About this Item
Original Lithograph, Printed Area 17 3/4" X 21 1/4", Printed In Black, Signed "H. Burkhardt 64" At Lower Right Beneath The Image. Light Wear. Provenance: Collection Of Jae Carmichael, At Whose Wooden Horse Gallery In Laguna Berach Burkhardt Had A Solo Show In 1963. Hans Gustav Burkhardt (1904 ? 1994) Was A Swiss-American Abstract Expressionist Artist, Born In The Industrial Quarter Of Basel, When He Was Three His Father Abandoned The Family For America, And A Few Years Later, When His Mother Died Of Tuberculosis, He And His Sister Went To Live In An Orphanage. Burkhardt Later Left For New York To Work As A Cabinetmaker With His Father. Captivated By Germanic Art, He Began Dabbling In Art In His Spare Time While Learning How To Decorate Furniture In Antique Styles. From 1925 To 1928 He Attended The Cooper Union School Of The Arts, Where He Befriended Mentor Arshile Gorky And Willem De Kooning?Sharing Gorky's Studio From 1928 To 1937. Burkhardt's Paintings Of The 1930S Are Part Of The Genesis Of American Abstract Expressionism. In 1937 He Moved To Los Angeles And Represented The Most Significant Bridge Between New York And Los Angeles. His Experimental Investigative Approach Paralleled, And In Many Instances Anticipated, The Development Of Modern And Contemporary Art In New York And Europe Including The Work Of Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, And Barnett Newman. Burkhardt Held His First Solo Exhibition In 1939 At Stendahl Gallery In Los Angeles, Arranged By Lorser Feitelson, And, In Response To The Spanish Civil War, He Painted His First Anti-War Works. From The Late 1930S He Began To Produce Apocalyptic Anti-War Compositions, A Theme Which Became Particularly Pronounced In An Abstract Expressionist Style After The Atom Bomb Was Dropped On Hiroshima And Nagasaki At The End Of The Second World War. In The Years Following An Acclaimed (1945) Solo Exhibition At The Los Angeles County Museum, Burkhardt Continued In His Art To Respond To Wwii, And Endured Censorship Due To The Proliferation Of Mccarthyism, And In The Aftermath Of Gorky's Suicide In 1948, Burkhardt Delved In To His Grief And Celebration Of Gorky's Life Creating Several Versions Of ?Burial Of Gorky? And A Series Entitled ?Journey Into The Unknown.? Burkhardt First Visited Mexico In 1950, And Spent The Next Decade Living Half Of The Year In And Around Guadalajara. Art Critics Of The Time Considered Him A "Great Mexican Master? Alongside Orozco, Rivera, And Siqueiros, And Rufino Tamayo Admired His Work.[5] Overall, In The 1950S Burkhardt Held 23 Solo Exhibitions In Los Angeles And Mexico, And Participated In Group Shows At Over Thirty Museums Worldwide. In The 1960S He Produced Paintings In Protest Against The Vietnam War. Critic Peter Frank Called Burkhardt ??One Of America?S Most Vital Abstract Expressionist Painters, Someone Who Took The Seed Of The Movement And Cultivated It A Rather Different Way In Very Different Soil, And Historian Eugene Anderson Declared Burkhardt ?Goya?S Spiritual Heir. Burkhardt Taught At Numerous Colleges And Universities And Retired As A Professor Emeritus From California State University, Northridge. His Unique Role As An Important American Painter Is Affirmed By The Constant Interest And Continuing Reassessment Afforded His Work. (See Wikipedia For More Information).
Seller Inventory # 044642
Contact seller
Report this item
