ARISTODIMOS KALDIS (GREEK-AMERICAN, 1899?1979)
ARISTODIMOS KALDIS (GREEK-AMERICAN, 1899?1979)
Untitled (Portrait of Eugene Bernald), circa 1950s
oil on canvas
40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
framed dimensions: 47.5 x 57.7 cm (18 3/4 x 22 3/4 in.)
signed lower center
Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York label on verso
Asia Foundation, Asian-Pacific Rim Tour label on verso, iinscribed E. Bernald ? Ossining, NY and with the artist?s name
PROVENANCE
Eugene Bernald, Ossining, New York
Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York
Private Collection, Connecticut
LOT NOTES
In this exuberant portrait, Aristodimos Kaldis breaks his sitter apart into broad, loaded strokes of saffron, viridian, cobalt and violet. The likeness is reduced to a few gestures in black at the upper right: a profile, a heavy-lidded eye, and a single ring of cadmium red for the mouth. Most of the canvas belongs to pure painterly incident. Thick, swirling passages of white impasto and unprimed areas of raw canvas give the surface a quick, improvised energy. The picture reads less as a formal likeness than as a record of an encounter, painted in the gestural language Kaldis shared with his friends of the New York School.
The sitter, Eugene Bernald of Ossining, New York, undertook an unusual project in the late 1950s. He asked a wide circle of New York painters to portray him, often in a single sitting, and assembled the results for an exhibition that would tour Asia. Edwin Dickinson?s journals record a one-sitting portrait of Bernald in March 1957, which Bernald then rented for exhibition in the Far East. A 1957 portrait of Bernald by Paul Resika is now in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. The Asia Foundation ?Asian-Pacific Rim Tour? label on the reverse of the present work places it within this same traveling project. It is a rare document of the collegial portrait exchange among artists of the period.
Born in Dikeli in Asia Minor in 1899, Kaldis came to the United States as a young man and became one of the most colorful figures of the downtown New York art world. His friendships with the leading Abstract Expressionists dated from the 1930s. In the 1940s he gave popular art history lectures at Carnegie Hall, with Willem de Kooning running the slide projector. Kaldis did not begin painting seriously until the late 1930s. By 1956, however, he was shown alongside Stuart Davis, de Kooning, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko in Poindexter Gallery?s exhibition ?The Thirties.? He received two Guggenheim Fellowships in the 1970s. His lyrical, light-filled canvases were later championed by Sid Deutsch and Lori Bookstein in New York.
Keywords: Aristodimos Kaldis, New York School, Abstract Expressionist Portrait, Eugene Bernald, Greek-American Modernist, Tenth Street Artist
N.B. Condition reports are available upon request. All lots are sold in as-is condition at the time of sale. Please note that any condition statement regarding works of art is given as a courtesy to our clients in order to assist them in assessing the condition. The report is a genuine opinion held by Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals LLC and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report or a photograph does not preclude the absence of defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals, LLC., including its consultants and agents, shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.
ARISTODIMOS KALDIS (GREEK-AMERICAN, 1899?1979)
Untitled (Portrait of Eugene Bernald), circa 1950s
oil on canvas
40.6 x 50.8 cm (16 x 20 in.)
framed dimensions: 47.5 x 57.7 cm (18 3/4 x 22 3/4 in.)
signed lower center
Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York label on verso
Asia Foundation, Asian-Pacific Rim Tour label on verso, iinscribed E. Bernald ? Ossining, NY and with the artist?s name
PROVENANCE
Eugene Bernald, Ossining, New York
Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York
Private Collection, Connecticut
LOT NOTES
In this exuberant portrait, Aristodimos Kaldis breaks his sitter apart into broad, loaded strokes of saffron, viridian, cobalt and violet. The likeness is reduced to a few gestures in black at the upper right: a profile, a heavy-lidded eye, and a single ring of cadmium red for the mouth. Most of the canvas belongs to pure painterly incident. Thick, swirling passages of white impasto and unprimed areas of raw canvas give the surface a quick, improvised energy. The picture reads less as a formal likeness than as a record of an encounter, painted in the gestural language Kaldis shared with his friends of the New York School.
The sitter, Eugene Bernald of Ossining, New York, undertook an unusual project in the late 1950s. He asked a wide circle of New York painters to portray him, often in a single sitting, and assembled the results for an exhibition that would tour Asia. Edwin Dickinson?s journals record a one-sitting portrait of Bernald in March 1957, which Bernald then rented for exhibition in the Far East. A 1957 portrait of Bernald by Paul Resika is now in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College. The Asia Foundation ?Asian-Pacific Rim Tour? label on the reverse of the present work places it within this same traveling project. It is a rare document of the collegial portrait exchange among artists of the period.
Born in Dikeli in Asia Minor in 1899, Kaldis came to the United States as a young man and became one of the most colorful figures of the downtown New York art world. His friendships with the leading Abstract Expressionists dated from the 1930s. In the 1940s he gave popular art history lectures at Carnegie Hall, with Willem de Kooning running the slide projector. Kaldis did not begin painting seriously until the late 1930s. By 1956, however, he was shown alongside Stuart Davis, de Kooning, Ad Reinhardt and Mark Rothko in Poindexter Gallery?s exhibition ?The Thirties.? He received two Guggenheim Fellowships in the 1970s. His lyrical, light-filled canvases were later championed by Sid Deutsch and Lori Bookstein in New York.
Keywords: Aristodimos Kaldis, New York School, Abstract Expressionist Portrait, Eugene Bernald, Greek-American Modernist, Tenth Street Artist
N.B. Condition reports are available upon request. All lots are sold in as-is condition at the time of sale. Please note that any condition statement regarding works of art is given as a courtesy to our clients in order to assist them in assessing the condition. The report is a genuine opinion held by Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals LLC and should not be treated as a statement of fact. The absence of a condition report or a photograph does not preclude the absence of defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Shapiro Auctions & Appraisals, LLC., including its consultants and agents, shall have no responsibility for any error or omission.
