H y m a n = W a r s a g e r - - 1 9 0 9 - 1 9 7 4


 

 

Born in New York City, Hyman J. Warsager studied at the Hartford Art School, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pratt Institute, Grand Central School of Art, and the American Artists School. Warsager was a member of United American Arts and exhibited at the San Francisco Artists Association in 1938. 

Warsager was employed by the Graphic Arts Division of the WPA Federal Arts Project in New York City from 1935-1939, where he contributed to the development of the silk-screen process as a fine art medium with a group of artists led by Anthony Velonis. Warsager also worked in engraving, etching, and lithography, and he was an illustrator for the New Masses. His inventive and masterfully-crafted prints depict urban scenes and rural landscapes celebrating nature and the common man. His later work gradually evolved into innovative, non-objective abstraction.

Warsager was a member of the John Reed Club. The club, named after the journalist who founded the American Communist Party in 1929, had 30 branches in major cities across the country and sponsored art exhibitions, art classes, and political discussions. He was one of the 45 artists whose work was included in an exhibition at the ACA Gallery in Greenwich Village in 1935 titled The Struggle for Negro Rights.

Warsager’s woodcuts and serigraphs have been exhibited in a range of galleries and museums, including the Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and the San Francisco Museum of Art. Warsager’s work is in many institutional collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Brooklyn Museum, Detroit Institute of Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Wesleyan University, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.


Preserve the Initiative for Children - - c.1937, Lithograph.

Edition c. 25. Signed and titled in pencil.

Image size 10 11/16 x 15 inches (271 x 381 mm); sheet size 14 3/8 x 19 1/4 inches (394 x 546 mm).

A fine, rich impression, on cream wove paper, with wide margins (1 3/4 to 2 inches). A repaired tear in the center right sheet edge (3/4 inch), well away from the image; minor soft creasing in the margins, otherwise in very good condition.

Created for the New York City WPA.

SOLD


Gathering Logs - - c.1937, Color Serigraph.

Edition c. 25. Signed, titled and annotated eleven colors, in pencil.

Image size 12 x 13 7/8 inches (303 x 352 mm); sheet size 13 1/2 x 16 inches (343 x 406 mm).

A fine, fresh impression, on cream wove paper, with full margins (1 to 1 1/8 inches), in excellent condition.

Created for the New York City WPA. Ex. collection Audrey McMahon, Director, New York City WPA Art Project.

Collections: NYPL

$1400.


Untitled (Bouquet) - - c.1945, Color Serigraph.

Edition not stated. Signed H. WARSAGER in the screen, lower right.

Image size 13 x 9 1/4 inches (330 x 235 mm); sheet size 19 x 13 inches (483 x 330 mm).

A fine, painterly impression with fresh colors, on cream wove paper; full margins (1 7/8 to 3 1/4 inches), in excellent condition.

$275.


Color Abstraction of Pyramids and Temples in Mexico - - c.1960, Acrylic and Oil Pastel.

Initialed in pencil, lower right.

Image size 14 x 16 1/2 inches (356 x 419 mm).

A rich, painterly rendering, with fresh, vibrant colors, on cream wove paper; the image extending to the sheet edges, in excellent condition.

$950.


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