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Item Ships From: Wisconsin
Ultramarine Oval (Colorful Abstract Three Dimensional Wood Wall Sculpture)
By Peter Hoffman
Located in Hudson, NY
Large vertical abstract three-dimensional wood wall sculpture with colorful pops of acrylic paint in blue, red, yellow, and red
"Ultramarine Oval" by Hudson Valley artist, Peter Hoff...
Category
2010s Abstract Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Wood, Acrylic
Weightless, Timeless: Oil Painting of Two Women Swimming in Pool
By Samantha French
Located in Hudson, NY
Horizontal figurative photo-realist painting of women swimming in an aqua blue pool
"Weightless, Timeless," painted by Hudson Valley artist, Samantha French, is 2019
oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
Sides are cleanly painted white so additional framing is optional
Excellent condition and ready to hang as is
This photorealist figurative painting captures a peaceful water scene of a women leisurely floating in a crisp, aqua blue pool. The sunlight reflecting off their sun kissed skin complements the cool color palette, making for a serene visual experience. The brush work is highly detailed with little texture (impasto) on the surface. The horizontal painting on canvas is currently unframed and has clean, white painted sides, so additional framing is optional.
About the Artist:
Born and raised in north central Minnesota, Samantha French graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2005. French’s current body of work explores the idea of escape, the tranquility and nostalgia for the lazy summer days of her childhood. The series is inspired by Samantha’s own reflections and memories of her childhood summers spent in the lakes of Northern Minnesota. French actively exhibits her paintings and is included in many private and public collections throughout the country while her work has garnered extensive international and national press. She is a full-time painter and keeps a studio in New York’s Hudson Valley.
"My current body of work is focused on swimmers underwater and above. Using vague yet consuming memories from my childhood summers spent immersed in the tepid lakes of northern Minnesota, I attempt to recreate the quiet tranquility of water and nature; of days spent sinking and floating, still and peaceful. These paintings are a link to my home and continual search for the feeling of the sun on my face and warm summer days at the lake. They are my escape, a subtle reprieve from the day-to-day. At the same time, I am drawn to an idealistic time before my own, where swim caps and wool swimsuits were commonplace. This combination of memory, observation and photography has allowed me to preserve the transitory qualities of water and remembrance."
Artist Resume:
2019 Winter Swim, Rubine Red...
Category
2010s Photorealist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Birkie the Lab
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Hallett is a Wisconsin-based veterinarian-turned-artist.
Edition 3/50
Signed left side
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Bronze
17th century etching Rembrandt biblical scene crucifixion figures
By Rembrandt van Rijn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Rembrandt's print 'Christ Crucified Between Two Thieves: an oval plate' is one of the most captivating of the artist's oeuvre. Etched to an oval rather than a rectangular plate and t...
Category
1640s Dutch School Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Paper, Etching, Printer's Ink, Drypoint
19th century classical religious oil painting portrait female subject red dark
By Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Caterina d'Alexandria (Saint Catherine of Alexandria)" is a copy oil painting on wood panel, after Italian artist Giampietrino (Giovanni Pietro Riz...
Category
19th Century Old Masters Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Oil, Wood Panel
Maravillas con variaciones acrósticas en el jardín de Miró, 1975, (VI/XV)
By Joan Miró
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Joan Miró produced this original color lithograph especially for Rafael Alberti's text 'Maravillas con Variaciones Acrósticas en el Jardín de Miró' (Wonders with Acrostic Variations ...
Category
Late 20th Century Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
Tapies Mid-Century Dau al Set Dada Spain Abstract Surrealism Dark Monster Signed
By Antoni Tàpies
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Sarpta" is an original oil on canvas painting created by Antoni Tapies. This is a fantastically dark mid-century abstract painting. There is a monstrous figure barely visible on the left side of the painting. Also a sinister face breathing smoke out of the right side of the painting. This piece is perfect for a collector that enjoys a more avantgarde style. Tapies signed...
Category
Mid-20th Century Surrealist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Kees Van Dongen Circus Performers 1900s Vintage Vibrant Figure Fauvist Signed
By Kees van Dongen
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Les Artistes du Cirque" is an original painting in ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper by leading Fauvist artist Kees Van Dongen, signed in the lower right. In the piece, two circus performers stand against against a wall. On the left, a pale woman in a blue leotard with red flowers on the shoulder stands with her arms crossed, looking out at the viewer. The painter fills in her tights with delicate white brushstrokes, lending them an almost iridescent appearance. Her strawberry blond hair is piled on top of her hair according to the fashion of the period. On the right, an African man stands in a vivid orange toga, looking somewhere off to the left. His feet are clad in bright white shoes...
Category
Early 1900s Fauvist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Paper, Ink, Watercolor, Gouache
17th century etching Rembrandt landscape house trees field sky cow
By Rembrandt van Rijn
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This piece is from a collection of originally designed etchings with drypoints by Rembrandt. It is printed on Ingres D'arches off-white laid paper. The prints are the sixth and final state Posthumous Impression. Printing plates were made in 1650, this collection was printed in 1998.
Rembrandt van Rijn was one of the masters of the landscape genre in his prints and drawings. In his etching, "Landscape with a Cow...
Category
17th Century Renaissance Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Etching
'Preoccupied' original signed Shona stone sculpture by Colleen Madamombe
By Colleen Madamombe
Located in Milwaukee, WI
'Preoccupied' is an original black serpentine sculpture by the celebrated second generation Shona artist Colleen Madamombe. The sculpture presents a character common to Madamombe's w...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Stone
"Urban Scene" Original Painted Steel Sculpture by: Ralph Wickstrom
By Ralph Wickstrom
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Urban Scene" is a painted steel sculpture by Ralph Wickstrom created in 1997. Deceivingly thin the sculpture is made up of straight lines and right angles...
Category
1990s Abstract Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Steel
20th century color lithograph poster cartoon Snoopy animal print dog bird text
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Snoopy Come Home" is an original lithograph poster by Charles Schulz. It features the popular characters from Peanuts, Snoopy and Woodstock, on top of ...
Category
1970s Pop Art Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Family of Six, " Original Lithograph signed by John Thomas Biggers
By John Thomas Biggers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Family of Six" is an original black and white lithograph by John Biggers. The artist signed and dated the piece in the lower right and titled and editioned it (AP III) in the lower ...
Category
1980s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"White Calf, " Farm Genre Scene Original Lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton
By Thomas Hart Benton
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"White Calf" is an original lithograph print by Thomas Hart benton. It features the image of a man milking a cow while her calf lays down in front. Benton's breathtaking way of rende...
Category
1940s American Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"La Reconnaissance Infinie (The Infinite Recognition)" Litho after Rene Magritte
By René Magritte
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Reconnaissance Infinie (The Infinite Recognition)" is a color lithograph after the 1963 painting by Rene Magritte. Two of Magritte's bourgeois "littl...
Category
2010s Surrealist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
'Cock Fight in Cuba' original Regionalist painting signed by John Steuart Curry
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Steuart Curry
"Cockfight in Cuba," 1946
oil on canvas
Image: 38.25 x 46.25 in
Frame: 43.75 x 51.5 in
Signed on reverse with initials JSC on lower right stretcher bar
John Steu...
Category
1940s American Realist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Persian Illuminated Miniature with Two Figures Hunting in a Landscape
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The present illuminated page was once part of a larger manuscript, as evidenced by the tears along the right edge, illustrating a story from the Islamic world. The scene presents two figures in a landscape, one on horseback and another gesturing to a fallen deer. The stylization of the landscape shows influence from the Byzantine tradition of painting, with jagged rocks jutting into a golden sky. The page contains handwritten text on both sides, and is surrounded by gold illustrations of peacocks and a running deer.
11 x 6.5 inches, artwork
18.63 x 14 inches, frame
accompanied on the back with an image of the verso
framed to conservation standards with a 100% rag silk-lined mat in a gold gilded frame
A Persian miniature is a small Persian painting on paper, whether a book illustration or a separate work of art intended to be kept in an album of such works called a muraqqa. The techniques are broadly comparable to the Western and Byzantine traditions of miniatures in illuminated manuscripts. Although there is an equally well-established Persian tradition of wall-painting, the survival rate and state of preservation of miniatures is better, and miniatures are much the best-known form of Persian painting in the West, and many of the most important examples are in Western, or Turkish, museums. Miniature painting became a significant genre in Persian art in the 13th century, receiving Chinese influence after the Mongol conquests, and the highest point in the tradition was reached in the 15th and 16th centuries. The tradition continued, under some Western influence, after this, and has many modern exponents. The Persian miniature was the dominant influence on other Islamic miniature traditions, principally the Ottoman miniature...
Category
19th Century Other Art Style Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Gold Leaf
'Forest at Fountainbleau' Original Oil Painting on Board from Barbizon School
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This small painting of the Forest at Fontainebleau in France is an excellent example of the Barbizon School. The Barbizon School of artists were working in France roughly between 182...
Category
Mid-19th Century Barbizon School Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Oil, Board
Koi Fish Water Motion Movement Neo Impressionism Realism Contemporary Signed
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Koi" is an original oil painting on canvas created by Thomas Buchs.
Artwork Size: 36" x 36"
Artist Statement:
"I attended Layton School of Art and bec...
Category
2010s American Impressionist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
19th century woodcut engraving print figurative American forest trees scene
By Winslow Homer
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The present woodcut engraving is an original print designed by Winslow Homer, originally published in Harper's Weekly on April 30, 1859. It is an excellent example of the many prints Homer produced of fashionable people engaged in leisurely activities, in this case along a picturesque countryside lane. The sign reading 'Belmont' on the left indicates this is probably near his home in Belmont Massachusetts. The image presents multiple figures, both men and women, riding horseback: Some in the distance gallop away, toward a town marked by a church steeple beyond. Three others in the foreground, including two equestrian women, gather around a group of children who have been gathering flowers and trapping birds...
Category
1850s Victorian Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Woodcut, Engraving
Abstract color lithograph 20th century poster signed
By Joan Miró
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Galerie Maeght Miro" is an original color lithograph poster with art by Joan Miro. It was printed by Maeght Editeur Imprimeur in 1970. The poster showcase...
Category
1970s Surrealist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
Homage a Leonardo d'Vinci (Battle Scene I from De La Bataille Vol. I)
By Claude Weisbuch
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Art: 17" x 23 1/4"
Frame: 27 5/8" x 33 7/8"
Original color lithograph (VIII/L)
Signed lower right.
This original Weisbuch lithograph comes from th...
Category
1970s Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Sideways Glance, " Portrait Oil on Wood signed on Back by Robert Richter
By Robert Richter
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Sideways Glance" is an original oil painting on wood by Robert Richter. The artist signed the piece on the back. This artwork features a woman with long red hair glancing behind her over her shoulder. The artist hand-carved the frame to become an integral part of the artwork.
8" x 9" art
15 5/8" x 15 1/2" frame
Artist's Statement:
"I was born in Milwaukee over half-a-century ago in the year of the horse...
Category
2010s Outsider Art Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Wood, Oil
Nude Oil Female Figures Women Realism Expressionism Contemporary Sensual Signed
By Alicia Czechowski
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"The Sauna" is an original oil painting on canvas signed by the artist Alicia Czechowski. It depicts six nude female figures lounging in a sauna. These figures have a wide variety of...
Category
1980s Realist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Oil
'Sketching Wisconsin' original oil painting, Signed
By John Steuart Curry
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Steuart Curry
"Sketching Wisconsin," 1946
oil on canvas
31.13 x 28 inches, canvas
39.75 x 36.75 x 2.5 inches, frame
Signed and dated lower right
Overall excellent condition
Presented in a 24-karat gold leaf hand-carved wood frame
John Steuart Curry (1897-1946) was an American regionalist painter active during the Great Depression and into World War II. He was born in Kansas on his family’s farm but went on to study art in Chicago, Paris and New York as young man. In Paris, he was exposed to the work of masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Eugène Delacroix and Jacques-Louis David. As he matured, his work showed the influence of these masters, especially in his compositional decisions. Like the two other Midwestern regionalist artists that are most often grouped with him, Grant Wood (American, 1891-1942) and Thomas Hart Benton (American, 1889-1975), Curry was interested in representational works containing distinctly American subject matter. This was contrary to the popular art at the time, which was moving closer and closer to abstraction and individual expression.
Sketching Wisconsin is an oil painting completed in 1946, the last year of John Steuart Curry’s life, during which time he was the artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. The painting is significant in Curry’s body of work both as a very revealing self-portrait, and as a landscape that clearly and sensitively depicts the scenery of southern Wisconsin near Madison. It is also a portrait of the artist’s second wife, Kathleen Gould Curry, and is unique in that it contains a ‘picture within a picture,’ a compositional element that many early painting masters used to draw the eye of the viewer. This particular artwork adds a new twist to this theme: Curry’s wife is creating essentially the same painting the viewer is looking at when viewing Sketching Wisconsin.
The triangular composition of the figures in the foreground immediately brings focus to a younger Curry, whose head penetrates the horizon line and whose gaze looks out towards the viewer. The eye then moves down to Mrs. Curry, who, seated on a folding stool and with her hand raised to paint the canvas on the easel before her, anchors the triangular composition. The shape is repeated in the legs of the stool and the easel. Behind the two figures, stripes of furrowed fields fall away gently down the hillside to a farmstead and small lake below. Beyond the lake, patches of field and forest rise and fall into the distance, and eventually give way to blue hills.
Here, Curry has subverted the traditional artist’s self-portrait by portraying himself as a farmer first and an artist second. He rejects what he sees as an elitist art world of the East Coast and Europe. In this self-portrait he depicts himself without any pretense or the instruments of his profession and with a red tractor standing in the field behind him as if he was taking a break from the field work. Here, Curry’s wife symbolizes John Steuart Curry’s identity as an artist. Compared with a self-portrait of the artist completed a decade earlier, this work shows a marked departure from how the artist previously presented and viewed himself. In the earlier portrait, Curry depicted himself in the studio with brushes in hand, and with some of his more recognizable and successful canvases behind him. But in Sketching Wisconsin, Curry has taken himself out of the studio and into the field, indicating a shift in the artist’s self-conception.
Sketching Wisconsin’s rural subject also expresses Curry’s populist ideals, that art could be relevant to anyone. This followed the broad educational objectives of UW’s artist-in-residence program. Curry was appointed to his position at the University of Wisconsin in 1937 and was the first person to hold any such position in the country, the purpose of which was to serve as an educational resource to the people of the state. He embraced his role at the University with zeal and not only opened the doors of his campus studio in the School of Agriculture to the community, but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the state of Wisconsin to visit rural artists who could benefit from his expertise. It was during his ten years in the program that Curry was able to put into practice his belief that art should be meaningful to the rural populace. However, during this time he also struggled with public criticism, as the dominant forces of the art market were moving away from representation. Perhaps it was Curry’s desire for public acceptance during the latter part of his career that caused him to portray himself as an Everyman in Sketching Wisconsin.
Beyond its importance as a portrait of the artist, Sketching Wisconsin is also a detailed and sensitive landscape that shows us Curry’s deep personal connection to his environment. The landscape here can be compared to Wisconsin Landscape of 1938-39 (the Metropolitan Museum of Art), which presents a similar tableau of rolling hills with a patchwork of fields. Like Wisconsin Landscape, this is an incredibly detailed and expressive depiction of a place close to the artist’s heart. This expressive landscape is certainly the result of many hours spent sketching people, animals, weather conditions and topography of Wisconsin as Curry traveled around the state. The backdrop of undulating hills and the sweeping horizon, and the emotions evoked by it, are emphatically recognizable as the ‘driftless’ area of south-central Wisconsin. But while the Metropolitan’s Wisconsin Landscape conveys a sense of uncertainty or foreboding with its dramatic spring cloudscape and alternating bands of light and dark, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm and reflective mood. The colors of the foliage indicate that it is late summer and Curry seems to look out at the viewer approvingly, as if satisfied with the fertile ground surrounding him.
The landscape in Sketching Wisconsin is also revealing of what became one of Curry’s passions while artist-in-residence at UW’s School of Agriculture – soil conservation. When Curry was a child in Kansas, he saw his father almost lose his farm and its soil to the erosion of The Dust Bowl. Therefore, he was very enthusiastic about ideas from UW’s School of Agriculture on soil conservation methods being used on Wisconsin farms. In Sketching Wisconsin, we see evidence of crop rotation methods in the terraced stripes of fields leading down the hillside away from the Curry’s and in how they alternate between cultivated and fallow fields.
Overall, Sketching Wisconsin has a warm, reflective, and comfortably pastoral atmosphere, and the perceived shift in Curry’s self-image that is evident in the portrait is a positive one. After his rise to favor in the art world in the 1930’s, and then rejection from it due to the strong beliefs presented in his art, Curry is satisfied and proud to be farmer in this self-portrait. Curry suffered from high blood...
Category
1940s American Realist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
Friendship by Barbara Schaumann - Contemporary Abstract Cubistic Painting
Located in DE
Barber Schaumann is a contemporary artist known for her vibrant, abstract interpretations of the female form. Her work combines bold colors with modern, geometric shapes, blending el...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Canvas, Oil
"Derriere Le Miroir, " Three Original Color Lithographs by Saul Steinberg
By Saul Steinberg
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Derriere Le Miroir" is an original color lithograph signed by the artist Saul Steinberg. The artist's signature is in the bottom left margin.
Image Size: 14"x20"
Frame Size: 25 5/8...
Category
1970s American Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph, Paper
'Blue Sea Square Vase' original blue hand-blown glass vase signed by Ioan Nemtoi
By Ioan Nemtoi
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This hand-blown square vase by Ioan Nemtoi could easily be the centerpiece of any collection of glass art. Nemtoi's incorporation of gestural composition techniques derived from Abstract Expressionism into his glass work yields a dazzling array of colors when this vase is illuminated from the inside.
Hand-blown glass
13.25 x 7.4375 x 7.25 inches
Signed 'Nemtoi' along the base
Ioan Nemtoi was born in 1964 on a farm in Trusesti near Dorohoi, in North-Eastern Romania, as the eldest son of a large family. When Nemtoi was in the fifth grade, one of his teachers noticed his artistic talent and sent him to art school. Later he went on to the art branch...
Category
1990s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Glass, Blown Glass
"La Page Blanche (The White Page)" lithograph after painting by Rene Magritte
By René Magritte
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Page Blanche," or in English "The White Page," is an original color lithograph executed after the original painting from 1967 by the Belgian Surrealist...
Category
2010s Surrealist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
Jusqu'a L'Abstraction' color lithograph poster Wassily Kandinsky
By Wassily Kandinsky
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Jusqu'a L'Abstraction" is a lithograph poster by Wassily Kandinsky. This poster depicts abstract forms in purple, pink, blue, and black and was created for the Maeght gallery in Par...
Category
1940s Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Carte de Voeux #731, " Lithograph by Marc Chagall in Chagall Catalog Raisonne
By Marc Chagall
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Carte de Voeux #731" is an original lithograph greeting card by Marc Chagall. It is in the Chagall Catalogue Raisonne and is from a rare edition of only 200. It depicts a face and a bird in Chagall's signature whimsical modernist style.
5 1/2" x 4 1/4" art
21" x 18 1/4" frame
Marc Chagall was born in Liozno, near Vitebsk, now in Belarus, the eldest of nine children in a close-knit Jewish family led by his father Khatskl (Zakhar) Shagal, a herring merchant, and his mother, Feige-Ite. This period of his life, described as happy though impoverished, appears in references throughout Chagall's work. The family home on Pokrovskaya Street is now the Marc Chagall Museum...
Category
1970s Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lucite, Lithograph
"Mujer de Cajamarca, " Oil Painting on Jute signed by Ernesto Gutierrez
By Ernesto Gutierrez (b.1941)
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Mujer de Cajamarca" is an original oil painting on jute by Ernesto Gutierrez. The artist signed the piece in the lower right. It depicts a woman seated in front of an archway.
16"...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Jute, Oil
"L'Artist Phoenix Poster, " an Original Colored Lithograph Poster by Marc Chagall
By Marc Chagall
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Marc Chagall "L'Artist Phoenix Poster" for Galerie Maeght from 1972. It is from the edition of 5000.
30 1/2" x 20" art
40 1/2" x 32 1/4" frame
Marc Ch...
Category
1970s Expressionist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
'Elephant' original African Shona stone sculpture Zimbabwe
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This small and intimate sculpture of an elephant is a heartfelt and doting example of the sculpture of the Shona artists of Zimbabwe, but also demonstrates the clever use of the texture of the stone. The sculpture is stylized, though more naturalistic than many of the sculptures of the Shona artists. The elephant leans backward and reaches its trunk into the air. The use of texture on its body is ingenious, using a series of crossing lines to create a rough surface that mimics the appearance of real elephant skin, adding a lifelike effect to the stationary stone.
Unknown Shona artist
'Elephant,' late 20th century
springstone
4.5 x 3.87 x 1.63 inches
Overall excellent condition; some minor surface abrasions
Shona artists and crafts people have been working in different media for generations. These include paintings, pottery, basket ware, wood carvings, and sculpture done in metal as well as the stone carvings. While there is not a long standing tradition of sculpture in what is now Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia), stone carvings dating from the 15th century were seen in Great Zimbabwe, an excavated temple near Bulawayo. Most of the artifacts from this location have been moved to museums in Cape Town, South Africa or London.
It is generally agreed that Zimbabwean stone sculpture...
Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Stone
"Paricutin (Volcano in Michoacan, Mexico)" Woodcut & Monotype signed by Summers
By Carol Summers
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Paricutin (Volcano in Michoacan, Mexico)" is a woodcut and monotype signed by Carol Summers. In the image, an abstracted volcano erupts in a joyous burst of purples and oranges. The playfulness of the image is enhanced by Summers' signature printmaking technique, which allows the ink from the woodblock to seep through the paper, blurring the edges of each form.
Art: 8 x 11 in
Frame: 17 x 19 in
Carol Summers (1925-2016) has worked as an artist throughout the second half of the 20th century and into the first years of the next, outliving most of his mid-century modernist peers. Initially trained as a painter, Summers was drawn to color woodcuts around 1950 and it became his specialty thereafter. Over the years he has developed a process and style that is both innovative and readily recognizable. His art is known for it’s large scale, saturated fields of bold color, semi-abstract treatment of landscapes from around the world and a luminescent quality achieved through a printmaking process he invented.
In a career that has extended over half a century, Summers has hand-pulled approximately 245 woodcuts in editions that have typically run from 25 to 100 in number. His talent was both inherited and learned. Born in 1925 in Kingston, a small town in upstate New York, Summers was raised in nearby Woodstock with his older sister, Mary. His parents were both artists who had met in art school in St. Louis. During the Great Depression, when Carol was growing up, his father supported the family as a medical illustrator until he could return to painting. His mother was a watercolorist and also quite knowledgeable about the different kinds of papers used for various kinds of painting. Many years later, Summers would paint or print on thinly textured paper originally collected by his mother.
From 1948 to 1951, Carol Summers trained in the classical fine and studio arts at Bard College and at the Art Students League of New York. He studied painting with Steven Hirsh and printmaking with Louis Schanker. He admired the shapes and colors favored by early modernists Paul Klee (Sw: 1879-1940) and Matt Phillips (Am: b.1927- ). After graduating, Summers quit working as a part-time carpenter and cabinetmaker (which had supported his schooling and living expenses) to focus fulltime on art. That same year, an early abstract, Bridge No. 1 was selected for a Purchase Prize in a competition sponsored by the Brooklyn Museum.
In 1952, his work (Cathedral, Construction and Icarus) was shown the first time at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in an exhibition of American woodcuts. In 1954, Summers received a grant from the Italian government to study for a year in Italy. Woodcuts completed soon after his arrival there were almost all editions of only 8 to 25 prints, small in size, architectural in content and black and white in color. The most well-known are Siennese Landscape and Little Landscape, which depicted the area near where he resided. Summers extended this trip three more years, a decision which would have significant impact on choices of subject matter and color in the coming decade.
After returning from Europe, Summers’ images continued to feature historical landmarks and events from Italy as well as from France, Spain and Greece. However, as evidenced in Aetna’s Dream, Worldwind and Arch of Triumph, a new look prevailed. These woodcuts were larger in size and in color. Some incorporated metal leaf in the creation of a collage and Summers even experimented with silkscreening. Editions were now between 20 and 50 prints in number. Most importantly, Summers employed his rubbing technique for the first time in the creation of Fantastic Garden in late 1957.
Dark Vision of Xerxes, a benchmark for Summers, was the first woodcut where Summers experimented using mineral spirits as part of his printmaking process. A Fulbright Grant as well as Fellowships from the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation and the Guggenheim Foundation followed soon thereafter, as did faculty positions at colleges and universities primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. During this period he married a dancer named Elaine Smithers with whom he had one son, Kyle. Around this same time, along with fellow artist Leonard Baskin, Summers pioneered what is now referred to as the “monumental” woodcut. This term was coined in the early 1960s to denote woodcuts that were dramatically bigger than those previously created in earlier years, ones that were limited in size mostly by the size of small hand-presses. While Baskin chose figurative subject matter, serious in nature and rendered with thick, striated lines, Summers rendered much less somber images preferring to emphasize shape and color; his subject matter approached abstraction but was always firmly rooted in the landscape.
In addition to working in this new, larger scale, Summers simultaneously refined a printmaking process which would eventually be called the “Carol Summers Method” or the “ Carol Summers Technique”. Summers produces his woodcuts by hand, usually from one or more blocks of quarter-inch pine, using oil-based printing inks and porous mulberry papers. His woodcuts reveal a sensitivity to wood especially its absorptive qualities and the subtleties of the grain. In several of his woodcuts throughout his career he has used the undulating, grainy patterns of a large wood plank to portray a flowing river or tumbling waterfall. The best examples of this are Dream, done in 1965 and the later Flash Flood Escalante, in 2003. In the majority of his woodcuts, Summers makes the blocks slightly larger than the paper so the image and color will bleed off the edge.
Before printing, he centers a dry sheet of paper over the top of the cut wood block or blocks, securing it with giant clips. Then he rolls the ink directly on the front of the sheet of paper and pressing down onto the dry wood block or reassembled group of blocks. Summers is technically very proficient; the inks are thoroughly saturated onto the surface of the paper but they do not run into each other. The precision of the color inking in Constantine’s Dream in 1969 and Rainbow Glacier in 1970 has been referred to in various studio handbooks. Summers refers to his own printing technique as “rubbing”. In traditional woodcut printing, including the Japanese method, the ink is applied directly onto the block. However, by following his own method, Summers has avoided the mirror-reversed image of a conventional print and it has given him the control over the precise amount of ink that he wants on the paper. After the ink is applied to the front of the paper, Summers sprays it with mineral spirits, which act as a thinning agent. The absorptive fibers of the paper draw the thinned ink away from the surface softening the shapes and diffusing and muting the colors. This produces a unique glow that is a hallmark of the Summers printmaking technique. Unlike the works of other color field artists or modernists of the time, this new technique made Summers’ extreme simplification and flat color areas anything but hard-edged or coldly impersonal.
By the 1960s, Summers had developed a personal way of coloring and printing and was not afraid of hard work, doing the cutting, inking and pulling himself. In 1964, at the age of 38, Summers’ work was exhibited for a second time at the Museum of Modern Art. This time his work was featured in a one-man show and then as one of MoMA’s two-year traveling exhibitions which toured throughout the United States. In subsequent years, Summers’ works would be exhibited and acquired for the permanent collections of multiple museums throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Summers’ familiarity with landscapes throughout the world is firsthand. As a navigator-bombardier in the Marines in World War II, he toured the South Pacific and Asia.
Following college, travel in Europe and subsequent teaching positions, in 1972, after 47 years on the East Coast, Carol Summers moved permanently to Bonny Doon in the Santa Cruz Mountains in Northern California. There met his second wife, Joan Ward Toth, a textile artist who died in 1998; and it was here his second son, Ethan was born. During the years that followed this relocation, Summers’ choice of subject matter became more diverse although it retained the positive, mostly life-affirming quality that had existed from the beginning. Images now included moons, comets, both sunny and starry skies, hearts and flowers, all of which, in one way or another, remained tied to the landscape.
In the 1980s, from his home and studio in the Santa Cruz mountains, Summers continued to work as an artist supplementing his income by conducting classes and workshops at universities in California and Oregon as well as throughout the Mid and Southwest. He also traveled extensively during this period hiking and camping, often for weeks at a time, throughout the western United States and Canada. Throughout the decade it was not unusual for Summers to backpack alone or with a fellow artist into mountains or back country for six weeks or more at a time. Not surprisingly, the artwork created during this period rarely departed from images of the land, sea and sky. Summers rendered these landscapes in a more representational style than before, however he always kept them somewhat abstract by mixing geometric shapes with organic shapes, irregular in outline. Some of his most critically acknowledged work was created during this period including First Rain, 1985 and The Rolling Sea, 1989. Summers received an honorary doctorate from his alma mater, Bard College in 1979 and was selected by the United States Information Agency to spend a year conducting painting and printmaking workshops at universities throughout India. Since that original sabbatical, he has returned every year, spending four to eight weeks traveling throughout that country.
In the 1990s, interspersed with these journeys to India have been additional treks to the back roads and high country areas of Mexico, Central America, Nepal, China and Japan. Travel to these exotic and faraway places had a profound influence on Summers’ art. Subject matter became more worldly and non-western as with From Humla to Dolpo, 1991 or A Former Life of Budha, 1996, for example. Architectural images, such as The Pillars of Hercules, 1990 or The Raja’s Aviary, 1992 became more common. Still life images made a reappearance with Jungle Bouquet in 1997. This was also a period when Summers began using odd-sized paper to further the impact of an image.
The 1996 Night, a view of the earth and horizon as it might be seen by an astronaut, is over six feet long and only slightly more than a foot-and-a-half high. From 1999, Revuelta A Vida (Spanish for “Return to Life”) is pie-shaped and covers nearly 18 cubic feet. It was also at this juncture that Summers began to experiment with a somewhat different palette although he retained his love of saturated colors. The 2003 Far Side of Time is a superb example of the new direction taken by this colorist.
At the turn of the millennium in 1999, “Carol Summers Woodcuts...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Monotype, Woodcut
17th century etching animal print sketch ram sheep black and white signed
By Karel Dujardin
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Two Rams Looking Down & To Their Left" is an original etching by Karel DuJardin. DuJardin completed many delicate etchings of rams.
3 3/4" x 7 3/4" art
16 3/8" x 19 1/2" frame
Du Jardin was a master of various genres of painting, including refined and tranquil Italianising landscapes, monumental historical paintings and superb portraits of the aristocracy.
Unlike the majority of his contemporaries, Karel du Jardin (b. Amsterdam 1626, d. Venice 1678) was a talented painter in not one, but many different genres. He is especially famous for his small-scale landscapes, such as the charming Italian landscape with a woman milking a goa" (1652) from the Rijksmuseum's collection. Du Jardin depicted both sun-filled Italianate scenes and Dutch farmyards with pigs and sheep. He also painted a range of elegant portraits of aristocrats and merchants. His self-portrait (1662) on copper is one of the most fascinating 17th-century portraits of a Dutch artist. Du Jardin's spectacular large-scale historical pieces, represented is the show by the impressive Conversion of Saint Pau" (1662) from the collection of the National Gallery of London, are among his most remarkable achievements; he often chose themes that were only rarely depicted by other Dutch painters of the period.
During his own lifetime Du Jardin was praised by poets and writers, particularly for his attention to detail and elegant painting technique. As Cornelis de Bie, the artist’s biographer, wrote in 1661: "the surety of the brush at his finger and such sharpe clarity […] that the eye thereon doth linger." Du Jardin's valuable paintings were mainly purchased by rich individuals with an eye for elegance, but were also commissioned by prominent institutions such as the Amsterdam 'Spinhuis' (a women's prison), for whom he painted a vast group portrait of the prison-governors.
Karel du Jardin was an artist who liked to travel. He lived for a time in Lyon and in Paris, and sailed with Joan Reynst, Heer van Drakestein, by ship via England, Portugal and Spain to Tangier and Algiers, where they met Michiel de Ruyter...
Category
17th Century Old Masters Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Etching
"Kente Cloth Ashanti Tribe, Ghana, " Silk and Cotton Weaving created circa 1970
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This silk and cotton fabric was made by an unknown Ashanti artist. It features green and orange accents. The Ashanti are a major ethnic group of the Akans in Ghana, a fairly new nation, barely more than 50 years old. Ghana, previously the Gold Coast, was a British colony until 1957. It is now politically separated into four main parts. Ashanti is in the center and Kumasi is the capital.
The Ashanti have a wide variety of arts. Bark cloth was used for clothing before weaving was introduced. With weaving, there is cotton and silk. Women may pick cotton...
Category
1970s Folk Art Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Cotton, Silk
"Tribal Cloth, Ewe Ghana, " Multicolored Cotton Textile created circa 1965
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The Ewe people from Ghana are master weavers. People of means commission cloths called adanudo ("skilled/wise cloths"). Ewe adanudo textiles often display a tweed effect by twisting ...
Category
1960s Folk Art Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Cotton
"Handmade 22K Gold Leaf Photo Frame, " Wood 5 x 7 in created in Romania
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This photo frame was hand-made in Romania and features 22K gold leafing. It is made out of wood and includes archival plexiglass to protect anything displayed in it from fading or ot...
Category
2010s Other Art Style Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Gold Leaf
'Teacher or Preacher' original signed Shona stone sculpture by Colleen Madamombe
By Colleen Madamombe
Located in Milwaukee, WI
'Teacher or Preacher' is an original black serpentine sculpture by the celebrated second generation Shona artist Colleen Madamombe. The sculpture presents a character common to Madam...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Stone
Deal Breaker by Laura Petrovich Cheney Contemporary Geometric Wood Artwork
Located in DE
This artwork embodies a profound sense of freedom in both exploration and expression. While creating it, my focus was on its aesthetic qualities. The harmonious arrangement of vibran...
Category
2010s Abstract Geometric Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Wood, Paint
Original Lithograph Native American Female Figure Mystery Secret Society Signed
By Leonard Baskin
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Cheyenne Woman in the Robes of a Secret Society" is an original lithograph by Leonard Baskin. It depicts a Native American woman in pale green robes. The title is written on the lef...
Category
1990s Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph, Ink
Road Runner
Located in Milwaukee, WI
John Hallett is a Wisconsin-based veterinarian-turned-artist.
Edition 1/10
Signed on bottom
Category
21st Century and Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Bronze
20th century lithograph figurative print male subjects hats dark scene signed
By Claude Weisbuch
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Five Dutchmen with Hats" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (EA 15/30) in the lower left. This piece ...
Category
1970s Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph, Paper
'Babylone d'Allemagne' original lithograph poster by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
By Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Located in Milwaukee, WI
'Babylone d'Allemagne' or 'German Babylon' is an original lithograph poster by the lauded artist of the Art Nouveau style Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. This is the second poster that La...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Paper, Lithograph
"Original Lithograph XI" from Miro Lithographs II, Maeght Publisher by Joan Miró
By Joan Miró
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Original Lithograph XI" is an original color lithograph by Joan Miro, published in "Miro Lithographs II, Maeght Publisher" in 1975. It depicts Miro's signature biomorphic abstract s...
Category
1970s Abstract Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
19th century color lithograph horses chariot figures dynamic landscape
By Currier & Ives
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Fast Trotting in the West (Milwaukee Race)" is an original hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives. It depicts two horses pulling racing carts. The text below the picture reads "Fast Trotting in the West...Lucy and Goldsmith Maid...trotting their closely contested race over the cold spring course Milwaukee, Wis. Sept. 6th 1871...Where Goldsmith Maid won the 2nd heat in 2:17!! The fastest Mile heat in harness on record. Purse $4000 $2500 to 1st $1500 to 2nd horse____ 8 in. in harness. TIME 2:20 1/2 2:17 2:20"
16 3/4" x 26" image
22" x 27 3/4" paper
35 3/4" x 41 7/8" frame
Currier & Ives produced their prints in a building at 33 Spruce Street where they occupied the third, fourth and fifth floors. The third floor was devoted to the hand operated printing presses that were built by Nat's cousin, Cyrus Currier, at his shop Cyrus Currier & Sons in Newark, NJ. The fourth floor found the artists, lithographers and the stone grinders...
Category
1870s Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Fabric - Ashanti Tribal Cloth, " Silk Weaving from Africa circa 1930
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Among the most well-known West African textiles is kente cloth, woven by the Ewe and Asante peoples of Ghana. The word kente is not used by the Asante people; it may be derived from ...
Category
1930s Folk Art Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Silk
"Bobo Mask Burkina Fasso-Upper Volta, " Carved & Painted Wood created c. 1945
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Bobo Mask Burkina Fasso-Upper Volta" is a wood carved sculpture with painted details. It features the image of an abstracted face with a large almost elepha...
Category
1940s Tribal Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Wood
June
By Harold Altman
Located in Milwaukee, WI
Harold Altman was born in New York City in 1924. He attended the Art Students League, the Black Mountain College, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Paris, and was a graduate of ...
Category
Late 20th Century Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Italian Desserts, " Etching signed by Wayne Thiebaud
By Wayne Thiebaud
Located in Milwaukee, WI
An etching in red by American pop artist Wayne Thiebaud depicting six Italian desserts. This is #16 from the edition of 50. It is signed and dated in pencil lower right, and numbered...
Category
1970s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Etching
"L'oiseau de sables (Bird of the Sands)" contemporary animal bright signed
By Georges Braque
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"L'oiseau de sables" ("Bird of the Sands") is an original signed lithograph by Georges Braque executed in 1962. It is 37 of an edition of 125. The work is one of five lithographs cre...
Category
1960s Fauvist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Printer's Ink, Lithograph
"La Lecon du Professor Tulp, " Original Lithograph signed by Claude Weisbuch
By Claude Weisbuch
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"La Lecon Du Professor Tulp" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (126/320) in the lower left. This piec...
Category
1970s Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Lithograph
"Triplets (C-25), " Black Serpentine Stone Sculpture signed by Colleen Madamombe
By Colleen Madamombe
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Triplets (C-25)" is an original black serpentine sculpture by Colleen Madamombe. The artist signed the piece. This artwork features three women in large, textured dresses, gesturing and standing close to one another.
9 1/2" x 13" x 8" art
Colleen Madamombe was born in 1964 in Harare, Zimbabwe. Considered to be among the finest new talents from Zimbabwe, she has won the award of Best Female Artist of Zimbabwe for the past three consecutive years, and is quickly becoming an established figure of the Second Generation of Zimbabwean stone...
Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Stone
20th century drypoint etching figurative animal print horses sketch signed
By Claude Weisbuch
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Combat Equestre" is an original lithograph by Claude Weisbuch. The artist signed the piece lower right and wrote the edition number (24/100) in the lower left. This piece depicts mu...
Category
1970s Modern Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Drypoint, Etching
19th century etching black and white seascape print boats water buildings signed
By Thomas Moran
Located in Milwaukee, WI
This black and white etching by American painter and print maker of the Hudson River School in New York: Thomas Moran, is a rare Klackner #53 of the catalogue raisonné, depicting "The Harbor of Vera...
Category
1880s Hudson River School Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Parchment Paper, Etching
"Buste de Jeune Femme, " a Conte Crayon Drawing by Georges D'Espagnat
By Georges d'Espagnat
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Buste de Jeune Femme" or "Bust of a Young Woman" is an original conte crayon drawing by Georges d'Espagnat. It is initialed in the lower right. ...
Category
Early 20th Century Post-Impressionist Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Conté
18th century diptych portraits man and woman American formal dress flower
By William Jennys
Located in Milwaukee, WI
The present pair of portraits would make an exceptional addition to any collection of early American art not only because they were painted by the notable William Jennys, but also because the sitters are members of notable and influential New England families. In addition, these pendants have impeccable provenance: they have never left ownership of the decedents of the Kimball family and this is the first time they have been available for purchase.
David Kimball (1766-1848) and Nancy Stacy Kimball (1774-1844) were members of historic Massachusetts families. David Kimball is a sixth-generation decedent of Richard Kimball (d. 1675) and Ursula Scott (d. 1659), who emigrated from Rattlasden, Suffolk County, England to Watertown MA around 1634. The family then relocated in 1637 to Ipswich, the city with which the family is now most strongly identified, when Richard was appointed to be a wheelwright.[1] Nancy likewise had early New England ancestry, descended from Simon Stacy and Elizabeth Clark, who were married in London in 1620.[2]
Nancy Stacy was the second wife of David Kimball, and the two were married in 1799. Given this, the present pendant portraits were likely completed shortly after the marriage. David had two children by his first wife Mary Morse, who died in September of 1798. David and Nancy would have nine additional children between 1801 and 1815.[3]
Most notably, the couple were parents of the Boston politician and showman Moses Kimball (1809-1895).[2][3] Moses would found the Boston Museum, an early for-profit museum and theater opened in 1841 that resembled European curiosity cabinets: the museum displayed paintings of Thomas Scully and Charles Peale alongside Chinese artwork, stuffed animals, dwarves and mermaids. Alongside these exhibits, visitors could attend the theater which held performances by gymnasts and contortionists, followed by performances of Shakespeare and Dickens.[4] This museum set the model for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, which when founded in 1870 held a similarly diverse collection and appealed to the interests of a diverse set of visitors.[5] Moreover, some Greek antiquities from Moses Kimball's museum were eventually given to the MFA and Moses donated approximately $5,000 to the MFA's endowment upon his death.[6][7]
William Jennys (1774–1859), also known as J. William Jennys, is an important American primitive portrait...
Category
1790s Academic Wisconsin - Art
Materials
Oil, Canvas