307 N Michigan Ave., Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
Downtown: 312.814.8510
Suburban: 630.734.3300
Accidents Happen: Restoring and Maintaining the Condition of your Fine Art
The condition of your fine art is one of the most important variables in determining its value. During an appraisal, an expert inspects whether the original condition of the item has been preserved, and if it has not, to what extent it has been damaged. After assessing the overall appearance of the object, factors suchRead the Rest…
Examining Authentications
In art and antiques, the authenticity of an object defines its value and importance in the trajectory of art history. Without legitimate provenance, or a sequence of historic records of the chronology of ownership, custody or location of an item, evidence of an object’s legitimacy can be seen as ambiguous and circumstantial. In these casesRead the Rest…
The Importance of a Professional Eye
There exists something in the art world called “connoisseurship.” It simply means the combination of knowledge, experience, and instinct that enables experts to discern a true work of art from the superfluity of fakes and imitators in the world. It is this quality that can elevate a simple sketch into a treasured part of history,Read the Rest…
Édouard Leon Cortès: Picturing Paris
French post-Impressionist artist – born 1882 in Lagney-sur-Marne, France – is most famous for his romantic Parisian vignettes. Grandson to artist Antonio Cortès and son to Spanish Court painter Antonio Cortès, the virtuoso Édouard was inclined toward the arts in his youth and studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. When in 1901 theRead the Rest…
Masami Teraoka: New Views of Mt. Fuji/Sinking Pleasure Boat
At first glance Masami Teraoka’s panoramic view of a rustic wooden boat filled with revelers and being overtaken by ferocious waves appears to be a traditional Ukiyo-E, or Japanese woodblock print. These colorful prints originating in the austere Edo period depicted the “floating world” of transient sensual pleasures of beauty, music, food, and drink. TheyRead the Rest…
Ruth Duckworth: The Metamorphosis of Ceramic Sculpture
Modernist sculptor Ruth Duckworth – born 1919 as Ruth Windmüller in Hamburg, Germany – is widely recognized for her monumental, abstract ceramic works and large-scale wall sculptures. The artist – who was condemned to her house to improve her health as a child – was born to a Jewish mother, and so fled Nazi GermanyRead the Rest…
Pablo Picasso: The House Paint Pioneer
The recent discovery by experts from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Argonne National Laboratory that Pablo Picasso used house paint to render his masterpieces further illustrates the artist’s innovative spirit and transcendent genius. The self-described “Picasso CSI” team of art Historians and scholars– who have long hypothesized that the artist’s invisible brush marksRead the Rest…
LeRoy Neiman’s Lincoln in Living Color
In honor of Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday we are celebrating LeRoy Neiman’s 1968 color serigraph depicting President Abraham Lincoln in a brilliant palette of rainbow colored hues. Composed with dynamic gestural marks, the artist sketches Lincoln in his unique Expressionistic style. Neiman employs blues, greens and reds to express shadows throughout his subject’s face, andRead the Rest…
Werner Drewes’ “Sycamore Trees”
Painter, printmaker, and teacher Werner Drewes was born in Germany in 1899. The artist’s father had great expectations for him as an architect- though Werner instead was inclined toward the bohemian life of an artist. Drewes’ 1953 oil on canvas painting entitled ‘Sycamore Trees’ renders a forest interior with jagged, geometric and furthermore architectural lines andRead the Rest…
Cryptorealism: A New Era in Art
International contemporary artist Davood Roostaei is the founder of a revolutionary painting style called Cryptorealism. This new aesthetic not only incorporates elements of other styles and periods of painting, but transcends them; it is simultaneously abstract and representational, symbolic and ambiguous. The best way to describe this technique is through the observance of one ofRead the Rest…
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307 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 308
Chicago, IL 60601
phone: 312.814.8510
email: info@mirappraisal.com
