Product Description
Jan de Swart hand carved Zebra wood Mystery box c. 1970

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.
Jan de Swart hand carved Zebra wood Mystery box c. 1970
GYÖRGY KEPES (1906-2001) Hungary/USA
Abstraction 1942
Silver gelatin print
Signed: 9 (in a circle, on back); Gyorgy Kepes 1942 (in ink on back)
György Kepes was a Hungarian-born painter, designer, educator and art theorist. After emigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in Chicago. In 1947 He founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.
Framed size: H: 29 3/16” x W: 25 ¼”
TIM LIDDY (b. 1963) Missouri
“Lie Cheat and Steal” (1971) The Game of Political Power 2006
Oil and enamel on copper, plywood back
Signed in script: Tim Liddy “circa 1971” 2006, red circular ring
Provenance: William Shearburn Gallery (St. Louis, MO)
H: 12” x W: 9” x D: 2”
With his recent paintings, Liddy has both reasserted the construct of hyperrealist painting and developed a thoroughly unique advancement of that mode by extending the cultural reality of the indexed original. Based on the illustrated box lids of vintage board games, Liddy has recontextualized a subject, which evokes the underlying rules of life. Painted on copper or steel in the precise dimensions of the original, the metal is then manipulated to demonstrate the exact rips and tears from years of usage and includes trompe-l’oeil renditions of the scotch tape that might be holding the cardboard box together, the assorted stains, or the various graffiti of time. Liddy leaves no possibility of ambivalence, these works speak to a concurrent understanding of their original object identity and to themselves as works of art engaged in historical and psychological dialogue.
ARRIGO VARETTONI DE MOLIN (1902-1985)
Passaic Rooftops 1932
Oil on canvas
Signed: A V de Molin ’32
Listed: Who’s Who in America, Series II, no. 11 (November 1, 1941) p. 6.
Exhibited: New Jersey State Annual, Montclair Art Museum, 1934
Canvas: H: 39” x W: 35”
ARAM GESAR USA
Venetian Blinds 1979
Ciba-chrome print, maple frame
Signed: 790069, LXXIX (on back)
Framed size: H: 17 9/16” x W: 23 ½”
Price: $24,000
Aram Gesar has been published internationally and has exhibited his photographic work in New York, San Francisco, Zurich and Geneva since 1977. As a producer, art director and photographer, Gesar created advertising campaigns for major corporations in the U.S. and Europe focusing on the fields of travel, banking, financial services, aerospace and motion pictures. He also created and produced documentaries on travel, aviation and yachting for national cable networks and the home video markets and television commercials and corporate programs for various U.S. and European corporations.
Gesar is currently one of the leading international experts on travel and air transport, and the founder and CEO of The Pyramid Media Group, which includes several magazines, newsletters, web sites, books, eBooks and other publications integrating a spectrum of business, travel and aviation content.