Burnstein
Personages
1958
Important work
ARTIST:
Burnstein, Maryan 'Pinchas' b.1927 d.1977
Title:
Personages, signed in pencil lower right “Maryan 58’” and numbered in pencil lower left 163/300
Technique:
Lithograph coloured
Paper:
Canson? possibly home made 33 x 27 cm
Condition:
Very good, some handling creases. The work has been re-housed in a new frame with museum standard mount and backing
Reference / Literature:
see Glueck,1985 , Arts Review, The New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/15/arts/art-survey-of-paintings-by-maryan-at-2-galleries.html?pagewanted=all
Provenance:
Lions Gallery, New York, 2014
Asking:
Contact for price
This frighteningly constructed work follows the path that many in Burnstein’s images have walked before. Rich in historical, mythological and personal allusions, the lithograph on offer here conveys inhumanity that is raw and uncompromising, yet hopeful and triumphant. In alluding to life in a Nazi concentration camp, Burnstein’s twisted and contorted iconography is paradoxically alive with the spirit of resilience and determination. While abstract, the work is also representational, furthering the notion that Burnstein’s art hinges on paradoxes. Suffering literally rises, like the phoenix did, personifying survival in a world where humanity had been replaced by injustice and cruelty. The purple form, with writhing limbs, reminds one of a storm, a vortex set on a path of destruction. Yet the opposite could be said, and like the phoenix, rises steadily form the ashes to be reborn. Printed in a relatively small run, this work is hand signed and numbered. The painterly application of colour in the use of ink is at once chaotic, and also a lesson in brevity, yet the result is visually monumental; the colour a sublime, deep, and haunting purple, challenging the permanency of the image and the purpose of its creation. That purpose: to question the fickle and often unjust life that many endure at the hands of others.
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