Faith Bayless Art

Italo Scanga was born in the Calabria region of Italy, and at 14 immigrated to the United States with his family after World War II. Living in Detroit, he worked on the General Motor...

Alma Thomas III, 2020 monotype, unique print from a series of IV 26 3/4 x 20 in. (68 x 50.8 cm) Coinciding with the current presentation of recent paintin...

Italo Scanga was born in the Calabria region of Italy, and at 14 immigrated to the United States with his family after World War II. Living in Detroit, he worked on the General Motor...

Joan Mitchell (Portrait) II, 2020 monotype, unique print from a series of IV 22 3/4 x 18 3/8 in. (57.8 x 46.7 cm) “The Sparkling Amazons,” the term coined by Thomas Hess to described five women who revolutionized the modern art world in postwar America, was a group comprised of Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler. The Irascibles, or Irascible 18, were the labels given to a group of American abstract painters who in 1950, penned an open letter to the president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to express their intense disapproval and commitment to boycott the museum’s exhibition American Painting Today: 1950. The subsequent media coverage and iconic photo of the group published in Life Magazine in 1951 gave the Irascibles notoriety and helped to canonize the term ‘Abstract Expressionism.’ By reconstructing the image with the inclusion of all the notable Abstract Expressionist artists of the period, Red Grooms attempts to recognize the often-overlooked contribution by women artists to the AbEx movement and the significant role they played as bold innovators within the New York School during the 1940s and 1950s. Grooms became an active participant in 1957, joining the cooperative Phoenix Gallery on East 10th Street, the then heart of the art world. He would later start City Gallery with Jay Milder in his own loft on West 24th Street. “We were reacting to Tenth Street. In ’58 and ’59, Tenth Street was sort of like SoHo is now, and it was getting all the lively attention of everyone downtown. We were just kids in our twenties and had a flair for attracting people to our openings.” The series of monotypes were printed at Derriere L’Etoile Studios, a fine art printmaking studio which was founded by Maurice Sanchez in 1978. Sanchez notes, “Red Grooms in a print studio is like a three-year-old child in a toy store...

Richard Corman Madonna, 2013 Color photographic monotype on archival pigment paper Hand signed, dated and numbered 1/1 by Richard Corman on the front 26 × 20 inches Unique Unframed This unique archival pigment print (numbered 1/1) was based upon a photograph taken by legendary portrait photographer Richard Corman, which was later hand embellished in acrylic by artist Alec Monopoly. That original work is reproduced in the monograph Richard Corman – Madonna NYC ’83 published by Damiani in 2013. This print is numbered 1/1 and is hand signed by Richard Corman. The photograph of Madonna was taken during Richard Corman's historic photoshoot in the early 1980s, and it was reprinted in 2013. Richard Corman's famous photographs of Madonna during that period have been reproduced in books, magazines, tv clips and newspapers - and are considered the most iconic images ever taken of The Material Girl. We are incredibly honored to be exclusively offering this unique print for the very first time -- in honor of her 65th birthday. Here, Madonna is just a natural beauty, youthful, confident, vulnerable, natural, and extraordinarily poised. The photograph was taken while she was on the cusp of superstardom, but still anxious, striving, going on casting calls, and waiting for her big break. In his own words, photographer Richard Corman describes how this famous photo shoot came about: My mother was Cis Corman, a renowned casting director in New York City. In the summer of 1982 she was casting The Last Temptation of Christ for Martin Scorsese and called me to say they had just tested a girl for the part of the Virgin Mary. She said, “You must meet this girl — she’s an original.” I was 28 and had just finished an apprenticeship with Richard Avedon and was looking for interesting people to shoot. So I got this girl’s number and called. It was Madonna. At the time she was living in Alphabet City [Lower East Side of Manhattan], and she suggested I go to her apartment and chat about what I wanted to do. I had to call her from a phone booth across the street, because the neighborhood was full of drug dealers, and they didn’t let people just walk in and out. There was a group of kids outside the building, on the stoop, in the hallways, and when I said I was there for Madonna the seas parted. I looked up the staircase, and I saw this girl leaning over the edge of the banister, and even from three stories below I could see these catlike eyes just looking down. I knew at that moment that she had something special — I really did. She had her best friend and neighbor, Martin, with her — he later died of AIDS—and we sat and talked. She served me a cup of coffee on a silver tray with three pieces of Bazooka bubblegum. There was no pretense to it. When I came back a few days later to shoot her, she said, “You know, we should go up to the roof because I go up there with all the kids from the building.” She was like the Pied Piper of the neighborhood — they loved her. They followed her, they danced with her, they sang with her. It was something they did on a daily basis, and it was remarkable. We just walked up and they gathered around. She put the boom box on — it was her music, though I don’t remember which song — and they just started dancing and singing. She was so alive and unpretentious. She was fierce, determined. Nothing was going to stop her. After we came down from the rooftop, we walked through the neighborhood, laughing and chatting, stopping in front of a storefront that you see in one of the shots, stopping in front of a senior citizen’s home...

Colorful abstract contemporary painting by Houston, TX artist Saralene Tapley. This painting features a portrait of a pair of female models set against...

Color monotype with hand coloring and collage

Tender, black and white scene of children bundled up in sweaters and hats for snow. Evoking the chilly weather and the spirit of winter holidays, this painterly monotype is ready to ...

Grace Hartigan (Color) VII, 2020 monotype, unique print from a series of IX 23 1/4 x 18 3/4 in. (59.1 x 47.6 cm) framed: 26 1/2 x 21 7/8 in.

Colorful abstract contemporary painting by Houston, TX artist Saralene Tapley. This painting features a portrait of a pair of female models set against a red floral background. Unfra...

Helen Frankenthaler (Portrait) IV, 2020 monotype, unique print from a series of IV 22 3/4 x 18 1/2 in. (57.8 x 46.4 cm)

Colorful abstract contemporary portrait painting by Houston, TX artist Saralene Tapley. The work features a nude figure set against a green and yellow cheetah print background. Unfra...