Click for BBB rating

Upper right: Suzanne McClelland (American, b. 1959), Untitled (click title for enlargment), Oil on canvas, 1980. Suzanne McClelland,whose work is currently being featured in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of Art in NYC ), is here represented by a work that was included in the exhibition Panorama '80. The work is signed and titled in pencil on the reverse. McClelland's work is featured in the March 2014 Art in America, pp. 106-115. Image size: 812x863mm. Frame size: 31-7/8x34 inches. Price: $9500.
Upper left: Joan Snyder (American, b. 1940), Field of Moons (Symmes 44; (click title for enlargment). Original monoprint (color etching, aquatint, & woodcut), 1993. This is part of a series of 8: hand-inked and selectively printed in various media, including oil paint and pastel; they were subject to multiple printings and hand-coloring, each one of the 8 impressions is thus a unique variant and is annotated 1/1 lower left and signed lower right. Originally published in "The New Provincetown Print Project Portfolio." Image size: 565x711mm. Mat size: 38x34-5/8 inches. Price: $5000. For more on Joan Snyder, click here.
Lower right: Susan Crile (American, b. 1942), Back and Forth (T. 82-613; (click title for enlargment). Original color lithograph printed and published by the Tamarind Institute, 1982. 40 signed & numbered impressions. Crile is a painter and printmaker whose work is featured in A Graphic Muse, and she has had numerous one-person shows throughout the U.S. Her wprks are included in a number of U.S. museums including the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo, NY. This work was printed at the Tamarind Press. Image size: 614x920mm. Mat size: 30x42 inches. Price: $2500.
Lower left: Jennifer Bartlett (American, b. 1941), Earth Fireworks (Art at Lincoln Center, p. 181; (click title for enlargment). Original 26-color serigraph, 1996. 105 signed & numbered impressions. Bartlett is one of the most important American painters and printmakers of her generation. Her work frequently explores different ways of seeing a given place or object. Commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NY CIty and published by them. One of her most beautiful prints. Image size: 575x775mm. Mat size: 30x42 inches. Price: $3750.
Leaning against the bookshelves: Anita Jung (American, b. 1960), Persephone (original monotype: etching, aquatint, and hand-painting; click title for enlargment) was the Greek goddess of Spring (her Roman name was Proserpina), daughter of Ceres (her Roman name was Demeter), goddess of Agriculture, and Zeus. Hades, the ruler of the underworld saw her, loved her, kidnapped her, and brought her down to his domain. After Ceres threatened to stop all plants from growing, Hades compromised and allowed her to spend half the year with him and the other half on earth. Anita Jung received her MFA from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She also worked as a master printer at Bill Weege's Off Jone's Road Print Shop and at the Tandem Press of the University of Wisconsin. She is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Iowa where her specialty is printmaking. Her work has been shown in the US and abroad. For more of her works, please click here. Image size: 800x1210mm. Frame size: 33x49inches. Price: $1850.

For a web-tour of the large images in the show, please click here.

I am delighted to announce a brand-new acquisition (though one we have been hoping for over the past nearly 40 years). Marc Chagall, The Cavern of the Nymphs (M. 321). Original color lithograph, 1961. 250 unsigned impressions on Arches paper for the deluxe portfolio, Daphnis and Chloe (there were also XX portfolios HC  numbered from I to XX). Each of the portfolios was signed, but not the individual sheets. In addition to the portfolios, there were also 60 signed and numbered impressions with wide margins of each of the 40 original color lithographs in the suite, 26 of which had images that were about 320x460mm and 16 were double pages with a centerfold whose images measured about 420x640mm (of which ours is one). Chagall's lithographs illustrating the story of Daphnis and Chloe (as told in Longus' 2nd-century Greek romance of the same title) are among his most famous and most desired lithographs. The lithographs were printed in Paris by Fernand Mourlot and the portfolios were published by Tériade Éditeur. The introduction to the section devoted to Daphnis and Chloe in volume II of the catalogue raisonné of Chagall's lithographs describes the portfolio as "the most important graphic work realized by Marc Chagall to this day" (published in 1963). 124 works from Daphnis and Chloe have been sold at auction since May 1992 (or about 6 per year), of which only two were The Cavern of the Nymph (M. 321). Both of those were from the edition of 60 signed and numbered impressions. One sold for $45,000 (in 2007); the other sold for $50,400 (in 2006). By  comparison, another double page image, The Temple and History of Bacchus sold three times: a signed and numbered impression sold for $47,762 (in 2012); an unsigned artist proof sold for $23,832 (in 2007), and another signed and numbered impression sold for $66,000 (in 2006). A slightly better comparison may be in the sales of 2 impressions of Hymen, the god of marriage, one of which sold for $54,000 (in 2006) while an unsigned impression sold for $12,986 (in 2007), or about 24% of the signed impression. Using that ratio,  our unsigned impression might realize about $12,120 at auction. A very good impression of one of the most beautiful original lithographs in the whole Daphnis and Chloe suite. Image size: 417x633mm. Price: $12,000.

1956 marked the end of a long artistic journey for Chagall. In 1930, Ambroise Vollard had invited him to make a set of etchings for the Bible. After a trip to Palestine, Chagall began to work, creating 105 etchings between 1931 and 1939 and completed bertween 1952 and 1956, which were ulitmately published by Teriade in 1956 in a dual edition: 295 black-and-white etchings for the book edition (each of the books were signed; none of the prints in the regular edition, included unbound in their own removable folder, were signed) and a separate deluxe edition of 100 hand-painted etchings by Chagall that were signed and numbered (see above for an example). To celebrate the completion of this long awaited project, Teriade, the publisher of Chagall's three great artist's books—The Dead Souls (1948), The Fables of La Fontaine (1952), and The Bible, who was also the publisher of the deluxe art review, Verve, persuaded Chagall to create 17 color lithographs on the theme of the Bible as well as 12 original black and white lithographs that were printed on the reverse side of the lithographs devoted to Moses, David and Solomon, and the prophets Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Daniel for a special number of Verve devoted to Chagall's Bible etchings. These twelve black-and-white lithographs were also issued in an edition of 75 on large sheets of Arches paper, but only five of them were pencil-signed and numbered by Chagall, one of which is Isaiah ddivinely inspired (M. 141). Edition: circa 6500 unsigned impressions printed on the verso of Isaiah (M. 146) and 75 signed and numbered impressions on Arches paper of which ours is n. 45. Image size: 403x305mm. Price: $8500.

Miro's Lithograph I (it did not otherwise have a title), was a stand-alone work published by Christian Zervos in Paris in 1930. Since two of our impressions are dated 1929, it seeems likely that these actually should be counted as Miró's first four lithographs, executed in 1929 to accompany a a poem, L'Arbre des Voyageurs, by his friend, the Surrealist poet Tristan Tzara—with whom he would collaborate again in a set of etchings in 1947 for L'Antitête—published in 1930 in an edition of 101 impressions. They are among his most Surrealist works. Each of the books was signed but the individual lithographs were not. Compared to many of Miró's later illustrated books, this one is on the small side, measuring 9-3/4 x 6-3/8 inches. In addition, there was a separate printing of each of the lithographs in a numbered edition of 10. We present the complete set of 4 in the Bon à tirer proofs, the first of which is signed by Miró and dated 1929. These four impressions, Miró's final versions of the lithographs, were meant to serve as models for the printers when printing the rest of the edition. They were printed on heavy wove paper of varying sizes but substantially larger than the pages of the book edition. The first of these, L'Arbre des Voyageurs I (M. 2), is signed in blue ink and labeled Bon à tirer and numbered II lower right. There is some foxing on the sheet (the other 3 sheets are clean). L'Arbre des Voyageurs was Miró's first artist's book. Image size: 358x272mm (14-1/8x10-11/16 inches). Price: $8500.

For the other piepces in this series, click here.

Joan Miró (Spain,1893-1983), Personnages devant la mer / Figures by the sea shore (Dupin 13). Original color pochoir, 1934. Published in December 1934 in the art journal D'Aci i D'Alla; printed by J. Mateu, Pochoir Publicity Art, Barcelona, 1934. The number impressions of this pochoir is unknown, as is the number that might have been destroyed during the Spanish Civil War soon to follow, What we do know is that impressions of this piece are rarely available in the art market (this is only the second impression of this early color lithograph that we have seen since 1975). This is one of Miró's most surreal prints showing a male and a female figure reaching out for each other in lust or terror while the leg of the female figure on the right seems to interpenetrate the leg of the male figure on the left. A rare and beautiful print with the surface texture of a gouache slightly marred by two small flaws in the shape of spots in the lower left corner by the heel of the male figure and on the right side of the white torso of the male figure. The spot on the torso is not red but gray; the spot by the heel is a discoloration slightly darker than the yellow where it occurs. Image size: 315x245mm. Price: $8000.

Marc Chagall (Russia, 1887-1985, France), Behind the Mirror (M. 412). Original color lithograph, 1964. 75 signed & numbered + c. 2000 unsigned impressions. Commissioned for the deluxe art review, Derrière le Miroir, this lithograph explores a theme of great interest in surrealist art, the mirror as pathway to another world. The presence of the clown and the acrobat at either end of the mirror also suggests the circus as a place where we go to be thrilled by shows that we know are not true, hence the staid matron who imagines herself as a high-wire artist, hanging on to the mirror with her hands while her legs are up over her head. With the centerfold, as always. Image size: 345x465mm. Price: $2750; sale price (until until Valentine's Day): $2475.

Marc Chagall (Russia, 1887-1985, France), David with his harp (M. 133). Original color lithograph, 1956. 75 signed and numbered impressions plus 6500 unsigned impressions as ours. Illustrated in the catalogue for the 1973 Musee National Message Biblique Marc Chagall inauguration. Our impression was recently illustrated on the cover of Anthony Phillips, David: A Story of Passion and Tragedy (London: SPCK, 2008). Image size: 355x260mm. Price: $2850.

Joan Gardy Artigas (Spanish, b. 1938), Platre / Plaster. Original color lithograph, 1968. 75 signed and numbered impressions published by Maeght Editeur in Paris. This work is related to a series of fragmentary plaster sculptures Artigas was making at the time. One of Artigas' earliest lithographs, the image offers a glimpse at the mysterious process involved in the creation of ceramic sculptures as the wood-fired kiln turns the soft and malleable clay into the stone-like yet vulnerable surface of the ceramic sculpture. Artigas has explained his love of lithography as follows: "If I want power, impact, a startling image, I use lithography. With the technique of printing directly off the stone, it is possible to get a maximum of ink on the paper. This . . . allows . . . powerful color." Image size: 865x595mm. Price: $900.

Claude Garache (French, b. 1929), Gaume. Original color aquatint with etching, 1972. 45 signed & numbered impressions. Illustrated in Argile V (1974), in Claude Garache: Prints 1965-1985, ed. Richard Stammelman and Jean F. Feinberg (Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, Wesleyan University, 1985), and in Jean Starobinski's Garache (Flammarion, 1988). Image size: 300x400mm. Price: $1500.

Jim Bird (English, 1937-2010), Madison Series 93. Mixed media, 1987. These works combine monotype, acrylic, oil stick, pastel, and other media on Arches paper. They might be best described as exploring the space between painting, drawing, and print-making. Image size: 574x768mm. Price: $2500.

Manel Llèdos (Spanish, b. 1955), Stoughton Series A. 11. Original color monotype, 1991. Edition: One of a series of monotypes printed at Wayne Taylor's Stoughton Atelier and published by Spaightwood Galleries. Signed in pencil lower left. Image size: 575x770mm. Price: $2250.

MAN, MYTH, AND SENSUAL PLEASURES: JAN GOSSART'S RENAISSANCE (Metropolitan Museum of Art, through January 17, 2011): A gorgeous blockbuster show that spawned a wonderful huge book about the marriage of late 15th-century Netherlandish art with early Italian Renaissance Art. The book also offers a complete catalogue of Gossart's paintings, drawings, and prints. We spent 5 hours going through the show and found it exhausting but exhilarating. I haven't had time to work with the book yet (we were working on our old master drawings show until recently), but if the book is as intelligent as the show, it will be impressive indeed.

OTTO DIX, through 30 Aug. 3010. "The first Dix retrospective in this country provides heady glimpses of the achievement of this so-called wild man of German art. Few things escaped his remorseless eye — from the horrors of World War I to the hypocrisies of the Weimar Republic. He made every stop on the itinerary of German modernism (including Realism, Dada, Surrealism, Expressionism, folk, visionary), had a few Cubist moments and, of course, qualified as degenerate under the Nazis. This exhibition of more than 100 paintings, prints, watercolors and drawings (organized with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts) doesn’t have the scope — or the space — to do Dix justice, but it begins to make up for lost time." Neue Galerie, 1048 Fifth Avenue, at 86th Street , (212) 628-6200, neuegalerie.org." We saw this show back in May, and it was stunning. We had seen a show in Paris in Nov. 2007 at the Musée Maillol entitled Allemagne, les années noires devoted to the works of Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Walter Gramatte, Georg Grosz, and Ludwig Meidner during and immediately after the first World War. Dix stole the show. In addition to showing all 50 etching in the series Krieg / War, it also included a series of drawings done on postcards which all German soldiers were required to use to let their friends and relatives know that they were alive and that the war was proceeding successfully. Dix used these roughly 4x6 inch cards to making searing drawings of dead bodies, maimed bodies, and ruined landscapes, many of which apparently were sent on through the mails (so much for morale? so much for censors?). The war etchings were incredibly disconcerting, and seeing them all lined up in the museum was an invitation to an incredibly moving and painful meditation on war, perhaps comparable only to Goya's Disasters of War, the large mixed media intaglios in the Guerre section of Rouault's Miserere, or Picasso's Guernica. Although the show in Paris included a small selection of gouaches and paintings from after the war, its focus was clearly upon Dix's war etchings and drawings. The show at the Neue Galerie also includes all 50 the the Krieg etchings, but most of it is devoted to Dix's paintings and gouaches of Germany during the late teens and the early '20s, when Dix was the most sought after portrait painter with the avant-garde set. This huge show (more than 170 works taking over most of the Neue Galerie's space) , though it also contains some stunning landscapes, mostly focuses upon the survivors of the war and those who became rich from it, the physically crippled and the morally damaged. If you cannot get to New York City before the show ends, you can still see it in the superbly-illustrated catalogue of the show, Olaf Peters, ed., Otto Dix (NY: Prestel, 2010). We, alas, do not have any of the Krieg etchings or any of Dix's drawings, gouaches, or paintings. What we do have, however, are the 33 black and white lithographs he did in 1960 for an edition of The Gospel according to Matthew. In these lithographs, Dix uses the Gospel story as a model for interpreting events: they contextualize the present day's horrors against the meaning provided by the whole of the story of which they are a part. While they lack the searing intensity of the etchings for Der Krieg, they provide a deeply moving testament to the biblical story of how a state or a church can turn upon itself and destroy those who embody its best hopes.

Otto Dix, Die Verspottung / Christ mocked (Karsch 263). Original lithograph, 1960. 2000 impressions published in Das Evangelium nach Matthäus. Here the mockers wear the fashions of 20th-century Germany, particularly the woman wearing an evening gown and sticking her tongue out at Jesus in a childish gesture of contempt. Image size: 290x223mm. Price: $750.

ALBRECHT DURER: Purely in terms of the number of visits we made to it, the recently closed exhibition of Dürer masterpieces at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts has to rank as our favorite show of the past year. Although there was, alas, no catalogue for the show, the 40+ woks in the show were all masterpieces in superb impressions. Woodcuts from The Apocalypse (1498 and 1511), The Large Passion (first published as a set in 1511; individual pieces sold separately earlier), The Small Woodcut Passion (1511), and The Life of the Virgin (first published in 1511) mixed with etchings and engravings from Dürer's whole career; the show also included the original publications of some of the books for which Dürer contributed woodcuts (including The Ship of Fools, for which see below). Although we have always bought impressions by Dürer whether we could afford them or not, our wonderful year in 2008 let us carry over our Dürer acquisitions into the lean years of 2009 and 2010. Also adding to our joy was the appearance of the third volume of the German catalogue raisonné of Dürer's works featuring works for books, especially Das Narrenschiff / The Ship of Fools. Albrecht Dürer: Das Druckgraphische Werk. Band III: Buchillustrationen, by Rainet Schoch, Matthias Mende, and Anna Scherbaum (München: Prestel, 2004) included all 78 of the woodcuts that Winkler's definitive study attributed to Dürer, many of which, I am pleased to say, we also own. Although our present show is devoted to Old Master Drawings from the late 15th Century to the 18th Century, the show following, Albrecht Dürer and the German Renaissance will focus on Albrecht Dürer's woodcuts, engravings, and etchings, sometimes including multiple impressions of single pieces, Marcantonio Raimondi's engravings after Dürer's Small Woodcut Passion, and various copies, deceptive forgeries and honest adaptations signed by their makers. The show will include about 150 pieces, of which about 100 will be by Dürer and the remainder by Hans Schäufelein, Lucas Cranach, The Hopfer brothers, Hans Burgkmair, Hans Holbein (after), Augustin Hirschvogel, Hans Sebald Beham, Georg Pencz, Heinrich Aldegrever, Virgil Solis, Jost Amman, Hans Hersbach, and Hans von Aachen. For a headstart, please click here.

Albrecht Durer (Nuremburg, 1471-1528), St. John devouring the Book (Bartsch 70, Strauss 53, Meder 172). Original woodcut, c. 1497-98 for The Apocalypse. The work draws details from Revelations 10. Original woodcut from the 1498 German edition of The Apocalypse, which Meder describes (Strauss, p. 155) as "Carefully printed and very rare." He also calls it (Strauss, p. 196) "clear and bright; brilliant; rarely with full borders; frequently with three breaks in the right portion of the lower border; gaps in the left border below the small angel; also opposite on the right border." Our impression is before the breaks lower right and with only one small break in the left border below the small angel. We also have full borders top, bottom, and left; the right edge seems to have been slightly trimmed, but there is still some border visible. Repaired tear upper center to the right of the border, small restored upper and lower right corners. The German text verso exactly matches the reproduction illustrated in the 1964 facsimile of the 1498 German text of the Apocalypse (although our impression is better than the one illustrated in the work). Strauss comments, "If a mystery can be made plausible, then Dürer has succeeded . . . in doing just that. He renders the incredible credible, retains the mysterious, and yet invites the viewers to interpret and understand what is happening. As a means to this end, he has invented a new graphic language" (p. 195). Image size: 390x280mm. Price: $25,000.

2009-2010 were also good times to go see shows featuring Old Master Drawings. The Metropolitan Museum of Art offered a show featuring Bronzino's compete drawings (catalogue raisonné available from the Metropolitan Bookstore) and the Morgan Library offered Rome After Raphael, a wonderful collection of works from Raphael and Michelangelo through Annibale Carracci and featuring drawings by Parmigianino and Giulio Clovio as well as many drawings from the members of Raphael's studio, including Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga. Both were very rich shows and impossible to digest in only one viewing, so we saw each of them three times. From the Bronzino show, we got a sense of the quality difference between drawings by the same master. Some were finished works able to stand alone without reference to particular paintings, others were quick sketches full of first ideas and alternative possibilities; from the show at the Morgan, we took a way an admiration for the work that even lesser known artists were capable of rising to achieve. In the past, I think a lot of critics were inclined to favor works that had links to paintings; some of the pieces in both shows, however, offered opportunities to delight in the spontaneity of drawings done for the pleasure of the artist or as a gift to a patron being wooed for a commission.

Series 156: 70. Artist and Model (Bloch 1927, Baer 1936). Original etching, 1971. 50 numbered impressions signed with the estate signature stamp. Executed 3/10/71 and approved by Picasso before his death, this etching, like the others in this series, was printed posthumously. An artist watches a beautiful young model with her arms attached backwards. Most of the etchings in the 156 Series show artists (including Raphael, Rembrandt, Degas, and Picasso himself). often aged, looking at their beautiful young models. Here the artist, perhaps Rembrandt, who appears to be wearing 17th-century buckles on his boots, seems to be focused on the woman's eyes to the exclusion of all other aspects of her which are amply, if oddly, revealed. Image size: 210x150mm. Price: $8500.

This year was also the year of Picasso in New York and Massachusetts. There were Picasso shows at the Marlborough Gallery on 57th St. just west of Fifth Avenue, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. The Marlborough show featured over 200 etchings, linocuts, and lithographs ranging in date from 1905 to 1968, including many of the greatest pieces from the Suite Vollard (1935) and a large number of pieces from the Suite 347 (1968). We greatly admired the Suite Vollard pieces, especially the Minotaur sequence, but found the Suite 347 pieces mostly lacking in delight and intensity. Interestingly, the Metropolitan's show, although it included many paintings and drawings also had a very large print component, including many from the Suite 347. Interestingly, the Suite 347 etchings in the Met gave a completely different sense of the series. Many of them were much more complex, full of wit and, if not joy outright, the memory of past joys. It reminded us what a difference selection can make when evaluating part of a series of artworks. Works at the Met, of course, were not priced since they were not for sale; prices at the Marlborough Gallery were available on a separate list, available at the desk. Searching for pieces comparable to our etchings from the Series 156, I was impressed by 4 small etchings dated 1932 but not printed until 1961 and published in 1981 by Galerie Louise Leiris, Picasso's longtime gallery, in a stamp-signed edition of 50 (from a total edition of 69): $18,000, $16,000, $24,000, and $12,000 (the last for a piece approximately 116x116mm). Click here for our other etchings from the Series 156, described by The Art Newspaper, n. 130 for November 2002, p. 49 as follows: "A high proportion of works were from Picasso's two late series, 347 and 156, executed shortly before his death in 1971. Traditionally, these prints have not been as highly regarded as the earlier etchings of the Suite Vollard, and this, coupled with the fact that there are so many of them, means that prices are still extremely reasonable [meaning, we learn later in the article, that "about 60% of the prints can still be bought for under £10,000" [then in the neighborhood of $20,000].

Series 156: 95. Degas in the Bordello (Bloch 1950, Baer 1959). 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. Here Degas watches a patron of a bordello with one of the objects of his lust. Note the brutishness of the male customer in the brothel oblivious to the cooly-observing artist. Image size: 230x310mm. Price: $8500.