Custom leather box: H: 13 5/8” x W: 9 3/4” x D: 1 7/8”
Custom cloth case: H: 14 11/16” x W: 10 7/16” x D: 2 9/16”
These days, the Japanese photographer Keizo Kitajima, born in 1954, lives in Tokyo and specializes in urban photography. But in 1981, he spent about six months in New York, hanging out in New Wave clubs or roaming the streets, taking pictures — often by simply pointing and shooting. More than three dozen of these gritty black-and-white images form his robust New York gallery debut. The lush blacks of Mr. Kitajima’s images, which were initially published in a book and only recently printed, bring to mind his friend and mentor Daido Moriyama. But Mr. Kitajima’s aesthetic, at least here, is all about round edges and people who are anything but average. Some are hard-working immigrants whose faces loomed close to Mr. Kitajima’s lens as they hurried along the street. Others are celebrities (Mick Jagger) or soon-to-be celebrities (the young Madonna, when her face still had pores), drag queens or denizens of the Mudd Club or CBGB’s. Some are simply people waiting for something to happen, like the rogues’ gallery of five men behind a police barrier on Fifth Avenue.
Karl Benjamin, “Geo-metricized figure”, Oil on canvas 1954
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.
Hubert Schmalix “Mount Washington” Oil on Canvas 2005/2006
HUBERT SCHMALIX (1952-) Austria
Mount Washington 2005/06
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated on back: Schmalix 05 06
Provenance: Hubert Schmalix Vienna
For related works by Hubert Schmalix see: Hubert Schmalix, Lóránd Hegyi exhibition catalog (Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) November 19, 1994 – January 1995.
H: 69” x W: 51”
Hubert Schmalix was born in Graz, Austria, on December 17, 1952 and studied at the Vienna Art Academy from 1971 to 1976. By 1979 Schmalix was showing work at the forward-looking exhibition ‘Europa 79 – Kunst der 80er Jahre’ in Stuttgart. In 1983 the London Tate Gallery invited Schmalix to present work at ‘New Art’, an important survey of contemporary art. Schmalix has become well-known world-wide as an exponent of ‘New Art’, working with a retrospective glance at both classical art history and modern art. Schmalix focuses on the world of things and the human figure. Although the expressive gesture was the dominant feature of his 1980s work, it yielded early in the 1990s to stringent tectonic composition. In 1984 Hubert Schmalix went to the Philippines and on to the US, moving to Los Angeles in 1987. In 1986-87 Schmalix taught at the Academy for the Decorative and Applied Arts in Vienna and from 1997 he has been a professor at the Vienna Art Academy. Schmalix is a visiting professor at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). In 1993 his work was featured at the Venice Biennale and in 1998 he was awarded the Fine Art Prize of the City of Vienna. Schmalix has done several large fresco cycles in Salzburg and his work has been shown extensively at numerous international solo and group shows and most recently at Art Basel 2006.
Tim Liddy Oy Vey (1979) The game where you become a JEWISH MOTHER! Get your sons to become doctors—Get your daughters married to doctors! If not, OY VEY! 2008 Oil and enamel on copper, plywood back
TIM LIDDY
“Oy Vey” (1979) The game where you become a JEWISH MOTHER! Get your sons to become doctors—Get your daughters married to doctors! If not, OY VEY! 2008
Oil and enamel on copper, plywood back
Signed in script: Tim Liddy, red circular ring, “circa 1979”, 2008
Provenance: William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO
H: 10 ¼” x W: 20 ½” x D: 1 ¾”
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.
Signed: Leontyne Price as Bes, Porgy & Bess, XVII KK 20, May 19, 53 (in ink on back); PHOTOGRAPH BY CARL VAN VECHTEN, 101 CENTRAL PARK WEST, CANNOT BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION (ink stamp on back)
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