Product Description
Robert Breer “Untitled” Oil on canvas 1950
ROBERT BREER (1926-2011) USA
Untitled 1950
Oil on canvas, white-gold leaf and lacquer frame
Marks: Untitled, 1950, Robert Breer, 26×32, No. 29 in a circle (paper label)
Provenance: Robert Breer, Private Collection, Chicago
Canvas: H: 25 3/4” x W: 32”
Framed: H: 32 1/4” x W: 39″
“Breer acknowledges his respect for this purist, “cubist” cinema, which uses geometric shapes moving in time and space”
Robert Breer’s career as an artist and animator spans 50 years and his creative explorations have made him an international figure. He began his artistic pursuits as a painter while living in Paris from 1949-59. Using an old Bolex 16mm camera, his first films, such as “Form Phases”, were simple stop-motion studies based on his abstract paintings.
Breer has always been fascinated by the mechanics of film. Perhaps it was his father’s fascination with 3-D work that inspired Breer to tinker with early mechanical cinematic devices. His father was an engineer and designer of the legendary Chrysler Airflow automobile in 1934 and built a 3-D camera to film all the family vacations. After studying engineering at Stanford, Breer changed his focus toward handcrafted arts and began experimenting with flip books. These animations, done on ordinary 4″ by 6″ file cards have become the standard for all of Breer’s work in fim.
Like many of his generation, Breer did early work influenced by the various European modern art movements of the early 20th century, ranging from the abstract forms of the Russian Constructivists and the structuralist formulas of the Bauhaus, to the nonsensical universe of the Dadaists. As a result of his association with the Denise René Gallery, which specialized in geometric art, he saw the abstract films of such pioneers as Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann and Fernand Léger. Breer acknowledges his respect for this purist, “cubist” cinema, which uses geometric shapes moving in time and space.
In 1955, he helped organize and exhibited in a show in Paris entitled “Le Mouvement” (The Movement), which paved the way for new cinema aesthetics. During this period, Breer also met the poet Allen Ginsberg and introduced him to his film “Recreation” (1956), which made use of frame-by-frame experiments in a non-narrative structure. Although Breer resisted being labeled a beatnik, the film does capture some aspects of beat poetry and music.
When Breer returned to the United States in the late 1950s, the American avant-garde was thriving and films by Kenneth Anger, Stan Brakhage, Peter Kubelka and Maria Menken were creating a new visionary movement. Breer found kindred spirits within the New York experimental scene. As Pop Art emerged as a phenomenon in the 1960s, Breer befriended Claes Oldenburg and others. He worked on the TV show, “David Brinkley’s Journal”, filming pieces on art shows in Europe; at the same time, he made his debut documentary on the sculptor Jean Tinguely in 1961.
Robert Breer “Untitled” Oil on canvas 1950
JOYCE FRANCIS New York, NY
“Banana Land Flowers” box 2008
Cast and carved bright orange Lucite acrylic deeply incised and carved with three dimensional images of a monkey, a butterfly, a dragonfly and exotic flowers and foliage.
The top cover dimension is 1 3/4″ thick and the four sides of the box are 1 1/4″ thick.
Marks: Joyce Francis 08
H: 6″ x W: 4 3/4″ x D: 4 3/4″
Price: $3,750
Joyce Francis is a native Manhattanite artist who specializes in sculptured acrylic jewelry, purses, sculpture, tables and coveted collection of exciting, passionately carved decorative boxes. All pieces have been painstakingly hand carved, hand dyed, illuminated and sometimes hand painted as well. There are no embedded objects. Her purses are part of the permanent collections of the New York Metropolitan Costume Institute (New York), The Victoria and Albert Museum (London), The Fashion Institute of Technology (New York) and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland).
Her work is in the collections of a number of stars and celebrities, including Hillary Swank, Phoebe Cates Kline, Emma Thompson, Cicely Tyson and Meryl Streep. Examples of her boxes and lamps are also owned by Paul Simon, Paul McCartney, Steve Martin and Tom Hanks.
Mayo Martin Johnson (b. 1904) USA
“Summit Conference” 1960
Patinated bronze with a verdigris patina in the recessed areas and natural bronze highlights, original wooden plinth / base.
Marks: Red painted museum accession marks
For more information see: American Art, ed. Peter Hastings Falk (Madison, Conn.: Sound View Press, 1985) p. 317.
H: 10 ¼” on plinth
Price: $6,000