Holmes Fine Art

Artist Bios

M-R

Magafan

With a successful painting career in the Midwest in the 1930s and 1940s, especially of works of western themes in WPA murals, she and her twin sister, Ethel Magafan, were highly respected artists among their peers. They exhibited as a pair, traveled much together, and spent time at Woodstock, New York, where they each married artists. Jenne married Edward Chavez and Ethel, Bruce Currie.

The twins' father emigrated to the United States from Greece in 1912 and settled in Colorado Springs, although the girls were born in Chicago. They each developed a love western landscape, and when Jenne won the Carter Memorial Art Scholarship of ninety dollars, she shared it with her sister and they both attended the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center. The tuition covered only two months, but instructor Frank Mechau, recognizing their talents, hired both of them as assistants.

The young female artists were encouraged by all their instructors especially Mechau, Boardman Robinson and Pepino Mangravite, who hired Ethel to help him with a mural project in Atlantic City.

Jenne did a mural in the post office of Helper, Utah and in a government building in Auburn, Nebraska.

On a California trip, the twins met Doris Lee and Arnold Blanch, who spoke glowingly of the Woodstock, New York art colony, so they headed east in 1945. There, they developed distinctive styles of painting with Jennie doing what were described as sensitive renderings and Ethel focusing on horses and later on increasingly abstract landscapes.

Both won Fullbright Scholarships and Tiffany Foundation Awards, and Jenne studied in Italy and Ethel in Greece. They and their husbands returned to the United States in 1952, and shortly after Jenne died at age thirty-six of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Ethel continued to have a highly successful career, painting numerous murals for the federal government including the U.S. Senate Chamber. In 1968, she was elected an Academician of the National Academy of Design.

source: www.AskArt.com

Margulies

JOSEPH MARGULIES
by Mildred Thaler Cohen

In his essay, "What is Painting" published by Scribner's in 1917, Kenyon Cox wrote, "Painting... can reveal to us things we should not have seen for ourselves in nature..., we live more intensely and rejoice in our perception of this intensity of life."

And, indeed, these thoughts clearly describe the works of Joseph Margulies (1896-1983) who has gifted us with his insight, reality and human sentiment, rewarding us with a wide-ranging palette of pleasurable sensibilities.

Born over 100 years ago in Vienna, Joseph Margulies came to the shores of America and enjoyed a long and successful career in his portrayal of nature and man.

He studied at the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union, as well as the Art Students League in this country, and continued his studies abroad in Paris, Vienna and Rome.

While he received many commissions for his acclaimed portraits, he still found time to paint appealing scenes of Central Park, Riverside Drive and other enchanting landmarks of New York City, the cultural mecca of the world and the city where he lived.

But then, summers beckoned him to Cape Ann where he was drawn to the Rockport Art Association, an area much beloved by many artists. Margulies maintained a summer studio in Gloucester and contributed to a remarkable chapter in the history of American art which embraced that circle of artist luminaries, Leon Kroll, John Sloan Edward Hopper, and Hayley Lever, all who shared in that haven of beauty where talent abounded. Like Hopper, Margulies, too, was inspired by the stark drama of the harbor. The years in Gloucester were a pivotal time for Margulies,made famous in compelling works exploding with bright Fauvist colors, executed in energetic and vigorous brushstrokes. We appreciate the deft handling of light and mood. We respond to the affection he feels for the boat builders, the force of the sea, and the seagoing vessels preparing for travel, wistfully anticipating the journey that is to come.

When John Sloan died in 1951 and Reginald Marsh in 1954, this style of painting declined in popularity. Abstraction and various other modern trends were in vogue. Joseph Margulies, however, did not follow the new fashion. He staunchly maintained his independence, and we are forced to take note of the timelessness in his art. He is renowned, internationally, not only for the perceptive oil portraits of outstanding citizens, but equally, for his etchings, aquatints, and watercolors.

We are keenly aware of his masterful contributions to the field of etchings, a distinct compliment to his teacher, Joseph Pennell, and take note of his facility and competence in technical expertise.

These icons of beauty, of a long and successful career, speak to a larger audience, and will continue to invite inspection, please the eye, and decorate the home.

source: http://www.fineartstrader.com/margul.htm

Marx

Robert Marx is part of a small group of important American figurative artists who comment on what it means to be human in an inhuman age. A kindred spirit with such great but often overlooked social protest artists like Leonard Baskin and Leon Golub, Marx's work speaks only to those who wish to be challenged by an artist's idea -- those who seek an intense and enduring dialogue with works of art. One of America's most important exponents of the north European expressionist tradition that goes back to Bosch, Grünewald, and Bruegel, Marx's work explores the futility of trying to bring universal order or give conclusive meaning to the human condition.

source: www.AskArt.com

Masurovsky

An American artist born in the Bronx of New York, Gregory Masurovsky lived and worked in France since 1954. He studied at the High School of Music & Art in New York from 1943-47. From 1966-67 he was a professor of drawing; from 1980-87 he was a professor at the American Center; from 1987-94 he was a professor at the Atelier Elzevir in Paris. He expresses himself exclusively in drawing, with pen and paper. The works of Masurovsky are among numerous public collections shown in France and abroad.

source: www.mantoux-gignac.com

Nama

The following is from the New York Times, April 6, 2001:

HEADLINE: ART IN REVIEW;
'Von Teufeln/Devils' -- Pageant' BYLINE: By GRACE GLUECK

Shepherd & DeRom Galleries
58 East 79th Street
Manhattan
Through May 5

To accompany 10 playful poems written in both German and English by the
pianist Alfred Brendel, the printmaker and sculptor George Nama has done a series of 10 etchings (published in a limited edition of 50 copies) and 10 small sculptures, activated by Mr. Brendel's theme of devils and the havoc they wreak.

The etchings have been worked up from gouache and charcoal sketches, some of which are also on view. Rather than depicting devils in their traditional form, the etchings are more abstract works that suggest, well, horns or the condition of hornedness.

In one depiction, two curling goatlike horns nestle close like needy puppies;
another, more ferocious image resembles a hand bristling with menacing thorny fingers. It accompanies a poem by Mr. Brendel to the effect that since the devil has decreed his own nonexistence, humans will henceforth have to advertise their own hell.

Nor do the 10 small bronzes wrought by Mr. Nama and patinated by him in
delicate shades of brown stray far from the theme. The horns they sprout seem more in the nature of claws or the tentacles of sea creatures, however, and one even looks like a fool's cap emanating tassels in the shape of horns. Shades of Max Ernst!

Having responded to Mr. Brendel's text, Mr. Nama's work has actually achieved a life of its own. The test is, how well could it come off in the absence of Mr. Brendel's poetry? Very well indeed.

source: www.AskArt.com

Peterdi

A painter, printmaker and teacher, Gabor Peterdi is best known for his intaglio prints and engravings.

He was born in Pestujhely, Hungary and studied at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy Belle in Rome, and the Academy Julian in Paris. He settled in Rowayton, Connecticut where he taught at the Yale University School of Art, and he also spent time in Hawaii as a teacher at the Honolulu Academy of Art.

source: www.AskArt.com

Refregier

His most famous work is arguably the WPA mural project at San Francisco's Rincon Center, the costliest and one of the most controversial of all the WPA commissions. It is a multi-scene panorama that sparked national debate because of its inclusion of controversial events in California history.

source: www.AskArt.com