Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
American, 1866-1925
One of the best of our native talents, Penfield is well-known for the decade 1891-1901, during which he was the art director of Harper's. For five of the ten years he produced posters for each month's issue of the then-popular magazine. His drawings are deceptively simple, with flat color and clear lines, but they always manage to convey class and refinement. And there's quite often a gentle touch of humor or irony, refreshing and frivolous. Penfield's posters are models of effective composition and economy of expression (Jack Rennert, PAI-XXVII, 555)
When his tenure at Harper's came to an end, Penfield was free to travel, and his experiences are preserved in two books published by Scribner's, Holland Sketches (1907) and Spanish Sketches (1911), in which his graphic sense blossomed in a wealth of detail. The critic Royal Cortissoz commented: "When he made [these], he entered thoroughly into the spirit of his themes and did some of his best work... He was never the technical virtuoso alone. Humanity was always breaking into his world." - Frederic B. Taraba
"We are a bit tired of the very serious nowadays, and a little frivolity is refreshing, and yet frivolity to be successful must be most thoroughly studied." So wrote EDWARD PENFIELD near the outset of his highly influential career as an illustrator, art editor, and poster artist, a career guided by keen observation, a cosmopolitan sensibility, and simplicity that belied his meticulously crafted efforts.
In looking at the work of Penfield today, we find less of what strikes us as frivolous and more of a keen sense of design and composition. The Art Center Bulletin of April 1925 remembered his contribution to illustrative art this way: "To everything he produced Penfield brought his great gifts of design and draftsmanship, a wonderful sincerity that never faltered, and a beautiful humbleness of spirit." As early as 1894, just a year and a half after Penfield began a series of monthly images for Harper's , his work was heralded by Publisher's Weekly: "The advertising poster has within recent years actually soared into the regions of art." Penfield is also credited with bringing abstraction to commercial art through his boldly simplified shapes. This and other stylistic trademarks resulted from a distillation of a number of influences, including the compositional precepts and casual poses found in Japanese prints, the hand-craftsmanship of the Arts and Crafts movement, the impressionistic approach of Parisian poster-making, and British poise and directness.to
2
3
2
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
13
859
382
367
310
5
5
4
4
3
3
2
2
1
1
5
5
Artist: Edward Penfield
Original Harper
s Magazine vintage poster by Edward Penfield, 1895
By Edward Penfield
Located in Spokane, WA
Original. Harper's magazine poster. "On snow shoes to the barren grounds" Very old poster advertising the famous Harper's magazine. Artist Edward Penfield. Edward Penfield (1...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
$505 Sale Price
20% Off
Harper
s July, The German Struggle for Liberty original art nouveau poster
By Edward Penfield
Located in Spokane, WA
Original Harper's July vintage poster; The German Struggle for Liberty. Original turn of the century lithograph by Edward Penfield. Size: 14 1/8" x 21 18"
Penfield created this poster to publicize Bigelow’s lengthy history of the Germanic people, serialized in the Monthly as “the first popular interpretation ever given to the rehabilitation of Germany through the uprising of the German people against the Napoleanic invasion.” July’s number began the series, which was published by Harper and Brothers as a two-volume set in 1896.
Harper's June 1895
HARPER’S The German Struggle for Liberty JULY
[Poster for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, Jul 1895]. German soldier at the guardhouse. Four-color lithograph: grey, blue, yellow, and red. New York: Harper & Brothers, published Jun 1895.
The magazine Harper's, issue of July, confronts the problems of The German Struggle for Liberty. Shown a German soldier in a helmet and armed with a rifle stands tall, and yet an uneasiness appears on his face. At a closer look, one will notice that not only does the soldier grasp his rifle in support, but in despair.
This Harper's July is an Original Vintage Poster; it is not a reproduction. This poster is conservation mounted, linen backed. An restored fold mark across the middle of the image keeps this image from being rated higher (for an original 1895 poster).
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Harper
s March
By Edward Penfield
Located in New York, NY
Poster for Harper's March, 1895. Woman in Green dress with Rabbit
New York: Harper & Brothers,1895. Signed in stone bottom right: EDWARD PENFIELD. On Linen. Color Zincograph. Very...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Harper
s May, 1895.
By Edward Penfield
Located in New York, NY
[Poster for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, May 1895]. Woman in a blue dress with Harper’s, wandering through a flock of sheep. Color Zincograph. New York: Harper & Brothers,1895. Signed in stone bottom right: EDWARD PENFIELD.
Ref: Das Plakat...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Harpers Magazine "March Hare" Maitres de l
Affiche
By Edward Penfield
Located in Hinsdale, IL
PENFIELD, FERDINAND
(1866 - 1922)
Harper’s Magazine - March
Original lithograph from "Les Maitres de L'Affiche" series
Printed by Imprimerie Chaix, Paris
Bearing MDL stamp lowe...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Related Items
The Ice Skater - Original Lithograph (Les Maîtres de l
Affiche), 1895
By Louis Rhead
Located in Paris, IDF
Louis John RHEAD (1857-1926)
The Ice Skater
Original lithograph
Printed signature in the plate
On vellum
Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4")
INFORMATION : Plate 200 of "Les Maîtres ...
Category
Early 1900s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
$416
H 15.36 in W 11.42 in
Jean Cocteau - Blue Lady - Original Lithograph
By Jean Cocteau
Located in Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH
Original Lithograph by Jean Cocteau
Title: Blue Lady
Signed in the plate
Dimensions: 32 x 25.5 cm
Edition: 200
1959
Publisher: Bibliophiles Du Palais
Unnumb...
Category
1950s Modern Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
$1,426
H 12.6 in W 10.04 in D 0.04 in
Mascara Roja
By Rufino Tamayo
Located in San Francisco, CA
This artwork titled "Mascara Roja" 1969 is an original colors lithograph on B.F.K. Rives paper by renown Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, 1899-1991. It is hand signed and inscribed H.C. (Hors Commerce) in pencil by the artist. The image size is 21 x 27.25 inches, framed size is 37.25 x 42 inches. Published by Touchtone Publisher, New York, printed by Ateliers Desjobert, Paris. Referenced and pictured in the artist's catalogue raisonne by Pereda, plate #124. Custom framed in a wooden gold leaf frame, with gold and red spacer and fabric matting. It is in excellent condition.
About the artist:
A native of Oaxaca in Southern Mexico, Rufino Tamayo's father was a shoemaker, and his mother a seamstress. Some accounts state that he was descended from Zapotec Indians, but he was actually 'mestizo' - of mixed indigenous/European ancestry. (Santa Barbara Museum of Art). He began painting at age 11. Orphaned at the age of 12, Tamayo moved to Mexico City, where he was raised by his maternal aunt who owned a wholesale fruit business.
In 1917, he entered the San Carlos Academy of Fine Arts, but left soon after to pursue independent study. Four years later, Tamayo was appointed the head designer of the department of ethnographic drawings at the National Museum of Archaeology in Mexico City. There he was surrounded by pre-Colombian objects, an aesthetic inspiration that would play a pivotal role in his life. In his own work, Tamayo integrated the forms and tones of pre-Columbian ceramics into his early still lives and portraits of Mexican men and women.
In the early 1920s he also taught art classes in Mexico City's public schools. Despite his involvement in Mexican history, he did not subscribe to the idea of art as nationalistic propaganda. Modern Mexican art at that time was dominated by 'The Three Great Ones' : Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueros, but Tamayo began to be noted as someone 'new' and different' for his blending of the aesthetics of post Revolutionary Mexico with the vanguard artists of Europe and the United States.
After the Mexican Revolution, he focused on creating his own identity in his work, expressing what he thought was the traditional Mexico, and refusing to follow the political trends of his contemporary artists. This caused some to see him as a 'traitor' to the political cause, and he felt it difficult to freely express himself in his art. As a result, he decided to leave Mexico in 1926 and move to New York, along with his friend, the composer Carlos Chavez. The first exhibition of Tamayo's work in the United States was held at the Weyhe Gallery, New York, in that same year. The show was successful, and Tamayo was praised for his 'authentic' status as a Mexican of 'indigenous heritage', and for his internationally appealing Modernist aesthetic. (Santa Barbara Museum of Art).
Throughout the late thirties and early forties New York's Valentine Gallery gave him shows. For nine years, beginning in 1938, he taught at the Dalton School in New York.
In 1929, some health problems led him to return to Mexico for treatment. While there he took a series of teaching jobs. During this period he became romantically involved with the artist Maria Izquierdo...
Category
Mid-20th Century Modern Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec "La Revue Blanche" limited edition lithograph
By Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Located in Boca Raton, FL
Limited edition lithograph on Arches paper from edition of 2,000 of "La Revue Blanche" by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Reproduction reissued in 1974. Th...
Category
1970s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph, Paper
Belle Jardinaire
By Eugène Grasset
Located in New York, NY
Grasset, Eugene. Belle Jardinaire. Proof for the Calendar, "Belle Jardinaire",1896, on China paper produced for the month of December.
12 7/8 x 9 7/8"
Category
Late 19th Century Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Hand-signed and numbered "Rat" lithograph from "No Gas Portfolio" by Red Grooms
By Red Grooms
Located in Boca Raton, FL
"Rat" lithograph from 1971 "No Gas" portfolio by Red Grooms. Hand-signed AP Red Grooms inside blue of Clorox bottle on front lower right. Image size: 22 x 27 1/2 inches. Depicts a N...
Category
1970s Contemporary Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
$3,500
H 29.25 in W 35.25 in
Hand-signed "Local" lithograph by Red Grooms from the 1971 "No Gas" portfolio
By Red Grooms
Located in Boca Raton, FL
"Local" lithograph by Red Grooms from the 1971 "No Gas" portfolio. Hand-signed AP Red Grooms in policeman's left shoe in bottom lower right of image. Depicts people on subway.
Category
1970s Contemporary Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
$3,500
H 28.75 in W 34.5 in
Performance by members of the Deutsches Theater zu Berlin / - Ornamental Flow -
By Emil Orlik
Located in Berlin, DE
Emil Orlik (1870 Prague - 1932 Berlin), Ensemble guest performance by members of the Deutsches Theater zu Berlin, 1899. Color lithograph on wove paper, 20 cm x 13.3 cm (image), 29.5 ...
Category
1890s Jugendstil Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Paper
$209 Sale Price
20% Off
H 11.42 in W 8.27 in D 0.4 in
Lichtenstein Exhibition Poster - Leo Castelli Gallery
Located in Roma, IT
Lichtenstein Exhibition Poster is a very colorful poster realized in occasion of the artist's exhibition at Leo Castelli Gallery New Yor...
Category
1970s Pop Art Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Offset, Lithograph
$998 Sale Price
40% Off
H 35.83 in W 25.79 in D 0.08 in
Leon Bakst Three Costume designs from Le Dieu Bleu Ballet 1911
By Leon Bakst
Located in Paonia, CO
Three iconic Leon Bakst costume designs for Le Dieu Bleu ( The Blue God ) a ballet choreographed by Michel Fokine and written by Cocteau. The ballet premiered in Paris in 1912. It tells the story of a girl who tries to dissuade her fiancé from becoming a priest and is thereafter tormented by demons; but she is eventually saved by the Blue God, a part performed by Vaslaw Nijinsky, the greatest male dancer of his time. Fokine’s choreography and Bakst’s costumes drew upon Siamese dance and Hindu sculpture. These three prints are vintage reproductions quite unlike the reproductions of today. They each have the look of original watercolors and are backed on heavy grey rag paper with a hand painted gold border. Properly framed they will definitely look like the original drawing. The size of the actual prints varies slightly but the background paper size is consistently 10.5 x 15.5.
Born in Russia in 1866, Léon Bakst belonged to a young generation of European artists who rebelled against 19th-century stage realism, sparking a revolution in theatre design. His fame lay in the sets and costumes he designed for Serge Diaghilev’s (1872 – 1929) legendary dance company the Ballets Russes, and his huge pageant spectaculars for the dancer and patron of the performing arts, Ida Rubinstein...
Category
20th Century Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Color
$600
H 10.5 in W 15.5 in
Yvette Guilbert, SCALA
— Fin de Siècle, Paris
Located in Myrtle Beach, SC
BAC (Ferdinand Bach), 'Yvette Guilbert, Tous les Soirs SCALA', vintage color lithograph, 1893. Signed, dated, and titled in the stone.
A superb, richl...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Lidia - Lithograph (Les Maîtres de l
Affiche), 1895
By Jules Chéret
Located in Paris, IDF
Jules Chéret
Lidia (Alcazar d'été), 1895
Stone ithograph
Printed signature in the plate
On vellum
Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4")
INFORMATION : Plate 25 of "Les Maîtres de...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Previously Available Items
Young Lady and Two Cats (Harper
s) - Lithograph (Les Maîtres de l
Affiche), 1897
By Edward Penfield
Located in Paris, IDF
Edward PENFIELD (1866-1925)
Young Lady and Two Cats (Harper's), 1897
Stone ithograph
Printed signature in the plate
On vellum
Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4")
INFORMATION : Plate...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Young Lady and Two Cats (Harper
s) - Lithograph (Les Maîtres de l
Affiche), 1897
By Edward Penfield
Located in Paris, IDF
Edward PENFIELD (1866-1925)
Young Lady and Two Cats (Harper's), 1897
Stone ithograph
Printed signature in the plate
On vellum
Size 39 x 29 cm (c. 15.3 x 11.4")
INFORMATION : Plate...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Harper
s Christmas Poster by Penfield
By Edward Penfield
Located in Paonia, CO
Harper's Christmas poster for Harper's Monthly Magazine is a three color lithograph published by Harper & Brothers , New York., 1895. Father Chris...
Category
1890s Art Nouveau Edward Penfield Figurative Prints
Materials
Lithograph
Edward Penfield figurative prints for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Edward Penfield figurative prints available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Edward Penfield in lithograph and more. Not every interior allows for large Edward Penfield figurative prints, so small editions measuring 12 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Georges Meunier, Henri Gabriel Ibels, and Félix Hilaire Buhot. Edward Penfield figurative prints prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $450 and tops out at $1,800, while the average work can sell for $1,125.






