Pair of Art Deco Mixed Media Paintings by Robert Reinhardt Von Liski

Published by Nevan O Shaughnessy on April 2, 2024April 2, 2024

PRESENTING a BEAUTIFUL pair of, Asian inspired, mixed media pieces executed in ink, colored pencil and gouache by Robert Reinhardt Von Liski.

Robert Reinhardt Von Liski (1908-1991) was a Prussian-American artist.

Von Liski worked in Chicago as a commercial artist in advertising agencies and elsewhere, and did work for RCA Victor and Arrow Shirts, among other companies.

This pair of mixed-media pieces are especially redolent of the sleek, ‘Moderne Art’ of the 1930s and are unique, with their Asian inspired subject matter.

Von Liski is known for his Art Deco pieces.

One features a male musician, holding a long banjo type instrument. In traditional attire and standing on a wooden plinth/platform.

The other features a female courtesan, with bird and flowers. Highly decorative jewelry and most definitely in the art deco style and fashion.

Each is signed by the artist on the bottom right, just below the plinth.

Both in their original faux bamboo wooden frames, original green linen matting and under glass.

HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE …. excellent pieces of decorative Art Deco art!

Art Deco, sometimes referred to as Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture and design that first appeared in France just before World War I. Art Deco influenced the design of buildings, furniture, jewelry, fashion, cars, movie theatres, trains, ocean liners, and everyday objects such as radios and vacuum cleaners. It took its name, short for Arts Décoratifs, from the Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes (International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts) held in Paris in 1925. It combined modernist styles with fine craftsmanship and rich materials. During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance, and faith in social and technological progress.

Art Deco was a pastiche of many different styles, sometimes contradictory, united by a desire to be modern. From its outset, Art Deco was influenced by the bold geometric forms of Cubism; the bright colors of Fauvism and of the Ballets Russes; the updated craftsmanship of the furniture of the eras of Louis Philippe I and Louis XVI; and the exotic styles of China and Japan, India, Persia, ancient Egypt and Maya art. It featured rare and expensive materials, such as ebony and ivory, and exquisite craftsmanship. The Chrysler Building and other skyscrapers of New York built during the 1920s and 1930s are monuments of the Art Deco style.

In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, the Art Deco style became more subdued. New materials arrived, including chrome plating, stainless steel, and plastic. A sleeker form of the style, called Streamline Moderne, appeared in the 1930s; it featured curving forms and smooth, polished surfaces. Art Deco is one of the first truly international styles, but its dominance ended with the beginning of World War II and the rise of the strictly functional and unadorned styles of modernism and the International Style of architecture that followed.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco