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Welcome to Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

120 Main Street, Upton MA 01568-6193

For more information or to purchase, please call 1-800-809-3343 or email us at spaightwood@gmail.com

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Abstract Art from Kandinsky to the Present:
Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Joan Miro, Bram van Velde, Sam Gilliam, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Pierre Tal-Coat, Antoni Tapies, Howard Hodgkin, Manel Lledos, and Andre Ferrella, and featuring new paintings on paper by Jonna Rae Brinkman and a new 63-color screenprint by Helen Frankenthaler.

March 31 to May 21 2000
Spaightwood Galleries announces the extension of its current show, Abstract Art from Kandinsky to the Present, featuring works by Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Joan Miró, Bram van Velde, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Pierre Tal-Coat, Antoni Tapies, Howard Hodgkin, Manel Lledos, André Ferrella, and Steven Hickey, and featuring new paintings on paper by Jonna Rae Brinkman and a new 63-color screenprint by Helen Frankenthaler. The show visually suggests that all abstract art is not alike nor is it motivated by similar conceptions on the part of its makers, ranging from the deeply spiritual abstraction of Kandinsky, Miró, and Gottlieb, the geometric abstraction of Malevich, the expressionist and existentialist abstraction of Van Velde and Hickey, the lyrical abstraction of Tal-Coat, Frankenthaler, and Hodgkin, the gesturalist abstraction of Motherwell, Tàpies, Lledos, and Brinkman, and the phantasmagorical living-mold photographic abstractions of Ferrella.

In a departure from recent shows, we focus on groups of works by some of the most important abstract artists of the twentieth century, each of whom came to prominence in a different decade, Kandinsky and Malevich in the teens, Miro in the twenties, Bram Van Velde in the thirties, Tal-Coat in the forties, Motherwell and Gottlieb in the fifties, Tapies in the sixties, Frankenthaler in the seventies, Hodgkin in the eighties, and Lledos in the nineties. We also present works from three artists at different stages in establishing themselves. Steven Hickey, son of the sculptor Rose van Vranken, is having his works shown in a commercial gallery for the first time; Jonna Rae Brinkman has been showing at Spaightwood since 1998 and in that brief time has won quite a considerable following and been the subject of a feature in The Wisconsin State Journal by John Aehl; and André Ferrella, whose work has been seen in Madison at the most recent Wisconsin Triennial and at the Promega Gallery, appears on the point of emerging as an artist of international stature and the subject of a prime-time television documentary to be shown in Germany, site of a number of recent important exhibitions of his work, and France. Ferrella is also about to be featured in a major show at the Toledo Museum of Art.
The Helen Frankenthaler screenprint, Grey Fireworks, has arrived and we have sold all but one of our four impressions. Frankenthaler produced this image for Lincoln Center in an edition of 108 signed and numbered impressions (plus 18 artists proofs). Tom Lollar, head of the Lincoln Center Print and Poster Program, has described this as the most gorgeous of the three prints she had done for them up tp that time. Grey Fireworks is a 63-color screenprint published in an edition of 108 signed and numbered impressions. The image is 710x1168mm (or 28"x46" inches; we’re going to mat the impression that we show in a 36"x52" mat); it could be framed without a mat using spacers, depending upon how much space is available to hold it. Lincoln Center was sold out before the publication date, over 80 dealers are in a fury because they did not get a chance to get one, and the wholesale bidding price is up Please call or email for current pricing information over three weeks ago. When we first offered the work, we expected the price to rise rapidly, but we underestimated how rapidly it would rise. The highest price we have seen it advertised at is Please call or email for current pricing information but we suspect that it will rise further. We priced ours at Please call or email for current pricing information and sold it immediately. We think the price will be rising still further in the weeks and months to come; if you have an interest in this beautiful piece, call now; we plan to sell only one more impression in the forseeable future.

Unlike commercial screenprints, which tend to be based upon photographs, an artist’s screenprint (for want of a better term) is not a mass-produced photographic reproduction: each color is hand-printed in a separate press run. The screens can be hand-painted, stenciled on, or an image can be laid on the screen photographically. Once the screens are done, ink is forced through the screens onto the paper using a squeegee or vacuum press (for glopping lots of ink through; screenprints by Sam Gilliam or Bill Weege often have the surface texture of oil paintings; Frankenthaler’s tend to be two-dimensional, like Titus-Carmel’s). Normally, after each color is run, the paper is put in a rack until the paper and ink are dry enough for the next color run. Although this work is based upon a painting of the same title, all of the screens were prepared by hand under Frankenthaler’s direction.

Frankenthaler screenprints tend to sell for about the same amount as her lithographs (prices run from about Please call or email for current pricing information to Please call or email for current pricing information 000 depending upon size and complexity; this one is quite large and very complex). Her etchings cost more (the one we have, Plaza Real, which was included in the National Gallery of Art’s Frankenthaler Print Retrospective, costs Please call or email for current pricing information) and her woodcuts tend to sell in the Please call or email for current pricing information–90,000 range.
Update 2005: We are sold out of all the signed Grey Fireworks, but still available is the unsigned poster version made from the same screens at the same time by Lincoln Center's printer. Edition: c. 800 posters with lettering, of which about 300 were used by Lincoln Center for display at the time. Image size: 710x1168mm (28"x46"). Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Helen Frankenthaler (American, 1928-2011), Solar Imp. Original 35-color screenprint, 2001. 126 signed and nummbered impressions on Somerset Textured Rag paper, of which this is n. 71/126. There were also 18 artist's proofs. Commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to help support the programs at Lincoln Center. In addition to the signed and numbered edition, there was also an unsigned poster edition with a printed text—Lincoln Center Salutes New York CIty Ballet— of about 800, 300 of which were used at Lincoln Center to advertise programs at the Center. Illustrated on p. 191 of Art at Lincoln Center: The Public Art and List Print and Poster Collections (2009). Image size: 1000x760mm. Mat size: 48x38 inches. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.
Ramblas (Harrison 141, Afif Prints 3). Original 6-color etching, drypoint, and lithograph, 1987-88. Edition: 75 signed and numbered impressions on Rives (of which ours is n. 29/75) plus 16 artist's proofs and 2 printer's proofs. Image size: 870x686mm (34-1/2x27 inches). Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

In 1987 Frankenthaler accepted an invitation to come to Barcelona and work with master printer Joan de Muga at Ediciones Poligrafa. During a 10-day period Frankenthaler began 4 mixed-media works combining lithography (four aluminum plates) and etching and drpoint (one copper plate). Joan de Muga made 6 visits to Frankenthaler's studios in New York and Connecticut in the following months bringing proofs; Frankenthaler made corrections and gave precise instructions on the way she wanted them printed. The edition was printed after she was finally satisfied with all of her changes. The result is a large (we have it matted in a 44x36 inch museum-board mat), rich, complex, and beautiful work.The signed and numbered impressions were sold by Galeria Joan Prats; the artist's proofs were Frankenthaler's.
Cleveland Orchestra (Harrison 70, Williams College 68, Tyler 193). Original 8-color screenprint, 1978. 150 signed and numbered impressions (of which ours is n. 42/150) plus xxv signed and numbered artist's proofs on white Arches cover paper printed at Tyler Graphics in Bedford Village NY. This print was created as a fund-raiser for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, whose logo is printed underneath Frankenthaler's signature. "To achieve the brushstroke marks that give the print its painterly quality, the artist drew directly on the screens with liquid tusche. This method of screenmaking allowed her the gestural freedom that is not available in either the hand-cut film process or the photo-stencil methods" (Williams College, p. 134). One of Frankenthaler'smost painterly prints. Image size: 560x760mm. Price: Please call or email for current pricing information.

See below for image as matted: by signing above the Cleveland Orchestra logo, Frankenthaler seems to acknowledge that some might prefer a logo-free view of the work.
Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Jonna Rae Brinkman, Louisa Chase, Chryssa / Sue Coe, Susan Crile,
Lesley Dill, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Nancy Graves, Harmony Hammond, Judy Chicago,
Anita Jung, Elaine de Kooning, Joyce Kozloff, Lee Krasner, Karen Kunc, Ellen Lanyon, Georgia Marsh, Suzanne McClelland,
Phyllis McGibbon, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Judith Murray, Louise Nevelson, Judy Pfaff,
Jaune Quick-to-see Smith, Joan Root, Susan Rothenberg, Betye Saar, Niki de St. Phalle, Hollis Sigler, Kiki Smith,
Joan Snyder, Pat Steir, May Stevens, Dorothea Tanning, and Emmi Whitehorse

Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.

To purchase, call us at 1-800-809-3343 (1-508-529-2511 in Upton MA & vicinity) or send an email to spaightwood@gmail.com
We accept AmericanExpress, DiscoverCard, MasterCard, and Visa.
We also accept wire transfers and paypal.

For directions and visiting information, please call. We are, of course, always available over the web and by telephone (see above for contact information). Click the following for links to past shows and artists. For a visual tour of the gallery, please click here. For information about Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner, please click here. For a list of special offers currently available, see Specials.

All works are sold with an unconditional guarantee of authenticity (as described in our website listings).

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Visiting hours: Saturday 10:00 am to 5:00 pm and Sunday noon to 6:00 pm and other times by arrangement.
Please call to confirm your visit. Browsers and guests are welcome.