Let’s seize the opportunity to reconsider this talented artist and see the fantastic value and quality of his work with fresh eyes.
This page will be updated periodically, to add images and descriptions of prints by Manuel Robbe. We will be following the order in which they were cataloged by the Merrill Chase Gallery in Chicago, IL in the 1979 and 1980. These catalogs are also referenced as Perruseaux-Kirschen. Charles Perruseaux, print curator at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France at the time. The BN as it is known to insiders is the repository of the largest collection of French print in the world, by far, numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Perruseaux helped Ivo (von) Kirschen, who was then the director of fine prints at Merrill Chase establish these valuable catalogs. Works not found in these two catalogs will refence the catalog from 1987 by Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills, where Ivo Kirschen had taken his talents to work for Michael Schartz.
The Picture Album / L’Album d’Images (Original French title)
Color etching, 1903. Reference: Merrill Chase # 2. Publisher: Edmund Sagot, Paris.
Plate size: 19 3/8 x 15 inches, 495 x 380 mm.
In Saint-Ouen / A St. Ouen (Original French title)
Color aquatint and drypoint, circa 1907. Reference: Merrill Chase # 3.
Plate size: 14 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches, 375 x 475 mm.
In a Forest on a Tandem / Au Bois en Tricycle (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, 1907. Reference: Merrill Chase # 5.
Plate size: 19 1/4 x 14 3/4 inches, 490 x 375 mm.
In the Boulogne Park / Au Bois de Boulogne (Original French title)
Color aquatint, circa 1907. Reference: Merrill Chase # 6.
Plate size: 11 3/8 x 15 1/2 inches, 289 x 394 mm.
By the Lake / Au Bord du Lac (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, circa 1906. Reference: Merrill Chase # 7.
Plate size: 19 1/4 x 14 3/4 inches, 490 x 375 mm.
Before Posing / Avant la Pose (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, circa 1907. Reference: Merrill Chase # 8.
Plate size: 19 5/8 x 14 7/8 inches, 498 x 378 mm.
The Beautiful Impression / La Belle Epreuve (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, 1905. Reference: Merrill Chase #11.
Published by Georges Petit.
Plate Size: 19 5/8 x 13 inches.
The Trinkets / Les Bibelots (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, 1909. Reference: Merrill Chase #12.
Plate Size: 19 5/8 x 13 3/8 inches / 500 x 340 millimeters.
The Librarian / La Bibliothécaire (Original French title)
Color aquatint and drypoint, 1906. Reference: Merrill Chase #13.
Published by Pierrefort.
Plate Size: 14 7/8 x 9 3/4 inches / 378 x 248 millimeters.
The Love Letter / Le Billet Doux (Original French title)
Color aquatint, c. 1901. Reference: Merrill Chase #104.
Plate Size: 13 x 8 7/8 inches.
Sagot Exhibition / Exposition chez Sagot (Original French title)
Color aquatint and etching, 1903. Reference: Merrill Chase #120.
Plate Size: 8 1/4 x 5 7/8 inches.
The Chestnut Vendor / Le Marchand de Marrons (Original French title)
Aquatint, 1911. Reference: Merrill Chase #155. Publisher: Edmund Sagot, Paris.
Plate Size: 23 5/8 x 17 ¾ inches.
It got me thinking and digging around until I found Mr. Cowley, now living happily retired in West Virginia. We got talking via email about these prints, about him and his work, and about his life. And Gil agreed to start sharing how he got to make the prints now in my possession. If you keep on reading this, not only will you get to know the story of these prints, which are associated with Cowley’s time in Paris, etching and printing at Atelier 17. You will also catch a glimpse of how artists become who they are, and how they stick with making art, or move on. Here goes. This is the story of an oeuvre created from the fall of 1963 to the spring of 1964 by an American artist living in Paris, and a bit of a look at the life of their creator, an artist named Gil Cowley.
Gil Cowley was born in Portland, Oregon, where he also grew up. He remembers enjoying drawing at a young age, designing posters to hang in his grade school hallways. A defining early influence on young Gil’s artistic trajectory, was his High School art teacher. Don Kunz (1932-2001) taught art at Grant High School for just a few years, but clearly left a mark. Cowley remembers how “in three years of his teaching there, he was able to garner approximately 12 Scholastic Magazine art school scholarship for his students, including one for me to attend the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He was such an amazing teacher, that we (his best students) all went to galleries together as a group… classical concerts…etc.”. Many of us, who are nourished by the arts, can relate with the joy of the encounter of a true mentor, someone who is so excited to grow, that they want those around them to grow just as quickly and strongly. Kunz was so motivated that he apparently went above the call of duty. In Cowley’s words: “(During) spare period I took advanced art and calligraphy classes. (Don Kunz) was a proficient calligrapher too (Lloyd Reynolds at Reed College was a major influence on him, and we all learned this classical art and good handwriting).”. Kunz went on to greater things, relocating to New York in the mid-1960s, probably hoping to make it into the “big league”. He taught calligraphy at the Cooper Union for 33 years. That he taught there for so long is a clear testament to his excellence. But we are getting off track.
Example of Don Kunz calligraphy
Cowley left Oregon state at age 18, to study at the Art Academy of Cincinnati (1959-1963). In the words of the artist: “My main instructor in Cincinnati and later in Cleveland was Julian Stanczak (1928-2017). Julian was a student of Josef Albers at Yale along with Richard Anuszkiewiscz and Conrad Marca-Relli. Also, an amazing teacher! He taught you to think. My major was painting, but I also did a lot of printmaking in Cincinnati, particularly lithography. Cincinnati was a city with German and Irish heritage and had many old-time printers, and the Academy inherited a lot of lithographic stones. My interests in Stanley William Hayter sprung from there, and I went to study with him upon graduation with the traveling fellowship I was awarded at the end of my studies.” (Wilder Traveling Award)
Julian Stanczak in his studio in 1965
And so, Gil went, leaving behind the Midwest that had been his home for 4 years, and the United States, to go live in Paris, France. His head brimming with artistic ideals learned over four years in Ohio, Cowley stepped into the famed walls of Atelier 17. Stanley William Hayter had started the studio in 1927, at the insistence of Alice Carr de Creeft, who wanted to learn engraving from him. With the help of his friend and mentor Joseph Hecht, Hayter set up a studio where a handful of artists could come and make prints for a couple of days a week. The studio moved around Paris until the onset on World War II, when Hayter transferred it to New York. These New York years burnished Hayter’s aura and that of his collaborative workshop throughout the States.
The advanced group works together at Atelier 17, circa 1955, photo by Martin Harris
By 1950 the atelier had moved back to Paris, and it attracted artists from all corners of the world, interested in learning intaglio from Hayter. However, as Hayter became older, he felt the collaborative spirit that naturally occurs when working with contemporaries, slipping away. While he continued to teach at the print shop regularly, he would designate younger “masters”, who would de facto run Atelier 17’s daily operations. When Gil Cowey arrived, this is how he experienced it: “Bill taught the newbies the color technique as well as burnishing and other techniques. He had a set sample test you had to master. I still have one he signed for me. I do not remember his wife Helen Philips coming into the workshop. It was his place. Krishna Reddy was the Master, but he was rarely there. I believe Eugenio Tellez was then the default master. Bill came often, usually once or twice a week, and often in random visits. The atelier was always busy and ran pretty much as a coop. Everyone pitched in for supplies as needed: acid, varnish etc. Oddly, we did not use rubber gloves in the acid baths as all US schools did. We just rinsed after we used them.”
DDrawing by Gil Cowley: At the Acid Tray at Atelier 17
Cowley arrived in Paris ready to develop his printmaking skills. While training in Cincinnati, he had developed a strong visual language of abstraction in his paintings. He used gestural improvisation and simple symbols, such as circles and crosses, to structure these compositions. His vigorously drawn lines lent themselves well to various intaglio techniques.
By using aquatint, he could actually paint on copper with brushes, and drypoint needles gave him the ease of drawing similar to that of a pencil. And while he does not seem to have used the burin, favorite tool of Hayter, all that much, Cowley did etch his plates deeply. Printed on sturdy papers, these compositions’ inking is dimensional, truly rising above the surface of the paper. In raking light, the hidden side of ink lines catches a shadow.
Some of the memories Cowley shares about how he composed and printed shed light on the serendipity sought by printmakers who use simultaneous color printing, letting the press bring out the unexpected, all the while seeking technical excellence, to squeeze every bit of beauty out of their plates and inking. Cowley points to the use of unstructured drawing becoming part of compositions: “I just remembered that Hayter always used the phrase Automatic Writing, which he had taken from Andre Mason. I used the technique in some of my prints back then.”.
On the other hand, when it came to printing, the goal was one of quality, if also of the unexpected: “I did a lot of my prints on Van Gelder paper. I often hitch-hiked to Amsterdam to buy it (proverbial starving artist days). Arches I obtained in Paris, but Van Gelder was softer and seemed to wet better and take the impression more evenly.”
Cowley got busy in Paris. He etched and printed about 30 or so compositions in under a year. He also connected with a diverse group of artists. He reminisces: “The first language at the Atelier was English, Spanish was then second, and French came in at a close third. But truly French Canadians had a better chance with English than with French. The only person who could not communicate with anyone was a Finnish guy that only spoke Finnish. Pointing worked well.” Another vignette of time spent Atelier 17 is Cowley’s recollection of “a documentary the BBC did on Bill while I was there. I never saw it, but my future wife in England did. They were a pain in the you-know-what for a week or so. We avoided getting in the cameras’ way as much as possible and took a couple days off while they hogged the working spaces.” Cowley was clearly animated by a personal desire for growth while in Paris, rather than one of pursuing posterity. Cowley recounts: “I usually printed only a couple prints of each plate, and not full editions. I was more interested in making the art and seeing what I could do, rather than spend time printing up editions. I still have a lot of my plates from those days. I even sent one of my plates to a person in Gloucester, Massachusetts once. She had bought one of prints at an auction and had traced me down, probably hoping that it was a rare find and worth a lot of money.”
From the collection of Gil Cowley: Jim Hendricks, Vermont Pines 1960
The collaborative spirit found while hard at work at the workshop is apparent from the many testaments to long-lasting friendships and working relationships Atelier 17 alumni mention in their personal biographies. In the case of Cowley, not only did he move back to the States in 1964 with dozens of his own new works tucked under the arm, he had also traded prints with other artists who were working at Atelier 17 while he was there. In his flat files to this day, Cowley holds prints he traded with Bill Hayter, Gail Singer, Juan Downey, Tony Currell, Eugenio Tellez, Jon Hendricks, and others. These tokens of admiration, friendship, mutual respect show just how welcoming the atmosphere at Atelier 17 was. Young women and men were happy to share facilities and supplies, day-in day-out, providing input, sharing technical know-how, and swapping prints. So much for the famed ego of artists. Even in these later years, Atelier 17 was a horizontally integrated world, unlike almost any other in the world of art, anywhere and at any time. Cowley remembers his closest friends to be:
Jon S. Hendricks (American artist & famed Fluxus collection curator)
Tony Currell (British artist Anthony Currell who is now “retiered” (sic) in Sheffield, according to his LinkedIn profile)
Marcel-Henri Verdren (Belgian artist, 1933-1976)
Arun Bose from Dhaka (then British India, now Bangladesh, 1934-2007)
From the collection of Gil Cowley: Arun Bose, Cart, Paris 1964
While Cowley lost contact with all these friends, bound at the time by the passion for printmaking, these creative minds exchanged ideas, admired and encouraged one another, and traded prints in the studio.
Drawing by Gil Cowley: Portrait of Marcel Verdren
One such example of a personal friendship and of a collaborative spirit is best heard in the words of Cowley: “Marcel Verdren, who was a close friend, and I traveled to his home in Antwerp where I had mussels for the first time. Being from Oregon, I had seen sea gulls pry mussels from the shore and fly up in the air, then drop them on rocks to crack open and eat them. So, I always thought of them as just seagull food. I have loved them since then. Marcel instigated a group of us who were working at Hayter’s at the time. It was called the New International Gravure Group. This was meant to get a few gallery shows for us.”
Upon his return to the United States, Gil Cowley settled for another year in Ohio to obtain his BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art. While there he did a bit more printmaking and a lot of painting. He then started his career as a well-rounded painter-engraver with portfolios brimming with art and a head full of ideas. At that time, he quickly gained exposure. About 50 of his paintings were exhibited at Baldwin-Wallace College and he found gallery representation with Far Gallery in New York City and Editions Electo in London, with incidentally at the time also carried the work of David Hockney. Both galleries carried his prints from the mid1960’s to the early 1970’s.
Mr. Shark from the Discovery Building gets Gil Cowley
By 1968 Cowley found work in television as an art director, first working for WJLA in Washington DC, which was then called WMAL. Cowley never looked back, and from then on worked in television art direction for the rest of his life, spending many years with CBS before moving on to work for the Discovery Network. In his words: “I was VP of Global Exhibits and Events for Discovery Communications Inc. We did some fun stuff, including mounting a giant inflatable shark on the Discovery Building. I did a lot of stage shows, trade shows, traveling museum show, press events, etc. We tried our hand at everything that was unexpected, all to create a “wow” effect. It was stimulating work! I was awarded over 200 industry honors while working in television, including an Emmy while at CBS and Silver Medal for illustration from the New York Art Director’s Club.”
Cowley’s shift from the world of fine art to that of art direction in television was however never complete. While the dynamic of living everyday life with its myriad obligations pushed painting and drawing into the background of his life, he never completely stopped putting pencil to paper and frequently would paint. Over the years, his artistic vocabulary evolved from one in which the gestural dominated to one in which signs, symbols and other assorted structural elements organized the space and dictated color and texture. In his paintings and drawings of the last few years ampersands and hashtags mark the canvas and paper in subtle ways.
Life took Gil Cowley in an unexpected creative direction, but the simple fact that his art education in Ohio and the years spent in Paris led him to a completely different realm of creativity in the end, are a testament to the nimbleness these experiences afforded him. The collaborative spirit found at Atelier 17, where you could learn just as easily from the revered Bill Hayter, as you could from a stand-in master, or the person sharing the acid bath with you that day, gave generations of artists the ability to think broadly and work as a team, all while growing stronger artistically. The trans-national community of people who had only budding talent, youth, and personal ambition in common, forced these diverse backgrounds to form alliances, share ideas, and expand individualistic horizons. While the last few sentences may sound like a hymn to lofty ideals, for Gil Cowley, clearly, the crosspollination he was part of during his year spent in Paris in the 1960s bore fruit for a lifetime.]]>If you are mostly interested in seeing images off this series,
scroll to the bottom of this essay.
It is clear that during these early summers in Brittany, Rivière amassed quite a body of work. Many of these compositions became the basis for color woodcuts, which Rivière created assiduously in the early 1890s. But he faced rejection from most print collectors for his emulation of Japanese style woodcuts. He soon abandoned this technique and focused his energy on other artistic pursuits, such as the shadow theater at the Chat Noir. Left however with many compositional concepts that had not been developed into woodcuts, Rivière revisited some of them in the late 1890s and early 1900s, when he started creating color lithographs printed and published by Eugène Verneau.
Verneau was mostly known as a printer of posters, programs, and assorted commercial lithography. He seems to have had the ear of many fine artists interested in creating color lithographs as fine arts, rather than simply as commercial work. Rivière remembers him as a friend, whom he described as generous, good-natured, jovial, and quick-witted. After some random collaborations, Rivière and Verneau initiated what was to become one of the most ambitious projects in color lithography ever undertaken. From 1897 through 1906 (and even as late as 1917), Rivière worked for many months each winter at the shop of Eugène Verneau, 108 rue de la Folie Méricourt (in Paris’ 3rd arrondissement). Cumulatively Rivière spent two and a half year at the shop. Aided by a technician names René Toutain, who was often surprised by the artists technical demands, both men created all manner of color gradation effects which had never been obtained in lithography before. These color lithographic effects remain to this day barely equaled, let alone emulated by any fine artist.
In 1901 and 1902 Henri Rivière drew a series of 16 color lithographs on stone in oblong format: La Féérie des Heures (ENG: The Enchantment of Hours). The format of these prints, generally printed in 12 colors, was inspired without a doubt by Japanese wall hangings (kakemono, kakejiku). The 7 vertical and 9 horizontal compositions lent themselves to depict impressionistic landscapes, focusing on the expansiveness of the seas and skies the artist inhabited one season each year. While Rivière only depicted a single clearly defined season with his snowy rendition of La Neige, what the series lacks for in “seasonality”, it makes up for in other diverse atmospheric effects. Nearly all compositions are quiet, with the exception of L’Averse, La Tempête, and Le Vent. Yet a variety of weather phenomena make appearances. In addition to snow, wind and rain, Rivière also depicts fog, and even a rainbow. Being in Brittany almost exclusively in summer, his Hours are those of summer days, not of a varied time of year.
Dusk and dawn, light coming in at low angles and creating shadows, assorted moon, and sun rays, as well as blue, yellow, and overcast-gray-sky light, all make appearances. Even night is colorful. On the waters the artist lets pink, green, blue and gray light reflect. In varied skies white, orange, lemony-yellow and many gradations of these colors, expand well beyond the outer line of each composition.
This is an ode to those moments we spend in nature waiting for magic to happen. What Rivière shows us, is man marveling at time effortlessly fading from the unmemorable to the immemorably unforgettable. La Féérie des Heures is Rivière’s way to embody in color lithographs the ineffable he experienced in his hours in Brittany.
Written by Bernard Derroitte
Final note - on Thursday 28th of novembre 1901, the famous art critic Arsène Alexandre said the following in Le Figaro (page 5, 47th year, 3rd series, # 332):
In the foyer of the Antoine theater, Mr. Henri Rivière is exhibiting his new suite of [decorative] wall prints, the Féerie des Heures. We should boldly state that it is the most complete, the most attractive work that this beautiful artist has given us. We find in these lithographs all the qualities of color and poetry which had made Rivière’s fame at Shadows [theater] of the Chat Noir [cabaret]. Moreover, these prints have an undefinable compositional power and strength of the line. As impressions of color lithographs go, it does not seem that one could not push perfection any further…
1. L’Aube (English: Dawn)
2. Le Soleil Couchant (The Setting Sun)
3. L'Arc-en-Ciel (The Rainbow)
5. Le Premier Quartier (The First Quarter)
6. Les Reflets (Reflections)
7. L’Averse (The Shower)
8. Le Vent (Wind)
9. La Pleine Lune (The Full Moon)
10. La Tempête (The Storm)
11. Le Calme Plat (Dead Calm)
12. Le Crépuscule (Dusk)
13. L’Orage qui Monte (The Rising Storm)
14. La Neige (Snow)
15. La Nuit (Night)
16. Les Derniers Rayons (The Last Rays)
A commentary about the historic context and importance of this portfolio can be found at the bottom of this page, below the images.
A printer-friendly pdf of this information can be downloaded here.
Maurice DENIS (1870-1943)
Amour : douze lithographies en couleurs (original French title)
Love : 12 color lithographs
Color lithograph printed on thin wove chine paper.
Reference: Cailler 107.
Published by Ambroise Vollard, Paris.
Edition of 100.
Signed in pencil.
Approximate paper size: 21 x 17 inches.
Couverture de l'album (FR)
Cover (ENG)
Ce Fut un Religieux Mystère (FR)
It Was a Religious Mystery (ENG)
Elle était plus belle que les rêves (FR)
She Was More Beautiful Than Dreams (ENG)
Et ç'Est la Caresse de Ses Mains (FR)
And it is the Caress of His Hands (ENG)
La Vie Devient Précieuse Discrète (FR)
Life Becomes Discreet Precious (ENG)
Le Bouquet Matinal, Les Larmes (FR)
The Morning Bouquet, The Tears (ENG)
Le chevalier ñ'est pas mort à la croisade (FR)
The knight did not die at the crusade (ENG)
Les attitudes sont faciles et chastes (FR)
Attitudes are easy and chaste (ENG)
Les crepuscules ont une douceur d'ancienne peinture (FR)
The crepuscules have a softness of old paint (ENG)
Mais c'est le coeur qui bat trop vite (FR)
But it's the heart that beats too fast (ENG)
Nos Âmes en des Gestes Lents (FR)
Our Souls in Slow Gestures (ENG)
Sur le Canapé d'Argent Pâle (FR)
On the Pale Silver Sofa (ENG)
In 1899 Ambroise Vollard, who was the most important print publisher at the end of the 19th century in France, published an album of 13 color lithographs he had commissioned from Maurice Denis. Amour had been in the works since approximately 1891. The artist had held a journal which he had filled with poetic feelings during his courtship to Marthe Meurier, who became his wife in 1893. The verses he wrote were clearly influenced by symbolist poetry, which Denis greatly admired. These allegorical renderings of his feelings dovetailed perfectly with the religious, mystical and symbolist tendencies found throughout his artistic output.
The resulting set of prints, which was issued loose, and is today mostly found one sheet at a time, has become scarce at a set. Today whole sets are unsurprisingly mostly found in museum collections: Amour is without a doubt Denis’ greatest accomplishment as a printmaker. In these delicate compositions the artist paints a symphony of colors, which range from the faint pastel tones, to saturated ochers, warm sepias, fleshy pink, mauves, cool blues and an array of hues in between, often obtained by superimpositions of translucent colors.
It is often thought that color was the defining element of printmaking in France in the late 1800s and early twentieth century. This is, however far from true. While this era of French printmaking is today mostly defined by color, most printmakers worked monochromatically. The French poster was a notable exception to this fact; but in the realm of fine art prints, black and white compositions were the norm. In this reality, and considering how slowly esthetic appreciation by a wider public evolved, this series of symbolist color lithographs surprises for many reasons; not only the artist’s unusual choice of colors.
Denis depicted the intimate gaze of a young suitor in glorious admiration of a woman, who had become his muse. Translating these emotions, he used his trademark naïve esthetic, stylizing both nature and the human form. The evocative compositions are quiet and charming depictions of a young woman about to enter or recently devoted to married life. The artist, the amorous admirer of the unfolding romance is not visible in any but one of these works of art; but his presence is palpable. His loving gaze is what affords us, the viewer, a glance into this most intimate of moments of a couple’s life, the blossoming love they have for one another, and the devotions of one human being to another.
Like most of Vollard’s projects, this set was not a commercial success. This likely says more about the publisher’s gruff personality, than about his artistic insights. Amour, like the sets of prints by fellow Nabis artists Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, and which were also published by Ambroise Vollard, is today regarded as the pinnacle of Denis creativity. These lithographs are some of the most painterly color prints created, evoking effects generally only found in fragile watercolors. These works, however subdued in their effects, hold wall power rarely found color printmaking. It is why they are still so highly regarded today and so eminently collectible.
]]>A little history
It might surprise art collectors today to know that, until the late 1990s large international art fairs were rather scarce. Worldwide, approximately one major international show took place per week. While the upper crust of contemporary art galleries would head to Basel, Switzerland in mid-June, one month earlier, in mid-May you’d be attending Art Chicago on the city’s Navy Pier. And if you were a dealer in 18th century paintings, you needed to be at Tefaf in Maastricht in mid-March. And only a handful of higher-end galleries could afford to travel to more than one or two of these fairs each year. Often art dealers sought out real estate in areas with plenty of foot traffic of people who liked to gallery hop, rather than to meet new buyers at fairs. That’s why in places like New York, galleries concentrated in particular areas, like the Upper East Side or 57th street, later in Soho, and in Chelsea today. By being close to one another galleries’ clienteles were cross-pollinating. Similar concentrations were found in other major art centers, like Paris’ Carré Rive Gauche or Chicago’s River North. Galleries realized that they benefited from banding together.
(for more on Art Chicago, see Wikipedia article)
What had existed prior to the massive multiplication of art fairs, were myriad community arts and antique fairs. Mostly found in suburbs, and catering to affluent populations, these shows existed near most major wealthy urban centers. They provided well-off patrons of the arts an opportunity to buy refined home furnishings without having to travel far from home base. In the 1980s, well before the proliferation of art fairs occurred, print dealers realized that this way of selling art worked well for them. By bringing together 15 or 20 dealers in one place, they could easily afford a venue rental and a bit of promotion to get their clients to come out. In diverse places, from San Francisco to the DC area, and from Saint Louis to Boston, print fairs appeared. When the success proved easy to replicate, a few dealers decided to do the same in New York City.
The first print fairs in New York, organized co-op style by dealers, appeared in the mid-1980s. This event grew, and eventually resulted in the creation of the International Fine Print Dealers Association in 1991. The IFPDA professionalized the event. By contracting the 7th Regiment Armory on Park Avenue in New York, the Print Fair almost instantaneously became a blue-chip event. Soon print collectors flocked to the fall-time event, as did print curators and arts enthusiasts of all stripes. The event was very successful for many years. It even survived the hiatus of 2001, when the Armory was taken over by the army and the annual fair had to be cancelled. That year some 40 dealers retreated to the Lyden Gardens hotel (called today the Affinia Gardens) on East 64th, and showed in the hotel’s rooms.
In the wake of this success, other similar New York events started to appear. Starting in 1988 and continuing for more than 20 years, the show promoter who helped the IFPDA put on The New York Print Fair also organized a springtime show, also held at The Armory. Works on Paper, put on by Sanford Smith (Sanford L. Smith + Associates) featured drawings and photography, alongside original prints. It was a late-winter event (late February or early March), liked by many because of it featured a great diversity of art on paper: drawings, photography, prints, book arts... It did not however survive the financial meltdown of 2008.
Another show that came in the wake of the New York Print Fair is the Editions/Artists’ Book Fair, or EAB for short. Founded in 1998 it brought a contemporary dimension to Manhattan, at a time when the “big” print fair was dominated by dealers who specialized in secondary market prints. At that time French Impressionism, British and American Modernism, German Expressionism or Japanese Ukiyo-E were what brought collectors to the Armory. Print publishers like Pace Prints or Marlborough Graphics were in the minority, and most of them featured a mix of contemporary and modern prints. This has now changed completely. Many mid-market dealers who sell older prints no participate in the large Print Fair, housed today at the Jacob Javits Center, in the Hudson Yards neighborhood on the west side of Manhattan. About 15 dealers who sell secondary market material have gone back to a co-op show named The New York Satellite Print Fair. More information about that below.
What does it look like today?
Today the IFDPA Print Fair is held at the Javits Center. A few years ago the Seventh Regiment Armory Conservancy terminated contracts with most fairs (aside from TEFAF), so it could focus its programming on performing arts. Because of the lack of large exhibition spaces in Manhattan, the IFPDA had to migrate to New York City’s convention center. It is not beloved by New Yorkers. But with the development of Hudson Yards, its proximity to Chelsea, and its many galleries nearby, the Print Fair is rather conveniently located. For its first two editions in this new locale, attendance has been solid. In 2018 there was a slight drop in attendance. This year’s edition will tell whether this is a trend or a fluke.
What is clearly not a fluke is the makeup of the New York Print Fair. While the Armory would host about 90 dealers, the Javits’ incarnation of the fair this year will only house about 70. Looking at gross square footage this seems to be a function of size. However, the decrease in dealers is not a function of square footage, but rather of cost. Without going into details, it’s accurate to say that the cost of participation in the print fair has grown fast. For most dealers participating in the Print Fair is no longer financially rewarding. This reality was already pronounced in the last years of Armory fairs. It has been exacerbated by the move to the Javits. The makeup of the membership of the IFPDA and its fair have also changed drastically. Today the fair’s exhibitors are overwhelmingly contemporary publishers or art dealers who specialize in art by living artists. A solid contingent of dealers in old master prints remains at the fair. And in addition to a few who specialize in high-end modern European prints (think Pablo Picasso, Edvard Munch and Cyril Power), you’ll also find a few dealers who sell high-end 20th century American prints, such as the work of Martin Lewis or Gustave Baumann. But the cost of the fair has made it almost impossible for dealers to sell anything in the low four figures, let alone any work priced in the hundreds of dollars. The print fair as a place where anyone with a bit of disposable income could buy a work of art on a whim, is no longer.
The Editions/Artists’ Book Fair was, and still might be, more democratic. Held until last year at The Tunnel, it will move this year to The Caldwell Factory (a.k.a. Cedar Lake). The venue of The Tunnel was sold this past year and the rental fee seems to have gone up a lot. This is certainly the reason for the E/AB Fair to be moving a few blocks away. Today managed by the Lower East Side Printshop, a non-for-profit, the fair is thus undergoing a transformation; not its first. Despite the venue change the booth rents at the fair have also increased. In the case of the E/AB Fair this price change is not gradual, like it has been at the IFPDA Fair. Most booth options at E/AB have increased 35 to 40 percent over last year’s fees! This surely puts the event out of reach for certain small print shops, co-ops or non-for-profits. Then again, when it comes to exhibiting in New York, transportation to Manhattan, hotels and assorted expenses play a big role in overall cost. But spending at least $7000 for any booth option with walls makes it hard to have a profitable show for all but the most competitive players in the contemporary print scene. Now that the fair has announced this year’s roster, it is clear that the price increase is dramatically changing the size and composition of the fair. E/AB has shrunk from 47 exhibitors in 2018, to 36 only in fall 2019. 27 exhibitors are returning, 9 are new, and 20 vendors who exhibited last year will not return. This radical transformation is obviously happening for reasons described above. The question that remains is whether the event can weather it. Having a little turnover in exhibitors is generally good. It keeps an event fresh. When you shrink nearly 25%, and lose nearly 45% of previous participants, it can be a challenge to entice regular visitors to return. While this change might be an opportunity for a necessary reset; it may also prove to be too drastic a change. Time will tell.
The last show to be added to the mix, starting in 2013, and the one that today seems the steadiest is The New York Satellite Print Fair. For the sake of full disclosure, I will mention that “yours truly” was an IFPDA board member for 6 years, a frequent exhibitor at the Print Fair for a couple decades and then joined the Satellite Print Fair in 2016 (under the identity of secondary market dealer Armstrong Fine Art). The fair used to be held at The Bohemian National Hall, because of its proximity to the Park Avenue Armory. When it moved, the Satellite Fair found a venue called Mercantile Annex 37, located a block from the Javits. It has hosted 15 to 17 dealers, for the past two years, most of which sell older art in a range of price points. Because it is mostly a table-top show (with limited wall space assigned to each dealer), and because it is run by volunteer dealers (of which we were one), it remains by far the most affordable print fair in New York during Print Week. Most dealers who have participated remain dedicated to it. There is little turnover in its roster. This fall’s edition is no exception. The show added two contemporary print publishers last year and will have two more joining this year. So, along with a few dealers who show contemporary prints as part of their activity, it too is becoming an event showing more contemporary works on paper. It does however remain focused primarily on dealers who show older prints.
As we ponder all these changes it becomes apparent that something’s afoot. In our opinion, the cost of participating in New York fairs has become prohibitive for many print galleries, dealers, publishers, and co-ops. When being in one place for three to four days costs a dealer somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000 (or more), making it worthwhile is hard. The way to counter this is obvious for most dealers. It means going upmarket. Selling works in the hundreds of dollars or low thousands will likely not make for a profitable event. Therefore dealers sell works in the thousands, tens of thousands, or beyond. Old master print dealers, who can sell a rare work by Albrecht Dürer or Rembrandt, can make it. A publisher or a dealer selling blue-chip contemporary artist’s prints (think Ed Ruscha or Alex Katz) can probably make it as well. All others have to ponder their options seriously before taking the plunge. The direct effect of this trend has been that many collectors who used to come to Manhattan from near and far, ready to spend a few hundred or a couple thousand, don’t visit any longer. And so, one trend exacerbates the other. The question is now whether the trend can be reversed.
We at Mesh will visit the shows in New York this year, as we always have. We’ll keep our ear close to the ground and report on what we see. We are also looking for other opportunities to show the wonderful works on paper we have the privilege of bringing to collectors, in New York or elsewhere. While New York has been the arts capital of the world for a half-century at least, it may not remain so. Or at the very least, part of the activity that converged there, like the art fairs, may head somewhere else. After all, once upon a time, Chicago was the North American Mecca of contemporary arts one week each year. And to this day a little city named Maastricht in The Netherlands puts on the most famous art fair of secondary market artwork in the world. We’re not saying New York will not host the most important print fairs in the US in future. We’re saying it might not; and maybe that’s okay.
On a final note, we want to mention that you should keep us in mind: we’re always looking for new ways to “get out”. It may very well be that a new dynamic starts to build in New York during “Print Week”, in which case we will be back in 2020. In the meantime, if you attend a show in which you think Mesh should consider participating, or you are part of an arts organization that would like to put together a fundraising event, let us know. We’re always looking to show the wonderful works of art in our care, and meet new art aficionados and art collectors.
Yours Truly (a.k.a. Bernard Derroitte) writing up an invoice
at The NY Satellite Print Fair, fall 2018.
The Théâtre Libre was a subscription-only outfit. The reason for this was Antoine’s desire to perform mostly naturalist plays, and eventually symbolist ones as well. This repertoire included all manner of subjects which official censure frowned upon. Had his theater been “public”, they could have shut him down. Being a private subscription organization, this risk was averted. While France had embraced realistic, naturalistic and symbolist tendencies in other art forms, like writing and painting, the theater scene was still very much looking backwards. Actors were nearly all trained by the conservative Conservatoire de musique et de déclamation. And only actors in the mold of their traditional teachers were allowed to rise to stardom.
Conservatoire de musique et de déclamation
As Patricia Eckert Boyer puts it in her seminal research published in an exhibition catalogue of the National Gallery of Art in 1998: “[Antoine] introduced [in his theater] subjects that Edouard Manet had developed in painting and Emile Zola in literature for the previous twenty years: the lives of the poor, the working classes, the sordid underside of belle-époque society.”.
Rodolphe Darzens
The first full season of the Théâtre started in October 1887. By then Antoine had installed a poet named Rodolphe Darzens (1865-1938) as secretary. From their correspondence it is clear that theirs was a deep mutual appreciation; and Darzens quickly influenced the theater much more than simply by keeping the books in order. He was a graduate of the Lycée Condorcet where many Parisian artists and men of letters of the time studied: the historian Camille Block, the actor Lungé Poé (born Aurélien Lungé), painters Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard… He connected with many of these men while studying, but also afterwards, being introduced to avant-garde artists in Belgium and Russia, where he lived periodically. His family had lived in Moscow for a time and the young man spoke Russian. All these connections clearly contributed greatly to the success of the Théâtre Libre. From the onset important avant-garde authors, both French and foreign, gave plays to the theater. Many of the foreign plays were being performed in France for the first time at the Théâtre Libre.
Alexandre Charpentier: plaque of Maximilen Luce
During the 1887-1888 season Alexandre Charpentier, who was a talented sculptor, created medallion portraits of many of the artists who frequented the theater. While there had not been an association between the theater and the fine arts, this project seems to have brought about a collaboration which helped spread the budding fame of these performances. Starting in the fall of 1888 the playbill of each play was illustrated by an artist. Among the first to illustrate these programs were Adolphe Léon Willette, Paul Signac, Jean-François Raffaëlli, Henri Rivière, Georges Auriol and Alexandre Charpentier. These ephemera were an instant success and immediately became collectibles. The artists’ fame was augmented by their association with avant-garde literature, and vice versa.
Paul Signac: Cercle Chromatique program for the Théâtre Libre
This practice became a habit and many of the 19th century’s most famous illustrated theater programs were published under the auspices of the Théâtre Libre. The practice was copied by another famous theater of the time: Lugné-Poé’s Théâtre de l’Oeuvre also published illustrated programs from 1893 to 1900.
During the heydays of the Théâtre Libre Henri-Gabriel Ibels (1867-1936) parlayed his way into the commission of a lifetime. He convinced André Antoine to let him illustrate all the programs of the 1892-1893 season: all eight of them! This coup was major for the artist, who recalled years later how “… I want to illustrate the programs …Six months later I was no longer an unknown.” To the despair of some theatergoers these programs were not visually related to the plays being performed. The compositions, which are all illustrated below, were meant to be visually exciting, presenting very bright colors for the time. In these 8 lithographs Ibels shows both simple folks and intelligentsia. He showed circus performers, soldiers, workers in a bar, coal miners and men pulling a barge to the dock. But he also depicted bourgeois reading the paper, as well as beach and theater goers. The influence of Japanese color woodcuts is felt in varying degrees in each of these compositions. In all, however, his use of spatter to create texture and grain can be found. Often various colors of spatter are printed on top of one another, so as to create unexpected color mixtures.
Paul Sérusier: L’Assomption du Hannele Mattern
These programs may have irked by being unrelated to the performances, but they were nonetheless liked by many patrons for their innovative qualities. Some Théâtre Libre programs, which to this day are not as well liked, such as Paul Sérusier’s L’Assomption du Hannele Mattern & En Attendant, are scarce. One can wait years to see an impression of this one come to market. However, Ibels’ programs, while increasingly scarce, do come up with a varying degree of regularity. This supposes that patrons kept these programs safely; probably because they liked them. It has to be said that fine art lithography was still rather novel in 1892. Before then, color lithography was a media used for low brow printing of posters, newsprint, ephemera… Only in 1889 did artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and René Georges Hermann-Paul start to elevate the technique to a fine art media. It can therefore be assumed that patrons, whose appetite had been wet with beautiful compositions such as George Auriol’s Ménages d’Artistes in 1890, were ready to be impressed by the programs created by Ibels.
George Auriol: Ménages d’Artistes
A final fact also confirms that these Ibels programs were hugely successful: they were reprinted! While nearly all other Théâtre Libre programs are only found in their original condition, in the case of Henri-Gabriel Ibels’, they were all transferred to other lithographic stones (or possibly to zinc plates), they were partially reworked, and letters (texts and titles) were removed. These impressions are often referred to as being “before letters”, as if they had been printed earlier and were somehow more valuable for that reason. This is most certainly not the case. It is far more probable that, in light of their success with the public, they were reissued in this format.
Very recently we were lucky enough to find a homogeneous set of all eight Théâtre Libre programs by Henri-Gabriel Ibels. They have already found a new home, but this seemed to us an opportunity to highlight these wonderful works; all are illustrated and cataloged below. At some time in future we will also have to make a fully illustrated list of all Théâtre Libre programs available on this blog. That’s for some other time. As I type this, our project for a fully illustrated Estampe Originale catalog is only one third finished. We will have to complete this task first!
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Le Grappin & L’Affranchie
The Grapnel & The Emancipated (English titles)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1892.
References: Eckert Boyer 30 (plate 12, pg. 48).
Program for the November 3rd, 1892 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The first of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ⅜ x 12 ¾ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Les Fossils
The Fossils (English title)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 32 (plate 14, pg. 51).
Program for the November 29th, 1892 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The second of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ⅜ x 12 ⅝ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
A Bas le Progrès, Mademoiselle Julie & Le Ménage Brésile
Down with Progress, Miss Julie, The Brasil Household (English titles)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 33 (plate 15, pg. 52).
Program for the January 16th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The third of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ½ x 12 ⅝ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Le Devoir
Duty (English title)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 35 (plate 17, pg. 54).
Program for the February 15th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The fourth of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ½ x 12 ½ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Mirages
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 37 (plate 18, pg. 56).
Program for the March 27th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The fifth of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ⅜ x 12 ⅜ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Boubouroche & Valet de Coeur
Boubouroche & Jack of Hearts (English titles)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 39 (plate 20, pg. 58).
Program for the April 27th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The sixth of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ½ x 12 ⅝ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
Les Tisserands
The Weavers (English title)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 41 (plate 22, pg. 60).
Program for the May 29th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The seventh of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ⅜ x 12 ½ inches.
Henri-Gabriel IBELS (1867 - 1936)
La Belle au Bois Rêvant, Mariage d’Argent & Ahasvère
Dreaming Beauty, Moneyed (or Silver) Mariage & Ahasuerus (English titles)
Color lithograph printed card stock wove paper, 1893.
References: Eckert Boyer 42 (plate 23, pg. 63).
Program for the June 12th, 1893 performance at the Théatre Libre.
The final of Ibels’ eight programs for this avant-garde theater.
Image size: 9 ⅜ x 12 ½ inches.
If you wish to download the original article as a pdf, you can do that HERE.
Armin Landeck - Studio Interior 2 - 1936 - Drypoint - Kraeft & Kraeft 58
In 2005, I visited the Los Angeles Print Fair at LACMA. By chance, I viewed a print that became a catalyst for assembling my large collection of prints about the art and history of printmaking. That work was Armin Landeck’s drypoint “Studio Interior #2,” which he created in 1936. Why did that work capture my attention? I was trained as a chemist in both undergraduate and graduate school, but my interest in chemistry began while growing up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. In our basement, I experimented with my chemistry set on a wooden work table. The image of the workbench and etching beakers reminded me of my childhood laboratory, and so I acquired the work. I then researched Landeck’s work and soon found the companion drypoint “Studio Interior #1,” a striking image of Landeck’s press created in 1935. I have since acquired many other Landecks.
Donna Westerman - The Print Shop - 2004 - Woodblock print
Later in 2005, I visited the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach, California. At the art show, I saw “The Print Shop,” a whimsical woodblock print by Donna Westerman, a local artist, who has since relocated to the Bay area. Again, it captured my attention and I acquired the work. I can’t fully explain why and how the acquisition of my third “print about printmaking” sparked my interest in creating a specialized collection, but I take great pride in being able to share details about the collection that I have built over the past 14 years, about some of my prized works and about the wonderful people I have met on my adventures in print collecting.
I have focused my collection on prints about prints and printmaking, artist’s portraits and self-portraits, images of studios, connoisseurs, connoisseuses and works related to the history of printmaking. My specialized collection now numbers about 700 prints, representing over 300 artists from more than 20 countries and ranging from the 16th century to contemporary. The collection features many different media, including lithography, etching, engraving, aquatint, mezzotint, drypoint, woodblock printing, and screen printing. I have multiple works by many artists and have purposefully sought out works in important series or sets. Many of the works in my collection were acquired from well-known dealers, while I also identified numerous others through extensive internet searches or online and physical auctions.
Nicholas Henri Jacob - La Genie de Lithographie - Hommage a Aloys Senefelder - 1819 - Lithograph - MacAllister Johnson 5
Since I left chemistry research long ago, I enjoy the research and hunt for new and different works that fit my theme. Iconic images from the history of printmaking are among my most prized works. “La Genie de Lithographie” by Nicholas Henri Jacob, created in 1819, shows the Genius standing over a woman pulling a print from a lithography stone. The print lists the names of important French printmakers. The inscription at the top pays tribute to Aloys Senefelder, the inventor of lithography. “Sculptura in Aes” (Engraving in Copper), created c. 1600, is plate #19 from the series “Nova Reperta” (New Inventions of Modern Times) by Jan Collaert after J. Stradanus. This work may be familiar to many as it is reproduced on the cover of the “The Print Quarterly.” These two works came to me from Joel Bergquist from whom I have also acquired other unusual prints.
Abraham Bosse - The Engraver and the Etcher - 1643 - Etching
Among the “series” works are the set of four prints on the arts created in 1632-33 by the French etcher Abraham Bosse, including “The Intaglio Printer” and “The Etcher and Engraver.” These works came to me from Martinez Estampes, along with many others.
Erik Desmazieres - L’atelier René Tazé III - 1981 - etching
In 2005, a dealer from whom I acquired several works first suggested I look at prints by Erik Desmazières. I have acquired all eight etchings in the “Atelier René Tazé” series that Desmazières created between 1979 and 2006, as well as many of his other prints. Some of these works came from Andy Fitch, who for many years was Desmazières’ major U.S. dealer. Other Desmazières works came from the Childs Gallery, Davidson Galleries, and Jan Lewis Slavid of R.E. Lewis & Daughter, and I have been fortunate to have learned about and acquired works by other artists through each of these connections.
Another artist whose work I admire is Evan Lindquist, a master engraver who has created a large series of works on famous engravers, including Dürer, Hogarth, Mellan, Peterdi, Hayter, Landeck, and Lasansky.
Warrington Colescott - The History of Printmaking - Senefelder Receives the Secrets of Lithography - Soft-ground etching, aquatint & vibrograver - Chapin, 241
In 2001, before I began to build my collection focused on printmaking, I met Tony Kirk a master printer who for many years has printed mezzotints by Robert Kipniss, an artist whose work I have collected ever since. Over time, I learned that Tony had also printed works by Armin Landeck and Karl Schrag, another artist whose prints I have collected. Some years later, Tony suggested that I seek out works by Warrington Colescott and I discovered the rich diversity of his printmaking. I have collected his entire series titled the “History of Printmaking.” These fanciful, colorful works, created between 1975 and 1981, are Colescott’s renditions of scenes from the lives and works of famous artists, including Rembrandt, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Goya, Rauschenberg, Hayter, Dürer, Lasansky, and even the great diplomat, inventor, and printmaker Benjamin Franklin.
Colescott’s “Picasso at the Zoo” was featured in the Jan/Feb 2019 edition of this Journal, Journal of the Print World. I had the privilege of meeting Warrington Colescott in 2010 at the exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum, which coincided with the publication of the Catalogue Raisonne of his work. I have acquired over 40 prints by Colescott from many sources with some of the rarer works, including two watercolors, coming from the late Cissie Peltz of the Peltz Gallery in Milwaukee.
Benton Spruance - Self Portrait at Stone - 1942 - Lithograph - Fine & Looney 204
Another dealer from whom I sought and acquired work by Robert Kipniss was Jane Haslem. In addition to showing me works for sale, she was gracious to show me selections from her personal collection through which I first learned of the American printmaker Benton Spruance. I searched for many years to find his “Self Portrait at Stone,” a piece that I first saw hanging in her home. I have added other Spruance works over time.
Of course, I am not the only collector with an interest in prints about prints. Some years ago, I came across the book Prints about Prints by Diana Ewan Wolfe, published in 1981, which displayed 70 works from the collection of Martin Gordon. To date, I have succeeded in collecting about half of those prints. In 2011, the dealer Harris Schrank offered me a group of prints related to my interests, and I noted that all of them appeared in Prints about Prints. I selected seven works to purchase and when I asked Harris about their origin, he told me he had purchased a large group of prints from Gordon’s collection. So seven works in my collection are the actual impressions from Gordon’s.
Robert Bonfils - Graveur Tirant une Planche - 1921 - color woodcut
I have collected many color etchings, aquatints, and lithographs by French printmakers from the late 19th and early 20th century, including Bottini, Lunois, and Robbe, that depict women admiring prints. Such works were often used as advertising for print dealers like Edmund Sagot. One of the rarer works is the acquatint “La Connoisseuse” by Pierre Gatier created in 1910. A wonderful and rare example showing active printmaking is the color woodblock print created in 1921 by Robert Bonfils tilted “Graveur Tirant Une Planche” (Engraver pulling a Proof). Works in this category and others have come to me from Ed Ogul at Paramour Fine Arts, Bernard Derroitte at Armstrong Fine Art, and Georgina Kelman.
Junichiro Sekino - Portrait of Koshiro Onchi - 1952 - color woodblock print
While Japanese artists are not well represented in my collection, one notable work is the portrait of the printmaker Koshiro Onchi by Junichio Sekino, a large woodblock print created in 1952. A very recent addition is the woodblock print tryptich titled “Artisans (Shokunin) by Utagawa Kunisada from 1857.
Utagawa Kunisada - Artisans - 19th century - color woodcut
British printmakers are well represented in my collection. William Strang’s detailed etching from 1889 titled “A Sale of Prints at Sotheby’s” is a classic as is the drypoint portrait “Bone at the Press” by Francis Dodd, created in 1908. Among my most recent acquisitions is “The Etching Class,” created by Julian Trevelyan in 1973.
A final note on a specific sub-theme of interest to me: “prints in prints” or “art in art.”
Emmanuel Schary - George & Burr Miller - 1978 - Lithograph
Again, there is a connection to my Kipniss collection. I acquired a lithograph created in 1978 by Emanuel Schary titled “George and Burr Miller” from Lee Stone, a dealer in Saratoga, CA, who knew of my specific collecting interest. The print shows Burr Miller, son of George, inking a stone. Below the stone, the visible fragment of a print immediately looked familiar to me. Indeed that fragment is from a Kipniss work which I also have in the collection. I wrote to Robert Kipniss and inquired about the Schary work. He confirmed that he often encountered Schary in Miller’s studio and identified his “print in print.” He also guided me to seek out another work embedded in the Schary print. Some years later, I found the print “George Miller, Lithographer” by Ellison Hoover, which was reproduced in reverse by Schary in his print.
I hope these vignettes about my print collecting journey provide some insight into the origin and richness of my collection. I would like to thank my many contacts in the print world for sharing their knowledge and passion for printmaking with me along the journey.
David Kabakoff standing with his collection at home in Rancho Santa Fe
A selection of works from the Kabakoff collection was displayed as part of the exhibition Press/Process: The Art of Prints at the University of San Diego Hoehn Family Galleries from February 21 to May 17, 2019. A more extensive exhibition of works from the Kabakoff collection is planned for the later in 2019 at the Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, CA. It will be a pleasure to share a small part of the collection with print lovers in these communities.
Julian Trevelyan - The Etching Class -1973 - Etching and Aquatint in color
David Kabakoff, a life science venture capital investor, has lived in Rancho Santa Fe, CA with his wife Susan for over 30 years. He may be reached via email at dkabakoff@cox.net
]]>This is the first of three articles dedicated to the pleasure of owning art. This article is about wonder; the next one is about the collection of David Kabakoff, and the third one is about personal connections. But before I get too deep into the wonder of the etchings of Henri Delavallée in particular, I want to make one thing clear to those who happened to have wandered into this article by chance. Collecting art is about one thing only; that “thing” is joy, or a spark if you will; it’s about excitement, a smile on your face when you hold the work. Every work of art is an object. For that reason you should always try to hold it before you buy it. Whether it’s a painting, a print or a sculpture, you should literally take “it” in your hands, turn it around, feel its weight, and put your nose on it. You want to truly capture with your eyes every detail there is to see. The only way to do that is to hold the thing! Hold it up in natural daylight, angle it in raking light. Truly see it; form a bond with it. Don’t let the quiet gallery atmosphere intimidate you. A good art dealer understands that you’ll want to touch the object and see it in earnest.
The second point I’ll make before I move on, is that you should not buy art based on where it will go. You can have a place in mind, in your home, office or wherever. That’s fine. But you can’t worry about that when you buy the work. Buy something you love; worry about placement later. If it happens to be too small to go over that couch you had in mind; well, eventually you’ll find something else to pair it with. If you bought a red square to go over your blue themed bed spread, no matter; instead of harmony it becomes a contrast. Just worry about loving the damned thing; nothing else matters.
Now about Henri Delavallée, I’ll tell you why I’m so excited to have recently been able to add five of his etchings to the inventory. My interest goes back nearly two decades. There used to be a print fair in Los Angeles, held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, or LACMA for short. LACMA had taken an independent print fair, which had moved around various parts of the city for a decade or more, and professionalized it somewhat. At one of the early editions, Robert M. Light (1929-2016), known to all as Bob Light, had brought some works from the famed collection of Samuel Josefowitz (1921-2015). Whether they truly were from the Josefowitz collection is anyone’s guess, but the provenance was certainly likely. Bob Light was very well connected in the art world, and could get his hands on amazing objects. He could apparently also afford to sell art at high price points. He may have been wealthy enough to do so, or he may have simply had gumption; but he also seemed to get away with it. High-end collectors bought from him; museums in particular.
At that fair in LA, as I laid eyes on Bretonne en Noir by Henri Delavallée, I immediately fell in love with it. The texture of this print is amazing. The artist was able to create in aquatint the effect of lace throughout the woman’s dress. This pattern contrasts with the aquatint grain used for the hillside.
And her peaceful demeanor contrasts with the animated bush in the upper right corner, which was drawn with a gravelly soft-ground line. The sinewy line of the horizon and the bush suggest a concern on the woman’s mind. The use of the word “noir” or “black” paired with these compositional effects, clearly evokes her psychological state. Her face does not betray her mood, but her dress and her surroundings do. Did she come back from a funeral? Did she seek out this unsettled vista in order to confront an ailment or personal sadness? Whatever the story may be, and we as viewers get to decide in the end, this composition and its technical excellence transported me the very moment I saw it. I asked Mr. Light for the price, thinking he’d tell me it was $2000. I can’t swear to my recollection of his exact asking price; it was either $9000 or $7000. Either way it was far out of my reach, and I slouched away filled with sadness at having to let her go.
So imagine my joy when I was able recently, after all these years to become the proud owner of Bretonne en Noir. I bought it along with three other works by the artists; and just days ago purchased one more etching in Brittany, still on its way to me as I write this. Henri Delavallée is simply an amazing etcher, who sadly only made approximately 70 prints, two or three dozen of which are among the finest etchings I have ever seen. He was able to render textures and effects in aquatint with amazing dexterity. As described above, his aquatints are varied in grain and pattern, thus offering gray scales that are harmoniously contrasted and attractive. As a proud member of the School of Pont-Aven (Ecole de Pont-Aven), the use of cloisonné is done with talent. His sinuous lines, generally drawn in soft-ground etching, are decisive. His compositions are simple, but “colored” so to speak, to become almost painterly. It’s such a joy to be, if only temporarily, the owner of a few of his amazing works. They are scarce, as nearly none of his etchings were printed in their full editions of 50. You’ll see the odd published work come onto the market, and every so often a state impression will become available. But you can go a full year and not see a single good etching by Henri Delavallée come to market.
So, here is that opportunity. When these works are gone, you, my collector friend, will simply be out of luck; possibly for a long while! And know that this is not a sales pitch, it’s an earnest assessment. Every single one of the works by this artist listed on the site today is magnificent! The landscape with the woman walking on a path might as well be by Camille Pissarro. The gray scale is just that lovely as Pissarro would have drawn it. The trees are outlined with care; lines of darkness added along the limbs to contrast the light cast on them. The incoming weather is palpable.
And in Delavallée’s depiction of the Eiffel Tower and Seine River at night, just how dark city life was before gaslights, becomes tangible. If he had etched his composition any darker, you’d have a black rectangle. Yet, here it is, the modern tower, erected two years back, looming in darkness like an alien specter. The artist evokes just how eerie its presence must have been to Parisians in the 1890s.
See our current inventory of works by the artist by clicking HERE.
Now, if Delavallée does nothing for you, that’s fine. Just keep in mind that to be a happy collector is to fall in love. Find something that moves you. And if you can afford it, you will never regret owning it.
]]>A printer-friendly pdf of this information can be downloaded here.
Edouard VUILLARD (1868-1940)
Color in printmaking: we take it for granted today. It was however, until the 19th century, not really an option in Western Arts. And even when the use of color did become available to printmakers, it took a long time to make its way from a commercial gimmick to an acceptable art form. While Japanese printmakers had been creating and printing color on paper for hundreds of years, in the West that had only occurred rarely. Printmaking and to a large extent most graphic arts on paper, including drawing, were expected to be linear, or were excepted to obtain gray scale with black ink (or maybe with sepia or white chalk), not with color. Lithography, which became accessible to an increasing number of artists in the 1800s, remained a monochromatic technique for many decades, before tint stones, and eventually color stones were added. That this happened at all is thanks to lithography’s most visible commercial expression: posters. Advertisement obviously benefited from using color; especially in a world where the use of any color was a luxury.
When fine artists turned their attention to using color printmaking, it was not immediately accepted as a positive development. In France it was not unusual in the 1890s to read art critics commenting on the use of colors in lithography or etchings as cheap and easy. Color was often regarded as a gimmick, something you had to use because you couldn’t make your art attractive with line alone. Printmakers were supposed to be draftsmen, not painters. By the late 1890s however, the tide had turned. As many printmakers were at last trying their hand at the use of color, the public and art critics changed their tune. And the fashion for color prints quickly developed.
Ambroise Vollard, who was an astute business man (with some notable flops too…) did realize just how quickly the second generation of Impressionists (a.k.a. Post-Impressionists) were taking over the art scene. The likes of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Paul Cézanne, Félix Vallotton or Henri-Edmond Cross were dethroning artists such as Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas or Pierre-Auguste Renoir. They did so respectfully, but also unequivocally. And as they did, they brought with them a renewed interest in printmaking. But they had their own predilection: the use of color, neglected by the previous generation, was clearly one of them. Vollard knew this, and rather than wait for artists to make what he suspected the public wanted, he simply commissioned it. Three of most important Nabis painters agreed to create and completed sets of color lithographs for Vollard. Those artists are Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard. Other artists, such as Cézanne or Kex-Xavier Roussel, also gave Ambroise Vollard single sheets in color, or in the case of Roussel, tried to create similar portfolios of prints. However way you look at it, when it comes to original fine art print publishing around 1900, Ambroise Vollard can be regarded as the most important actor and impresario. It’s therefore only fair to take a closer look at some of his publications.
The first portfolio we will present is the one created by Edouard Vuillard, who was quickly becoming one of the most influential artist of his time in 1899. The set of color lithographs he created for Vollard is arguably one of the most important color print portfolios of all time. In it Vuillard rendered the life he painted in the streets of Paris, in its interiors, and in its surroundings, in a completely novel way. Each of these sheets is deeply indebted to the Japanese arts which had started to find their way into France in the 1870s and had become a collecting rage amongst art aficionados. Patterns, color juxtapositions, the flattening of space, the used of superimposed grounds… all of these effects were gleaned from Japanese printmaking and scroll painting, and adapted to a Parisian sensibility and esthetic. Each and every one of these prints presents compositions that were unusual and unexpected for contemporary amateurs. Today, these works of art still require from the viewers a level of concentration that is not easy to attain. These images don’t “read” easily. They require an attentive and analytical gaze. They are also, by that very nature, rich, textured, interesting and arresting. You may not “get” them right away, but you will also not be bored with them anytime soon.
A printer-friendly pdf of this information can be downloaded here.
If you're interested in Album one, you can find it HERE.
If you're interested in Album two, you can find it HERE.
Paul Albert BESNARD
(June 2, 1849 – Paris – December 4, 1934)
L’Intruse or La Visiteuse
The Intruder or The Visitor (English titles)
Lithograph printed in black ink on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 5; Boyer & Cate 5.
Plate number 21 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in brown ink.
Image size: 14 ⅛ x 18 ⅛ inches.
Henri Patrice DILLON
(San Francisco, November 28, 1850 – Paris, May 1916, 2009)
Mandoliniste
The Mandolin Player (English title)
Lithograph, with a remarque, printed in black ink on chine-collé, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 20; Boyer & Cate 20.
Plate number 22 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in purple ink.
Image size: 7 ¼ x 12 inches.
Henri FANTIN-LATOUR
(Grenoble, January 14, 1836 – Buré, August 25, 1904)
Tentation de Saint Antoine
Temptation of St Anthony (English title)
Lithograph printed in black ink on laid paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 24; Boyer & Cate 24.
Plate number 23 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in black crayon.
Image size: 12 ¾ x 15 ¾ inches.
Auguste-Louis LEPÈRE
(Paris, November 30, 1849 – Domme, November 20, 1918)
Blanchisseuses (Jeunesse pass vite vertu!)
Laundresses or How Quickly Youth Fades or The Washerwomen (English titles)
Soft-ground etching and aquatint printed in three colors on thick paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 41; Boyer & Cate 41.
Plate number 24 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in blue crayon.
Image size: 17 ¾ x 9 ⅞ inches.
Alexandre LUNOIS
(Paris, February 2, 1863 – Le Peck, September 2, 1916)
L’Illumination
The Light (English title)
Lithograph printed in five color on beige wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 43; Boyer & Cate 43.
Plate number 25 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 13 x 10 ¾ inches.
Maxime-Emile-Louis MAUFRA
(Nantes, May 17, 1861 – Poncé, May 23, 1918)
La Route de Gaud
The Road from Gaud (English title)
Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 45; Boyer & Cate 45.
Plate number 26 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 7 ⅞ x 11 ½ inches.
Victor Emile PROUVÉ
(Nancy, August 15, 1858 – Sétif, February 15, 1943)
Oiseaux de Proie
Birds of Prey (English title)
Etching and aquatint printed in olive-green on laid paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 55; Boyer & Cate 55.
Plate number 27 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 9 ½ x 16 ⅝ inches.
Carlos SCHWABE
(Alton, Switzerland, July 21, 1866 – Avon, France, January 22, 1926)
L’Annonciation
The Annunciation (English title)
Lithograph printed on Japan paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 78; Boyer & Cate 78.
Plate number 28 from L’Estampe Originale.
Monogrammed “₵” and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 10 x 13 ¾ inches.
Victor Alfred Paul VIGNON
(Villers-Cotterêts, December 25, 1847 – Meulan-les-Yvelines, March 15, 1909)
La Vache
The Cow (English title)
Etching printed in dark brown ink on Arches laid paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 89; Boyer & Cate 89.
Plate number 29 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 9 ⅞ x 10 ½ inches.
Adolphe Léon WILLETTE
(Châlons-sur-Marne, July 31, 1857 – Paris, February 4, 1926)
La Fortune
Fortune (English title)
Lithograph printed black ink on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 93; Boyer & Cate 93.
Plate number 30 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in blue pencil.
Image size: 10 ⅝ x 9 ⅞ inches.
Album two is illustrated below.
A printer-friendly pdf of this information can be downloaded here.
If you're interested in Album one, you can find it HERE.
Georges AURIOL
(Beauvais, April 26, 1863 – Paris, February 2, 1938)
Bois Frissonnants
Trembling Woods (English title)
Color lithograph printed on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 2; Boyer & Cate 2.
Plate number 11 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 19 ½ x 12 ¾ inches.
Henri BOUTET
(Sainte-Hermine, March 24, 1851 – Paris, June 11, 1919)
Parisienne
Parisian Woman or The Effect of Night in Paris (English titles)
Drypoint and mezzotint on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 10; Boyer & Cate 10.
Plate number 12 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Plate size: 21 ⅛ x 12 inches.
Charles-Marie DULAC
(November 26, 1866 – Paris – December 29, 1898)
Paysage
Landscape (English title)
Lithograph printed in four colors on chine-collé on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 22; Boyer & Cate 22.
Plate number 13 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 12 ½ x 19 inches.
Henri-Charles GUERARD
(April 28, 1846 – Paris – March 25, 1897)
Les Lapins
The Rabbits (English title)
Woodcut on gray wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 33; Boyer & Cate 33.
Plate number 14 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 13 x 9 inches.
Charles GUILLOUX
(Paris, 1866 – Lormes 1946)
L’Inondation
The Deluge or Floods or Landscape with Poplars (English titles)
Lithograph printed in 4 colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 34; Boyer & Cate 34.
Plate number 15 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 8 ¼ x 11 ¼ inches.
Henri RACHOU
(June 16, 1855 – Toulouse – December 2, 1944)
Panneau Décoratif
Decorative Panel (English title)
Lithograph printed in 6 colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 59; Boyer & Cate 59.
Plate number 16 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 19 x 11 ¾ inches.
Jean-François RAFFAËLLI
(April 20, 1850 – Paris – February 24, 1924)
Raffaëlli, son portrait par lui-même
Self-Portrait (English title)
Drypoint printed in 4 colors on laid paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 60; Boyer & Cate 60.
Plate number 17 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Plate size: 7 ½ x 6 ¼ inches.
Odilon REDON
(Bordeaux, April 20, 1840 – Paris, July 6, 1916)
Cellule Auriculaire
Auricular Cell (English title)
Lithograph on chine-collé, 1893.
Reference: Stein & Karshan 63; Boyer & Cate 63.
Plate number 18 from L’Estampe Originale.
Monogrammed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 10 ½ x 9 ⅞ inches.
René François Auguste RODIN
(Paris, November 12, 1840 – Meudon, November 17, 1917)
Portrait d’Henry Becque
Portait of Henry Becque (English title)
Drypoint on Arches laid paper, 1893.
Reference: Stein & Karshan 72; Boyer & Cate 72.
Plate number 19 from L’Estampe Originale.
Monogrammed and numbered in pencil.
Plate size: 6 ¼ x 7 ⅞ inches.
Louis Paul Henri SÉRUSIER
(Paris, November 9 , 1864 – Morlaix, October 6, 1927)
Paysage
Landscape (English title)
Lithograph printed in brown ink on yellow wove paper, 1893.
Reference: Stein & Karshan 80; Boyer & Cate 80.
Plate number 20 from L’Estampe Originale.
Monogrammed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 9 ¼ x 11 ⅞ inches.
Album III, will be coming soon...
]]>Quand il n’y a pas de mots pour décrire la tristesse que l’on ressent, il vaut parfois mieux regarder quelques images qui le peuvent mieux que nous. De toute façon, il vaut mieux aujourd’hui regarder des images de la Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris dans la splendeur qui était sienne quand des artistes de la fin du dix-neuvième et début du vingtième siècle vivait à l’ombre des tours et de sa flèche. Quand les nouvelles sont tristes comme ça, mieux vaut éteindre la télévision et voir ce qu’il y a de bon et de beau en ce monde.
]]>Bernard Boutet de Monvel (August 9 , 1881 - October 28, 1949) was the son of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (1850 - 1913), an artist famous in his time for his innovative childrens’ illustration designs. As such it can be said that he was spoon-fed artistic creation. Known today mostly as a printmaker and a painter, Bernard Boutet de Monvel also was also a sculptor, an illustrator (like his father), as well as interior decorator.
It is clear that Bernard’s father, Louis-Maurice, encouraged his sons, Bernard and Roger to learn to express themselves artistically at a young age. Roger Boutet de Monvel (1879-1951), Bernard’s elder by two years, became a writer who published an array of fiction and non-fiction. Brothers Roger and Bernard were also known to dress elegantly, and would in their time have been defined as dandies. Bernard was already a very accomplished draftsman and painter in his teenage years. Some beautiful detailed pencil and watercolor drawings from 1897 remain in existence; Bernard was then just 16 years old.
Starting in 1897 the aspiring artist studied painting with Luc-Olivier Merson (1846-1920) and sculpture with Jean Dampt (1854-1945). While he clearly picked up good oil painting technique from Merson, it is a fortuitous encounter in 1898 with the American sculptor and printmaker Louis McClellan Potter (1873–1912) that helped Bernard reach his first great successes. McClellan Potter introduced Boutet de Monvel to color etching and aquatint. The technique both printmakers used, named “au repérage”, was an innovation that had come from color lithography and the world of posters. Artists were registering a number of different color plates, with each color printed to line up with the other colors precisely. Thus intaglio, which had historically been monochromatic, became colored. Only a handful of artists were making color etchings in this manner at the time. It is very probable that both men worked under the supervision of the father-and-son duo of master printers, Auguste and Eugène Delâtre. A long-running printer specialized in intaglio printing, the Delâtre shop became the place to learn color printmaking techniques in the 1890s in Paris.
Early etchings by Bernard Boutet de Monvel revisited subjects he had drawn or painted at a young age. In 1899 and beyond, just 18 years old, he created beautiful color aquatints with soft-ground etching outlines. Subject matters centered around the river Loing, just south of the forest of Fontainebleau, where Bernard and his brother spent a lot of time with his paternal family. In his prints barges progress slowly on the river or lazily wait for the next leg of the journey. The people who populated this artery of early 20th century commerce also feature prominently. In these early prints Bernard Boutet de Monvel also depicted older sitters, which he clearly respected and admired. These portraits of old women and men are elegant and delicate, created with great care of color and texture.
While his style didn’t change much between those early compositions and the ones beyond, the subject did. Coming of age, and growing in elegance, Boutet de Monvel turned his attention increasingly to the subject of the dandy and of the élégante. Men and women dressed in fine clothing became central to his compositions. While women are often dressed brightly, men are in dressed in tweed and plaid. In 1912, these and earlier prints received major critical recognition with an exhibition of 100 impressions of his color etching exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago (April 2 – 28, 1912).
Boutet de Monvel painted simultaneously in oil painting. He was prone to make quick watercolor and gouache sketches of his subjects, which were then reworked into pencil outlines to be used to create finished paintings.
His methodical approach at times becomes visible in the finished subjects. This seems particularly true of his portraits, which he began to exhibit at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1903. This staged style at times works in his favor; sometimes it does not. In many instances however his method yields surprisingly strong paintings, with viewers who draw you into the composition. It is not surprising that his talents of portraitist were therefore in high demand. Boutet de Monvel also exhibited work at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants as well in subsequent years. Starting in 1907 he also regularly sent his works to the United States to be exhibited at the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh. This exposure of his work in the States likely yielded the show in Chicago in 1912.
His early paintings are more traditional and earthy in tone. His style then became starker, with compositions using bright colors, in which strong shadows lend depth to the subject. A trip to Florence further brightened his palette and yielded a brief flirtation with the pointillist style circa 1907. This didn’t last, but the increased use of light did.
His paintings became more vibrant and the use of perspective slowly disappeared from his compositions. At this stage, around 1909, Bernard Boutet de Monvel further stylized his subjects, with geometric shapes simplified in many of his compositions. The early Art Deco style had taken a hold in his work.
Boutet de Monvel, ever a well-dressed man, contributed illustrations to many periodicals. He was especially in demand to provide fashion drawings to magazines such as Fémina, Jardin des modes nouvelles, and Gazette du Bon Ton.
Bernard Boutet de Monvel was called up as a reservist during World War I and was part of the hostilities for the full duration of the war. He was injured during the Battle of the Marne and after his recovery became a bombardier. He distinguished himself in the many appointments and he was given the the Légion d'Honneur award in June 1917. He spent the last years of the war in North Africa, in particular in Fez (Morocco).
While there he stated to paint again, and he also travelled to Rabat and Marrakesh. His vision of these cities and Moroccan life are singular and powerful. His style became even more austere and lent itself well to rendering these subjects. While other artists of the time often failed to distill essence of these cities, and yielded many touristy clichés, Boutet de Monvel seems able to render simple subjects that show the cities and their lives.
Back in Paris, Boutet de Monvel went back to painting full-time. Most of his attention was turned towards painting society portraits on commission. He also entered an illustration agreement with Harper’s Bazaar in 1926, which lasted until 1933. He travelled to the United States fairly frequently, both for exhibitions and to paint portraits. These are quite academic and generally depict their sitters in austere environments, looking rather distant and cold. Patrons in the States contributed heavily to his income in the 1920s and 1930s. While in large cities such as New York and Chicago, he also painted the city. These compositions are reminiscent of his simplified style developed in North Africa.
He spent the second World War in in Paris, before once again returning to portraiture after 1945. A final trip to the States took his life, when his plane crashed on the way back from New York to Paris in the Azores in 1949.
A.k.a. Charles Louis André Bernard Boutet de Monvel (birth name)
Born in Paris (France), August 9, 1881 – died (age 68) in São Miguel, Açores (Portugal), October 28, 1949
]]>Félix BUHOT (1847-1898): La Place des Martyrs et la Taverne du Bagne
Etching, roulette, soft-ground and drypoint on thick wove paper, 1885.
Refs: Bourcard/Goodfriend 163, Bonafous-Murat 289.
Plate: 13 ¼ x 17 ⅝ inches.
It is surprising how little has been said about this famous intaglio by Buhot. The artist is at the height of his art in 1885 and is known to many in Paris as one of the foremost etchers. This large plate is unequivocally one of the most appealing in Buhot’s œuvre and one of the last great compositions before the artist slides into a debilitating depression which eventually claims his life. Taverne du Bagne offers a wealth of information about its subject matter. The tavern was opened on October 6, 1885 by Maxime Lisbonne, a theater promoter and café owner, who had returned five years earlier from exile.
Lisbonne, a Commune leader in 1871 had been on the wrong side of history and spent ten years in prison in New Caledonia. Buhot’s print depicts the tavern and shows the name of Maxime Lisbonne on the façade, together with his comment Et cependant on en revient (and nonetheless one returns from it). To hammer home the whimsical point that both he, Lisbonne, and the patrons of his establishment, do escape from prison eventually, Dante Alighieri’s famous words Voi che entrate lasciate ogni speranza (you who enter, abandon all hope), can be made out as well.
Buhot clearly dates his print November 1885 in the plate, just one month after the tavern opened. This establishment, which was meant to entertain the public by giving the impression of being a jail, only lasted six months. Patrons were served by “inmates” who carried around their ball in chain. Beer was served in hollowed out balls as well, and patrons were given a certificate of release upon leaving the tavern. Lisbonne was both interested in the success of his tavern, and in keeping the plight of the many Communards exiles in people’s minds.
The margins in Buhot’s print show a castle-like dungeon; two inmates with their ball in hand, one serving a beer; an old bearded one-legged convict; a clawed dragon which likely refers to the claws which are compared to chains in the poem in the lower margin; a prison guard; Christ’s head and the whips used to torture him… Everything in Buhot’s margins, including the poem, likely by Lisbonne, reminds the viewer of the hardship, torture and pain endured by Communards during their ten year exile.
]]>Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, whose small stature was easily recognizable, was a well-known figure of Parisian night life and its musical and entertainment scene. While he is today best remembered for images of cancan dancers, café-concerts (dance halls), prostitutes and all manner of party scenes, Lautrec also frequently attended the theater, musical performances and the ballet. In his work both depictions of high art forms and lowbrow entertainment can be found. It can easily be argued that Toulouse-Lautrec did not really differentiated one from the other.
Beyond looking for fun, which he was known to do, and beyond looking for inspiration for his art, he mostly sought friendship and acceptance. His physical malformations and limitations, which were the genetic consequence of frequent familial intermarriage, were hard on him emotionally. Henri could not easily partake in the boisterous play of youth; and even activities such as hunting and horseback riding, valued by his upper-class upbringing in a family of nobility, were hard to join in earnest for him.
Upon arriving in Paris, Lautrec shed the decorum expected by this family and was thus able to push these physical limitations aside. Lautrec became the proverbial life of the party. Encounters and friendship came to him easily and he sought acceptance and appreciation wherever he could find it. One such friendship was with the bassoonist and composer Désiré Dihau (1833-1909).
Dihau was famous in Paris. He played for nearly 20 years at the Opéra de Paris, and also performed with the orchestras of the Théâtre-Lyrique and of the Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens. Not content with just these engagements, the workaholic also performed solo bassoon pieces at the Eldorado, the Cirque d'Hiver, the Orchestre Pasdeloup and at the Théâtre du Châtelet for the Concerts Colonne.
Because of his many engagements Dihau became known to many artists around the capital, including Edgar Degas, who painted his portrait and depicted him in other compositions. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who was a distant cousin or nephew (the exact relationship is unclear), would have encountered Dihau at one of his many performances soon upon his arrival in Paris.
By the early 1890s, Dihau, now in his late fifties, was performing in orchestras less often and had more time on his hands. He filled it by composing melodies for friends, such as the poet Jean Richepin (1849-1926). Dihau’s scores, fourteen of them, which would have been performed in various venues, including possibly at Le Chat Noir cabaret, were illustrated with covers by Toulouse-Lautrec.
We have two lithographs drawn by Toulouse-Lautrec for the Mélodies by Dihau. The first is titled Berceuse (Lullaby), and depicts a woman bent over a cradle (See it in detail HERE). She seems to be using the weight of her upper body to rock the cradle to get the baby to sleep. The poem was created by Jean Richepin in 1881. It is unclear exactly when Dihau scored it. The text mostly contrasts the cold outside with the peace and quiet of rocking a baby to sleep. Toulouse-Lautrec didn’t use this contrast. Instead he depicts the homely quiet of a mother keeping her young child quiet, while she tends to other chores in the kitchen. Two pans can be seen hanging on the right, while bread and water (or is it wine) are resting on the table; ready to be served to the family. A cat is also lying on the table in what is likely the warmest room in the house. The woman, who doesn’t show her face, is dressed in short sleeves, further suggesting the heat of the kitchen. Thus Lautrec evokes the warmth of the hearth and the bliss of mother and child at peace.
The second lithograph is titled Ballade de Noël (Christmas Ballad) and depicts a chimney sweep (ramoneur in French) at the end of a work day. In modern France, with the advent of the use of coal as a source of energy, the modern convenience required regular cleaning of chimneys. This became particularly critical in multi-storied dwellings. Climbing on the roofs was a perilous undertaking.
This task was generally reserved for young boys from Savoie, who had time to do it in winter, when farming jobs in the mountains came to a standstill. They would appear in cities at the start of winter and be gone by spring. They were easily recognized by wearing floppy red hats with a tassel. In wide chimneys very young boys were sent down to scrape the soot off the brick walls. This practice was extremely toxic. Upon realizing the mortality of boys at very young ages, and as the profession modernized, this practice was replaced with tools which were used to scrape the conduits without having to go down it.
Brushes, generally attached to long poles, were pushed down to bring the soot into the hearth, where it could easily be picked up and carried off. Our ramoneur is young, perhaps in his mid-teens and is carrying a brush (named le hérisson in French; literally translated, the hedgehog) on his back, as well as a typical triangular tool at his hip (likely used for scraping). He still has his knee pads tied around his legs and is probably headed home. His face is black from the day’s work, and his expression seems to suggest he’s seen something spooky. Richepin’s text, which Toulouse-Lautrec was illustrating, asks for a thought for those who do not have a hearth at Christmas time. Perhaps Lautrec wished to show hardship on the face of the young boy, rather than fear. A ray of brightness shines from the gaslight in the background. Lautrec literally scraped the stone to obtain this spark of light. Also in the background, a horse drawn carriage is careening into the night. Did it just miss the boy, and it perhaps that what spooked him? No matter; the carriage’s drunken tilt also aptly evokes the young man’s weariness at the end of what must have been an exhausting day.
Our lithographs were eventually completed with typographic text (with letters), which listed the author, the composer, the title of the song-poem, as well as the publisher of the score. Interestingly, one of these scores is dedicated to the wife of Emile Zola. The connection is unknown. The editions with letters as song sheets were of 500. As the ephemera that they were, the printing of these editions is rather poor and also on cheap paper. They have become rather scarce, because they were used as a piano score, but also because of cheap production made them brittle. As with all of compositions in this series, Lautrec printed a very small edition of the lithographs before letters were added. Ours are one of 20 impressions only, printed as soon as Lautrec had drawn them on stone. It is as close as we can get to the hand of the artist at work. These first printings were not marketed, as far as we know. They would have been printed for Toulouse-Lautrec’s personal use. He signed each impression with his monogram stamp, and numbered them in pencil. Lautrec likely gave these impressions to close friends and collaborators, or sold them to his most admiring patrons. Early impressions like these are extremely scarce and are amongst Lautrec’s most desirable monochromatic graphic work.
The collaboration between Dihau was clearly successful. In 1893 Lautrec also illustrated the cover of the Vieilles Histoires, a collection of poems by Jean Goudezki, set to music by Désiré Dihau as well. In this color lithograph Lautrec represents the musician, his bassoon tucked under the arm, leading a bear by a leash to the Institut de France via the Pont des Arts. And Lautrec further depicted Dihau in a number of other lithographs, drawings and paintings.
* * * * *
His distinctive style is recognizable in this composition. Rather than use black lines in his key block to outline the composition, he preferred to use another color which was more complimentary to the rest of the image. Often the color in the key block carries to a number of other color fields in the image, thus uniting the subject. The vase which titles this color woodblock is not the central element in this work. Rather, the variety of colors of the buttercups (ranunculus flowers) is in focus. The vase, which must have been a novelty at the time, is there to anchor the composition and lend the flowers a sense of scale. As a matter of fact, the vase is surprisingly devoid of depth, seemingly almost flat, while the flowers, which protrude in all directions, are very much part of the space that surrounds them, despite the lack of background.
Our impression is representative of the edition for this work. Hall Thorpe did vary colors, as other images here show.
He even went as far as to print a black background in some impressions. This is an effect he used on occasion with other color woodcuts of flowers.
]]>Henri GUERARD: Prés Caudebec
Etching printed with selectively wiped plate tone on laid paper, 1873.
Reference: not in Bertin. Extremely scarce, possibly unique.|
Plate: 4 ¼ x 7 ⅛ inches.
Norbert GOENEUTTE (1854-1894): Le Moulin de Saint-Jacut-de-la-Mer
A monotyped etching and drypoint with selective wiping on tan wove paper, after 1890.
Reference: Duvivier 160. The third and final state. Edition unknown.
Signed with the black monogram stamp (Lugt 1182).
Plate: 7 ¾ x 12 ⅝ inches.
Our print is a moody impression printed nearly as a monotype. While other impressions of this print were printed with the plate wiped clean, showing just the line work, this one is very different. Goeneutte inked the plate heavily and then wiped it selectively to render the effect of an oncoming storm. A bit of sunlight still peaks through the clouds out at sea, creating a reflection the ocean’s horizon line in the right edge of the composition. This lends the subject depth of field. The remainder of the composition is engulfed in heavy shadows, and brewing storminess, with ink creating darkness all around the landscape. The horse in the foreground seems completely unperturbed by the oncoming storm. Brittany’s coast is knows for just such weather, which comes and goes in minutes. The animal has clearly been through it before and continues to search for tasty sprouts of grass. The windmill in the background is prepared, however. Its sails have been taken in, and it is ready to weather strong winds, stoically waiting for the return of Brittany’s steady breeze to get back to work.
Impression of the same plate from the regular edition.
With the increasing popularity of etching in the 19th century, then like now, collectors were looking for the unusual. Editioned prints were very collectible at the time. But given the opportunity to buy something another collector couldn’t have was obviously desirable for any serious collector. Artists who liked to print their own editions, as was Goeneutte’s case, obliged. They would ink selectively, etch in evolving states, using different ink, papers, or even add a touch of color. Our simple composition was given atmospheric richness in this impression. It is difficult to envision how the artist thought of changing it so dramatically. A bit of excess ink in the right place as he was readying to pull another plain impression may have inspired him to go from sunny to stormy, and been the catalyst to this unique impression. This is a collector’s item.
]]>Imagine a contemporary print publisher convincing Mel Bochner, Ed Ruscha, Kiki Smith and Chuck Close to all make a work with them. Or imagine a few decades ago those artists being Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtentstein and Keith Haring. I’m just dropping names here. But then imagine that within two months, not only this fictitious publisher convinced these artists, they actually had the print published, and that those prints became some of the best known by that given artist. You’d think that this kind of confluence of talent, luck and success just never occurs in the real world.
Yet in just two years, André Marty managed to publish 100 prints of world class caliber in his now famed publication, named L’Estampe Originale (The Original Print). In ten albums, Marty put together under one proverbial roof, a great many of the most important printmakers of his time. It helped that he was located in Paris, then the center of the artistic universe. It should be said that L’Estampe Originale is dominated by French artists. Aside from a few English works, as well as the odd American and Belgian, it is a Franco-French endeavor. This should not diminish his accomplishment, however. In the first album, in which Marty clearly decided to come out with a bang, he published amazing and today famous prints by Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Heni-Gabriel Ibels, Paul-Elie Ranson, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edouard Vuillard! How’s that for start?
In 1970 and then again in the early 1990s, exhibitions and two catalogues were devoted to the publication. They were held at the now defunct Museum of Graphic Art in New York, and then in 1991 and 1992 at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum (New Brunswick, NJ) and the Van Gogh Museum (Amsterdam).
It used to be that any collector worth her or his salt was the proud owner of a reference library. And anyone interested in modern prints would have the Stein & Karshan on their shelf (as in, Donna M. Stein & Donald H. Karshan, authors of the first catalogue). And if you didn’t get that one, you surely had bought a copy of the catalogue authored by Patricia Eckert Boyer and Phillip Dennis Cate. No more! Most print collectors today don’t have books. If you’ve replaced your bookshelves with more wall space to hang art, I certainly will show you some indulgence… All kidding aside, I find myself constantly copying these books. So, in the age of the internet, it seemed à propos to put these catalogues online. Here goes: this is an overview of Album I. More will be forthcoming. As I put other album overviews together, I will link pages (chrono)logically.
Etrepagny, January 26, 1861 – Paris, August 19, 1932)
Le Cavalier et le Mendiant
The Rider and the Beggar (English title)
Lithograph printed in black on tan wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 1; Boyer & Cate 1.
Plate number 1 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in red crayon (red pencil).
Image size: 14 ½ x 19 ¼ inches
Pierre BONNARD
(Fontenay-aux-Roses, October 3, 1867 – Cannet, January 23, 1947)
Famille
Family or Family Scene (English titles)
Lithograph printed in color, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 9; Boyer & Cate 9; Roger-Marx 4.
Plate number 2 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 14 ¼ x 7 inches
Maurice DENIS
(Granville, November 25, 1870 – Paris, November 13, 1943)
Madeleine (deux têtes)
Madeleine (tow heads) or Tenderness (English titles)
Lithograph printed in four colors on thin wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 19; Boyer & Cate 19; Cailler 70.
Plate number 3 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in purple ink.
Image size: 11 ¾ x 9 ¾ inches
Henri-Gabriel IBELS
(Paris, November 30, 1867 – Paris, February 1936)
Au Cirque
At the Circus or Circus Ring (English titles)
Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 37; Boyer & Cate 37.
Plate number 4 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 19 ⅜ x 10 ¼ inches
Charles MAURIN
(Puy, April, 1856 – Grasse, July 22, 1914)
Portrait de Toulouse-Lautrec
Aquatint printed in brown ink on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 46; Boyer & Cate 46.
Plate number 5 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in blue pencil.
Plate size: 8 ⅞ x 5 ⅜ inches
Paul Elie RANSON
(Limoges, March 29, 1861 – Paris, Feburary 20, 1909)
Tigre dans les Jungles
Tiger in the Jungle (English title)
Lithograph printed in three colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 62; Boyer & Cate 62.
Plate number 6 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 14 ½ x 11 ⅛ inches.
Ker-Xavier ROUSSEL
(Lorry-les-Metz, December 10, 1867 – L’Etanglaville, June 6, 1944)
Dans la Neige
In the Snow or Training of the Dog (English titles)
Lithograph printed in four colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 76; Boyer & Cate 76.
Plate number 7 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 13 x 7 ¾ inches.
Henri de TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
(Albi, November 24, 1864 – Malromé, September 9, 1901)
La Lithographie, couverture pour la 1ère année de l’Estampe Originale
Lithography, cover for the first year of L’Estampe Originale (English title)
Lithograph printed in eight colors on wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 84; Boyer & Cate 84.
Plate number 9 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 22 ¼ 25 ⅛ inches.
Félix Edouard VALLOTTON
(Lausanne, December 28, 1865 – Paris, December 25, 1925)
La Manifestation
The Demonstration (English title)
Woodcut printed in black ink on tan wove paper, mounted on a larger sheet, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan 87; Boyer & Cate 87.
Plate number 8 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 9 x 12 ½ inches.
Edouard VUILLARD
(Cuiseaux, November 11, 1868 – La Baule, June 21, 1946)
Intérieur or Convalescence or La Sieste
Interior or Convalescence or The Nap (English titles)
Lithograph printed in two colors on thin wove paper, 1893.
References: Stein & Karshan ; Boyer & Cate 90.
Plate number 10 from L’Estampe Originale.
Signed and numbered in pencil.
Image size: 11 ½ x 9 inches.
Go to Album II by clicking here.
Album III
Album IV
Album V
Album VI
Album VII
Album VIII
Album IX
]]>This is a companion piece to a similarly large plate by Edward Julius’ twin brother Charles Maurice Detmold (1883-1908), titled “Duel in the Air”. Both our composition and the one by C.M. Detmold just mentioned were unusually large plates for the brothers, who used to print their own editions when size permitted it. This plate was printed at an outside printing studio, due to the large size.
Above: "Duel in the Air"
Off to the Fishing Grounds is regarded as one of the high points of the very young and precocious artist, who were critically acclaimed from the very beginning of their public artistic careers. Botanical subjects, and birds and fauna in particular, were the main source of inspiration for the Detmold brothers. This highly unusual composition for its time is truly groundbreaking. Not only is nature the central motif, as had started to happen throughout the 19th century, the bird’s eye view is arresting and perfectly staged. By flying above the herons we see their majesty, while also taking a glimpse at irises in the foreground, just below the birds; and while also taking in the vast expanse of the scenery, much as the birds.
In addition to being so novel this etching is also of a finesse that belies the artist’s age. He was just 16 years old! Amazing parallel line work creates rich textures in the birds’ feathers. In the hills, which have been shaded with crosshatching, the lines have been etched for a shorter period of time. By “stopping out” his ground in these areas, Detmold adds depth to his composition. Surely inspired by Japanese printmaking in this work, Detmold transcends whatever sources of inspiration he may have had to make this work of art so successful.
Details about this work can be found HERE.
In Tunisia Potter seems to have drawn of great many portraits, mostly in watercolor. These seem to have mostly vanished. He later reworked some of these compositions into color aquatints, a technique he had most certainly learned, or at the very least perfected, while living in Paris for about 4 years.
While in Paris Potter became friends with Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949). The two artists, who both seem to have had a propensity towards dandyism, met in the studio of Luc-Olivier Merson’s studio at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Potter, who was already versed in color printmaking, showed the ropes to young Bernard, who took to it with gusto and made some amazing color aquatints from circa 1897 to 1914. Boutet de Monvel etched a portrait of his friend Potter in 1900, likely at some time between Potter’s visit to Tunisia and his return to the States.
Our portrait depicts a young woman, most likely from the Berber tribe, which was and still inhabits Tunisia. The facial tattoos indicate this tribal identity. In most Islamic traditions tattoos were not accepted. The woman seriously looks ahead, unperturbed by the artist painting her, and confident on such a memorable day in the life of a woman.
Details about this work can be found HERE.
]]>Maurice Langaskens (1884-1946) was “lucky” enough to spend a large part of the war in a German camp, as a captured enemy combatant. He made quite a few portraits of the men who were detained with him. These are intimate and quiet portraits; testaments to the attempts of each and every man, woman and child, living through war, to find peace somewhere, somehow, as the battle rages around them.
Much violence still plagues the world today. But it’s better than it used to be. The wholesale killing of millions seems to happen with less frequency, despite the fact that there are more of us. So, lest we forget what war does, it is critical that we remember the devastation of the World Wars and the many wars that came after. Do yourself the favor of doing an image search online for the word “devastation” in association with Aleppo, Dresden, Yser... You’ll see.
So, whatever our beliefs, respect of those around us is the antidote to the madness that is war. And wherever it is you find peace and quiet, is a place you should visit often. One of my refuges is often art. Here is one work by my Belgian soul mate Maurice Langaskens. The title is "L'Adieu au Village" (The Farewell to the Village). A man dressed as a soldier, looks one last time at his village, leavening it, as the title suggests, never to return.
Be kind.
]]>Cleveland, OH
PAST - 2018-19 Season
Minneapolis, MN
Friday, September 28, 2018: 4.30 pm - 7.30 pm
Saturday, September 29, 2018: noon - 5 pm
Cleveland, OH
Thursday, October 11, 2018
to Sunday, October 14, 2018
The 34th Annual Fine Print Fair
Cleveland Museum of Art
11150 East Boulevard
Cleveland, OH 44106
New York, NY
Thursday, October 25, 2018
to Sunday, October 28, 2018
The New York Satellite Print Fair
517 West 37th Street (between 10th and 11th Avenue)
New York, NY 10018
Portland, OR
Friday, January 25, 2019: 6 - 9 PM (ticketed)
Saturday, January 26, 2019: 10 AM - 6 PM (free admission)
to Sunday, January 27, 2019: 11 AM - 5 PM (free admission)
Portland Fine Print Fair
Portland Art Museum - Fields Ballroom
1119 SW Park Avenue
Portland, OR 97205
Los Angeles, CA - Pasadena, CA
Friday, February 1, 2019: 2 - 8 PM ($20)
Saturday, February 2, 2019: 10 AM - 6 PM ($10)
Rare Books LA
Pasadena Convention Center
300 East Green Street
Pasadena, CA 91101
Berkeley, CA - San Francisco, CA
Saturday, February 9, 2019: 10 AM - 6 PM (free admission)
Sunday, February 10, 2019: 10 AM - 5 PM (free admission)
San Francisco Fine Print Fair
Bay Area Fine Print Fair
Kala Institute
2990 San Pablo Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94702
San Antonio, TX
Friday, March 1, 2019: 5.30 - 8.30 PM (R.S.V.P. to Armstrong Fine Art)
Saturday, March 2, 2019: 10 AM - 5 PM (free with admission to museum & for members)
Sunday, March 3, 2019: noon - 5 PM (free with admission to museum & for members)
McNay Print Fair
McNay Art Museum
Leeper Auditorium
6000 North New Braunfels Avenue
San Antonio, TX 78209
This will be the first in a series of posts related to the works of Henri Rivière. Despite the amount of attention given to this artist over the years by many, and deservedly so, an illustrated catalog raisonné still does not exist. The simple list drafted by Armond Fields in his book in the early 1980s, is really the only complete reference we have to go on. Below you will find an illustrated list of the works which are part of this set, which was published bound in book format. All the way at the bottom of this list, you will also find a brief historical introduction about the relevance of this series of prints.
If you landed on this page, hoping to buy something, you can see what the gallery currently has for sale by clicking HERE.
Plate 1: Frontispice
Plate 2: Les Chantiers de la Tour Eiffel
Plate 3: La Tour en Construction Vue du Trocadéro
Plate 4: En Haut de la Tour
Plate 5: Rue Beethoven
Plate 6: Des Jardins Maraichers des Grenelle
Plate 7: Du Pont des Saints-Pères
Plate 8: Du Quai de la Conférence
Plate 9: De Notre-Dame
Plate 10: Du Boulevard de Clichy
Plate 11: Du Point-du-Jour
Plate 12: Fête sur la Seine le 14 Juillet
Plate 13: Du Quai de Passy
Plate 14: De la rue Lamarck
Plate 15: De la Rue Rochechouart
Plate 16: Du Quai de Passy par la Pluie
Plate 17: En Bateau-Mouche
Plate 18: Du Quai de Grenelle
Plate 19: De la Rue des Abbesses
Plate 20: Du Pont de Grenelle
Plate 21: Sur les Toits
Plate 22: Du Bois de Boulogne
Plate 23: De la Place de la Concorde
Plate 24: De l’Ile des Cygnes
Plate 25: Dans la Tour
Plate 26: Du Pont d'Austerlitz
Plate 27: Derrière l'Elan de Frémiet (Trocadéro)
Plate 28: Du Quai de Javel (Baraque d'Aiguilleur)
Plate 29: Du Bas-Meudon Vieux Lavoir
Plate 30: Ouvrier Plombier dans la Tour
Plate 31: Du Quai de Passy Charbonniers
Plate 32: De la Gare du Bas-Meudon
Plate 33: De l’Estacade
Plate 34: Des Jardins du Trocadéro, l'Automne
Plate 35: Les Péniches
Plate 36: Le Peintre dans la Tour
In the late 1880s, Henri Rivière had created several sketches of the Eiffel Tower as it appeared in the Parisian cityscape. Since circa 1887 he had also been one of the pioneer artists to made use of photography for artistic purposes. As a matter of fact it is likely that his photographic work prompted the illustrious Edgar Degas (1834-1917), who was a close friend of Rivière, to also take up photography later in life.
As the artist recollects in his memoirs (Henri Rivière, Les détours du chemin, souvenirs, notes & croquis, 1864-1951, Editions Equinoxe, Saint-Remy de Provence, 2004, p. 68-70) he and two friends who were active at the Chat Noir had gained access to the tower while it was being completed. In these memoirs Rivière recounts the eventful ascent and descent, as his friend Jules Jouy, the famous Montmartre chansonnier, suffered from vertigo, and had to be taken down by crane in a cloth bag! During this visit Rivière had completed a photo reportage of the final stage of the Tower’s construction. He gave a set of 27 photographs to the Eiffel archive (now at the Musée d’Orsay). The 39 photographs of the Tower, out of about 350 known photographs by the artist, show his fascination for this metal age symbol (see: Henri Rivière, graveur et photographe, Edition de la Réunion des musées nationeaux, Paris, 1988).
Henri Rivière is known mostly for his attention to soft landscapes, and it stands to reason that the angular Eiffel Tower would have disturbed his world vision. The artist however showed with his interest in photography and in the Tower, that he was not averse to progress. On the contrary; many of the images of the series of the Thirty-Six Views of the Eiffel Tower, show his fondness to this beacon of modern life in the Parisian landscape. Chances are that this elegant landmark, visible from so many points of the French capital, appealed to him as a silhouette. His activities for the Chat Noir cabaret, where he had been presenting elaborate shadow plays, made him acutely aware of the effects obtained in Japanese arts. The flattening of the world into a single dimension, unconcerned with the depth of field, clearly appealed to him immensely. This interest in simplifying perspective is profusely clear in many compositions of the Views of the Eiffel Tower. Circa 1900, after years of ever finer work in color lithography, he decided to translate these drawings and photographs into a series of prints: Les Trente-Six Vues de la Tour Eiffel. The ambitious project was a collaboration between fellow artists and friends: Asrène Alexandre, the famous art critic, wrote the prologue; Georges Auriol contributed design, and typography; and Eugène Verneau, of course, printed the works. It is almost certain that the edition projected at 550 was never completed. After extensive research, it seems likely that the edition was terminated around 300 or even a little bit before that point. Obviously the production of such an elaborate publication was expensive. It is likely that after the initial purchases from regular customers, it was decided that finishing the edition was to be ruinous.
The significance of this series cannot be overstated. The sheer ambition of it has to be acknowledged. As Armond Fields elegantly put it in is seminal book about the artist: “Rivière completed another important project, one which had occupied his time on and off since 1888: recording the building of the Eiffel Tower. He had completed his sketches in the 1890’s, and had made two of the images into woodcuts, but had abandoned cutting the rest of the images. There were thirty-six separate images, each to be printed in five colors with a total of 550 sets produced, 99,000 separate printings were required. Rivière decided to translate the images into lithographs, and in 1902, Les Trente-Six Vues de la Tour Eiffel appeared. […] The work was loosely based on Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Fujiyama, and is one of the greatest examples of Japonisme. The combination of a Japanese style depicting and urban, technological, Western object makes it a perfect example of how French artists synthesized their Japanese influences.” (Henri Rivière, Armond Fields, Gibbs M Smith, Salt Lake City, 1983, p. 30). And as Arsène Alexandre clearly states in his introduction, the Tower is only an excuse to depicting the beauty of Paris: “Here, it is a matter of telling the flabbergasting beauty of Paris, to tell it again to the ungrateful and undisturbed Parisian who always forget it, and to tell it in all its forms and all its colors. To make of this album a memento of this beauty to the people of today and a testimonial for those who come after us.”.
]]>Hermann-Paul remains to this day a prolific creative mind whose artistic importance is generally understated. The reason for this injustice is simply that he was active for so long, and that he expressed himself in very different ways. He is often known primarily for creating elegant and whimsical color lithographs, such as “Les Petites Machines à Ecrire”, published by L’Estampe Originale. His relentless work as an illustrator on the other hand is not well known.
And yet, Hermann-Paul drew thousands of illustrations for famous publications such as Le Rire, L’Assiette au Beurre and Le Cri de Paris. Our drawing was published in Le Figaro on November 30th, 1899.
At the time Paris was in the grips of Exposition fever. The capital was putting the finishing touches to the massive construction that was to show off its primacy among European cities. National pride was running high, not least because Paris had avoided war and major insurrection for 30 years by then. It lent the City of Lights cockiness towards outsiders. In our drawing an “Englishman” is showing up at an upscale shop, tourist guide in hand. The massive cashier looks down on him, arms crossed, from behind his desk. The size of his ledger and of the pulpit itself, combined with his unwelcoming attitude of the teller, belittles the visitors. The garçon de magasin is standing, apparently ready to serve customers. He is no taller than the foreign visitor, yet his squinting eyes seem to dare the opposing figure to ask for something. The caption in Le Figaro reads “Nationalisme – Un Anglais!... Est-ce qu’il aurait l’aplomb de nous acheter quelque chose ?... ” (Nationalism – An Englishman! Does he have the confidence of actually buying something?).
While the foreigner’s face is not visible to us, his discomfort is palpable. He stands at attention, as if frozen, and clearly gazes above the garçon’s head, afraid to make eye contact. His boyhood cap, his casual cuffed plaid pants, and loose rain jacket clash with the formality of the store’s dress code. We feel for this foreigner, a hapless victim of Parisian chauvinisme, who unwittingly walked in, likely poorly advised by his travel guide. Hermann-Paul masterfully captures the moment, and the three attitudes, in just a few strokes of china ink. He even adds color, while his drawing was to be reproduced only in black. Since the drawing was reproduced photomechanically it is likely that color was added after the drawing came back from the printer’s. Hermann-Paul commonly colored his drawings at that time, whether or not they were to be printed monochromatically.
You can study this work in detail HERE, and maybe buy it, if it's not already sold.
]]>The gallery, which had been founded by Richard Reed Armstrong, was started in 1984. By the time I came “on board” in the spring of 1999, the gallery didn’t have a website. At that time there were only about 3 million websites in the whole wild world. So, when we launched ours in early 2000, we were still regarded as early adopters: one of about 15 million websites to be online. It showed. In the early years of our site, we met a lot of people through "the web". It also has to be said that, at that time, the world of French art around 1900 was hugely popular. The site as it was then stayed the same for about 4 years. We would change the layout of the home page from time to time, and change the background color on occasion. Mostly we would add new inventory on occasion, when we could make the time. In that iteration every single page was designed by hand by an assistant or myself, and uploaded, one by one. It was slow going.
In 2004 we migrated to a system which was connected to our database. If we entered the piece in our database, with an image, and indicated to the system that we wanted it “live”, it would be uploaded automatically. This was obviously a huge improvement for us. As of that time, our site tended to reflect fairly accurately what was available at a given time. The new layout of the site stayed with us through 2012. Eight years! It served us well.
As the awful memories of the great depression receded, I decided to revamp the website once more. At the ripe old age of 8 years, it felt like it needed to look a bit sharper. And it did. The new incarnation of Armstrong Fine Art again has served you and me well, for these past 6 years. However, the structure of the site has aged rapidly. For one it wasn’t mobile friendly, which in the age of the smartphone just wasn’t cutting it any longer. But the site also wasn’t dynamic enough to compete. In an age with 2 billion website, it became easy to see that the site was no longer reaching a critical mass. When, for instance, auction houses have archived millions of their previously sold items online, a static website such as ours simply couldn't compete for the necessary visibility any more.
So, what’s changed? Well, beyond the obvious simplification of the layout, you will find three new important features. For one, our homepage is quite a bit more dynamic. It offers a number of avenues of inquiry. Hopefully you find one that appeals to you. Click on something and see where it takes you.
The two additional big changes are the search bar and the filters. Both are reflections of the same improvement: fine-grained information being added to individual works. Whereas you had to know pretty much what particular work of art you would want to find in the past, you can now let a search suggest something to you. The information related to many of the works still need to be refined, but you will see it is steadily getting better. And while our blog pages are few for the time being, that will not be so for long. So, let your imagination run wild: type something and see what comes up. And if, for the time being, nothing compelling comes up, go to our home page. One of the current features may let your clicking wander in an attractive direction. I hope it will.
]]>Despite living a tragically short life, and leaving behind only a small corpus of work, Charles-Marie Dulac needs no further introduction to those interested in early impressionist color lithography, or the rarified world of French symbolism. All of Dulac’s major lithographs were designed within a period of about three years.
Born in Paris, Dulac has been trained in decorative painting and as a scene painter for the theatre and opera, before turning to fine art. Around 1890 he fell ill with lead poisoning as a result of years spent in industrial studios working with lead-white pigment. The illness proved terminal and Dulac died in 1898, at the age of 33.
Upon discovering his fatal illness, Dulac went through a religious conversion, moved to spiritual epiphany by the example of Saint Francis of Assisi. He joined the Third Order of Saint Francis and remained true to this religious calling to the moment of his death, being buried in his monk’s habit.
The profound spiritual communion with nature, which Dulac discovered upon his conversion, is eloquently apparent throughout his surviving oeuvre. It was through the medium of color lithography that Dulac discovered his true genius, even though his painting, which has not been studied, deserves far more appreciation than it commands today. The artist saw his works in lithography as continuous experiments in the search for the fleeting emotions of nature, expressing the spiritual aspects of landscapes. Dulac printed each of his lithographs in carefully chosen schemes of delicate, often muted colors, concentrating on mood rather than detail. Emotional and mysterious, these images take us through a series of atmospheres ranging from the uplifting and the beautiful to the somber and melancholy.
The two lithographs below are two states of the same composition. Paysages is one of two major series of prints Dulac produced. Only about 15 to 35 impressions were printed in each of four to six color schemes, from each pair of plates or stones, producing a total of roughly 100 to 120 numbered impressions of each image. Our early state, presented first, includes the sculpture of a figure, reaching out towards a sea, atop of promontory. In the edition the sculpture is absent, as is the body of water which has been replaced by further terraces. This subject, which was also used in the artist’s other famous series, the Cantique des Créatures, is often titled La Terrasse de Vézelay. Dulac painted the basilica in Vezelay both inside, and out quite a few times. Interestingly the artist decides to take out the sculpture and sea, thus focusing on the landscape, and changing the mood from a somber triumphalism to something more ominous. Yet the trivial drain pipe, hidden in the dark soil in the lower right corner, was kept, accounting for the presence of the reflection of a small pool of water. In this second state, the contrast of the ashen sky is quite pronounced, and focuses the attention on the light brightening up the cloud. A very limited number of changes between both states provide very different compositions. This is a technical trick at which Dulac excelled.
Paysage n°4
Lithograph printed in two tones on chine-collé, 1892-93.
Reference: BN-IFF 1.
Plate 4, before the snake remarque, for the set of 8 color lithographs titled Suite de Paysages. Early state proof, before the edition of 100 (printed in 6 different color variants). Before additional work throughout the stones, with the tint stone more prominent, before the promontory was added, and the sculpture effaced. We have never enccountered another impression of this state, which may be unique.
Image: 12 ⅜ x 19 ½ inches.
Paysage n°4
Lithograph printed in two tones on chine-collé, 1892-93.
Reference: BN-IFF 1.
Plate 4, with the snake remarque, for the set of 8 color lithographs titled “Suite de Paysages”. Printer’s proof, aside from the edition of 19 printed in these tones. From a total edition of 100 (printed in 6 different color variants), plus a few proofs, such as ours.
Annotated “Spécimen. Tiré à 19 exemplaires numérotés de 81 à 100”, in pencil, in the hand of the artist.
Image: 13 ⅜ x 19 ¼ inches.