full scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art (1938-1942) where he studied with Henry George Keller whose work was included in the 1913 New York Armory Show. In 1940 Marecak also taught at the Museum School of the Cleveland Institute. Before being drafted into the military in 1942, he briefly attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art near Detroit, one of the nation’s leading graduate schools of art, architecture, and design. A center of innovative work in architecture, art and design with an educational approach built on a mentorship model, it has been home to some of the world’s most renowned designers and artists, including Eero Saarinen, Charles Eames, Daniel Libeskind and Harry Bertoia. Marecak’s studies at Cranbrook with painter Zoltan Sepeshy and sculptor Carl Milles were interrupted by U.S. army service in the Aleutian Islands during World War II. Following his military discharge, Marecak studied on the G.I. Bill at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center from 1946 to 1950, having previously met its director, Boardman Robinson, conducting a seminar in mural painting at the Cleveland Institute of Art. Although he did not work with Robinson at the Fine Arts Center, who had become quite ill - retiring in 1947 - he studied Robinson’s specialty of mural painting before leaving to briefly attend the Cranbrook Academy in 1947. That same year he returned to the Fine Arts Center, studying painting with Jean Charlot and Mary Chenoweth, and lithography with Lawrence Barrett with whom he produced some 132 images during 1948-49. At the Fine Arts Center he met his future wife, Donna Fortin, whom he married in 1947. Also a Midwesterner, she had taken night art courses at Hull House in Chicago, later studying at the Art Institute of Chicago with the encouragement of artist Edgar Britton. After World War II she studied with him from 1946 to 1949 at the Fine Arts Center. (He had moved to Colorado Springs to treat his tuberculosis.) Ed Marecak also became good friends with Britton, later collaborating with him on the design of large stained glass windows for a local church. In 1950-51 Marecak returned to the Cleveland Institute of Art to complete his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. A year later he was invited to conduct a summer class at the University of Colorado in Boulder, confirming his interest in the teaching profession. In 1955 he received his teaching certificate from the University of Denver. Vance Kirkland, the head of its art department, helped him get a teaching job with the Denver Public Schools so that he and his family could remain in the Mile High City. For the next twenty-five years he taught art at Skinner, Grove, East, George Washington and Morey Junior High Schools. Prior to coming to Colorado, Marecak did watercolors resembling those of Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent and Charles Burchfield. However, once in Colorado Springs he decided to destroy much of his earlier ouevre, embarking on a totally new direction unlike anything he had previously done. Initially, in the 1940s he was influenced by surrealist imagery and Paul Klee, and in the West by Indian petroglyphs and Kachinas. His first one-person show at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs in 1949 featured paintings and lithographs rendered in the style of Magic Realism and referential abstraction. The pieces, including an oil Witch with Pink Dish, foreshadowed the output of his entire Colorado-based career, distinguished by a dramatic use of color, intricacy of execution and attention to detail contributing to their visual impact. He once observed, "Each time I start a new painting I always fool myself by saying this time keep it simple and not get entangled with such complex patterns, color and design; but I always find myself getting more involved with richness, color and subject matter." An idiosyncratic artist proficient in oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache and casein, he did not draw upon Colorado subject matter for his work, unlike many of his fellow painters in the state. Instead he used Midwest landscape imagery, bringing to life in it witches and spirits adapted from the Slovakian folk tales he heard growing up in Ohio. A number of his paintings depict winter witches derived from the Slovak custom in the Tatra Mountains of burning an effigy of the winter witch in the early spring to banish the memory of a hard winter. The folk tale element imparts a dream-like quality to many of his paintings. A devote of Greek mythology, he placed the figures of Circe, Persephone, Sybil, Hera and others in modern settings. The goddess in Persephone Brings a Pumpkin to her Mother, attired as a Midwestern farmer’s daughter, heralds the advent of fall with the pumpkin before departing to spend the winter season in the underworld. Train to Olympus, the meeting place of the gods in ancient Greece, juxtaposes ancient mythology with modernity creating a combination of whimsy and thought-provoking consideration for the viewer. Voyage to Troy #1 alludes to the ancient city that was the site of the Trojan Wars, but has a contemporary, autobiographical component referencing the harbor of the Aleutian Islands recaptured from the Japanese during World War II. In the 1980s Marecak used the goddess Hera in his painting, Hera Contemplates Aspects of the Art Nouveau, to comment on art movements in the latter half of the twentieth century Marecak’s love of classical music and opera, which he shared with his wife and to which he often listened while painting in his Denver basement studio, is reflected in Homage of Offenbach, an abstract work translating the composer’s musical colors into colorful palette. Pace, Pace, Mio Dio, the title of his earliest surrealist painting, is a soprano aria from Verdi’s opera, La Forza del Destino (The Force of Destiny or Fate, a favorite Marecak subject). His Queen of the Night relates to a character from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute. In addition to paintings and works on paper, he produced hooked rugs, textiles and ceramics. He likewise produced designs for ceramics, tableware and furniture created by his wife Donna, an accomplished Colorado ceramist. Both of them generally eschewed exhibitions and galleries, preferring to quietly do their work while remaining outside of the mainstream. He initially exhibited at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1948 receiving a purchase award. The following year he had his first one-person show of paintings and lithographs at the Garrett Gallery in Colorado Springs. In the 1950s and early 1960s he participated in group exhibitions at the Print Club (Philadelphia); Amarillo Public Library (Texas); annual Blossom Festival Show (Canon City, Colorado); Adele Simpson’s "Art of Living" in New York; Denver Art Museum; and the Fox Rubenstein-Serkey Gallery (Denver); but he did not have another one-person show until 1966 at the Denver home of his friends, John and Gerda Scott. They arranged for his first one-person show outside of Colorado held two years later at the Martin Lowitz Gallery in Beverly Hills and Palm Springs, California. That same year his work was featured at the Zantman Galleries in Carmel, California. Thereafter he became an infrequent exhibitor after the 1970s so that his work was rarely seen outside his basement studio. In 1980 he, his wife and Mark Zamantakis...

'Girl on a Swing' vintage 1950s-1960s landscape painting by Mexican-American folk artist, Martin Saldana (1874-1965). This painting depicts a female figure on a swing with two other...

Vintage 1960s Mid century modern oil on canvas abstract expressionist painting by Walter Blakelock Wilson (1929-2011). Painted in rich jewel tones of Sapphire blue, emerald green, umber, gold, yellow, and brown juxtaposed with neutral shades of tan, creamy white, olive and beige. Signed and dated by the artist, "W.B. Wilson '62". Presented in a custom gold leaf frame; outer dimensions measure 45 ½ x 37 ½ inches. Canvas size is 43 ¼ x 35 ¼ inches. Colors included Orange, red, golden yellow, reddish brown, green, gray, beige, camel, teal blue and white. About the Artist: Walter Blakelock Wilson (1929-2011) was born in Auburn...

Hand of Ishmael by Tony Fitzpatrick (born 1958). An original aquatint etching with Chine-collé. Design elements include a hand with red nails and numerous tattoos, birds, celestial elements, eyes and thorns. Dominant colors include yellow, blue, black, red and white. Signed, titled and dated, lower margin in pencil by the artist. Presented in a custom frame with all archival materials, outer dimensions measure 29 ½ x 23 ½ x ¾ inches. Image size is 13 ¾ x 17 ¾ inches. About the Artist: Born in 1958, Tony Fitzpatrick lives in Chicago and is well known for his fine art prints, paintings and drawings. He has found inspiration from the street culture of Chicago, tattoo designs, folk art and places...