Spaightwood Galleries

During the twentieth century, groups of artistic innovators determined to find the "new" way have sought the company of like-minded spirits and gathered together in groups, issued their manifestos, and exhibited their art. The Impressionists are one obvious example, the Fauves another, both centered in Paris; in Germany, many smaller groups ultimately converged upon Berlin and in Austria, Vienna was another magnet for artists seeking to overthrow established canons of art. By the 1930s, however, the rise of the Nazis, Fascists (Italian and Spanish), and Communists had led to an unprecedented gathering of artists in Paris (including Kandinsky, Larionov, Chagall, Goncharova, Sonia Delaunay, Magnelli, Picasso, and Miró), many of whom stayed through the war, some of whom fled and returned after the war, joined by American expatriates like Niki de St. Phalle and Joan Mitchell. Drawing from our extensive of inventory of twentieth-century original prints, we present Paris as the artistic cauldron in which the art of the middle and later century was blended into the tasty stew that has become known as the "School of Paris."

The show, as usual, will include over 120 works, many of which have been shown in museums all over the world, so even if you have seen them before, you may enjoy seeing them again. C. S. Lewis once said that a book that's only worth reading once isn't worth reading at all; we find the same to be true of art as well: if a work of art cannot grow richer and inspire more complex responses the more it is seen, it's perhaps best thought of as a cheap thrill no matter how expensive it is.

All of the artists in this how have each created works that defined the limits of the possible for other artists. Just as Miro had to digest what Picasso had done before he could receive Picasso's ultimate accolade that only he had taken painting past the place where Picasso had left it, so the artists of the last third of the century either had to come to terms with the art we are featuring or define themselves by turning their backs upon it (great artists often discourage easy assimilation by the very magnitude of their accomplishment; it may take a great artist to truly assimilate a great predecessor into his or her own art).

In America, art galleries and often museums tend to focus on the new and neglect the old; this may explain why we have such a fragmented visual culture that few artists find it possible to produce an evolving body of work over a lifetime. In Europe, however, where thousands of years of art offer themselves to the eye in almost any city (sometimes, even any church or public building), one could only ignore the past by blinding oneself (perhaps this is what Oedipus really had in mind).

Odalisque au tambourin. Color pochoir (hand-colored stencil print) after a painting, 1929. 500 impressions for Florent Fels' Henri Matisse, published 1929 in Paris by XXeme Siecle. The pochoirs were executed under Matisse's supervision. This beautiful hand-colored piece is one of the few early color prints in Matisse's print oeuvre. Image size: 223x162mm. Price: $2,875.

PABLO PICASSO (Spanish, 1881-1973), Degas in the Bordello. (Series 156 n. 95) Original etching, 1971. 50 numbered impressions signed with the estate signature stamp. Executed 3/25/71 and approved by Picasso before his death, this etching, like the others in this series, was printed posthumously. Image size: 230x310mm. Price: $5,575.

The house painters (H. 62, S. 22). Original etching, 1923-27. 335 impressions signed in the plate + 33 HC. Chagall's etchings for Gogol's Dead Souls are among his earliest etchings. They are also some of his finest. No hand-signed proofs exist. Illustrated in the 1988 Moscow Chagall exhibition. Image size: 277x218mm. Price: $2,750.

Vision of Paris (M. 287). Original color lithograph, 1960. 100 numbered impressions + c. 2000 unsigned impressions for Chagall Lithographe I. There were also 40 signed and numbered impressions reserved for the artist. Illustrated in Marc Chagall: Bonjour Paris. Image size: 325x250mm. Price: $1,775.

Aidez L'Espagne! (Dupin 13). Original color pochoir, 1937. Published at the height of the Spanish Civil War as a loose insert in Cahier d'art (1937) to draw support for the Republican government, then under attack by Franco (aided by Nazi and Fascist "volunteers"). Printed by Imprimerie moderne, Paris. A rare and beautiful print with the surface texture of a gouache, color fresh and unfaded, in excellent condition. During the Museum of Modern Art's 100th anniversary exhibition for Miro, they also mounted a small print show. This print was reproduced on the cover of their brochure in black and white; in 1999, when they mounted a large exhibition to celebrate their acquisition of Miro's first series of 8 "Red and Black" etchings, they again included this work and Art on Paper reproduced it in color in their feature about the show. One of Miro's most important works. Signed in the plate. Image size: 315x245mm. Price: $7800.

JOAN MIRO (Spanish, 1893-1983), Femme et Oiseau devant la Lune (Dupin 51, Cramer 10). Original etching and aquatint, 1947. 300 signed, dated, and numbered impressions for the "Laurels Number One" Portfolio, of which this is 232/300. Printed at Atelier 17 in New York. A superb, dark impression of this early print. Three light stains c. one inch from the platemark. A rare and beautiful print. Image size: 110x150mm. Price: $9600.

ZAO WOU-KI (Chinese, b. 1921), Composition (Riviere 170). Original color lithograph, 1967. 95 signed & numbered impressions on Rives + 5 artist proofs.. Zao Wou-Ki came to France from China after World War II. His work has been widely shown: as of 1988, he had had more than 100 one-person shows, including retrospectives at the Pompidou, the Metropolitan Museum (NY) and the MFA (Boston). Image size: 550x447mm. Price: $1250.

Head of a man / Diego (Lust 155). Original lithograph, 1961. 90 signed and numbered impressions of which ours is one. There are also c. 1500 impressions on paper with no margins as published in a 1961 issue of Derrière le Miroir dedicated to Giacometti's work. Giacometti's brother and assistant Diego was also a sculptor, but this is less a portrait that a statement about anxiety and the human condition Image size: 380x280mm. Price: $7600.

Jean Cocteau (French,1889-1963), Le Coq. Original color lithograph 1956. Edition unknown; signed and dated in the stone. Coocteau was one of the more glittering of the pantheon of stars in the Paris firmament before and after the second world war. Surrealist filmaker most renowned for Orpheus and Beauty and the Beast, friend of Picasso and many of the other artists, and artist himself, Cocteau was a major figure in the world of the avant-garde. Image size: 468x270mm. Price: $475.

JACQUES LIPCHITZ (b. Lithuania, 1891-d. France, 1973), Aeneas carrying his father from their burning home. Original color lithograph, 1965. 235/250 signed & numbered impressions on Rives paper (plus 50 impressions on Auvergne) to benefit the International Rescue Committee, the group which rescued Lipchitz from the Germans in 1940. Lipchitz was one of the most important Modernist sculptors and was featured in many retrospectives at most major museums in the U.S. and Europe. The marks top and bottom are to allow alignment of the plate for the various colors and do not show when the print is matted. Image size: 650x503mm. Price: $2350.