Ranzy - Chief Charging Skunk

Exhibited Peyote Priest visionary painting with an artist-made, decorated frame

1930s

A great hard edge abstract painting, possibly by Michiel Gloeckner. This work was purchased from Trinity Auctions. Trinity Auctions have handled many works by the artist, and some a...

A great abstract expressionist painting on canvas by Portland, Oregon artist Carl Morris. Carl A. Morris, (1911 – 1993), was one of the most important artist from Oregon. An Amer...

A vibrant and energetic abstract painting by a influential artist and professor in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene. James McCray was born in the Bay Area in 1912. He studied a...

A nice American modernist landscape painting, dating from the 1940s. This work is on the manner of E. Oscar Thalinger, but does not appear to be signed. The work is unframed, as it...

An unsigned mid century modern American abstract painting

This exquisite woodcut after Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944), titled Klange (Sounds), from the album XXe Siecle, Decembre 1966, originates from the 1966 edition published by Societe Internationale d'Art XXe siecle, Paris, under the direction of Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, editeur, Paris, and printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, 1966. Klange reflects Kandinsky’s revolutionary synthesis of sound, color, and emotion, merging visual rhythm and spiritual resonance in a poetic abstraction that embodies the birth of modern non-objective art. Executed as a woodcut on velin paper, this work measures 12.5 x 9.75 inches. Unsigned and unnumbered as issued. The edition exemplifies the superb craftsmanship of Mourlot Freres, Paris. Artwork Details: Artist: After Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Title: Klange (Sounds), from the album XXe Siecle, Decembre 1966 Medium: Woodcut on velin paper Dimensions: 12.5 x 9.75 inches (31.75 x 24.77 cm) Inscription: Unsigned and unnumbered as issued Date: 1966 Publisher: Societe Internationale d'Art XXe siecle, Paris, under the direction of Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, editeur, Paris Printer: Mourlot Freres, Paris Condition: Well preserved, consistent with age and medium Provenance: From the album XXe Siecle, Decembre 1966, published by Societe Internationale d'Art XXe siecle, Paris, under the direction of Gualtieri di San Lazzaro, editeur, Paris; printed by Mourlot Freres, Paris, 1966 About the Publication: Gualtieri di San Lazzaro's XXe Siecle (Twentieth Century) was one of the most influential art journals of the modern era, founded in Paris in 1938 as a platform for the greatest painters, sculptors, and writers of the 20th century. San Lazzaro, a visionary editor, critic, and champion of modernism, believed that art and literature should coexist as expressions of a shared human imagination. Under his direction, XXe Siecle became a cultural bridge between Europe and the wider world, publishing special issues devoted to leading figures such as Picasso, Matisse, Chagall, Braque, Calder, Miro, Kandinsky, and Leger. Each edition combined essays by renowned critics and poets with original lithographs and woodcuts printed by the foremost ateliers of Paris, Milan, and New York, including Mourlot, Curwen, and Amilcare Pizzi, creating a uniquely rich dialogue between text and image. Through XXe Siecle, San Lazzaro preserved the creative spirit of the avant-garde during and after World War II, championing freedom of expression and the evolution of abstraction, surrealism, and modern thought. Over nearly four decades, the journal shaped international taste and defined the intellectual landscape of postwar art publishing. Today, XXe Siecle remains celebrated for its extraordinary synthesis of art, literature, and design, an enduring testament to Gualtieri di San Lazzaro's belief that the visual arts are the soul of the modern age. About the Artist: Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) was a visionary Russian-born, later French, painter, printmaker, and pioneering theorist whose quest to translate music and spirituality into pure visual form helped birth abstract art and irrevocably transform the modern aesthetic. Emerging from a background of law and economics, he embraced painting in his late thirties and soon became a central figure in avant-garde circles—including co-founding the Munich-based Der Blaue Reiter and later teaching at the prestigious Bauhaus school—fusing his deep interests in Russian icon painting, folk ornament, theosophy, color theory, and the experimental energy of early 20th-century artistic innovation. Influenced by predecessors such as Cezanne, Matisse, and the non-European masks and forms he encountered, Kandinsky worked alongside and in dialogue with contemporaries including Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Salvador Dali, Joan Miro, Marcel Duchamp, and Man Ray—artists united by a fearless rejection of conventional representation and a shared impulse toward radical visual invention. His compositions of floating geometric forms, vibrant chromatic symphonies, and lyrical abstractions not only charted new territory for the avant-garde in his own time but also inspired innumerable later artists—from the Abstract Expressionists like Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko, to the Color Field painters, post-war neo-expressionists, and contemporary abstractionists who continue to echo his bold experimentations with color, line, and composition. Kandinsky’s works remain cornerstone acquisitions for major museums worldwide and prime offerings in the global collector market. His auction record stands with Murnau with Church II (1910), which sold for £37,196,800 (≈$44.9 million) at Sotheby’s, London, on March 1, 2023. Wassily Kandinsky Klange...

Work on canvas Golden wooden frame 63 x 72 x 5 cm

Will Petersen, a painter, master printer and a poet, was born in Chicago. (Amer. 1928-1994) Will's formal art education began with classes at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. As a student at the city's Steinmetz High School, Petersen succeeded Hugh Hefner (of Playboy magazine fame) as the HS newspaper cartoonist, the Steinmetz Star. During this time, Petersen recovered from polio. In 1947 Petersen enrolled at Chicago's Wilbur Wright College. While there, he painted with oils for the first time. Two years later he enrolled at Michigan State University where he developed a strong interest in literature and writing and began printmaking. By 1951 he had begun to exhibit paintings and prints nationally. A year later he completed his master's degree. Petersen served in the United States Army from 1952-54, spending one year as an education specialist in Japan. This encounter with the Japanese culture affected his entire life. He became interested in calligraphy and Noh, classical Japanese Buddhist performance that combines elements of drama, music and poetry. Upon completion of his military service in Japan in 1955, Will Petersen settled in Oakland, California, where he met some of the most active poets of the Beat Generation: Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Phil Whalen, Mike McClure and others. Petersen was attracted to the group by their intelligence and belief in Zen Buddhism. In 1956 in his small studio in Oakland, he printed the poems of Jack Kerouac. He attended for the first time, the reading of Ginsberg's Howl at Six Gallery. His relationship with Gary Snyder had begun when both were in Kyoto, Japan; later Snyder wrote for the Plucked Chicken. Petersen returned to Japan in 1957, pursuing painting, printmaking and writing for eight years while living in Kyoto. In 1965 he accepted a faculty appointment at Ohio State University, teaching drawing, painting and printmaking. Four years later Petersen took his teaching skills to West Virginia University in Morgantown, where he concentrated on printmaking. He taught there until 1977 when he began publishing Plucked Chicken, a journal of art and poetry. In 1978 in Morgantown, Petersen and his wife, Cynthia Archer, established Plucked Chicken Press, which they later moved to Chicago and then Evanston. Petersen operated the Press until his death on April 1, 1994. 1956 In storefront studio in Oakland, California, creates signed serigraphs and lithographs. Prints poems of Jack Kerouac. 1961 Back in Japan, acquires a lithography press and stones and resumes printing lithographs. Exhibits regularly with Kyoto Printmakers. 1969 Resident lithographer at the Lakeside Studio, Lakeside, Michigan. Prints for the first time Richard Hunt lithographs. 1978 Establishes Plucked Chicken Press in Morgantown, West Virginia. Resident lithographer at Lakeside Studio in Michigan. 1980 Plucked Chicken Press moves to Chicago. Publishes lithographs by Don Crouch and Art Kleinman. 1982 Publishes Blossom, a lithograph/collage by Tom Nakashima. 1983 Series I of Plucked Chicken Press is published with work by Archer, Duckworth, Godfrey, Heagstedt, Himmelfarb, Hoff, Hunt, Martyl, Miller, Nakashima and Petersen. 1984 Plucked Chicken Press moves to Evanston. Series II of Plucked Chicken Press is published with works by Croydon, Ho, Archer, Torn, Osver, Middaugh, Roseberry, Petersen, Spiess-Ferris and Hoppock. 1985 Series III of Plucked Chicken Press is published with works by Driesbach, Hunt, Trupp, Gregor, Pattison, Conger, Evans, Weygandt, Archer, Ho and Petersen. Prints Suite I, Northern Illinois University Collectors Series, with lithographs by Renie Adams, David Bower, David Driesbach, Carl Hayano and Ben Mahmoud...