Al Held Art

Figuration and abstraction meet in this energized quick portrait of an athletic boy with headband and resting on a bench, Most likely done for a magazine like Sports Illustrated - Si...

TECHNICAL INFORMATION: Damien Hirst Wheel Within A Wheel, from In A Spin: The Action Of The World On Things 2002 Spin etching S: 36 x 28 in. I: 9 x 7 3/4 ...

Brice Marden (American, b. 1938) Etching for Parkett, 1986 Medium: Sugar lift and aquatint on Rives BFK, bound in Parkett journal no. 7 Dimensions: 25.5 x 21 cm Edition of 100: Hand-...

Acrylic on masonite. This is a pivotal work in deep and radiant cobalt blue from 1950. It dipicts calligraphic and hieroglyph structures over a grid and pyramidal base by the first generation abstract expressionist. Provenance: Skinner: November 13, 1992 [Lot 00219}, The entry in the Skinner catalog indicates that the painting came directly from the artist to the family of the consignor to Skinner. Kaminsky Auctions. There is an unbroken paper trail that traces the ownership of the painting from the current owner, through two auction houses to the artist. Perfect unbroken provenance. Pousette-Dart was among the most inventive of the Abstract Expressionist generation, His uncanny talent was to expand the nature of abstraction and still make each mark each element very much his own; a reflection of what he called   "the concealed power of the spirit," he said, “not of the brute physical form."   His was not aiming for a singular, realized aesthetic formula but to expand the possibilities of painting; the transcendental in painting. Typical of such invention and exploration is this  painting  Untitled 1950 when the artist was only 34 years old and represented by one of the champions of the new American painting, Betty Parsons.  
A banner year for Pousette-Dart, the Museum of Modern Art acquired their first painting by the Minnesota born artist.  He worked on easel size works such as this painting an oil on masonite. At the same time Pousette-Dart was also working on larger scale works such as Path of the Hero, running over ten feet in length now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Both contain fields of color articulated by a highly sophisticated white hieroglyphic vocabulary. Rather than demonstrate an expressionist sensibility, Pousette-Dart harnesses his more cerebral ideas transforming thick areas of paint into a more refined composition of geometric forms akin to the pattern and forms of say a stained glass window. In a way he is looking back at Fugue, 1940 a black and white composition which makes use of a similar format of painting albeit smaller. Color and form are minimal, but what Pousette-Dart has maximized is the rhythmic and syncopated character of painting casting his ideas into purely symbolic terms that one might link to the pictograms of Adolph Gottlieb. Nonetheless, nature is always at the core of Pousette-Dart’s thinking and dreaming. Here he has transformed the local Ramapo Mountains—where he will eventually move with his family to live and work— into a complex series of articulated fragments linked by style, scale and color.  The painting’s imagery built on two large triangles and reduced to just two colors, cobalt blue and white all outlined in black.  Pousette-Dart symbols stacked in horizontal and vertical rows:  blue is ground, white is language, symbolic of light, consciousness and awareness . The painting maintains a mystical character images compounded that formulate a secret code and linked to the series of white paintings Pousette-Dart authored in the first half of the 1950s. Get up close to the picture and you discover images within images a kind of picture puzzle...

Joan Miro Barcelona III (from Barcelona Suite) Etching and Aquatint and Carborundum in Colors on Guarro Wove paper Year: 1972 Edition: 50 Signed and ...

Edge of the Woods. 1916. Drypoint. 7 7/8 x 9 3/4 (sheet 10 7/16 x 13 1/8). A rich impression in printed on Japanese paper with an oak leaf watermark. Signed and annotated '3rd state'...

Paul Levy (American, b. 1944) An established designer and illustrator, Paul M. Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944. He received his B.S. in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1968, returning later to do independent study there. He also did independent study at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, in 1969 and received an M.F.A. in Sculpture and Printmaking from Ohio University, Athens. From 1964 through 1971 he worked for design firms in Ohio, New York and California. From 1971 through 1973 he taught at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University, Athens. He has exhibited in galleries, museums and art groups. In 1971 he was one of a number of artists who created enormous outdoor murals in a Cincinnati project called "Urban Walls." His graphic designs and illustrations for such firms as Container Corporation of America have appeared in publications such as Fortune, Business Week...

Paul Levy (American, b. 1944) An established designer and illustrator, Paul M. Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944. He received his B.S. in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1968, returning later to do independent study there. He also did independent study at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, in 1969 and received an M.F.A. in Sculpture and Printmaking from Ohio University, Athens. From 1964 through 1971 he worked for design firms in Ohio, New York and California. From 1971 through 1973 he taught at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University, Athens. He has exhibited in galleries, museums and art groups. In 1971 he was one of a number of artists who created enormous outdoor murals in a Cincinnati project called "Urban Walls." His graphic designs and illustrations for such firms as Container Corporation of America have appeared in publications such as Fortune, Business Week...

Period mixed media print and painting by California artist Katherine Chang Liu (American, 20th-century). Signed "Fireworks Series #39" Katherine Chang Liu '87. Presented with a white...

Paul Levy (American, b. 1944) An established designer and illustrator, Paul M. Levy was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1944. He received his B.S. in Industrial Design from the University of Cincinnati, Ohio in 1968, returning later to do independent study there. He also did independent study at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York, in 1969 and received an M.F.A. in Sculpture and Printmaking from Ohio University, Athens. From 1964 through 1971 he worked for design firms in Ohio, New York and California. From 1971 through 1973 he taught at the University of Cincinnati and Ohio University, Athens. He has exhibited in galleries, museums and art groups. In 1971 he was one of a number of artists who created enormous outdoor murals in a Cincinnati project called "Urban Walls." His graphic designs and illustrations for such firms as Container Corporation of America have appeared in publications such as Fortune, Business Week...

Artist: Louisa Chase, American (1951 - 2016) Title: Portfolio of Six Etchings Year: 1984 Medium: Six Drypoint Etchings with Aquatint, Signed and Numbered in Pencil Edition: 30 Paper...