Ramon Prats

Abstract Expressionist Latin American Painting

Sergio de Castro (15 September 1922 – 31 December 2012) was a French-Argentinian Sergio de Castro was born in Argentina, in an aristocratic family of Spanish origins (Galicia and the Basque Country), the House of Castro. His father was a diplomat, which is why, from 1923 until 1932, Castro lived in Switzerland with his parents and his two sisters. During these years he visited cities like Lausanne, Geneva and Turin. In 1933 he entered a Jesuit school in Montevideo and he started studying music. He discovered poetry by learning to speak and write in Spanish. He was specially touched by the works of César Vallejo. Through the years Castro would become close friends with writers like Octavio Paz, Julio Cortázar, Samuel Beckett, Kostas Papaioannou and Georges Schéhadé. Later, during a trip to Uruguay, he met Joaquín Torres García, with whom he studied painting and monumental art from 1941 until 1949. In 1942 he moved to Argentina, where he would live until 1949. Castro was also friends with other artists like Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva and Arpad Szenes. In 1945 he found a job as a secretary in the Astronomy Observatorium of the city of Córdoba, where we also worked as the assistant to the musician Manuel de Falla in Alta Gracia, until his death in 1946. In 1945 and 1946 he had a grant from the French government to study musical composition. During the year of 1946 he had an exhibition in New York City among other members of Torres Garcia's workshop. That same year he traveled to the northeast of Argentina and the south of Perú to study pre-columbian art with Gonzalo Fonseca, Julio Uruguay Alpuy and Jonio Montiel. In 1949 he started teaching History of Music in the new music school of the city of La Plata. His work as a musician drew attention from relevant figures such as Wilhelm Furtwängler, Aaron Copland and Juan José Castro. He quit this job when he got a grant from the French government to improve his musical studies in Paris, where he settled in November 1949. Since 1951 he devoted himself exclusively to painting. In 1955, his friend the German writer and translator Edith Aron introduced him to Julio Cortázar, who would become a close friend of him. Castro inspired the character of Etienne in Cortázar's novel Rayuela (Hopscotch). In the book is featured the intimate friendship of the protagonist, Horacio Oliveira, with his companion in the Serpent Club, whom he often visited in his studio in Paris. In 1960 he won the Hallmark Prize in New York. In 1979 he obtained the French nationality. In 1980 he showed his works at the Argentinian pavilion in the 39th Venice Biennale. He was associate professor in the Human Sciences Faculty of the University of Strasbourg from 1981 until 1986. In 1997 he became Officer in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2006, Sergio de Castro made a 220-work donation to the Fine Arts Museum of Saint-Lô. He was also a close friend of the musician Alberto Ginastera, who made reference to Sergio de Castro and his first works in his notes on modern Argentinian music. Castro died 31 December 2012 in Paris. He is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery, in Paris, close to his dear friend Samuel Beckett. Monumental works Two wall paintings for the Martirené Pavilion of the Hospital Saint-Bois (1942), in Montevideo (Uruguay), in collaboration with Joaquín Torres García and his disciples, among which Castro was the youngest. The Creation of the Universe (1956–1958), 6m x 20m stained-glass window. Castro worked with painter and glass-maker J. J. K. Ray (1898–1979) in Paris. Selected Exhibitions 1952 Galerie Jeanne Castel Paris 1954 Galería Bonino Buenos Aires and Galerie Pierre Loeb, Paris 1956 Galerie Rive Gauche, Paris 1958 Matthiesen Gallery, London 1959 documenta 2 Kunst nach 1945 Kassel 1961 Matthiesen Gallery, London 1963–64 Galeria Lorenzelli, Bergamo and Milano 1964 Galería Bettie Thommen, Basel 1965 Kunstverein Hamburg Retrospektive 1966 Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Fribourg, Switzerland (retrospective) 1966 Recklinhausen, Variationen über ein Thema, Städtische Kunsthalle 1970 Retrospektiven in Oslo, Kunstforering, and Kunst Industriemuseet, Copenhagen, Kunstforening, Oslo, Kunstforening, Holstebro 1972 Wildenstein Gallery, London Landscapes of Light 1974 Galerie Jacob, Paris 1975 Kunsthalle Bremen, Retrospektive, Berlin Tempelhof, Kunstamt (Berlin Festival) 1975–76 Retrospective exhibition the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen (68 artworks from 1956 to 1966), France 1979 Hommage à Pierre Loeb, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris 1980 39th Venice Biennale 1987 French Institute London. Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires 1988 Galerie des Ambassades y Galerie Galarte, Sergio de Castro, Natures Mortes, 1958–1965. Paris/ Bayeux, Diocesan Museum of Sacred Art 1989 Galerie des Ambassades, Paris 1991–92 Romont, Swiss Stained Glass...

John von Wicht (American, 1888-1970) Oil on Japanese Rice Paper. Hand signed and dated in pencil lower right. Sheet Size: 21 x 29.25 in. Johannes Von Wicht was born in Holstein, ...

David Rankin, American (b. 1946) Rocky Hillside, (1990) Oil on paper Hand signed lower right, signed and titled verso. 30 x 22 1/2 inches David Rankin is a New York-based, British-born Australian post-war and contemporary artist known for his expressionistic abstract paintings. His work can be categorized by his use of quick, loose brushstrokes, reminiscent of scribbles on a page. Rankin works predominantly in oil painting and acrylic on canvas, but also works with paper, prints, sculptures and ceramics. Rankin has held over 100 one-person exhibitions in cities across the world, including New York, London, Paris, Beijing, Mexico, Vienna, Berlin and Cologne, as well as all over Australia. Represented in many of the world’s leading public and private collections and museums, David Rankin’s work is featured in Australia’s leading institutions, including the National Gallery of Australia, Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery of Victoria and Queensland Art Gallery. David Rankin was born in Plymouth, Devon, England in 1946 then emigrated to Australia with his family in 1948. He spent his childhood in the 1950s in the semi-rural Port Hacking region South of Sydney and his teenage years in country New South Wales, from Hay, Wagga Wagga and Albury in the South to Bourke and Brewarrina in the North. Rankin is self-taught, developing his techniques and ideas in the outback towns of his youth. He was inspired by the greats from Leonardo da Vinci to Paul Klee as well as being influenced by the history of Buddhism and Asian art. In his travels before he arrived in Sydney in 1967 he developed a concept of what he wanted to achieve as an Australian artist. His dream was to express the anima, the life spirit or the essence of God in all nature. As an Australian artist he believed could bring the elements of Western Art together with an understanding and love for the cultures of Asia and the Australian Aborigine. He also felt that as Australia was closer to Asia than Europe it made sense to think about the art of Indian, Chinese and Japanese artists, and that one could not be an authentic articulate Australian artist without a love and respect for the artistic and spiritual expressions of the various Aboriginal artists, peoples and cultures. His work combined elements of Abstract Expressionist painting with Jewish and Aboriginal influences. In 1979 his first wife, Jennifer Mary Roberts (née Haynes) died. Rankin subsequently met his current wife Lily Brett, whose own life was etched by tragedy with her parents being survivors of the Holocaust. She too migrated to Australia as a child after the Second World War in 1948. The artist recounts that his empathy for Lily and the pity for his first wife's death fused into what he calls "the dark blessing of my life." The darkness was transformed into images. The author Dore Ashton writes that the events of 1979 and the fire which ravished his studio in 1997 and burnt his art works and many personal possessions, had a profound impact on his work. Having personal life experiences as his subject matter, Rankin's paintings contemplate these things. For example, his Jerusalem series followed a trip to Jerusalem in 1988, which then led to his Golgotha works. His travels to the Australian, American and Mexican deserts became the subject matter for many of his canvases, such as Ridge – Mungo, Golden Prophecy – San Antonio, Grey Sonora Landscape and then led to his Witness Series. From the fire in his studio he then painted Buddha and Flames. He illustrated two books by Lily Brett on the holocaust and explored the theme further in his huge work The Drowned and The Saved from a book by Primo Levi of the same name. Through Brett he encountered Jewish mythology and painted judaica imagery, Black...

Genre: Modern Subject: Abstract Medium: Oil Surface: Board Dimensions: 16" x 19 3/4" x 1/4" Dimensions w/Frame: 19 1/4" x 23 1/4" Ernesto Linares Early Mexican Modernist Abstract...

Nachume Miller (1949–1998) was a German born Israeli artist who immigrated to New York City in 1973, where he made a name for himself in the American Modern Art scene. Miller immigra...

Perez Celis (American, Argentinian 1939-2008) Oil and mixed media on canvas 1993 Latin abstract expressionism oil painting depicting a color block and drip motif Hand signed and dated to lower left. In gilt gold frame. Approximate dimensions: canvas h. 14", w. 21"; frame h. 24", w. 31", d. 2.25". Celis Pérez (1939 – 2008) was an Argentine artist usually referred to as Pérez Celis. He earned international recognition for his paintings, sculptures, murals and engravings. Pérez was born in San Telmo on the South side of Buenos Aires, and grew up in Liniers, on the opposite end of town. Working as a newsboy during childhood, he learned the basics of drawing and painting via correspondence classes. In 1954 he entered the Manuel Belgrano National School of Fine Arts, and under the guidance of teachers like Leopoldo Presas, Santiago Cogorno, and Libero Badii, Pérez Celis developed his interest in abstraction. He first exhibited at age 17, at Galería La Fantasma. Following his entry into the professional arts world, he began using his name in a reversed form. At the start of his career he has been influenced by Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely during a 1957 retrospective of the latter's works at the National Fine Arts Museum. Some of his later works bear the influence of Gerhard Richter. He married Sarah Fernández in 1959 and relocated to Uruguay for less than a year invited by Carlos Páez Vilaró . Took part in the "Group of 8" – proponents of abstract art among the normally conservative local audiences. "Grupo de los 8", was a movement of Latin American, Uruguayan and Argentine artists formed in 1958 together with Oscar García Reino, Miguel Ángel Pareja, Raúl Pavlovsky, Lincoln Presno, Américo Sposito, Alfredo Testoni and Julio Verdie in order to promote new tendencies in painting. In 1960 they were invited by art critic Rafael Squirru to join the international exhibition at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (of which he was creator and first director) with artists such as Willem de Kooning, Roger Hilton and Lucio Fontana. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1960, and opened a downtown atelier with the support of Guido Di Tella, his first mecena. Pérez Celis explored geometric art, and builds his first mural, Fuerza América, in 1962. Indigenous patterns and colors would reappear in many of his productions during the 1960s and 1970s, and distinguished him from most other local artists, among whom pop art and figurative art was more influential. His work had a more raw, Art Brut , Brutalist feel to it. He was featured in more than 120 solo shows during his career, notably the Galerie Bellechasse, Anita Shapolsky Gallery New York, (he showed with Agustin Fernandez, Rodolfo Abularach, Giancarlo Puppo and Cuban artist Mario Bencomo) Arteconsult, Boston & Panama, Witcomb, etc. and his art was purchased for many private collections and first-rate museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. He received commissions from the Argentine government, which placed his works in the Ministro Pistarini International Airport, from other governments, and from prominent individuals and businesses. In 1977, following his wife's passing in an automobile accident he remarried and lived in Caracas, Paris, New York City, and Miami in subsequent years. He shared his time between Buenos Aires and New York in 1994, a retrospective of his work was hosted at Biblioteca Nacional visited by more than 300000 persons. He continued exhibiting in Latin America, in the Sanyo Gallery in Tokyo, the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City, and at numerous universities. Among his numerous recognitions in later years was the Alba Award at the 61st Salón Nacional de Artes Plásticas Argentino, and he was proclaimed a Distinguished Citizen of the City of Buenos Aires in 2001. He also created several literary illustrations, notably those for Jorge Luis Borges' Spanish-language translation of Walt Whitman's poem Leaves of Grass. A fan of the Club Atlético Boca Juniors football team, he created two murals in 1997 for the team's La Bombonera Stadium in Buenos Aires: "Idolos" (Idols) and "Mito y Destino" (Myth and Destiny), both Venetian mosaics and bronze sculpture on cement. Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, NY Museum of Modern Latin American Art...

Abstract expressionist painting on paper Matted

Floated on archival white mat with wood frame. Fritz Bultman set himself apart from other Abstract Expressionists with his meticulously organized abstract compositions, use of sculp...

Chromesthesia is a neurological phenomenon experienced in the synthesis of binary sensorial modalities (synesthesia) where sound and color converge into a joint perception. In his pa...

Gorgeous oil and watercolor on paper by abstract expressionist artist Adine Stix. Beautiful shades of pink, purples, cobalt blue with s hint of orange cover the paper to create the h...

SALE ONE WEEK ONLY "Animal Spirit I" is a dynamic expression of McGee's mythical animal spirits. Hand signed and dated lower right front and on the verso signed and titled. Painting and mixed media present a complex scene that incorporates use of graphite and acrylic paint on thick handmade paper. Michelle Oka Doner was invited to participate in McGee's studio in the early 1980s and brought her handmade paper skills to share engaging McGee in this creative pursuit. McGee continued to develop these spiritual creatures throughout his career as can be seen in a piece from 1984, "Noah's Ark: Genesis, 1984," on display at the Detroit Institute of Arts, his brilliant 2005 "Progression" a 45-foot wide aluminum sculpture at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak, Michigan, and his stunning 2016 "United We Stand" sculpture at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History . His genius can be seen in sculpture installments throughout the city of Detroit. "Animal Spirit I" is signed and dated lower right. Charles McGee was born into a family of sharecroppers. While helping his grandfather tend the land, "he observed firsthand the order and harmony that exists within nature." He had no formal schooling until moving to Detroit at age 10, where he found that "everything was on the move and it hasn’t slowed down yet." in 2017 he observed, "I learned something not being in school — because life is school . . .I learn something every time I move. Every time I go around a corner, something new is revealed to me.” McGee took advantage of the GI Bill to attend classes at the Society of Arts and Crafts, now the College for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI. Other College for Creative Studies faculty and graduates include Richard Jerzy, Harry Bertoia, Doug Chaing (currently director of Lucas Film), Stephen Dinehart (game maker, writer, designer connected with The David Lynch Foundation), Tyree Guyton (international artist), Herb Babcock , Jerome Feretti, Kevin Siembieda (writer, designer and publisher of role-playing games), Renee Radell (American Expressionist formerly from Detroit and New York), Philip Pearlstein, Charles McGee (nationally recognized African American sculptor of animal and dancing spirits), Philip Pearlstein (2000 Honorary Doctorate, Modern Realism style), John Louis Krieger (American Modern) and William Girard (American Modern.) After retiring from the Corps of Engineers, McGee spent 1968 studying art in Barcelona. Despite not knowing the language at the outset, he immersed himself in the culture and opened himself to a whole new range of experience that would play out in his artwork. "If you free yourself, you have this kind of opportunity to have those experiences, horizons, and new vistas." (per interview with Nick Sousanis. He returned to Detroit and curated "Seven Black Artists" at the Detroit Artists Market in 1969, which along with McGee himself, included Lester Johnson, Henri Umbaji King, Robert Murray, James Lee, Allie McGhee...

BUDD HOPKINS (1931-2011) Untitled Abstract, 1964 Oil on paper on canvas 14 x 11 inches Signed and dated at lower right: Hopkins ‘64 Budd Hopkins was born in Wheeling, West Vi...