Product Description
Giuseppe Napoli “Shamballa” Oil on board 1965
GIUSEPPE NAPOLI (1929-1967) Italian / American
“Shamballa” 1965
Oil on board
Signed: Napoli (scrafitto on front), Giuseppe Napoli 1965 “Shamballa”
(on back of board), Giuseppe Napoli (signed twice on stretcher)
H: 24” x W: 20”
A profoundly dynamic Abstract Expressionist painting by New York artist, Giuseppe Napoli. The painting is painted on board which is affixed to stretcher bars by staples.
Giuseppe Napoli was part of the New York School of the 1950’s and 60’s working out of a small studio in Greenwich Village. Napoli participated in numerous exhibitions but unfortunately his career was cut short by his suicide in 1967 the result of suffering from periods of depression.
Just as “Starry Night” is widely considered to have reflected the mental state of Van Gogh shortly before his death; this painting may also have reflected the mental state of Giuseppe Napoli who ended his own life only two years after creating this remarkable painting. The vigorous, heavy impasto, the ominous sun made impotent by the bold black ring that surrounds it and the jumbled landscape below, could be symbolic of the hope-against-hope, that eventually prevailed.
Giuseppe Napoli “Shamballa” Oil on board 1965
KARL BENJAMIN (1925-2012) USA
Geometricized figure 1954
Oil on canvas
Signed: Benjamin 54 (lower left)
For more information see: Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Vol. 1 to 10, E. Bénézit (Paris: Librairie Gründ, 1976).
Canvas: H: 17″ x W: 6″
Framed: H: 24 1/2″ x W: 13 1/2″
Karl Benjamin was born in Chicago, IL in 1925. He received his BA from the University of Redlands, CA and his MFA at Claremont Graduate School, CA. Benjamin belonged to the Hard Edge group of West Coast painters led by John McLaughlin during the 1950s, 60s and early 70s. He was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Visual Arts in both 1983 and 1989. His work has been featured in numerous museum exhibitions and is included in the public collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, Israel; Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA; Seattle Art Museum, WA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, among others. For many years, Benjamin taught painting at Pomona College and Claremont Graduate School, and currently is Professor Emeritus. He lived in Claremont, CA.