Ira Moskowitz

'Navajo Reservation Landscape' — 1940s Southwest Regionalism

1945

Howard Cook, 'Financial District', lithograph, 1931, edition 75, Duffy 155. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, the full sheet with wide margins (2 3/4 to 5 5/8 inches), in excellent condition. Image size 13 5/16 x 10 3/8 inches (338 x 264 mm); sheet size 23 x 16 inches (584 x 406 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. Literature: 'American Master Prints from the Betty and Douglas Duffy Collection', the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, Washington, D.C., 1987. Collections: Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Library of Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum. ABOUT THE ARTIST Howard Norton Cook (1901-1980) was one of the best-known of the second generation of artists who moved to Taos. A native of Massachusetts, he studied at the Art Students League in New York City and at the Woodstock Art Colony. Beginning his association with Taos in 1926, he became a resident of the community in the 1930s. During his career, he received two Guggenheim Fellowships and was elected an Academician in the National Academy of Design. He earned a national reputation as a painter, muralist, and printmaker. Cook’s work in the print mediums received acclaim early in his career with one-person exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum (1927) and the Museum of New Mexico (1928). He received numerous honors and awards over the years, including selection in best-of-the-year exhibitions sponsored by the American Institute of Graphics Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Society of American Etchers, and the Philadelphia Print Club. His first Guggenheim Fellowship took him to Taxco, Mexico in 1932 and 1933; his second in the following year enabled him to travel through the American South and Southwest. Cook painted murals for the Public Works of Art Project in 1933 and the Treasury Departments Art Program in 1935. The latter project, completed in Pittsburgh, received a Gold Medal from the Architectural League of New York. One of his most acclaimed commissions was a mural in the San Antonio Post Office in 1937. He and Barbara Latham settled in Talpa, south of Taos, in 1938 and remained there for over three decades. Cook volunteered in World War II as an Artist War Correspondent for the US Navy, where he was deployed in the Pacific. In 1943 he was appointed Leader of a War Art Unit...

Andrew Dasburg, 'Trees in Ranchitos I', lithograph, 1975, edition 20. Signed 'A. D.' in pencil. Annotated 'Trial Proof' in pencil, verso. A superb impression in warm black ink, on he...

Andrew Dasburg, 'Trees in Ranchitos II', two-color lithograph, 1975, edition 20. Signed 'A. D.' in pencil. Annotated 'Trial Proof' in pencil, verso. A superb impression, in dark taup...

Andrew Dasburg, 'Trees in Ranchitos III', two-color lithograph, 1975, edition 20. Signed 'A. D.' in pencil. Annotated 'Trial Proof' in pencil, verso. A superb impression, in grey-bl...

Lyonel Feininger, 'Manhattan 1, stone 2', lithograph, 1951, edition 25. Prasse L 16. Titled 'Manhattan I and Stone II' in pencil, in the bottom right sheet edge. A fine impression on off-white Rives wove paper, with full margins (1 1/2 to 2 3/4 inches), in excellent condition. Scarce. Image size 11 1/4 x 8 5/8 inches (286 x 219 mm); 16 x 11 1/2 sheet size: inches (406 x 292 mm). Matted to museum standards, unframed. ABOUT THIS WORK Feininger produced only 20 lithographs throughout his prolific career—a handful of much earlier works created from 1906-12 were never editioned, with only a few proofs providing a record of those formative experiments. The success of his signature work, 'Off the Coast, Stone 3' created in 1951 for the Print Club of Cleveland, led the artist to produce five other lithographs from 1951-1955 printed by master lithographer George C. Miller as was the Print Club edition. Impressions of this work are held in the collections of the Boston Public Library, Cambridge Fine Arts Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Bezalel National Art Museum (Jerusalem), Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Washington Library of Congress. ABOUT THE ARTIST Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) was born in New York City into a musical family—his father was a violinist and composer, his mother was a singer and pianist. He studied violin with his father, and by the age of 12, he was performing in public. Still, he also drew incessantly, most notably the steamboats and sailing ships on the Hudson and East Rivers, and the landscape around Sharon, Conn., where he spent time on a farm owned by a family friend. At the age of 16 he left New York to study music and art in Germany, from where his parents emigrated. Drawn more to the visual arts, he attended schools in Hamburg, Berlin, and Paris from 1887 to 1892. After completing his studies, Feininger began his artistic career as a cartoonist and illustrator, his originality leading him to great success. In 1906, after working for a dozen years in Germany, he was offered a job as a cartoonist at the Chicago Tribune, the largest circulation newspaper in the Midwest. He worked there for a year, inventing what became the standard design for the comic strip: in the words of John Carlin, “an overall pattern. . . that allowed the page to be read both as a series of elements one after the other, like language and as a group of juxtaposed images, like visual art.” His originality did not end there: he went on to become one of the great abstract painters. Like Kandinsky, music was his model, but Kandinsky only knew music from the outside—as a listener (inspired initially by Wagner, then by Schoenberg)—while Feininger knew it from the inside. He lived in Paris from 1906 to 1908, during which time he met and was influenced by the work of progressive painters Robert Delaunay and Jules Pascin, as well as that of Paul Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh. He began painting full-time, developing his distinctive Iyrical style based on Cubist and Expressionist idioms and a concern for the emotive qualities of light and color. He exhibited with the Der Blaue Reiter group in 1913, and in 1917, he had his first solo exhibition at Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. One year after his solo exhibition, in 1918, Feininger began making woodcuts. He became enamored with the medium, producing an impressive 117 in his first year of exploring the printmaking medium. In 1919 at the invitation of the architect Walter Gropius, he was appointed the first master at the newly formed Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar. His woodcut of a cathedral...

Ira Moskowitz, 'Relic of the Insurrection of 1845' also 'Taos Pueblo with Ruin)', lithograph, 1944, edition 30, Czestochowski 121. Signed and titled in pencil. Signed and dated in the stone, lower right. A fine, richly-inked impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 3/8 to 1 15/16 inches). Very pale light toning within a previous mat opening, otherwise in excellent condition. Matted to museum standards, unframed. Image size 11 5/8 x 15 1/2 inches (296 x 394 mm); sheet size 15 1/8 x 19 inches (384 x 483 mm). ABOUT THE IMAGE The Taos Revolt was a populist insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. The rebels killed provisional governor Charles Bent and several other Americans. In two short campaigns, United States troops and militia crushed the rebellion of the Hispano and Pueblo people. The New Mexicans, seeking better representation, regrouped and fought three more engagements, but after being defeated, they abandoned open warfare. The hatred of New Mexicans for the occupying American army, combined with the rebelliousness of Taos residents against imposed outside authority, were causes of the revolt. In the uprising's aftermath, the Americans executed at least 28 rebels. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1850 guaranteed the property rights of New Mexico's Hispanic and American Indian residents. ABOUT THE ARTIST Ira Moskowitz was born in Galicia, Poland, in 1912, emigrating with his family to New York in 1927. He enrolled at the Art Student's League and studied there from 1928-31. In 1935, Moskowitz traveled to Paris and then lived until 1937 in what is now Israel. He returned to the United States in 1938 to marry artist Anna Barry in New York. The couple soon visited Taos and Santa Fe in New Mexico, returning for extended periods until 1944, when they moved there permanently, staying until 1949. During this especially productive New Mexico period, Moskowitz received a Guggenheim fellowship. His work was inspired by the New Mexico landscape and the state’s three cultures (American Southwest, Native American, and Mexican). He focused on Pueblo and Navajo life, producing an extensive oeuvre of authentic American Indian imagery. He and Anna also visited and sketched across the border in Old Mexico. While in the Southwest, Moskowitz flourished as a printmaker while continuing to produce oils and watercolors. Over 100 of Moskowitz’s works depicting Native American ceremonies were used to illustrate the book American Indian Ceremonial Dances by John Collier, Crown Publishers, New York, 1972. After leaving the Southwest, printmaking remained an essential medium for the artist while his focus changed to subject matter celebrating Judaic religious life and customs. These works were well received early on, and Moskowitz was content to stay with them the rest of his life. From 1963 until 1966, Moskowitz lived in Paris, returning to New York City in 1967, where he made his permanent home until he died in 2001. Shortly before his death, Zaplin-Lampert Gallery of Santa Fe staged an exhibition of the artist's works, December 2000 - January 2001. Other one-person shows included the 8th Street Playhouse, New York, 1934; Houston Museum, 1941; and the San Antonio Museum, 1941. The artist’s work was included in exhibitions at the Art Students League, Art Institute of Chicago, Philadelphia Print Club, College Art Association (promotes excellence in scholarship and teaching), and the International Exhibition of Graphic Arts (shown at MOMA, 1955). Moskowitz’s lithographs of American Indian...

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Fernand Léger Montparnasse, 1959 Original lithograph (Atelier Mourlot) Signed with the artist's stamp Limited to 180 copies (Here numbered 160) On Arches vellum 66 x 50.5 cm (c. 25...

Denis-Paul NOYER Mercedes 710 - Cabourg Grand Hotel Original lithograph, c. 1980 Handsigned in pencil Numbered / 115 copies On Arches vellum 75 x 105 cm (c. 30 x 42 in) INFORMATION : Cabourg Grand Hotel is a well known 5* hotel / palace located in Normandy. Marcel Proust...

Fernand Léger The roofs, 1959 Original lithograph (Atelier Mourlot) Signed with the artist's stamp Limited to 180 copies (Here numbered 160) On Arches vellum 66 x 50.5 cm (c. 25.9 ...

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