Born in Pasadena, California, William Claxton was best known for his photography of Jazz Musicians including Chet Baker, and celebrities such as Steve McQueen and Frank Sinatra. In 1967, Claxton created the film, “Basic Black,” which is credited as the first “fashion video,” and is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Steven Arnold (1943-1994)
Steven F. Arnold was an American artist and protégé of Salvador Dalí. Born in Oakland, CA, Arnold enjoyed a prolific career as a visionary filmmaker, photographer, painter, illustrator, set and costume designer, and assemblage artist. Arnold’s works continue to be exhibited worldwide.
A Fight for Love and Glory
1989
Signed and titled in pencil, verso
Also inscribed “7518/10” in pencil, verso
Vintage gelatin silver print
14 x 11 inches, sheet
10 x 10 inches, image
Sold.
George Stavrinos (1948-1990)
Artist George Stavrinos is best remembered as a renowned American illustrator who was a particularly gifted draftsman. Trained at the Rhode Island School of Design, he graduated in 1969, spent a year studying abroad in Rome, and then came back to New York City to begin working. Over the course of his career, he was commissioned by Bergdorf Goodman, the New York City Opera, The New York Times and magazines such as Redbook, Gentleman’s Quarterly and Cosmopolitan.
While working as an illustrator, Stavrions exhibited his personal work in galleries in Manhattan, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Providence, Chicago, London, Paris, and Tokyo. He also taught at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City in he 1980s, and at Tokyo’s Designers Gakium College in 1984.
In 2007, George Stavrinos was inducted into the Society of Illustrators’ Hall of Fame.
Raphael Soyer (1899-1987)
Moses Soyer (1899-1974)
Ben Shahn (1898-1969)
Ben Shahn was an American artist known for Social Realism. He emigrated from Lithuania to Brooklyn after his father was exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activities in 1902. Ben Shahn held deeply left-wing political views, which informed his art practice. He had a deep affection for American workers, immigrants, and disenfranchised communities, and often expressed an abhorrence for injustice and oppression. He depicted scenes from American life which often commented on political corruption and societal woes.
Larry Rivers (b. 1923)
Robert Rauschenberg (1925-2008)
Gregory Orloff (1890-1981)
Robert Motherwell (1915-1991)
John Marin (1870-1953)
Sol LeWitt (1928-2007)
Armin Landeck (1905-1984)
Konrad Cramer (1888-1963)
Konrad Cramer grew up in Wurtzburg, Germany, and attended the Karlsruhe Academy. He was a member of Der Blaue Reiter—among one of the earliest modernist movements in Europe. Der Blaue Reiter, based in Munich, was founded by Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, and Franz Marc, among others.
In 1911, Cramer married Florence Ballin, an American artist studying in Munich. The couple moved to the United States, and eventually settled in Woodstock, New York, where they were soon active in a circle of artists that included Andrew Dasburg, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, and Elie Nadelman.
Cramer’s first exhibition in the United States took place in 1913 at the Arts Club, where he exhibited several of his “Improvisation” paintings. Cramer also found success as a photographer for the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
The artist was among one of the first to practice pure abstraction in painting in the United States. Later he returned to more representational imagery influenced by both abstraction and folk art. Cramer taught at the Woodstock School of Painting and the Dalton School in New York City. He remained active as a teacher and artist in Woodstock up until his death in 1963.
Rockwell Kent (1882-1971)
Jinrich Hegr (b.1933)
Keith Haring (1958-1990)
Keith Haring, born in Reading, Pennsylvania, is one of the most celebrated and recognizable artists of the Pop Art movement. Haring’s style emerged from graffiti culture in New York in the 1980s. He died of AIDS-related complications at his Greenwich Village apartment in 1990.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957-1996)
Félix González-Torres was a Cuban-born American visual artist. González-Torres was known for his minimal installations and sculptures in which he used materials such as strings of lightbulbs, clocks, stacks of paper, or packaged hard candies.
Elsie Driggs (1898-1992)
Elsie Driggs (1898-1992), was an American painter known for her contributions to the Precisionist Movement of the 1920s and 1930s, and for her later floral and figurative paintings. Her works are in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and many others.