New Acquisitions July 2014

New Acquisitions July 2014

John Opper (1908-1994)

Untitled (Landscape)

Oil on artist board 1942 12 x 16 inches signed lower right

Academically trained like many of his contemporaries, Opper came to New York in 1934, two years after his graduation from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

As a youth, he had taken Saturday art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art and later studied at the Cleveland School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

When he arrived in New York he was a welltrained painter, adept at rendering still lifes and particularly landscapes depicting the American scene. He eventually came to embrace abstraction. In 1957 he joined the faculty of New York University, where he taught until 1974.

Oskar Fischinger (1903-1967)

Triangles Oil on board on artist-made frame 1949 15 x 15 inches 23 x 23 inches framed signed and dated lower right

As a visionary of abstract expression, Oskar Fischinger left an indelible mark in filmmaking history, and was a pioneer of non-objective animation and visual music. Born in Gelnhausen, Germany in 1900, Oskar Fischinger gravitated towards creative pursuits in music, special effects, and ultimately filmmaking and painting.

His natural aptitude took him far in the filmmaking industry in Los Angeles, CA at Paramount, M.G.M., and Walt Disney Studios. Fischinger’s paintings are held in permanent collections of more than 30 museums world-wide.

Hugo Weber (1918-1971)

Cave Oil on Masonite 1954 27 x 48 inches 34 x 55 inches framed Signed dated lower right

Hugo Weber was born in Basal, Switzerland in 1918. He began studying painting at the University of Basal, and later went on to study in Paris with Maillot, where he became acquainted with Giacometti and Brancusi.

He taught at the Institute of Design in Chicago and is represented in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.

His work was described as “an art of pure self-expression, reflecting nothing in terms of subject matter, which would guarantee nothing were it not that he is a virtuoso with the brush and that his color sense is delicately exuberant.�

Norman Bluhm (1921-1999)

Untitled Acrylic and pastel on paper 1974 22 x 30 inches 29 x 37 inches framed Signed and dated ‘74 lower right

Norman Bluhm’s prolific painting practice was equally dependent on both high style and high drama. Not one to shy away from bright, often unforeseen arrangements of color, this untitled work sees Bluhm’s compositional sensibility pushing abstracted painting to its limits.

Elaine De Kooning (1918-1989)

Southwestern Landscape #5 Oil on Masonite 1960 38 x 55 inches 40 x 57 inches framed Initialed, titled, and dated 1960 verso

Elaine de Kooning was a painter, teacher, and editor. She is known for her work both as an Abstract Expressionist and Figurative Expressionist painter. Born in Brooklyn, she was trained at Hunter College and the American Artists School. She was married to Willem De Kooning (1904-1997) whose success she worked to ensure. She gained attention with a series of works created at Black Mountain College, that were exhibited at Sidney Janis Gallery in New York in 1954. De Kooning taught at several universities, and she also served as art critic and editor for Art News magazine.

Vivian Springford (1914-2003)

Untitled Acrylic on canvas ca. 1961-62 48 x 58 inches

Vivian Springford was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and educated at the Spence School in New York City, and then the Art Students League.

Originally a portrait artist, she turned to abstraction by the 1950s. She was championed by Howard DeVree, the New York Times art critic, and Harold Rosenberg helped Springford get her first show in 1960.

Springford had a solo show at Preston Gallery in NYC in 1963, but became a reclusive artist after that, only showing in a few group exhibitions at the request of fellow artists and friends. She worked in her NY studio through the mid 1980s until macular degeneration rendered her blind. Her work was rediscovered near the end of her life.

Helen Lundeberg (1908-1999)

Windblown Oil on canvas 1964 40 x 60 inches 41 x 61 inches framed Signed and dated verso

Always based in reality, Helen Lundeberg created mysterious images that exist somewhere between abstraction and figuration.

Repeatedly described as formal and lyrical, Lundeberg’s paintings rely on precise compositions that utilize various restricted palettes. This creates images that posses a certain moodiness or emotional content unique to her work.

Lawrence Calcagno (1913-1993)

Sunbands V Acrylic and oil on canvas 1960 82 x 120 inches Provenance: The Brooklyn Museum of Art

San Francisco-born artist Lawrence Calcagno taught himself to paint from his own observations of the California landscape.

Calcagno remained largely self-taught until after World War II, when he began to study painting under the G.I. Bill with the artist Clyfford Still. He began to exhibit his work in the 1950s, and later went on to teach as several universities.

His work began to be shown around the world, and he was the recipient of numerous fellowships and grants.

Calcagno’s work is strongly reminiscent of the California landscapes of his early life, employing a warm, saturated palette and unfocused, minimal, mostly linear forms, evoking oceanscapes and sunsets.

Frederick Hammersley (1919-2009)

Right Slide Oil on canvas 1964 35 3/4 x 48 inches 37 3/4 x 50 inches framed Signed and dated lower left; titled verso

Frederick Hammersley was born in Salt Lake City, and later trained as as artist in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He first gained critical recognition in 1959 as one of the “Four Abstract Classicists” along with Karl Benjamin, Lorser Feitelson, and John McLaughlin, whose work was featured in an exhibition of the same name, organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and traveling to the San Franciso Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art in London, and Queen’s University in Belfast, Ireland. The critic Jules Langsner, writing for the catalogue, is credited with coining the term “hard-edge” painting as a description of the artists’ use of flat, colored shapes applied to the canvas with sharply delineated edges.

Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979)

Composition with Circles Lithograph 1982 Numbered EA XI/XXI 26 x 17 1/2 inches 32 1/4 x 23 3/4 inches

Sonia Delaunay, originally born Sofia Ilinitchna Terk in the Ukraine, was a Russian painter, illustrator, and textile designer who pioneered early abstract art in the years before World War I. During the 1920s Delaunay designed textiles and dresses.

Her use of abstract color harmonies had a strong influence on international fashion. She returned to painting in the 1930s, joining the Abstraction-CrÊation association in 1931. She and Robert Delaunay became involved in public art projects, and they collaborated on vast murals for the Paris Exposition of 1937. After her husband’s death in 1941, Delaunay continued to work as a painter and designer, and she lived to see the mounting of retrospectives of her work by major museums from the 1950s onward. In 1964 she became the only woman to have had an exhibition at the Louvre Museum in her own lifetime.

Ray Parker (1922-1990)

Untitled Oil on canvas 1959 73 x 70 inches Initialed and dated on verso

Ray Parker earned his MFA from University of Iowa in 1940. During the 1940s his paintings were heavily influenced by cubism. In the early 1950s, however, Parker became associated with the leading abstract expressionists of the day, including Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Parker soon began to simplify and refine his works realizing that through abstraction, and color his paintings could convey and express emotion.Like Piet Mondrian, Stuart Davis and Jackson Pollock, Parker was a fan of jazz music; and his interest in Jazz, combined with his interest in abstract expressionism, led to his improvised painting style.

Vivian Springford (1914-2003)

Untitled Acrylic on canvas 1971 42 x 42 inches Signed and dated on verso

Vivian Springford was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and educated at the Spence School in New York City, and then the Art Students League.

Originally a portrait artist, she turned to abstraction by the 1950s. She was championed by Howard DeVree, the New York Times art critic, and Harold Rosenberg helped Springford get her first show in 1960.

Springford had a solo show at Preston Gallery in NYC in 1963, but became a reclusive artist after that, only showing in a few group exhibitions at the request of fellow artists and friends. She worked in her NY studio through the mid 1980s until macular degeneration rendered her blind.

Her work was rediscovered near the end of her life.

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