5 x 63cm)
Frans Masereel was a Flemish painter and graphic artist who worked mainly in France, known especially for his woodcuts focused on political and social issues, such as war and capitalism. He completed over 40 wordless novels in his career, and among these, his greatest is generally said to be Passionate Journey.
Masereel's woodcuts influenced Lynd Ward and later graphic artists such as Clifford Harper, Eric Drooker, and Otto Nückel.
Rainer Fetting is a German painter and sculptor.
Rainer Fetting was one of the co-founders and main protagonists of the Galerie am Moritzplatz in Berlin, founded in the late 1970s by a group of young artists (mainly painters) from the class of Karl Horst Hödicke at the former Berliner Hochschule für Bildende Künste (Berlin Art Academy, today known as Universität der Künste). Fetting is now one of the internationally best known contemporary German artists, having created a large oeuvre of expressive figurative paintings covering many different kinds of subject-matter, as well as many bronze sculptures.
Victor Vasarely, a seminal figure in the Op art movement, was a Hungarian-French artist celebrated for his pioneering contributions to geometric abstract art. Born Győző Vásárhelyi in Pécs, Hungary, in 1906, Vasarely's artistic journey led him to Paris, where he honed a distinctive style marked by optical illusions and kinetic art. By the late 1940s, he had developed his iconic approach, utilizing geometric shapes and a limited color palette to create artworks that seemed to move and vibrate. His work "Zebra," created in 1937, is often cited as one of the earliest examples of Op art, showcasing his fascination with creating the illusion of depth and movement on a flat surface.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Vasarely's exploration into optical effects deepened, leading to significant series like his "Vega" works. These pieces are characterized by their illusionary three-dimensional space, seemingly pushing and pulling the viewer into the canvas. His dedication to optical and geometric abstraction was not just a pursuit of aesthetic innovation but also an exploration of the viewer's perception, making the observer an integral part of the artwork.
Vasarely's influence extended beyond the canvas, impacting architecture, sculpture, and even space exploration. In 1970, he founded the first museum dedicated to his works in Gordes, followed by the establishment of the Fondation Vasarely in Aix-en-Provence in 1976, showcasing his vision of integrating art with the environment. His artworks have found homes in prestigious institutions like the Museum of Modern Art and have been celebrated in exhibitions worldwide.
For collectors and experts in art and antiques, Vasarely's works offer a mesmerizing blend of scientific precision and artistic expression, encapsulating a moment in art history where the boundaries between viewer and artwork blurred. His legacy is a testament to the power of visual perception and the endless possibilities of abstract art.
For those interested in delving deeper into Victor Vasarely's visionary world and perhaps acquiring a piece of this history, signing up for updates on new product sales and auction events related to Vasarely's works is highly recommended. Stay informed and embrace the opportunity to own a part of the optical and geometric abstraction movement that Vasarely so brilliantly pioneered.
Per Kirkeby was a Danish painter, poet, film maker and sculptor.
Pierre Soulages was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor. In 2014, François Hollande described him as "the world's greatest living artist."
Soulages is known as "the painter of black," owing to his interest in the colour "both as a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens a mental field all its own." He saw light as a work material; striations of the black surface of his paintings enable him to reflect light, allowing the black to come out of darkness and into brightness, thus becoming a luminous colour.
Blalla Wolfgang / Wolfgang Ewald Hallmann was a German painter and graphic artist. He deals with fundamental existential questions (religion, sexuality, ...) in a drastic, both blasphemous and obscene manner. Formally, it moves between surrealism, outsider art (Art Brut), folk art and numerous references to art history. In the 1980s, the cycle of "horror pictures" was created. In addition to other techniques, the reverse glass painting known from folk art is characteristic of him. In 1995/1996 Hallmann produced a series of 149 sheets of woodcuts in which he recapitulated his own career under the title “The Way, the Truth and Life”. He was a member of the artist trio around Herbert Haberl and Bernd Wangerin. In 1965 he was a founding member of a traveling theater that later became “Hoffmanns Comic Teater”. Members of this group later formed the rock band Ton Steine Scherben.
Thomas Struth is a German photographer who is best known for his Museum Photographs series, family portraits and black and white photographs of the streets of Düsseldorf and New York taken in the 1970s. Struth lives and works in Berlin and New York.
Carl Friedrich Heinzmann was a German landscape painter, porcelain artist, lithographer, and printmaker. He worked for the Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory and mostly painted serene and peaceful landscapes. Heinzmann also left lithographs and oil paintings, many of which describe war scenes.
Siegward Sprotte was a German artist, writer and philosopher.
Originally Siegward Sprotte painted figuratively, including portraits of old masters and drawings. Later he devoted himself more to landscape, up to the ideogram and colourful calligraphy.
Sprotte has written many works on the subjects of art, consciousness and modernity, and is the creator of a new paradigm of "eye-to-eye".
Max Friedrich Ferdinand Rabes was a German Impressionist painter. Although he is best remembered as an Orientalist painter, he rejected that label during his lifetime and wanted all of his works to be equally recognized. He was initially self taught, through making nature studies and sketches. Later, he took lessons from the landscape painter, Paul Graeb (1842–1892). He made numerous trips to North Africa and the Middle East. In 1898 he was invited to accompany Kaiser Wilhelm II on a trip to Istanbul and Palestine. He was appointed an honorary doctor and became a Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 1899, he was awarded the Order of the Zähringer Lion. In 1914, he undertook a trip to the front lines in East Prussia. The following year, he was at the western front in Belgium and, in 1917, visited Verdun. In addition to his canvases, he did decorative work; including landscape murals at a castle in Lausitz (1901) and a villa in Iserlohn (1905), as well as ceiling paintings and allegorical murals at the Schauspielhaus in what is now Wrocław (1906-1908).
Alex Katz is an American figurative artist known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints.
Giuseppe Zais was an Italian painter of landscapes (vedutisti) who painted mostly in Venice.
Johann Rasso Januarius Zick was a German painter and architect. He is considered to be one of the main masters of the Late-Baroque.
