Items Similar to The Burning Tower
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 8
Robert A. BirmelinThe Burning Tower
About the Item
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of nature.
He earned his BA in 1956 and his MFA in 1960 from Yale School of Art and Architecture and also studied at Cooper Union and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. In 1960, he earned a Fulbright Scholarship, which took him to the Slade School of Art in London.
His work has been acquired by 40 public collections including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art and Washington’s Hirshorn Museum. Among the various art magazines and journals where articles on Mr. Birmelin’s work have appeared are Art In America, American Artists, and Art Forum. Additionally, he has received numerous grants and awards from such organizations as The American Academy in Rome, The National Endowment for the Arts, The American Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Joan Mitchell Foundation.
From the 1970s to the mid-1990s, Mr. Birmelin found his principal inspiration in the streets of New York where he was fascinated by the energy and diversity of city life. His large paintings evoke movement, using focus and depth manipulations to suggest a close spatial and psychological relationship between the viewer and the world Birmelin has depicted. Hands often play an important role in these works, as exemplified by “The Twenty Dollars Bill.”
From 1993 to 2000, he became absorbed by memory, its unreliability and contradictions. These paintings are of states of mind, structured as a series of “reversible compositions,” which initially present a credible depiction of a place, and then after a moment, reveal insoluble contradictions created by contrasting opposing images of equal visual weight.
A new series of images of the life of the urban crowd was begun in 2001 and continues to the present. Many of these paintings have a sweeping sense of the choreography of masses of people in motion and reflect the tensions of contemporary urban reality.
Selected Grants and Scholarships
1960-61 U.S. Government Grant (Fulbright) for study in the United Kingdom
1961-64 The American Academy in Rome
1955 National Institute of Arts and Letters
1973 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation
1976, 1982, 1990 National Endowment for the Arts
2005 The Joan Mitchell Foundation
1980, 1988, 1998, 2006 The New Jersey State Council on the Arts
Selected Public Collections
Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Hirschorn Museum, Washington, DC
Hood Art Museum, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Library of Congress, Washington, DC
The Metropolitan Museum, New York, NY
The Museum of the City of New York
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Nagoaka, Japan
The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
National Academy of Design, New York, NY
New York Historical Society, New York, NY
New York Public Library, New York, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
- Creator:Robert A. Birmelin (1933-2003, American)
- Dimensions:Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 16 in (40.64 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:Surfside, FL
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU38210565792
About the Seller
4.9
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 1995
1stDibs seller since 2014
1,556 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: 1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: Surfside, FL
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 3 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- Brandywine Farm Collotype Lithograph Hand Signed Henriette Wyeth Americana ArtBy Henriette WyethLocated in Surfside, FLHenriette Wyeth-Hurd Hand signed, Collotype, Limited Edition of 490 Image Size: 20" x 26" framed 28.5 X 34.5 Provenance: printed at Triton Press and has their certificate of authenticity verso. Henriette Wyeth Hurd (1907 – 1997) was an American artist noted for her portraits and still life paintings. The eldest daughter of illustrator N.C. Wyeth, she studied painting with her father and brother Andrew Wyeth at their home and studio in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Henrietta Wyeth was born in Wilmington, Delaware, into an artistic family. Wyeth was the eldest of the five children of noted illustrator N.C. Wyeth and his wife Carolyn Bockius. Her siblings Carolyn and Andrew also became artists, and all three studied with their father. Andrew Wyeth became the most well-known artist of this family. Henriette contracted polio at age 3, which altered her health and use of her right hand. As a result, she learned to draw with her left hand and paint with her right. She grew up on the family farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, and attended local Quaker schools. She and her siblings were eventually homeschooled because their father distrusted the public school system. She began formal art lessons with her father at age 11, making charcoal studies and geometric shapes. A child prodigy, at age 13 Wyeth was enrolled in the Normal Arts School in Boston, Massachusetts. The next year, in 1921, she entered the Boston Museum of Art Academy. Two years later she moved to Philadelphia to study painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. By age 16, she was well known as a portraitist and received commissions for paintings of Wilmington residents. Deeply influenced by her father's unique realistic style, she rejected early 20th-century painting styles such as Impressionism and Cubism. She was also socially and politically conservative. As a result, later in life she rejected the progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s, including the women's movement. She often criticized television and modern culture. At age 21, in 1929 Wyeth married artist Peter Hurd, a fellow student at the Pennsylvania Academy and her father's apprentice. The couple had three children together: Peter Jr., Carolyn, and Michael Hurd. In the mid-1930s they moved to San Patricio, New Mexico, settling on a farm of 40 acres. By 1939, they established the Sentinel Ranch there, gradually acquiring more land until they had 2200 acres. It was in southern New Mexico near Roswell, New Mexico, her husband's birthplace. Wyeth's work spanned portraits of adults and children, still lifes, and floral landscapes. In her work, she "often included objects that related to the subject's interest or personality. She eventually stopped painting children because, as she said, “today...Category
1980s American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- 4 Animals, American Modernist Abstract EtchingBy Robert A. BirmelinLocated in Surfside, FLBorn in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...Category
20th Century American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsEtching
- The Burning Tower, American Modernist Abstract Landscape EtchingBy Robert A. BirmelinLocated in Surfside, FLBorn in Newark, New Jersey, Robert Birmelin became a professor of fine arts at Queens College in New York, and is known for paintings that magnify through texture the realism of natu...Category
20th Century American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsEtching
- Lithograph Belgian American Surrealism WPA Modernist Karl Fortess Surrealist ArtLocated in Surfside, FLKarl Eugene Fortess (1907-1993) Original color lithographs on BFK Rives paper, 1966, Hand signed and numbered 29/36 in pencil, Sheet size 20.5 x 15 inches. Karl E. Fortess (1907-1993) was a painter, printmaker and teacher, of Boston, Massachusetts and Woodstock, N.Y. Fortess was born in Antwerp, Belgium on October 13, 1907, and became an American citizen in 1923. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Students League in New York, and the Woodstock School of Painting with Yasuo Kuniyoshi. In 1937 the Works Progress Administration sent him and several other artists to Alaska to document the towns, villages, and remote wilderness landscapes (Pemberton, “Alaska art museum collects WPA’s Depression works from the territory,” Columbia Daily Tribune, November 9, 2003). Trains, trucks, and industrial buildings were what Karl Fortess envisioned when the Public Works of Art Project suggested that he depict “the American Scene.” His work bears the influence of Surrealism, Russsian Constructivist art and Cubism. He was part of a circle of left leaning artists loosley involved with the WPA which included Sol Wilson, Isaac Soyer, Louis Lozowick, Abraham Harriton, Ben Shahn, William Gropper, Nahum Tschacbasov, Morris Shulman, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Louis Slobodkin, Adolf Dehn, Le Corbusier and Louis Schanker. Karl Fortress taught at the Art Students League, Brooklyn Museum Art School, Louisiana State University, Fort Wright College, and Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts. He was a member of the Artists Equity Association, Society of American Graphic Artists, American Association of University Professors, and the British Film Institute. He was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1946, was named an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1960 and elected to full Academician in 1971. Fortess taught at many different schools, including Boston University School of Fine Art, where he also created an archive of interviews with more than two hundred and fifty contemporary American painters, sculptors, and graphic artists including many with with artists associated with the Woodstock, N.Y. art community. Among the interviewees are Kenneth Armitage, Will Barnet, Romare Bearden, George Biddle, James Brooks, Adolph Dehn, Jane Freilicher, Julian Levi, Alice Neel, Larry Rivers, Moses Soyer, Dorothy Varian...Category
Mid-20th Century Surrealist Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- 1959 Israeli Moshe Tamir Color Modernist Mixed Media Serigraph PhoenixBy Moshe TamirLocated in Surfside, FLAbstract Composition, 1959 Silkscreen Lithograph "Phoenix". This was from a portfolio which included works by Yosl Bergner, Menashe Kadishman, Yosef Zaritsky, Aharon Kahana, Jacob We...Category
1950s Modern Abstract Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Screen
- Italian Post Modern Pop Art Lithograph Vintage Poster Memphis Galerie MaeghtBy Valerio AdamiLocated in Surfside, FLVintage gallery exhibition poster. Bright vivid red and bold yellow. The Galerie Maeght is a gallery of modern art in Paris, France, and Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. The gallery was...Category
1980s Pop Art Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph, Offset
You May Also Like
- Homestead, Lithograph by Clarence Holbrook CarterBy Clarence Holbrook CarterLocated in Long Island City, NYArtist: Clarence Holbrook Carter, American (1904 - 2000) Title: Homestead Year: 1979 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 200, AP 30 Size: 23 in. x 29 in. (58....Category
1970s American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- TAPESTRY OF SPRING Hand Drawn Lithograph Grand Tetons Wyoming Mountain LandscapeBy Conrad Schwiering 1Located in Union City, NJTAPESTRY OF SPRING by the American Western artist Conrad Schwiering, is a hand drawn limited edition lithograph printed using hand lithography techniques on archival Somerset paper 100% acid free. TAPESTRY OF SPRING is a realistic Western landscape scene set in Wyoming featuring a backdrop of Wyoming's majestic Grand Teton snow...Category
1980s American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- EASIN' EM HOME Signed Lithograph, Western Scene, Cowboy Crossing River w HorsesBy Conrad Schwiering 1Located in Union City, NJEASIN' EM HOME by the American Western artist Conrad Schwiering, is a hand drawn limited edition lithograph(not a photo reproduction or digital print...Category
1980s American Realist Animal Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- SINGLIN' OUT Signed Lithograph, American Cowboy Roping Horses, Rocky MountainsBy Conrad Schwiering 1Located in Union City, NJSINGLIN' OUT by the American Western artist Conrad Schwiering, is a hand drawn limited edition lithograph printed using hand lithography techniques o...Category
1980s American Realist Animal Prints
MaterialsLithograph
- Wall Street 2, black & white 25.5" X 36" lithograph abstract urban street NYCLocated in Brooklyn, NYWall Street 2 - plate size 25.5 x 36 - printed on 100% cotton rag - edition 3/5 monochromatic city-scape w/ Architectural elements Cubist and abstract assemblage photographic characterCategory
2010s American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper, Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Lithograph
- Wall Street 1, 25.5 x 36 inches, black/white lithograph, abstract urban city NYLocated in Brooklyn, NYWall Street 2 - plate size 25.5 x 36 - printed on 100% cotton rag - edition 3/5 monochromatic city-scape w/ Architectural elements Cubist and abstract assemblage photographic characterCategory
Early 2000s American Realist Landscape Prints
MaterialsArchival Paper, Archival Ink, Rag Paper, Lithograph
