Product Description
Pierre Boucher, Propeller, Gelatin silver print, 1935

PIERRE BOUCHER (1908-2000) France
Propeller 1935
Signed: WB – 7252; Photo Pierre Boucher (ink stamp); DBoucher (ink signature)
Provenance: Gene Prakapas Gallery, New York, 1978.
H: 7 1/16” x W: 9 ¼” (unframed)
H: 14 11/16” x 16 11/16” (framed)
Pierre Boucher came to photography as a result of the Nouvelle Vision and he explored photography as an experiment on all levels, photograms, collages, solarization and superimposition. He had a natural curiosity and a cultivated and sporty demeanor that led him to produce work as diverse as surrealist nudes and well-constructed advertisements. Whether it be in documentary photography or industrial photography, Pierre Boucher always awakens an empathy and a feeling of closeness with his subjects in the spectator.
Pierre Boucher got his start in advertising, taking his inspiration from the graphic techniques of the modernists in the field and contributing to the transformation of the advertising photo into a work of art. He used photomontage to make his work more striking and effective, making unnerving and astonishing.
Boucher’s nudes, on the other hand, use no technical prowess whatsoever. After the war the movement for freedom of the body led him to reconsider social models. Pierre Boucher revisited the female and male nude from several angles. Around 1931, he did his first nude photos under the umbrella of the “ New Objectivity ” : the image was boxed, the frame strict, the bodies freed from their faces. From 1933 onwards his nudes became surrealist inspired by the work of Man Ray. He then moved on to neo-classical nudes. In studio or in natural light his Apollonian nude aimed above all for beauty and harmony.
Pierre Boucher, Propeller, Gelatin silver print, 1935
ROYCROFT COPPER SHOP East Aurora, N.Y.
Pair of candlesticks c. 1915.
Hand wrought and textured copper, silver-plated.
Marks: impressed R, in orb with cross, ROYCROFT
For more information see: The American Arts & Crafts Movement in Western New York 1900-1928, Bruce A. Austin (Rochester Institute of Technology, 1992); Arts & Crafts Movement in New York State 1890’s – 1920’s, Coy Ludwig (Hamilton, N.Y.: Gallery Association of New York, 1983).
H: 6″ x W: 6 7/8″ x D: 2 5/8″
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.