Hand

JAN DE SWART (1908-1987) Netherlands / USA

Mystery box c. 1970

Hand carved and assembled box form with a curiosity element of a large turquoise cabochon with raw hide wraps underneath the lid.

For more information see: Jan de Swart: A Day That Becomes a Lifetime, exhibition catalogue (California: Fine Arts Gallery at the San Fernando Valley State College, February 1972); Jan de Swart, Mike McGee and William G. Otton (Laguna Beach, California: Laguna Art Museum, 1986).

W: 16 1/2″ x H: 4 1/2″ x D: 5″

Price: $4,700

Constantly seeking and inventing new materials Jan de Swart was a true modernist.  He was influenced by artists such as Isamu Noguchi, Harry Bertoia, Charles Eames, and later Sam Maloof and Wendell Castle.  Although he had been creating small sculptures since his arrival in California from Holland in 1929, he had not been widely recognized until being introduced to John Entenza, publisher of Arts & Architecture magazine in 1947.  Soon thereafter, he was able to create larger works and began collaborating with architects such as Whitney Smith and Victor Gruen on special commissions.  His work is in the permanent collection of Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Smithsonian, and the Ford Foundation.  He was honored with the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal for Sculpture in 1965.

OTTO ECKMANN attr.  (1865-1902)  Germany

Pair of candlesticks c. 1900

Hand-wrought iron with floral and foliage design

H: 12 ¼” x W: 8 ¼”

Price: $7,475

Otto Eckmann (19 November 1865 – 11 June 1902) was a German painter and graphic artist. He was a prominent member of the “floral” branch of Jugendstil. Otto Eckmann was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1865. He studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg and Nuernberg and at the academy in Munich. In 1894, Eckmann gave up painting (and auctioned off his works) in order to concentrate on applied design. He began producing graphic work for the magazines Pan in 1895 and Jugend in 1896. He also designed book covers for the publishers Cotta, Diederichs, Scherl and Seemann, as well as the logo for the publishing house S. Fischer Verlag. In 1897 he taught ornamental painting at the Unterrichtsanstalt des Königlichen Kunstgewerbemuseums in Berlin. In 1899, he designed the logo for the magazine Die Woche. From 1900 to 1902, Eckmann did graphic work for the Allgemeine Elektrizitätsgesellschaft (AEG). During this time, he designed the fonts Eckmann (in 1900) and Fette Eckmann (in 1902), probably the most common Jugendstil fonts still in use today.

ROBERT SCHELLIN (1910 – 1985) USA

“Calligraphy” Floor Vase 1958

Hand thrown earthenware with a light and dark brown glaze with a stylized abstract calligraphic motif encircling the body

Marks: various marks and estate stamps Robert Schellin, Made in 1958, P88, C118 (paper labels)

For more information see: Schellin, A Retrospective (Milwaukee: School of Fine Arts, The University of Wisconsin, 1975); Who Was Who in American Art,  (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985), p. 547.

H: 23 1/2″ x Dia: 7″

Price: $9,000

Robert Schellin’s life as an artist was consistent, productive, and based on firm philosophical foundations.  Regarding his own progress, he had always been aware, as a young art student and later as a mature artist, that deliberately narrowing the focus of his interests to assure a more constant public notice would run the risk of his becoming highly expert, but sterile in expression.  From the beginning of art student days Schellin moved from very satisfying periods of drawing and painting to work in three-dimensional
Media, frequently in the medium of ceramics.

Schellin left the W.P.A. in 1937 to teach at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. After a year he moved to East Orange, New Jersey, supervising art in the public schools.  It was during this stay in the New York metropolitan area that he studied with Hans Hoffmann at his Eighth Street School and witnessed at first hand the changing art scene and the growing commercialism of the artists market.  Robert Schellin later returned back to Milwaukee rejoining the faculty of the University of Wisconsin (UWM). His works have been exhibited for many years in Wisconsin and national shows including the Wisconsin State Fair; the Art Institute of Chicago, 1944; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1946; and the Milwaukee Art Institute numerous times between 1939-1960.  He was included in the USIA European Traveling exhibition 1959-61.