Catalog: Fine Art (148)

Amedeo Modigliani, Livorno, Italy, 1884- 1920. This beautiful Cariatide is oil pencil on tan paper, apprx 16.5"H by 11.5"W, signed upper left " a Paul Modigliani", Verso original Modigliani Studio card, Gallery Bernard card and original Description label. Condition: paper laid on cardboard, edges fraying and some fading. It is likely that this is a drawing used in Modigliani's studio and that the Paul is Paul Alexander Modigliani’s Physician.

Frantesek Kupka, 1871-1957, Opocno. Bohemia, Czech, and died in France. This stunning early mordernist painting is an early and an extremely fine example of Kupka's painting. It is approximately 17"H by 13"w in a 4" frame. It is signed clearly lower right and the entire painting and signature under black light looks good with no in painting. Kupka attended the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Prague at 17 years old and the Beaux Arts in Vienna. He moved to Paris in 1895 and also won the Prix de Rome. He lived in Putreau and was also a Professor for Academie Beaux Arts de Prague for Czech art students in Paris. He was in many exhibitions and after 1910 he remained faithful to the Modernist style he is known for. This painting is from his earliest modernist period. He is held in great regard with artists such as Delauney and Picabia. Kupka's works are represented in many museums: Museum of Modern Art, Chicago Art Institute, Los Angeles, Guggenheim, Paris Museum of Modern Art, etc and his paintings sell for up to 1 Million. He has a very long listing in Benezit and has been the subject of many articles and books. A Czech painter and graphic artist, he was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement. In 1887 he began training as an artist at the Prague academy under Frantisek Sequens, who had been strongly influenced by the Nazarener School. In 1891 the artist transferred to the academy in Vienna, where he worked under Professor Eisenmenger until 1893. In 1894 Kupka traveled to London and Scandinavia, settling in Paris, France in 1895. He worked as an illustrator of books and posters and created satirical drawings for newspapers and magazines. In 1905 Kupka moved to Puteaux in the suburbs, where he got acquainted with Jacques Villon, who introduced him to a circle of painters in 1910/11, including Marcel Duchamp, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia and others. Through their discussions of Cubism, Futurism and the relationship between painting and music, Kupka's work became increasingly abstract, reflecting his theories of motion, color, and orphism. In 1909, he had exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne, with the submitted work marking a break in his representational style. In 1912, Kupka exhibited his abstract pictures, which are associated with Orphism because of their proximity to music. In 1918 Frantisek Kupka accepted a post as guest professor in Prague and in 1931 he co-founded the group 'Abstraction-Création' with Hans Arp, Jean Hélion, Auguste Herbin, Georges Valmier and Georges Vantongerloo, becoming a member of the group's board. In 1936, his work was included in the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and in an important show with another Czech painter, Alphonse Mucha, at the Jeu de Paume in Paris. Kupka spent the Second World War in Beaugency, returning to Puteaux immediately after the liberation. In 1946 at the occasion of his 75th birthday the artist's first major retrospective was shown in Prague. In 1955 Kupka participated in documenta I in Kassel, Germany.He died in Puteaux on July 21, 1957 and a year later a large-scale retrospective exhibition took place at the 'Musée d'Art Moderne' in Paris, which dedicated an entire room to Frantisek Kupka.

Oscar Florianes Bluemner (1867-1938), . The painting is 7 x 10 inches. The medium is watercolor and pencil. Provenance: The Estate of Oscar Bluemner's widow, sold to Virginia collector and then to a collector in New Jersey. Art & Antique Gallery, Inc., Worcester, MA. It may have been a preliminary painting for a larger painting titled: "Play of Barns-Red" exhibited at the Owen Gallery in 2001. (size 28 x 30 inches). I spoke with Mr. Owen about this painting to get details. The two titles are as follows: "Play of Barns-Red" (Owen Gallery) tempera on panel (Owens Exhibition 2001) next the study for the painting titled: "Red Houses on the River"

Henri Laurens, Paris, 1885-1954. Cubiste Tete de Femme is pencil and gouache on paper signed H.L. 18 LR. It is 22.3cm by 18.7cm (8.75" by 7.6". The son of a workman, Laurens trained at an early age in a decoration studio, where he modeled period-style ornaments and drew architectural designs. Afterwards Henri Laurens worked on building sites and scaffolding, where he learnt the hands-on side of hewing stone. He also regularly attended the popular evening classes in drawing taught by "Papa Perrin," who instilled in his pupils a serious attitude to craftsmanship. Laurens' first sculptures were influenced by Auguste Rodin until he met Georges Braque in 1911. After encountering Cubism*, Henri Laurens began to translate the ideas of Analytical Cubism into sculpture, polychrome bas-relief* and collages*. Picasso, who liked what Laurens was doing, introduced the fledgling sculptor to Léonce Rosenberg, who was so enthusiastic about Laurens' work that he bought some of it and supported Laurens throughout the war years. A number of terracotta* and stone reliefs Henri Laurens did not long after the war reveal the influence of Jacques Lipchitz and African sculpture. By then repudiating Cubist geometric forms, Henri Laurens again approached nature, developing an organic, curvilinear style in which he produced highly abstract, rhythmic figures - usually female nudes - that were poetic and powerful. In numerous works Henri Laurens took up themes from Greco-Roman mythology and reinterpreted them. In 1944 Henri Laurens started producing designs for La Grande Sirène, and in 1953 he did Amphion, a bronze sculpture over four meters high commissioned by the university city of Caracas, Venezuela. Henri Laurens worked over each piece individually to ensure fullness and substance. Henri Laurens was awarded the Grand Prix for sculpture at the São Paolo Biennial* in 1953. Apart from sculpture, Laurens' legacy comprises a copious graphic œuvre: woodcuts, etchings and book illustrations. Henri Laurens died in Paris on 5 May 1954.

Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Italian, 1639-1709, called Baccico or Baccicia. Italian Angels or Putti on Clouds plus a small portrait of a man is a charming example of Gaulli's work. It is 5" by 7 3/4" of pen and sepia brown ink on paper. Provenance is Leslie Hindman Auction, Collection of P Waite, English Collection until 1994, German Collection Basenge. Condition good upper life corner restored. Giovanni Battista Gaulliwas a painter of the Italian High Baroque verging onto that of the Rococo. He is best known for his grand, Gianlorenzo Bernini-influenced illusionistic vault fresco in the church of the Gesù in Rome.Gaulli was born in Genoa, where his parents died from the plague of 1657. In mid-17th century, Gaulli's Genoa was a cosmopolitan Italian artistic center open to both commercial and artistic enterprises from north European countries, including countries with non-Catholic populations such as England and the Dutch provinces. Painters such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck stayed in Genoa for a few years. Gaulli's earliest influences would have come from an eclectic mix of these foreign painters and other local artists including Valerio Castello, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Bernardo Strozzi, whose warm palette Gaulli adopted. In the 1660s, he experimented with the cooler palette and linear style of Bolognese classicism. He soon, however, moved to Rome. In 1662, he was accepted into the Roman artists' guild, the Accademia di San Luca (Academy of Saint Luke), where he was to later hold several offices. The next year, he received his first public commission for an altarpiece, in the church of San Rocco, Rome. He received many private commissions for mythological and religious works. From 1669, Gaulli's painting took on a more painterly (less linear) aspect, and the composition, organized di sotto in su ("from below looking up"), would influence his later masterpiece. At his height, Gaulli was one of Rome's most esteemed portrait painters. Gaulli is not well known for any other medium but paint, though many drawings in many media have survived. All are studies for paintings.

Gino Severini was born in Cortona, Italy on 7 April 1883 - Paris February 26, 1966. This gouache on paper is 26cm by 35.4cm ( 10.2" by 13.9" ), signed LR G. Severini. In 1899 the Italian painter, graphic artist and sculptor went to Rome in 1899 to attend evening classes at the Villa Medici. After a decisive encounter with Giacomo Balla and Umberto Boccioni he began working as an artist in 1901. Balla introduced him to the divisionistic colour technique of the Neo-Impressionists*. Gino Severini moved to Paris in 1906 where he studied the Impressionists*, was fascinated with Seurat's paintings and met Signac. Beside Modigliani, Picasso, Braque and Gris he further encountered various well-known poets and thinkers of his time. Marinetti and Boccioni invited him to join the Futurist* movement. On 11 February 1910 Severini signed the 'Manifesto of Futurist Painting' and thus became a co-founder of this style. In contrast to his artist colleagues, Severini was barely interested in the dynamic of machines, but in the depiction of human bodies in motion. His cabaret scenes and depictions of dancers were made during his period. Works such as Blue Dancer (1912) show the typical Futurist principles of faceting and simultaneous effects. Severini exhibited works in 1912 at the Futurist exhibitions in Paris, London and Berlin and developed relationships between Italy and France. The artist's work became Cubist* after 1915. From now on the artist increasingly focused on the harmony of geometric constructions such as the golden section. His favourite subjects were the still lifes with musical instruments and scenes from the Commedia dell' Arte. Between 1924 and 1935 Severini was commissioned with numerous murals and mosaics. He led an exciting life between Rome and Paris and published theoretical texts and books on art. Severini was awarded the Grand Prize of the Venice Biennale* in 1950. The divisionist concept of the picture, together with a Cubist-Futurist style, which was adopted by Balla, is typical of Severini's entire oeuvre*. He analyzed light, movement and events, which happened after one another but are linked by memory. Gino Severini died in Paris on 26 February 1966. Important works by the artist are today exhibited in Milan (Collection Gianni Mattioli) and Rotterdam (Museum Boymans-van-Beuningen).

Louis Marcoussis (Ludwig Casimir Ladislas Markus) Warsaw,Poland,1878-1941. In 1901 he entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Cracow to study painting with Jan Crzegorz Stanislawski. In 1903 Markus moved to Paris, where he worked briefly under Jules Lefebvre at the Académie Julian* and became a friend of La Fresnaye and Robert Lotiron. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne* in 1905 and at the Salon des Indépendants* in 1906, and was often represented in both salons in subsequent years.In Paris he made his living by selling caricatures* to satirical periodicals, including La Vie Parisienne and Le Journal. He frequented the cafés, such as the Rotonde, Cirque Médrano and the Ermitage, where he met Edgar Degas about 1906 and Braque, Picasso and Apollinaire in 1910. In 1907 Markus abandoned painting; when he began to paint again in 1910, he discarded his earlier Impressionist* style to adopt the new Cubist* idiom. About 1911, at the suggestion of Apollinaire, be began calling himself Marcoussis, the name of a village near Monthéry. In 1912 the artist participated in the Salon de la Section d'Or at the Galerie de la Boétie in Paris. By this time his circle included Gris, Léger, Picabia, Metzinger and Max Jacob. He served in the army from 1914 to 1919, returning to Poland for a visit after his demobilization.Marcoussis exhibited in 1921 at the gallery of Der Sturm in Berlin with Gleizes, Villon and others. He was given his first one-man show at Galerie Pierre, Paris, in 1925. This was followed by solo exhibitions in 1928 at the Galerie Le Centaure in Brussels, a city he visited on that occasion, and at the Galerie Georges Bernheim in Paris in 1929. In 1930 the artist made the first of many trips to England and ma Helena Rubinstein, who became his supporter. In 1934-35 be stayed for several months in the United States, where one-man shows of his prints opened a The Arts Club of Chicago in 1934 and Knoedler Gallery* and Co. in New York in 1935. Marcoussis worked almost exclusively in graphics from 1930 to 1937; a retrospective of his prints took place at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1936. The artist traveled in England and Italy in 1938, and during the following year was given a solo exhibition at the London Gallery in London. In 1940, as the German army advanced, Marcoussis left Paris for Cusset, near Vichy, where he died on October 22, 1941.

Henri Laurens, Paris, 1885-1954.These 4 pieces are Cubiste Head ink on paper signed LR. They are 22.8cm by 18.5cm (9" by 7.3". The son of a workman, Laurens trained at an early age in a decoration studio, where he modeled period-style ornaments and drew architectural designs. Afterwards Henri Laurens worked on building sites and scaffolding, where he learnt the hands-on side of hewing stone. He also regularly attended the popular evening classes in drawing taught by "Papa Perrin," who instilled in his pupils a serious attitude to craftsmanship. Laurens' first sculptures were influenced by Auguste Rodin until he met Georges Braque in 1911. After encountering Cubism*, Henri Laurens began to translate the ideas of Analytical Cubism into sculpture, polychrome bas-relief* and collages*. Picasso, who liked what Laurens was doing, introduced the fledgling sculptor to Léonce Rosenberg, who was so enthusiastic about Laurens' work that he bought some of it and supported Laurens throughout the war years. A number of terracotta* and stone reliefs Henri Laurens did not long after the war reveal the influence of Jacques Lipchitz and African sculpture. By then repudiating Cubist geometric forms, Henri Laurens again approached nature, developing an organic, curvilinear style in which he produced highly abstract, rhythmic figures - usually female nudes - that were poetic and powerful. In numerous works Henri Laurens took up themes from Greco-Roman mythology and reinterpreted them. In 1944 Henri Laurens started producing designs for La Grande Sirène, and in 1953 he did Amphion, a bronze sculpture over four meters high commissioned by the university city of Caracas, Venezuela. Henri Laurens worked over each piece individually to ensure fullness and substance. Henri Laurens was awarded the Grand Prix for sculpture at the São Paolo Biennial* in 1953. Apart from sculpture, Laurens' legacy comprises a copious graphic œuvre: woodcuts, etchings and book illustrations. Henri Laurens died in Paris on 5 May 1954.

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky, 1890 – 1941, better known as El Lissitzky was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian Avant Garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design. Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation).[2] Lissitzky, of Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia, a country that was undergoing massive change at the time and that had just repealed its antisemitic laws. When only 15 he started teaching; a duty he would stay with for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van abbemuseum and the leading worldwide scholars, the Lissitzky foundation was established, to preserve the artist's legacy and preparing a catalogue raisone of the artist oeuvre.

Arnold Friedman, 1874-1945, New York City. Modernist painter known for Abstract Views, Figures and Still Life. Oil on canvas, 20"H by 24"w, signed lightly LL. It is in a period frame. Provenance: Purchased from the artist by Rosenberg Gallery, Direct descent through family to present owner. Friedman is considered an extremely gifted and original American Modern painter by scholars and art historians today. He did not study art until 1905, with Robert Henri at the Art Students League in New York City. He supported himself by working in the post-office.Eleven paintings by Arnold Friedman were shown in New York City in 2002 at the Berry-Hill Galleries in the exhibition, High Notes of American Modernism: Selections from the Tommy and Gill LiPuma Collection. Friedman's paintings appeared in two exhibitions in New York City in 2003, a one-man show at the Barbara Mathes Gallery, and a survey, American Art: 1750 to the Present, at the Richard York Gallery. A comprehensive 1986 exhibition of approximately one hundred eleven paintings and some watercolors and drawings was held at the Salander-O-Reilly Galleries in New York City. The show, Arnold Friedman (1874-1946): An Exhibition: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors, gave rise to an extensive catalogue with an essay by critic Hilton Kramer.Arnold Friedman participated, from February 14-16, 1936, in the First Congress of American Artists against War and Fascism, in New York City. An extant publication records the essays of painters Stuart Davis and Peter Blume, photographer Margaret Bourke-White, sculptor Paul Manship and critic Lewis Mumford, among others, as well as the artists who attended, including painters Max Weber, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Jose Clemente Orozco, Harry Sternberg, Arnold Blanch and John Groth.

Albert Gleizes, French, 1881-1953.This vivid painting is Cubiste Composition, Gouache and pencil on heavy paper, 20.2 cm by 28.3cm (about 7 15/16" by 11.2"), signed LR ALB GLEIZES in black, Verso In Pencil, Miette Braive, Rue Chauehat (or Chauchat) Paris, Circa 1920's. Miette Braive (1916-2000) was a cubist painter in Paris in the circle of Albert Gleizes.\ Excellent Provenance upon request. His paintings sell for up to $2,709,303 and works on paper sell for up to $150,000. Initially influenced by the Impressionists, at twenty-one his work La Seine a Asnieres was exhibited at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902. With several friends in 1906 he founded the Abbaye de Creteil outside Paris. This commune of artists and writers scorned bourgeois society and sought to create nonallegorical, epic art based on modern themes. The commune closed in 1908 due to financial restraints and in 1909 he came under the influence of Fernand Leger, Robert Delauney, Jean Metzinger and later to Henri Faucconnier who led Gleizes to his cubist style. In 1910 he exhibited at the Salon des Independents, Paris and the Jack of Diamonds in Moscow. His paintings had become abstract by 1915. Galeries Daimau, Barcelona held his first one man show in 1916. Later in his career he was commissioned for murals for the Paris Worlds Fair of 1937. In 1947, a major Gleizes retrospective occurred in Lyons at the Chapelle du Lycee Ampere.

Provenance: Private Midwest Collection Leslie Hindman Auction,Private Chicago Collection Serge Petrovitch Ivanoff, born Moscow in 1893 -1983. Ivanoff studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture from 1917. In 1922 he went to Paris, escaping the Bolsheviks. From 1960 to circa 1970, he undertook several trips to the United States and eventually returned to France. He painted mostly portraits, among them some well-known names such as Paul Valéry, Eleanor Roosevelt and Pope Pius XI. .

DUFRESNE, CHARLES,(1876-1938 French) "Terreur dans la Foret", framed watercolor and pencil, approximate image size 9" x 7", frame 16" x 15", signed lower right, purchased at Galerie Stiebel, Paris Jan.15th, 1955. CONDITION: Good with bright stable colors.

Domenico Ghirlandaio, Italian, 1449-1494, Florence. Oil on panel in sepia tones. He lived when the Italian Renaissance was gathering speed and producing an astonishing succession of painters of genius. "Now that I have begun to get into the spirit of this art, I wish they would give me the walls of Florence to paint the whole circuit with stories." This is said to be Ghirlandaio's reaction to painting.popes, princes and members of the newly flourishing class of merchants. Banks gave him plenty of walls in Rome and Florence to cover with scenes from scripture and from the lives of saints. Through most of the scenes he scattered recognizable portraits of people of the day. Ghirlandaio seems to have been a born portrait artist. His full name was Domenico di Tommaso Curradi de Daffo Bigardi. Like many Renaissance painters, he began as a goldsmith, learning his trade from his father. His name is a nickname, meaning "garland maker", coming from the gold and silver garlands made in his father's shop and fashionable among Florentine ladies. The boy learned drawing by designing jewelry, and became so facile that, sitting in the shop doorway, he could catch the likenesses of passers-by. He entered the studio of Baldovenetti and became one of the most distinguished mosaicists and painters of his time. His designs were more correct and graceful than had ever been known before. He established a flourishing workshop in Florence with his two younger brothers. He had little inclination for the avant-garde of the day or for the movements we associate with Botticelli (with whom he worked at the Sistine Chapel). It is probable that Michelangelo owed more to the sound craftsmanship of Ghirlandaio, to whom he was apprenticed, than he cared to acknowledge.

Charles Ernest Butler, British, 1864-1918,Oil on Board. signed LR, Provenance:Private Collection, Leslie Hindman Auction, Private Collection, Milwaukee Born in St Leonards on Sea in 1864- 1918. He was a painter of portraits, mythological and other figure subjects, genre and landscapes. He studied at St John's Wood School of Art and at the RA Schools. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1889 right up until his death in 1918.

Abraham Bloemaert, Dutch, 1564-1651. This exquisite drawing in ink, wash and chaulk is a fine example of Bloemaert's talent. It is 13.2 cm h by 9.5 cm w.Provenance: Private Collection, Leslie Hindman Auction, Private Collection, Fine English Collection ( paper verso ). Condition is good and it has an old label from Folio fine Art LTD in London. The son of an architect, Abraham Bloemaert, known for painting, engraving and teaching, was born in Gorinchem, Holland in 1564. At age nine, he moved with his family to Utrecht where he became a pupil of Gerrit Splinter and Joos de Beer. Subsequently he studied in Paris for three years, and then returned to Holland to study with Hieronymus Francken. He was one of the "Haarlem Mannerists" from about 1585, but in the new century altered his style to fit new Baroque trends. He mostly painted history subjects and some landscapes. From 1591 to 1595, he was in Amsterdam, and then settled in Utrecht where he served as Dean of the Guild of Saint Luke, the city guild for painters and named for Saint Luke, the patron saint of artists. Of his artistic talents, it was written: "He excelled more as a colourist than as a draughtsman, was extremely productive, and painted and etched historical and allegorical pictures, landscapes, still-life, animal pictures and flower pieces." His works are in all the major museums.

Emmanuel Gondouin, French 1883-1934, Wood Cutters in French Woods. oil on canvas, signed LR & signed & dated 1930 verso, 24" by 35.5" in older frame 27" by 39". Gondouin was known for: Figures, Still life, Nature morte painting, Figurative and Cubist subjects. Emmanuel Gondouin lived in poverty in the districts of Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris. He befriended Modigliani and Zadkine. Provenance: Purchased from the artist by Rosenberg Gallery, Direct descent through family to present owner. His paintings sell for up to $50,000.

John Ulbricht, Cuba, Illinois, and working living in Majorca, Spain for many years, 1913-2007.Provenance: Private Midwest Collection, Timothy Kuehne Gallery, Estate of Robert Von Neuman, Direct Acquisition from John Ulbricht, his son-in-law. He is known for Figural, Modernist and Abstract Compositions, Paintings and Drawings. These dynamic drawings represent his early original drawings from 1946-50 when he was living in the USA: Chicago and Denver, before moving to Majorca, Spain. His early work can be considered a period of peak artistic energy and exploration. They are pencil on paper out of his original drawings books from the estate of his Father in Law Robert Von Neumann, an important Midwestern wpa artist. Ulbricht has a long and productive artistic career and is listed in Who was Who in American Art. He has a extensive gallery and exhibition record and is in many museums including The National Portrait Gallery.