Pawel Kontny

Modernist Colorado Oil Painting Abstract Cityscape Harbor Scene Pawel Kontny

c.1950 s

Abstract watercolor composition bearing the influence of the earlier color-block compositions of Paul Klee. Pawel August Kontny, (Polish-German-American artist) He was born in Laurahuette, Poland, in 1923, the son of a wealthy pastry shop owner. In 1939 he began studying architecture in Breslau where he was introduced to the European masters and to the work of some of the German Expressionists, soon afterward banned as "degenerate artists" and removed from museums throughout Germany by the Nazi regime. His studies were interrupted by World War II. Drafted into the German army, traveling in many countries as a soldier, he sketched various landscapes but in 1945, he was captured and held as a prisoner of war in Italy. After the war, he studied at the Union of Nuremberg Architects to help design buildings to replace ones destroyed in the war. He recorded his impressions of the local population and the landscapes through his watercolors and drawings. Pawel Kontny thereafter moved to Nuremberg, Germany, becoming a member of the Union of Nuremberg Architects and helping to rebuild the city's historic center. He soon decided to concentrate on his professional art career. He married Irmgard Laurer, a dancer with the Nuremberg Opera. Pavel Kontny 's career as an artist was launched with his participation in an all German exhibition, held at the Dusseldorf Museum in 1952. He held one-man shows in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. During his trip to the United States in 1960, Kontny became instantly enamored with Colorado, and decided to relocate to Cherry Hills with his wife and two children. He quickly established himself in the local art community, being affiliated for a time with Denver Art Galleries and Saks Galleries. His subject matter became the Southwest. During this time he received the Prestigious Gold Medal of the Art Academy of Rome. His extensive travel provided material for the paintings he did using his hallmark marble dust technique. he also worked equally in pastel, watercolor, charcoal and pencil-and-ink. in a style which merged abstraction and realist styles, influenced by Abstract Expressionist painting and South Western American landscapes. In the early 1960s he was one of only a few European-born professional artists in the state, a select group that included Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), a member of the prewar Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, and Roland Detre...

Marius Sznajderman Hand signed and dated lower right, with an inscription on the verso 40 X 30 inches Oil or acrylic on canvas. Machu Picchu is an Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, above the Urubamba River valley. Built in the 15th century and later abandoned. The lost city of the Incas. Expressively capturing the mystique of the famed Incan ruins, this 1983 exprerssionist painting by Marius Sznajderman, titled Machu Picchu Courtyard, showcases his signature blend of bold color and dynamic brushwork. The composition features a stylized interpretation of Machu Picchu's verdant landscape and ancient stone structures, rendered in an abstracted yet recognizable form. Sznajderman's use of undulating greens, deep blues, and earthy tones imbues the work with an almost dreamlike quality, emphasizing the spiritual and historical significance of the site. Marius Sznajderman was a French-born American painter, printmaker, and scenic designer. Born in Paris in 1926 to Polish-Jewish parents, he fled Nazi-occupied France in 1942, eventually settling in Caracas, Venezuela. There, he studied at the School of Fine Arts and co-founded the Taller Libre de Arte, an influential experimental art workshop. In 1949, he immigrated to the United States, earning both Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Columbia University. Over his extensive career, Sznajderman explored themes ranging from Latin American culture to Jewish heritage, with his works held in numerous public collections, including the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Artist: Marius Sznajderman (French-American, 1926-2018) Issued: 1983 Dimensions: 41"L x 31"H Country of Origin: France/United States Marius Sznajderman was a Jewish Venezuelan painter, printmaker and scenic designer living and working in the United States. Born in Paris, France in 1926 his Jewish parents had migrated to France from Poland in 1923. In November 1942 the family fled Nazi-occupied France for Spain before settling in Caracas, Venezuela. He attended the School of Fine Arts in Caracas where his teachers included illustrator Ramon Martin Durban, scenic designer Charles Ventrillon-Horber and painter Rafael Monasterios. and immigrated to the United States in 1949, where he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts from Columbia University in New York. He settled in Hackensack, New Jersey, where he lived and had a studio for more than 50 years before moving to Amherst, Massachusetts in 2015. His work, which includes painting, prints and collages, as well as set designs, is in more than 45 museum and public institution collections in the United States, Latin America and Israel. He held more than 40 solo exhibitions at galleries and museums and participated in more than 75 group shows around the globe. He helped found the Taller Libre de Arte, an experimental workshop for the visual arts, sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The Taller Libre de Arte was a center for young artists to work and to meet with critics and intellectuals to discuss avant-garde ideas and artistic trends from Europe and Latin America. Among the notable artists who participated in the Taller Libre de Arte were Ramón Vásquez Brito, Carlos González Bogen, Luis Guevara Moreno, Mateo Manaure, Virgilio Trómpiz...