Elvic Steele

1960's British Surrealist Oil Painting - 'The Fish Below' Fantasy Abstract

circa 1960's

Artist/ School: Josyne Gallet Title: Floating Figure Medium: oil painting on canvas, unframed Size: canvas: 45.5 x 28.75 inches Provenance: private collection, France Condition...

Stunning original oil painting by Elvic Steele depicting this surrealist fantasy abstract painting. Elvic Steele is a fascinating English painter. Her works entrance the observer, d...

Stunning original oil painting by Elvic Steele depicting this surrealist fantasy abstract painting. Elvic Steele is a fascinating English painter. Her works entrance the observer, d...

Stunning original oil painting by Elvic Steele depicting this surrealist fantasy abstract painting. Elvic Steele is a fascinating English painter. Her works entrance the observer, d...

Myriam Bat-Yosef Surrealist abstract oil painting in colorful abstract patterned rectangles and shades Hand signed and dated 1984. Miniature design letter also signed. Myriam Bat-Yosef, whose real name is Marion Hellerman, born on January 31, 1931 in Berlin, Germany to a Jewish family from Lithuania, she is an Israeli-Icelandic artist who paints on papers, paintings, fabrics, objects and human beings for performances. Myriam Bat-Yosef currently lives and works in Paris. In 1933, her family fleeing the Nazi Holocaust, Miriam Bat-Yosef emigrates to Palestine and settles in Jaffa. In 1936, she suffers a family tragedy, her father, militant Zionist, is called to fight, still recovering from an operation of appendicitis. The incision will become infected, antibiotics did not exist yet, and her father will die in the hospital after 9 months of suffering. Myriam and her mother leave Palestine to live in Paris for three years. French is Myriam's first school language. In 1939, still fleeing Nazism, she returned to Palestine, leaving France by the last boat from Marseille. She moved to Tel Aviv with her mother, aunt and maternal grandmother. In 1940, she began attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Tel Aviv and took her name as an artist, Bat-Yosef, which means Joseph's daughter in Hebrew, as a tribute to her father. In 1946, Myriam graduated as a kindergarten teacher but wanted to be an artist. Her mother enrolled her in an evening school to prepare a diploma of art teacher. At 19, she performs two years of military service in Israel. In 1952, with a pension of $50 a month that her mother allocated, she went to study at the Beaux-Arts in Paris. To survive, she has several activities while studying. In 1955, she had her first solo exhibition, at the Israeli Club on Wagram Avenue in Paris. Many artists, such as Yaacov Agam, Yehuda Neiman Avigdor Arikha, Raffi Kaiser, Dani Karavan and sculptors Achiam and Shlomo Selinger attended the opening . In 1956, she enrolled at the School of Fine Arts in Florence. This is where she meets the painter Errô. They share an icy studio in winter. Myriam moves to Milan with friends. She organizes a joint exhibition with Erro, one room each, at the Montenapoleone gallery. Her works are admired by the sculptor Marino Marini and the painters Renato Birolli and Enrico Prampolini. Myriam and Erro exhibit in Rome, Milan, Florence and meet many personalities: Alain Jouffroy and his wife, the painter Manina, Roberto Matta and his wife Malitte, textile artist who was one of the founders of the Pompidou Center. Back in Paris, Myriam and Erro get married, which allows Myriam to avoid being called into the Israeli army during the Suez Canal War. In 1957, Myriam and her husband went to Iceland. Myriam works in a chocolate factory. Having enough money, she starts producing art again. She exhibited in Reykjavik's first art gallery. She meets the artist Sigridur Bjornsdottir, married to the Swiss painter Dieter Roth . In 1958, Myriam and her husband leave for Israel. They exhibit in Germany, then in Israel. Back in Paris, the couple became friends with artists of the surrealist movement, such as Victor Brauner, Hans Bellmer, the sculptor Philippe Hiquily, Liliane Lijn, future wife of Takis and photographer Nathalie Waag. Erro and Myriam have a daughter on March 15, 1960, named Tura, after the painter Cosmè Tura, but also close to the Icelandic Thora or the Hebrew Torah. Bat-Yosef’s complex trajectory throughout the 20th century is linked as much to the transnational history of what was for a time called the School of Paris as it is to a certain legacy of Surrealism. Her work features the same idea of resolving antinomies that also defined the spirit of surrealism, and is enhanced with her readings of the Kabbalah and her spiritual grounding in Taoism. However, while there are reasons for her approach to be associated with the process of the ready-made, it is important to consider the immediate intrication of these works with her practice of performance, during which the body itself is also painted – a feminist response to Yves Klein’s Anthropometries (1960) and an echo of the happenings which Jean-Jacques Lebel organised at the time in Paris. In 1963, Erró told Myriam that if she wants to be a painter, she can not be his wife. Myriam chose to be a painter and the couple divorced in 1964. Since that time, Myriam Bat-Yosef has exhibited in many countries: Europe, United States, Japan, etc. Although long in the shadows, the work of Myriam Bat-Yosef has been greeted by many artists and personalities: Anaïs Nin, Nancy Huston, André Pieyre of Mandiargues, José Pierre, René de Solier , Jacques Lacarrière, Alain Bosquet, Pierre Restany, Sarane Alexandrian and Surrealist André Breton who, after a visit to her studio, confided to having been intrigued by its phantasmagorical dimension. She was included in the book Pop Art and Beyond: Gender, Race, and Class in the Global Sixties by Mona Hadler and Kalliopi Minioudaki. Extract "World Citizen, Artist of the Pop Era Sarah Wilson; Why do we know so little of Myriam Bat-Yosef, the most important female Israeli artist of the Pop era? Issues of identity and sexuality feature constantly in her work. She exhibited internationally from Reykjavik to Tokyo; she had two shows at Arturo Schwarz’s famous Dada/surrealist gallery in Milan; she participated in feminist art events in Los Angeles. Above all, in 1971, she conceived Total Art, a Pop Gesamtkunstwerk inside and outside the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Painter, performer, and installation artist, she was also a lover, wife, and mother. Of Lithuanian-Jewish descent, she was close to the family of philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. An émigré in Paris she would repudiate a national passport, participating in Garry Davis’s short-lived “World Citizens” movement. She continues the lineage of women surrealist artists: Valentine Hugo, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, Leonora Carrington, Unica Zürn, Jane Graverol...

YURI MARTINEZ RAMOS "TOAST TO THE SEA" OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED, TITLED CUBAN-AMERICAN, DATED 2008 40 X 30 INCHES Toast to the sea is a depiction of the beautiful women at Miami beaches, sunny days, drinks, and having a good moment feeling. Yuri Martinez Ramos was born in Havana, Cuba on November 24, 1964. He studied at the Elemental School of Plastic Arts from 1975 – 1979 and the National School of the Arts from 1979 – 1983. Martinez’ figurative paintings have been compared to Botero because of his satirical social commentary. His style, however, is uniquely his own with typically vibrant Latin colors and use of expressive magical realism. His paintings tell his story and the story of the Cuban dilemma. Martinez was granted permission by the US Justice Department after much effort with Cuban authorities to come to the US with his family and pursue his career outside Cuba. He now lives and works in Texas. Papillon Gallery...

Motherhood is a self portrait of Sax Berlin’s experience as a single father. He had to be mother and father at a time when he was aggrieved after his beautiful wife Susan’s passing ...

Carlos Ortuzar (Chilean, 1932-1985). Estaban Milla es Salvado de las Garras del Huecupor su Companero Lorenzo Huerta, ca. 1964. Oil on paper mounted to cradled masonite panel, 22 x 28.75 inches. Titled lower edge. Unsigned. Some loss of paint on the highest areas of protrusion. Corners show heavy wear will loss of paper ground. Provenance: Doyle Auctions; Couturier Gallery, Stamford CT. Carlos Ortúzar Worthington was born on March 17, 1935 in Santiago, Chile. He studied theater, law and philosophy. He entered the School of Fine Arts of the University of Chile in 1956, where he had as teachers Gustavo Carrasco, Marta Colvin...