Robert Funk Fine Art

A recurring motif in Mitchell Funk's work is the inclusion of an oversized moon. It signifies a celestial presence. This work, "Yellow Moon Over Manhattan," is an early example, but ...

A simple park bench acts as inspiration for an early example of semi-abstraction in color photography. Pioneering Color Photographer Mitchell Funk waits for "magic hour" light to ill...

A lone figure is captured running against a Magenta Sky at Dusk. He is small in the frame, with the vastness of nature as a backdrop. This image was taken in 1972 and exemplifies Pho...

In 1971, Central Park was a hub for Vietnam War Protests. In this work, Mitchell Funk captures a packed protest scene with emphasis on the graphic nature of the banners and flags. Th...

The Empire State Building is vividly portrayed as a stand-alone Art Deco skyscraper in an uncluttered New York City sky. Surrounding it is the emptiness of midtown Manhattan. It allo...

Mitchell Funk's photograph of a Red Brick Factory in Long Island City is as much about color-field theory as it is a document of a brightly painted factory facade. Additionally, Fun...

Welcome to Gahan Wilson's magnificently morbid mind, where viewing his cartoons/illustrations gives the viewer the creeps. In this work, a husband designs...

A determined, lone, sexy nude male is about to sprint down an endless road in New Mexico and, in a quest for meaning, meet his destiny. The image exudes a sense of primal instincts...

A vibrant orange sunset silhouettes the iconic Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. In the foreground, a partly out-of-focus green street light occupies the top half of the composi...

Man conquers nature and expresses a victorious gesture to an endless landscape with billowing clouds. A quest for meaning for the individual could be another theme this image. The ...

Old New York is captured. Angelic golden light caresses an industrial scene truck at a Chelsea West Side loading dock in 1972. The lighting transforms a gritty and oil-soiled space i...

This is a Post-Post-Impressionist, Post-Expressionist, Post- Fauve depiction of a West African landscape by an African American artist. It is characterized by flat pattens of bold co...

Pioneering Street Photographer Mitchell Funk exploits an upward angle of the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center. At the convergence of the two towers, a full moon appears wedged...

An African village scene is characterized by bold colors and a punchy flat orange sky combined with a post-impressionist paint application for the tree and the house. In the foreground, we see an African mother with two children standing outside her "Home." The work is created by African American artist Vincent D. Smith. It is signed lower right, Vincent, showing homage to Vincent Van Gogh, from whom the art word borrows some influence. Clearly, Smith has developed his own personal style, combining an African American persona with an African subject matter. Original metal frame under glass. The uploaded video is coming up light. Use the still image as a reference for color. Vincent DaCosta Smith (December 12, 1929 – December 27, 2003) was an American artist, painter, printmaker and teacher. He was known for his depictions of black life. Early life Vincent DaCosta Smith was born on December 12, 1929, in the Bedford-Stuyvesant[1] neighborhood of Brooklyn, to Beresford Leopole Smith and Louise Etheline Todd. Both were immigrants from Barbados.[2] He was raised in Brownsville, Brooklyn and Smith drew what he saw around him.[citation needed] He attended an integrated school where he studied piano and the alto sax. worked a range of jobs before he became a full-time artist. At 16, he worked for the Lackawanna Railroad repairing tracks. At 17, Smith enlisted in the army and traveled with his brigade for a year.[3] It wasn't until after his time in the army that Smith began to paint and printmaking.[4] At the age of 22, Smith was working in a post office where he grew to be friends with fellow artist Tom Boutis.[1] Art education Tom Boutis took Smith to a Paul Cézanne show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1951. After seeing the Cézanne show, Smith resigned from his position at the post office and began reading extensively about art. He studied at the Art Students League of New York with Reginald Marsh.[citation needed] Later, he began to sit in on classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, where the instructors would let him join in on the lessons and the criticisms.[3] After attending classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School and the Art Students League of New York, he was accepted and received a scholarship to the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine,[4] where he studied from 1953 to 1956. Beginning in 1954,[5] he started taking official classes at the Brooklyn Museum Art School, and studied painting, etching, and woodblock printmaking.[4] Career Smith was a figurative painter who used abstractions and materiality to make something new.[6] Smith's work depicts the rhythms and intricacies of black life through his prints and paintings.[7] Many of his paintings and prints rely heavily on patterns.[6] According to Ronald Smothers, Vincent D. Smith's work "stood as an expressionistic bridge between the stark figures of Jacob Lawrence and the Cubist and Abstract strains represented by black artists like Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis."[7] Smith has described his own work as "a marriage between Africa and the West."[3] Over his life, he worked in both painting and printmaking. In 1959, Smith won the John Hay Whitney Fellowship which allowed him to travel to the Caribbean for a year.[8] During this year he was deeply inspired by the customs and lifestyle of the native people.[8] Throughout his life, Smith attended various art schools but it was not until turning 50 he returned to college to earn an official degree.[7] From 1967 until 1976 he taught at the Whitney Museum’s Art Resource Center.[2] Later in 1985, he taught printmaking at the Center for Art and Culture of Bedford Stuyvesant. Death and legacy Smith died in Manhattan on the December 27, 2003 from lymphoma and related complications.[7] Smith was aged 74.[7] His work is included in many public museum collections including Art Institute of Chicago,[9] Newark Museum of Art,[1] Museum of Modern Art (MoMA),[1] Metropolitan Museum of Art,[1] Yale University Art Gallery,[10] Davidson Art Center,[11] Fitzwilliam Museum,[12] Brooklyn Museum,[13] Albright-Knox Art Gallery,[14] Rhode Island School of Design Museum,[15] among others. Exhibitions Over the course of his career, he had over 25 one-man shows and had his work shown in over 30 group shows.[7] Vincent D. Smith had shown in a range of galleries and museums over his life-span. In 1970, he had his first individual exhibition at the Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. His first retrospective was in 1989 at the Schenectady Museum in Schenectady, New York.[2] Solo shows: 1974 - The Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine[2] 1974 - Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, New York[2] 1989 - Schenectady Museum (Retrospective 1964-1989), Schenectady, New York Awards and honors This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2020) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) 1959 – John Hay Whitney Fellowship, John Hay Whitney Foundation, New York City, New York[8] 1967 – Artist in Residence, Smithsonian Conference Center 1968 – Grant, The American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters, New York 1971 – Creative Public Service Award for the Cultural Council Foundation, New York 1973 – National Endowment of the Arts and Humanities Travel Grant, New York 1973-1974 – Childe Hassam Purchase Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, New York 1974 – Thomas P. Clarke Prize, National Academy of Design, New York 1981 – Windsor and Newton Award, National Society of Painters in Casein and Acrylic , New York. 1985-1986 – Artist-in-Residence, Kenkeleba House Gallery, New York. Works Below are some selected works: Study for Mural at Boys and Girls High School, 1972, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York A Moment Supreme, 1972, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York The Triumph of B.L.S., 1973, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Jonkonnu Festival, 1996, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York Murals Mural for Crotona/Tremont Social Service Center, The Human Resource Administration, New York, New York 1980[1] Mural for Oberia D. Dempsey Multi-Service Center of Central Harlem, New York, New York 1989[1] Publications Print portfolios Impressions: Our World, Volume I (a portfolio of seven etchings - five with aquatint, two with embossing). Emma Amos, Benny Andrews, Vivian Browne, Eldzier Cortor...

A bold Black Liberation Army banner is featured among drummers and hippies in a 1971 Central Park protest. We see a rudimentary Super 8 video camera recording it all in the lower le...

Golden late afternoon light bathes the majestic Empire State Building in luminous color as it pierces a dramatic sky. This image is not only stunning in its visual beauty but also a ...

An observing black dog is captured against a yellow and red Coca-Cola sign in Guaymas, Mexico. Shot in 1970, Mitchell Funk was innovating in color photography, which is what many col...

An image of a horned devil with pointy claws and bat-like wings emerges from a Voodoo drum. He has with arms stretched out like a Christ figure. The drum grows out of a yellow plant-...

An artist who puts his life on the line for his art. Chris Burden was at the forefront of the conceptual art movement in the early 1970s. Prelude to 220, or 110 is one of his most important works where the artist puts his life on the line for his art. Burden voluntarily lays on his back. His neck and wists are have copper bands that bolt him to the floor. To his immediate left and right are two buckets of water with a 110-volt line inside. If the buckets were compromised in any way by a passerby or an unexpected event - Burden would have been electrocuted in a literal shocking performance. Art history is replete with artists who put themselves in harm's way to accomplish their art. Michelangelo risked a misstep to a certain death as he elevated himself over 60 feet to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Francisco Goya's "The Disasters of War" may have put him at odds with a governing orthodoxy. Picasso walked a very narrow line with during the Nazi occupation. Gutzon Borglum dangled himself off the face of Mount Rushmore and War Photographer Robert Capa, landed on Omaha Beach during D-Day. But it was Chris Burden whose art spotlighted...

Through Mitchell Funk's lens, a field of colorful flowers in bloom turns into a Monet-like Post-Impressionist painting. A lone redhead child punctuates the composition as she prance...

Mondrian came to New York City in the 1940s, and the city's real-world grid-like street design inspired him to create his famous Broadway Boogie-Woogie series, composed of primary co...

Why is this view of the Brooklyn Bridge, a blue sky, and golden windows no longer visible? The image is a creation from Mitchell Funk's mind. It comprises three photographs with colo...

A dreamy young blond woman holding a Bengal cat is depicted relaxing in a deckchair. She gazes upward and outward, pondering—the distinctive marbling of the cat echos the floral back...

Enter the whimsical world of famed children's book illustrators husband and wife team Alice and Martin Provensen. On top of a heavy tree trunk sits a...

A boldly composed Las Vegas casino sign consisting of a three-dimensional red die rests on a King of Clubs. The very graphic sign is captured in an equally bold way by street photog...

Study for "The Glorious Flight - Across the Channel with Louis Bleriot"; 1983; Gouache on Illustration Board; 14.5" x 13.75"; Signed Lower Right; Unframed. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Alice Rose[1] Provensen (née Twitchell; August 14, 1918[2] – April 23, 2018[3]) and Martin Provensen...

Decades before Photoshop and digital photography enabled the user to manipulate a photograph easily - Mitchell Funk created some of the most original, mind-bending, and technically brilliant images in analog. This work, "Futuristic Vision: Sci-Fi Outer Space," is a composite of two inverted Transamerica Buildings on a 35mm piece of film. It was done in 1978, and that is six years after the completion of the futuristic Transamerica Pyramid Building...

San Francisco de Assisi Mission Church in Taos was photographed in 1973 by Mitchell Funk. The image is characterized by radical cropping and a simplification of elements and is set ...

A parade of New York City spires is on full display in this unique view of Manhattan from Queens. Taken in 1974, its composition and graphic appeal still inspires after 50 years. Sa...

Questions about the nature and boundaries of reality are contextualized in this dreamy image of a woman strolling in a fantasy forest that breathes high-pitched color. Pioneering pho...

Golden rays transform power lines into luminous lines of light that stretch across the Aspen landscape. A solitary biker punctuates the scene. Over his 55-year photography career, M...

What America looked like in 1979. This three-storied house with peeling paint, dilapidated terraces, and a clothesline was shot in Hartford, Connecticut. Signed, dated and numb...

In the 1970s, senior citizens were fixtures on New York City park benches. In this image, golden light conveys the expressive nature of a disparate relationship between an old man an...

Two men have a conversation and joke-it-up on the steps of a boarded-up store named Nicks Cleaners. The whole scene is awash in dreamy blues and reds. Absorbing the influence of bot...

A silhouetted man looks out to infinity and ponders the buried memories on the hallowed grounds of Vicksburg. He is seen in silhouette in the bottom half of the composition. The top half shows two Civil War...

Trailblazing Gay Female illustrator of the Golden Age Ida Waugh paints and powerful narrative of a woman cowering in a tree while a hungry pack of wolves wait beneath her for dinner feast. Signed lower left. Framed under glass, Ida Waugh (October 24, 1846 – January 25, 1919) was an American illustrator of children's literature who often collaborated with her lifelong companion, Amy Ella Blanchard. Personal life Ida Waugh was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on October 24, 1846, the daughter of painter Samuel B. Waugh and his first wife, Sarah Mendenhall, therefore she was half-sister of painter Frederick Judd Waugh. Her step-mother was Mary Eliza Young Waugh, a miniaturist. She attended Académie Julian and Académie Delécluse in Paris, studying with Georges Callot, Paul-Louis Delance, and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant.In 1868 she attended the first "Ladies Life Class" at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; in the same class there were Emily Sartain and Catherine Ann Drinker. Career Ida Waugh collaborated with her partner Amy Ella Blanchard in publishing children's books, Waugh as illustrator and Blanchard as writer. Waugh also published books on her own Other than a children's book illustrator, Waugh was an award-winning painter. In 1869 she exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts two works, "The Bargain" and a portrait bust of Carl Gaertner. Her self-portrait and another painting, "Little Cosette" (1870), are in the permanent collection of the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, both donated by Mrs. John S. Haug in 1961.They were part of the exhibition "Women and Biography" in 2014, including: Elizabeth Shippen Green, Violet Oakley, Edith Emerson, Anne Minich, Catherine Mulligan, Mitzi Melnicoff, Alice Kent Stoddard, Aubrey Levinthal, Martha Armstrong...

The quintessential symbol of San Francisco is small in the picture frame but still is the central focus of the composition. Mitchell Funk's photograph of a Cable Car is as unexpecte...

Famed Puerto Rican Fashion Illustrator Antonio Lopez creates an oversized illustration for Vogue Patterns Magazine 1971. He uses a variety of media whic...

Conceptual Photographer Mitchell Funk created a Sci-Fi image 2 years before the iconic Close Encounters of a Third Kind was released in 1977. Funk's work is really two images combine...

This is a self-portrait with a 1950s girly cut-out set against a dramatic tropical sky. It's is a straight shot. The camera is on a tripod while the photographer slides over to bec...

Mitchell Funk captures a timeless image of New York scene in a fresh way. The unorthodox composition leaves the center of the picture vacant, leaving the two subjects on the extreme edges of the picture plane. The old State Island...

Inspired by the drama of chiaroscuro painting by Caravaggio, Mitchell Funk captures figures on the steps of Bryant Park in Manhattan. Unified by the late golden rays of the sun and t...

In an unexpected bronze light, Mitchell Funk captures a classic view of San Francisco with a portrait of a famed cable car. The reflection of light in the car's left window gives the...

Street Photographer Mitchell Funk makes a statement about two New York icons. The majestic Plaza Hotel proudly rises against a deep cobalt blue sky in the crisp early morning light....

A chic, high-fashion model clad in high heels and a chic hat holds a refreshing drink as she sits on a pedestal. She is depicted in silhouette as a burst of zoomed fireworks explode...

In a 1971 interview with Ebony Magazine, Alvin Hollinsworth commented on his African Jesus Christ painting, "I have always felt that Christ was a Blac...

A fresh and bold paintbrush characterizes a classic view of Florence. Mitchell Funk's application of vibrantly bold orange effects a rebirth of the birthplace of the Renaissance. Wra...

The same year, the iconic science fiction movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released, visionary still photographer Mitchell Funk shot this SciFi-like image. It's of an un...

Two light sources reveal that this is not a straight shot. As a pioneer of multiple-exposure photography, "Romantic Sunset over Ottawa Canada" is typical of Mitchell Funk's experime...

In the 1970s, the Times Square/ Mid-Town area of New York City was a gritty place of X-rated movies, Strip Bars, Pimps, Street Walkers, and cheap by-the-hour Hotels. The place was a...

Generations ahead of his time, Mithcell Funk rejects straightforward documentary photography and interprets the Noguchi Cube in a style as fresh and inventive as the Cube itself. It...

It's 1971, and most photographers were shooting in black and white. Fine Art Photography was not yet in the mainstream vocabulary of museums — almost no art galleries considered or ...

Mediterranean Revival style, Bendle Apartments, constructed in 1923, is located at 826 Collins Ave. Miami Beach, Florida, is seen here th...

Golden sunlight filters through the autumn trees to illuminate two lovers on a Central Park bench. As a popular tourist location, Central Park is endlessly photographed. But Mitch...

"Surreal Desert Landscape" is an example of Mitchell Funk's early work. It depicts Monument Valley in an unexpected way. It's 1976 and color photography was not even seriously acknow...

An endless road is pictured in a timeless landscape. As the road winds through the vast expanse of the American West, the grandeur of the surrounding landscape minimizes a solitary c...

The ephemeral nature of fleeting light is captured in Kodachrome in this early color photograph taken in 1971. The work is signed, dated, and numbered 3/15 lower right recto, other s...

I think this is one of the finest paints Gustavo Novoa has done. It's from his early period in the mid-1970s. I am privileged to own it. The artist creates a dreamy world of magica...

Surreal Fantasy Album Cover Beck & Sanborn for CTI records. This image is signed, dated and numbered 3/15 lower right recto. Other sizes are available. The work is unframed and print...

Pioneering SciFi photographer Mitchell Funk experiments with altered realms of reality by juxtaposing two landscapes of unnatural color to form a never-before-seen original vision. A single silhouetted figure looks out on a day-glow yellow sea leading to a dreamscape of trees. The yellow of water is picked up in the trees to unify the different perspectives. Published Popular Photography Magazine, February 1976...