Composition in Red and Green
WOBBE ALKEMA
Dutch, (1900-1984)
Linoleum cut, 1926-1978, Bool / Peterson G 34, edition 75. 7 1/4 x 5 3/8 in. Signed and numbered in pencil. This is a fine impression with full margins. The condition is also fine apart from a few soft handling creases in the outer margins. This is from the second edition of 75 printed in 1978 and is so numbered "26/78." The very early impressions are impossible to find as they were proofs only. Alkema was originally trained as a cabinetmaker and he eventually worked with an architectural firm in Groningen. He joined De Ploeg and produced many remarkable works of geometric abstraction in painting as well as printmaking. His paintings from the 1920s are important today and his prints are equally desirable. Alkema was also associated with the Belgian Constructivists including Jozef Peeters and the writer, Paul van Ostaijen. Alkema was a member of de Ploeg for only a year or so. He had two exhibitions in 1978; one at the Stedelijk and the other at the Gemeentemuseum in the Hague. Furthermore, the Groninger Museum had an exhibition and published a major book on the artist in 2009. This work is illustrated on page 96, also from the later edition done in 1978.
$1,800

Loop-The-Loop
JOHN TAYLOR ARMS
American, (1887-1953)
Etching and aquatint printed in color, 1920, Fletcher 89, edition of 25 printed in color. 5 7/8 x 4 in. Signed, titled and dated "1921." This is a fine impression with probably the full margins. The condition is quite fine apart from a very faint suggestion of light toning within an earlier mat opening. There were two trial proofs and an edition of 20 in black and white.
$850

La Loma (Taos)
GUSTAVE BAUMANN
American, (1881-1971)
Woodcut printed in colors, 1919-1931, Chamberlain 62, from a projected edition of 100. 9 1/2 x 11 1/4 in. Signed, titled and numbered "28/100" in pencil and with the hand in heart chop mark. This is a superb impression with full margins. The condition is excellent. There is no apparent watermark. According to the catalogue, "Impressions inscribed "26/100" and higher are quite different from earlier impressions. An impression inscribed "51/100" in the New Mexico Museum of Art (Plate 62.2) has the addition of black, which lends brilliance and clarity to the scene." Our impression is quite similar to the one in this Museum and was evidently printed in 1931. The highest known numbered impression is "65/100". (Note: The La Loma Plaza Historic District is an old neighborhood in Taos, New Mexico that was listed with the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.)
$14,000

The Fence Mender
THOMAS HART BENTON
American, (1889-1975)
Lithograph, 1940, Fath 40, edition 250. 9 7/8 x 13 7/8 in. Signed on the stone, lower right. Signed in pencil. This is a very fine impression with full margins. The paper bears a GCM watermark and the condition is excellent. This scene was based on a trip to Nebraska. The "Fence Mender" was a study for a small painting which has not been located, according to Fath.
$3,500

Down the River
THOMAS HART BENTON
American, (1889-1975)
Lithograph, 1938, Fath 33, edition 250. 12 1/2 x 9 15/16 in. Signed on the stone, lower right. Signed in pencil. This is a very fine impression with full margins; the deckle edge is showing on all sides. Excellent condition. The scene depicted is somewhere along the White River in the Ozarks. This print is also called the Young Fisherman.
$4,500

Sinuous Abstraction
MORRIS BLACKBURN
American, (1902-1979)
Engraving on plaster, circa 1946-47, edition unknown. 8 x 10 in. Unsigned. This is a fine impression printed on plaster. The condition is fine. The image is printed to the edge of the plaster. He began studying art at the Graphic Sketch Club and the Philadelphia Museum School of Industrial Art in 1922. He continued his education at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1925-29), where he studied painting with Henry McCarter, drawing with Daniel Garber, and sketching with with Arthur B. Carles, who became his mentor. He also studied with Stanley William Hayter in 1945 at the Print Club in Philadelphia. Blackburn worked as a painter, etcher, engraver, lithographer and serigrapher, being one of the pioneers in the development of silkscreen printing. He taught at various art schools, including the Tyler School of Art, from 1948 to 1952 and joined the faculty of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1952. This remarkable and highly creative work is quite rare. Provenance: Dolan/Maxwell Gallery and Hirschl & Adler Gallery. Sold with the frame.
$3,500

Woman with Irises (La Femme aux Iris)
GEORGE BOTTINI
French , (1874-1907)
Lithograph printed in colors, 1898, Southard 28, edition 50. 15 x 13 1/4 in. Signed and dated on the stone, lower center. This is a fine impression with full margins. The condition is excellent. This lovely, art nouveau lithograph was printed by Sagot in Paris. Fifty impressions were printed with the remarque of two dragonflies and one hundred were printed without the remarque. Pencil signed impressions are hard to come by. One is located in the Petit Palais in Geneva. Provenance: Michel Romand (1929-2013), the great grandson of Edmond Sagot (1857-1917).
$2,500

Swans (The Family Outing)
CONRAD BUFF
American, (1886-1975)
Lithograph, 1937, edition 75. 9 3/4 x 8 in. Signed and dated with printed letters and numbers. Numbered in pencil. Here we have a fine impression of this uncommon print. The margins are wide and the condition is very good. There are old adhesive stains in the margins not near the image. The edition was printed by George Miller in New York. Buff was born in Switzerland and moved the the US at the age of nineteen. He moved to Los Angeles and became good friends with Maynard Dixon, the celebrated painter. Buff was best known as a painter of landscapes but he also produced a fine group of lithographs. Swans is an exceptional print and the subject is uncommon for him. This print was supposedly published by the American Artist's Group but given the rarity of it, that may not be the case. We sold an impression many years ago that was also numbered. An impression is in the National Gallery and the Amon Carter Museum. Ex-collection: Reba Williams, New York.
$700

8:30 Express
LETTERIO CALAPAI
American, (1902-1993)
Wood engraving, 1943-44, edition 27 plus proofs. 5 1/4 x 8 1/2 in. Initialed in the block, lower right. Signed, titled and numbered in pencil. This is a superb impression printed on thin wove paper. The margins are full and the condition is excellent. This potent image of a packed New York subway scene combines the expressionist "edge" of the wood engraving medium with a tilted perspective suggesting chaos and disorder. Impressions of this print are located at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art and the Yale University Art Gallery among others.
$1,800

Doge's Palace (Venice)
DAVID YOUNG CAMERON
Scottish, (1865-1945)
Etching and drypoint, 1902, Rinder 326 (ii/II), edition unknown. 9 7/8 x 15 5/8 in. Signed in the plate, upper left corner. Signed in pencil. This is a superb impression of this large, uncommon print. The paper is a thin Japan and the margins appear to be full and untrimmed. The condition is fine apart from slight light toning within an earlier mat opening. The Palace is famous for being the seat of power of the Venetian Republic for over one thousand years. It's a masterpiece of Venetian gothic architecture. Provenance: Craddock & Barnard, London. (their original mat).
$2,200

Sara Wearing her Bonnet and Coat
MARY CASSATT
American, (1844-1926)
Lithograph, circa 1904, Breeskin 198, edition possibly around 100. 20 x 16 1/4 in. Signed on the stone. This is a fine impression printed on Ingres d'Arches laid paper watermark MBM (France). The margins are full and the condition is fine apart from short soft ripples at the edges of the sheet away from the image. Provenance: Ambrose Vollard, Paris, Henri M. Petiet, Paris, to a private collection.
$4,000

By the Arks
FEDERICO CASTELLON
American, (1914-1971)
Lithograph, 1941, Freundlich 10d, AAA 426; edition 250. 9 x 12 in. Signed on the stone, lower right. Signed in pencil. Here we have a fine impression printed on RIVES watermarked paper. The margins are full and the condition is fine. (The remnants of the two original AAA hinges are at the top corners, recto.) Castellon refers back to his childhood and time in Spain in this lithograph. Spanish boatbuilders with docked boats they are repairing take refuge from the sun under the hanging fishnets. One fisherman extends his hand to a woman, a vendor who carries a basket on her hip, as the other fisherman watches.
$650

Arrival
BERNARD CHILDS
American, (1910-1985)
Power tool drypoint and burin engraving, 1955, edition 10. 13 3/8 x 19 3/8 in. Signed, dated, titled and numbered with the added inscription, "épreuve d'artiste." This is a superb impression of this stellar work. The margins are full and the condition is fine. (There's a small tear on the left margin well away from the image.) "During the Second World War, Bernard Childs worked as a machinist in a factory. He later applied this experience to his art, engraving metal plates with power drills and rotary burrs instead of more precise, traditional tools such as burins and drypoint needles. The rapid but controlled play of electric tools across the surface of the plate is evident in this print. Lines of various textures and densities move rhythmically toward the center of the composition, where they converge in a whirling mass. By adapting industrial tools to the printmaking medium, Childs was able to create effects and line qualities new to intaglio." (The above quote is from the Yale University website explaining this print which is in their collection.) Arrival is also in the collection of the V & A Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco.
$3,500

Curved Figures on Horizontal and Vertical Planes
WERNER DREWES
American, (1899-1985)
Etching, aquatint and roulette, 1940, Rose 221 (ii/II), edition only 5. 7 x 5 7/8 in. Signed, dated and numbered "i/V" in pencil. Here we have a superb impression printed on a light cream wove paper. The margins are full and the condition is fine. This rare print is a stellar example of his work from the early 1940's.
$2,300

Shadows on the Agawa, No. 2
KERR EBY
American, (1889-1946)
Etching, 1929, Giardina 139 (iii/III), edition 90. 11 1/8 x 10 3/4 in. Signed and numbered in pencil. This is a fine, atmospheric impression with full margins. The condition is fine apart from an extremely faint suggestion of light toning within an earlier mat opening. This is barely discernible. The scene depicted was on either the Agawa River or Agawa Lake, both located north of Lake Superior in Ontario, Canada.
$800

Untitled (NY Subway)
JESúS ESCOBEDO
Mexican, (1918-1978)
Lithograph, 1946, edition unknown. 8 3/4 x 12 in. Signed and dated in pencil. This is a fine impression with full margins. The condition is fine apart from minor staining in the outer margins in two areas. Escobedo was a founding member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and he was also a member of Taller de Gráfica Popular. In 1945 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to create a series of eight lithographs of New York. Escobedos's work is discussed in Mexico and Modern Printmakers, A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, edited by John Ittmann (2007), pages 204-207, published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
$1,300

Untitled (Manhattan Bridge, NY)
JESúS ESCOBEDO
Mexican, (1918-1978)
Lithograph, 1946, edition unknown. 10 x 10 3/4 in. Signed and dated in pencil. This is a fine impression with full margins. the condition is fine. (There are printer's fingerprint ink smudges in the extreme edges of the sheet in three spots.) Escobedo was a founding member of the Salón de la Plástica Mexicana and he was also a member of Taller de Gráfica Popular. In 1945 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to create a series of eight lithographs of New York. The Manhattan Bridge crosses the East River connecting lower Manhattan with downtown Brooklyn.
$1,300

Tristram and Iseult - Silence, Death, Shadows
WHARTON ESHERICK
American, (1887-1970)
Woodcut, 1931, edition unknown. 6 3/4 x 5 in. Signed, titled and dated in pencil. Here we have a superb impression of this stellar print. The margins are full and the condition is excellent. Esherick was a significant figure in design work, notably in wood and even buildings. He was deeply influenced by the arts and crafts movement and his woodcuts were produced mostly from 1922-1933. His ability to carve very detailed two-dimensional images that were alive and expressed movement made him one of the better woodcut artists of the 20th century. Tristan and Iseult is a chivalric romance retold in numerous variations since the 12th century, with a lasting impact on Western culture. The story is a tragedy about the illicit love between the Cornish knight, Tristan, and the Irish princess, Iseult.
$2,000

Two Rabbits (Twee Konijnen)
FRANS EVERBAG
Dutch, (1877-1947)
Etching and aquatint printed in colors, circa 1926, Vervoorn/ Museum Kempenland 122, edition unknown. 7 1/8 x 9 in. Signed in pencil and inscribed "épreuve d'artiste." This is a fine impression of this charming print. The impression is fine and the condition is fine. (There's a faint suggestion of toning to the sheet.) This print exemplifies Everbag's great skills as a color intaglio printmaker. He was producing these plates at a time when color prints were the exception in the Netherlands and his color etchings were certainly among the best work done at the time. His earliest works were mezzotints after old masters. His mature work consists primarily of views of Amsterdam, flower studies, birds and other animals. His last important exhibition was at the Museum Kempenland in Eindhoven in 1988. Everbag's prints are consistently good and they are especially sought after by collectors in his native country.
SOLD

Lantern and Fireplace
WANDA GAG
American, (1893-1946)
Wood engraving on maple, 1931-33, Winnam 83 (iii/III); edition 200. 7 1/4 x 5 3/8 in. This is a very fine impression printed on thin Japanese paper. The margins are probably full and untrimmed. The condition is fine apart from remnants of an old adhesive along the right edge. The third state, as we have here, was printed in 1932 and 1933. The block was started in 1931 with the first two states. This outstanding print is listed as being in nine museums. The drawing study is located in the New Jersey State Museum.
$1,800