“One Ear” (Bullfight Series).
Paris: 1958. Oil on canvas. 32 x 23.5 inches. 81 x 60 cm. Signed and dated lower right. It has his name B. Childs and address 4, rue de l'université on the verso of the canvas and the notation "7.61." Small scratch in the image. There is a label on the "museum grade honeycomb mounting panel": Conservation of Art LLC. 24127 (Childs 1567).
From the collection of the late San Francisco artist Vesta Kirby (1936-2016) who was a designer at SOM and the studio and restoration assistant and to Gordon Onslow Ford (1981-1992). One Ear was given to Vesta Kirby by Roger Keyes, the art historian, curator, and poet. It had been Bernard's wedding gift to him and Keiko Keyes, his first wife.
Bernard Childs, son of Russian immigrants, was born in Brooklyn/New York in 1910. In the daytime, he earned his living doing occasional jobs and at night he attended Kimon Nicolaïdes’drawing lessons at the Art Students League. A severe financial situation forced Childs to abandon his artistic work. He did not restart drawing until his military service during world war II. Around 1947 he attended Amédée Ozenfant's class in New York. During the 1950s and 60s he often travelled, lived in Italy, Paris and Japan for a longer period. In the 1950s he developed an abstract picture language, in which he worked with archetypical signs and symbols and with the methods of surrealistic automatism. Since 1955 he also attended to printed graphics, which accompanied his painting. Childs used electrically powered tools to work on his plates. This way he lent velvet-like structures and a vivid, skillful line direction to his prints. Between 1966 and 1977 he alternately lived in Paris and New York. Bernard Childs' artistic work was extraordinarily complex. Item #51-1802
Price: $6,500.00