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Over the years we have been fortunate enough to collect some excellent pieces of art. I want to showcase some of the pieces along with a little something about the artist.
Bearderd Man in High Cap (1630) It is thought by many experts that Rembrandt's father was the model. 
Rembrandt's Mother (1631) 
Christ and the Woman of Samaria (1634) Rembrandt, Harmensz van Rijn (1606-1669)
In many ways, Rembrandt’s etchings are more important than his paintings, in that he revolutionized a medium that was in his day simply a copyist’s tool. Rembrandt painted portraits to sustain himself financially. He made etchings for his personal pleasure, to extend the potential of the etching medium, and to feed his desire for continual creativity. He carried with him a copper plate as most artists carry a sketchbook. In etching Rembrandt allowed himself to create freely, without the academic restraints of his day.
Rembrandt was the great master of the Baroque Age, a time known for a dramatic use of light and shadow (chiaroscuro). He remains one of history’s most innovative and influential original printmakers. He created more than 300 etchings in his lifetime, many of which he labored over obsessively, often resulting in multiple states, or variations in the evolution of an etched image.
Scholars have divided his etching output into different categories according to subject. Each reveals a different facet of Rembrandt's personality. His portraits, including his self portraits, reveal the complexity of his psychology and reveal his general moods over the years. His many religious etchings demonstrate a vast knowledge of both testaments, while his beggar and genre scenes are still being analyzed for their meaning and intent. Rembrandt's contributions to the medium of etching have inspired countless artists, including many of the most important etchers of all time like Goya, Whistler, Chagall and Picasso. More than three-hundred and fifty years later, his etchings continue to astonish us in their virtuosity, insight and dramatic presence.
Rembrandt's Life. 1606 - Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn born in Leiden.
1620 - Enrolled at Leiden University. Circa 1621 - Studied with the Leiden painter Jacob van Swanenburg. 1624-25 - Studied with the painter Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. 1625 - Returned to Leiden and set up his own studio. 1631 - Moved permanently to Amsterdam. 1634 - Married Saskia van Uyenburgh. 1639 - Moved with Saskia into the house on the Breestraat, the present Rembrandt House. 1641 - Son Titus born. Saskia dies shortly after never fully recovering from his birth. Hendrickje Stoffels enters the household eventually becoming Rembrandt's common law wife. 1660 - Rembrandt moved to the Rozengracht. 1668 - Titus married, but died in the autumn of the same year. 1669 - Rembrandt died and was buried in the Westerkerk. 
Etude de Femme Nue Assise
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Lithograph - 1919
Douze Lithographies
Size: 13" x 10"
Edition of 950
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a famous French painter whose paintings are probably the most popular, well-recognized, and frequently reproduced images in the history of art. His work presents a vision of a forgotten world, full of sparkling color and light. He once said: “Why shouldn’t art be pretty? There are enough unpleasant things in the world.”
Born at Limoges on February 25, 1841, Renoir died at Cagnes-sur-Mer on December 17, 1919. When he was 13, Renoir entered a Paris porcelain painter's workshop as an apprentice and developed a fine brush technique and a facility with color. At 21 he attended courses at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and subsequently at Glyre's. He made friends with Cezanne, Pissarro, Sisley, Monet, Bazille and Diaz. In 1873, the artists Durand Ruel, Caillebotte and Duret took an interest in his work. Renoir was involved in “The Society of Painters, Engravers and Sculptors,” which was founded in 1874, and witnessed the birth of Impressionism. There, Renoir was immersed in the canons of Impressionism and was able to spend time with his fellow artists of the day.
He did not take up original printmaking until he was 50 years old, first with two small soft-ground etchings after his painting “The Rustic Ball”, followed by an etching of a Venus for the frontispiece of Mallarme's “Pages”. Most of his engravings were done after his own pictures. In 1892 he did his first lithograph, a portrait of his son Pierre. In 1894 he met Ambroise Vollard who played an important part in the production of Renoir's and Cezanne's lithographs and etchings. Renoir preferred lithography to engraving on copper, and Vollard encouraged him to keep creating original graphic works. The results were The Pinned Hat; Twelve Lithographs (the Vollard Suite); Mlle Dieterle; portraits of Cezanne, Wagner and Rodin; and likenesses of his sons Jean and Claude. About 1912, Renoir's rheumatism became aggravated to the point where he was forced to forego engraving and had to tie a brush to his hand so that he could paint right up to the day of his death. Park West Gallery
The Furies Salvador Dali From the Devine Comedy Lithograph - 1963 Between 1951 and 1960, Dali created 101 watercolor drawings to interpret the Salvador Dali Divine Comedy, a poem by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321). These works have been reproduced using a wood engraving technique. With this technique, wood engravers carved 3500 blocks for the prints that make up the suite. These 100 woodblock engravings were published as a set of six volumes. Each volume has a title page, a table of contents, and justification page contained in a cardboard slip case with matching inner boards. Each woodblock from the Salvador Dali Divine Comedy is part of a Canto or book chapter which is about 8 pages in length. The size of each sheet is about 13" x 10 1/3" with an image size of 7 1/4" x 9 1/2".
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Born in Figuera, Spain, Dali was an artistically precocious child and eventually attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid where he was expelled twice. He believed he was more qualified than those who administered his examinations. He devoured the philosophical writings of Freud, and he discovered cubism, futurism and metaphysical art in magazines as a young artist. He had one-person shows in Barcelona in 1925 and in Madrid in 1926. His work eventually fused the pictorial concepts of the surrealists, Juan Gris, Giorgio de Chirico and Carlo Carra with the refined methods of the Old Masters. Sometime during 1928, Dali made a brief excursion to Paris where he met Picasso. Initially, Dali was shunned by the surrealists for possessing too much skill and painterly technique, as the surrealist ideal was based on a rejection of rationality. Later, Andre Breton, surrealism’s central figure, appointed him an official surrealist. Within a short time Dali was to become the movement’s most spectacular exponent. In his art he succeeded in achieving the synthesis of what Andre Breton called, “a retrograde craft with the most extreme inventions of modern culture.” His graphic oeuvre includes etchings, lithographs, and combinations of both, which evolved parallel to his paintings.
Throughout his career, Dali’s fame and reputation grew dramatically, as he developed a surrealist persona to accompany his art. Stories of Dali’s bizarre and audacious behavior have become the stuff of legends of modern art history. As his fame grew, so did the demand for his work among collectors and also from museum curators who sought acquisitions and exhibitions of his paintings, objects and graphic works. In 1982, the Salvador Dali Museum was opened in St. Petersburg, Florida, which was developed from the personal collection of Dali’s patrons, A. Reynolds and Eleanor R. Morse. In 1974, the Dali Theatre-Museum (Theatro-Museo Dali) was officially opened in Figeures, Spain after Dali himself worked on its development from 1970.
In the mid 1950’s, Dali met his most important friends and patrons, Drs. Guiseppe and Mara Albaretto. Their friendship, which lasted until Dali’s death in 1989, produced the largest private collection of Dali original works in the world. The Albaretto’s also became important publishers of etchings and lithographs by Dali including the “Sacra Biblia (Sacred Bible)” portfolio, the “1001 Arabian Nights” series, the “Odyssey” of Homer, and numerous individual images. These works, due to their impeccable provenance, remain some of the most desirable graphic works ever created by Dali. The Albaretto’s also acquired an earlier publisher of Dali works “Les Heures Claires,” publisher of the “Divine Comedy,” comprising 101 wood engravings, illustrating the epic poem of Dante.
The poem recounts the tale of the poet’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven, guided by Virgil. After repenting of his faults, he is joined by Beatrice for the final leg of the journey through Paradise to receive a glimpse of God. Dali often equated Gala, his wife and inspiration, with Dante’s Beatrice. Like Dali, Dante’s symbolism is complex but highly intentional and rational. Both men had a keen knowledge of scientific studies in geology, optics and mathematics. Dali’s Divine Comedy is considered one of the artist’s most important creations of his prime years.
Several tragic occurrences plagued Dali in his last years. In 1980, he was forced to retire due to the development of a palsy, which caused uncontrollable tremors. In 1982, his wife Gala died, which caused him a deep depression. And in 1984, he was severely burned from a fire in his bedroom. He finally died in January of 1989 where he was living as a recluse in a tower of his own museum. Park West Gallery
Magic Place Igor Medvedev Hand-Embellished Serigraph - 2001 29" x 21.75" Igor Medvedev (1961 - ) In the paintings of acclaimed California artist Igor Medvedev, the viewer is drawn into a world dominated by serene beauty, balance and order. Strong clean forms and dramatic use of light and shadow are the hallmark of his warm, expressive style. The light of the Mediterranean, its ambience and the sense of history found there is what inspires him. Rapidly disappearing towns and villages signal a loss of dialogue with the past and it is with this sense of urgency that Medvedev seeks to document his vision. His theme is ecology and the preservation of ancient cities. He travels extensively in Greece, Spain, Morocco and Turkey and many of the places he paints are thousands of years old. He has found them destroyed by development and tourism. He said he has often heard the sound of bulldozing even as he is still painting. His richly textured surfaces are a surprise to the viewer and convey a sense of subtle balance and color. His unique compositions and subtle use of shadow, line and form evoke a timeless quality of images somehow familiar to us even though we may have never seen them before. In Medvedev’s art the viewer finds an astonishing balance of rigorous formal and technical brilliance, combined with exceptional mood, message and poignancy.
Medvedev is equally adept at the creation of original serigraphs, a medium he has mastered that is well suited to the interpretation of his imagery into graphic form. He spends countless hours diligently working with the technical assistants from the serigraphic ateliers to achieve a level seldom reached in the serigraphic medium. In 2002, the catalog raisonne of Medvedev’s serigraphs was published by Park West Gallery, with an introduction by Dr. Anthony Janson, co-author of the most widely read art history textbook, The Janson History of Art. Park West Gallery
Tavern on the Green
Alexander Chen Serigraph 11.5" x 17.5" Alexander Chen (1952 - ) Alexander Chen was born in Canton, China in 1952. His interest in art began developing while in kindergarten, where he started drawing images of his own life and the lives of his fellow classmates.
In 1966, Alexander walked over 300 miles from Canton to Zhanjiang. In 1968, he became part of the state agricultural effort to raise food for China’s growing population. By November 1972, Alexander had been chosen as a state designer by the state opera troupe.
During the ensuing years, there were many experiences that shaped Alexander’s future life. Many of his works were exhibited in provincial and national art museums and also in the United States and France. Later his works were collected by the P.R.C. National Art Gallery where many were published.
In 1989, Alexander and his wife immigrated to the United States, where he began assimilating American culture and painting life in his new land. Currently, Alexander is working on his American Cities Series, reflecting the feelings and emotions he experiences on location.
Alexander’s paintings are extremely detailed and complex, offering the viewer many levels of enjoyment. Some of his paintings take over a month to complete because of the attention to detail and the intricacy of the subject matter. Park West Gallery
Femme (Woman), Aristide Maillol
Sketch on VergÈ de Montval paper - 19th - 20th century
Aristide Joseph Bonaventure Maillol, French, 1861 - 1944
Aristide Maillol was born in 1861 in the southern town of Banyuls-sur-Mer, France. In 1881 he moved to Paris to study art and in 1885 enrolled in l’École des Beaux-Arts. Greatly influenced by the Nabis, a group of French artists whose work was composed of decorative patterns, Maillol excelled at tapestry and eventually opened a workshop that would gain him acknowledgement for revitalizing this art form in France.
At nearly 40 years old, Maillol was forced to abandon the intricacies of tapestry after being afflicted with an eye disease. He then turned his attention to sculpture. Though he would delve into painting and woodcut illustration, Maillol’s concentration would remain in sculpture throughout the rest of his life. In this medium, Maillol set the standard for European and American sculpture until the end of World War II and served as inspiration for future artists including Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi, and Alberto Giacometti.
With his focus always on the female form, Maillol sought to preserve the pure simplicity of Classical ideals in his sculpture, to exhibit a calm expression and harmonious balance. He desired for his artwork to be uninhibited from all literary associations and architectural context. Maillol was less determined that his figures be meticulously accurate, rather he found it essential that his art emphasize a rigorous analysis of geometric form and mass that could be viewed in the round.
Maillol was commissioned to create numerous works, including a 1912 monument to Cézanne and several monumental war memorials after World War I. A major exhibition of his works was held in 1937 at the Petit Palais in Paris.
Maillol’s artwork permanently adorns the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany; the Tate Gallery, London, England; and the gardens of the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. The Maillol Museum in Paris was established by his companion and muse for the last ten years of his life, Dina Vierny. Park West Gallery
Breakfast in Paris Fanch (Francois Ledan) Serigraph in color on wove paper - 2000 13 1/2'' x 16 1/2'' Signed in pencil, numbered. From the regular edition of 350 (50 European artist's proofs, 50 artist's proofs, 50 hors commerce, 20 printer's proofs, and 2 bon a tirer impressions also exist) Francois Ledan (1949 - ) “Fanch” (as he signs his work, a Breton nickname for Francois) is noted for delightful scenes of his native Brittany and locales from around the world executed in a colorful ‘primitive’ or naïve style. While a student at the Ecole Superieure des Sciences Commerciales in Paris in 1968, Fanch began to paint and soon abandoned commercial design in favor of full-time studies in painting and fine art.
Fanch’s talent and achievement in painting were quickly recognized by critics abroad, and his work was accepted by the two major European exhibitions: the prestigious “Salons des Artistes Francaises” and the “ Salon des Peintres temoins de leur temps.” Fanch became involved with printmaking in 1973 when he learned the difficult technique of lithography in Paris, and later serigraphy, which became his preferred choice for the creation of original prints.
Fanch creates imaginary scenes that run the gamut from exotic locations throughout the world, to intimate interiors. His interior scenes will often feature hanging paintings of the artists he most admires—a way for him to pay homage to their influences on his own art. His landscapes have a romantic mood and beckon the viewer to enter them. Fanch will often create combinations of locations that cannot exist in reality, like a view of the Taj Mahal or the Pyramids of Egypt from an elegant private balcony. His works feature a remarkable sense of detail and color subtlety. Most often they are absent of figures within the composition, but a human presence is felt by the remnants of the people who occupy the space, a pair of eyeglasses can often be spotted somewhere in a Fanch interior.
Since 1973 Fanch has had more than fifty one-person shows including exhibitions at the Pantechnicon Gallery, San Francisco; Centrao d’Arte Naivo, Milan; Galerie Malle, Aurray, France; and Champs-Elysees, Paris, and Park West Gallery, Southfield, Michigan. He has participated in group-shows in Germany, France, Venezuela and Italy as well as in the United States. Fanch’s second hardcover book, a catalog raisonne of his complete graphic works, with introduction by art historian, Eleanor Hight is slated for publication in early 2003. Park West Gallery
Oil on Canvas c. 1880 3' x 4' unsigned Handcarved 8" Mahogany Frame
Ushabti 26th Dynasty Egypt (663 - 625 BCE) Polychrome Terracotta  
Bronze Osiris and Scarab Scarab bears the royal cartouche of Ramses II 19th Dynasty Egypt (1292 - 1225 BCE) It is drilled for mounting in a ring - possibly for use as a royal seal. Ramses II was the Pharaoh at the time of Moses. Authenticated by Harmer Rourke Numismitists
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